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The Eternal Flame | T. A. Barron | 2,005 | Avalon is at the edge of destruction. It seems as if the wicked spirit warlord Rhita Gawr has already gained his victory. The ancient tree has but tiniest hope in the young wizard Tamwyn, the apprentice priestess Elli, the fierce eagleman Scree, the graceful elf maiden Brionna, and the allies of Avalon who hope to prevail over Rhita Gawr's forces. The fate of Avalon lies in three key battles: one involves defeating an immortal serpent (Rhita Gawr himself) and relighting stars; one destroying a powerful crystal, the crystal of vengeláno created by Rhita Gawr; and one on the Plains of Isenwy that will result in the death of many innocent lives. |
One Arm | Yasunari Kawabata | 1,964 | A young woman removes her right arm and gives it to the a man (the protagonist) to keep for the night. The story follows his thoughts and actions as he takes it home to keep for the night. He talks and caresses it, and then decides to replace his own arm with it. The "relationship" the man has with the detached arm serves as a portal into the landscape of memory and emotions. |
Kiss the Dust | Elizabeth Laird | null | When Tara Hawrami is returning from school one day, she witnesses Iraqi troops shoot a mullah and an innocent boy reading a newspaper in broad daylight. This sight changes her thinking forever. However, when she returns home she is stunned when her mother, Teriska Khan shows a very muted reaction; Teriska Khan reveals that she and Tara's father have been concealing the horrors of the ongoing war between Iraq and Iran from Tara, including shootings like the one Tara had witnessed. That night, an injured intruder enters Tara's house, who turns out to be her Uncle Rostam, a resistance fighter. The following morning, Tara's father, Kak Soran, suddenly returns with Tara's brother, Ashti, and her grandmother from Baghdad. Tara's life changes quickly and drastically from that moment on. When Rostam and Ashti leave to join the resistance fighters, the pesh murgas, Kak Soran is soon forced to go into hiding as well when the authorities suspect he has been indirectly supporting the pesh murgas. Tara's apprehension only grows when the rest of her family must escape into a village in the mountains soon afterward. Life in the mountains is peaceful, but boring for Tara until the area ends up being bombed repeatedly, injuring Tara. When Ashti arrives in the village after being injured, Kak Soran and Teriska Khan plan a risky escape to Iran through the mountains all the way to Iran where they wind up in a refugee camp for several months. Ashti, fearing conscription into the Iranian army, runs back to Iraq while Teriska Khan becomes very ill and sad as her son does not return for many months. Gradually Teriska Khan does recover after Tara finds a friendly neighbour willing to help. Tara has to care of her mother and younger sister Hero, until Teriska Khan recovers. Kak Soran's connections eventually come through and Tara's family manages to find help in the form of Kak Soran's cousin. However, with no available jobs in Iran, the family realizes that they must escape the country to become refugees in another country. Using the last of their savings, the family manages to arrive in London, where they apply for refugee status. In London, Kak Soran manages to get in contact with a family friend, who offers them a place to stay. In every place that Tara has been displaced to, she has experienced culture shock and needed to adjust quickly; At first the family has a hard time getting used to the new language and the new lifestyle. Tara's English gradually improves and despite the traumatic experiences she has endured, she manages to make some friends at her new school. Her family is overjoyed they hear that Ashti will soon arrive in London after several years apart. Though their new life is difficult and less comfortable than their old home in Iraq, Tara learns not to take anything for granted. The family gets back together and begins to live a better, new life. |
The People of the Mist | H. Rider Haggard | 1,894 | Penniless Leonard Outram attempts to redress the undeserved loss of his family estates and fiancee by seeking his fortune in Africa. In the course of his adventures he and his Zulu companion Otter save a young Portuguese woman, Juanna Rodd, together with her nursemaid Soa, from slavery. Leonard and Juanna are plainly attracted to each other, but prone to bickering, and their romance is impeded by the watchful and jealous Soa. The protagonists seek the legendary People of the Mist, said to possess a fabulous hoard of jewels. Finding them, they immediately become embroiled in the turbulent political affairs of the lost race, which is riven by a power-struggle between the monarch and the priesthood of its giant crocodile god. The heroic Leonard can do little more than react to events. The action climaxes in a hair-raising escape by toboggan (it was a flat stone) down a steep glacier. |
Skeleton Coast | Jack Du Brul | 2,006 | The book begins with a brief chapter detailing the traversing of a section of the Kalahari Desert by a group of four Europeans, led by the experienced guide H. A. Ryder. The text tells of how they survive the desert thanks to Ryder's skills, but are being pursued by more than one hundred of the Herero King's best men, due to the Europeans stealing their hard-won diamonds. The chapter ends with the Europeans meeting with their escape ship, the HMS Rove only to find it stranded. Simultaneously, the Herero attack the ship, killing the Europeans (presumably) while a massive sandstorm rages around them, reshaping the coastline and burying the Rove under hundreds of feet of sand, lost for eternity. The story continues with the Oregon (a high-tech modernized ship carrying heavy weaponry but usually masquerading as a dilapidated freighter) meeting with the leader of the Congolese Army of Revolution, Makombo. They 'agree' to trade 500 AK-47's, 200 RPGs, fifty RPG launchers and 50,000 rounds of Warsaw Pact 7.62mm ammunition in return for a quarter pound of rough (blood) diamonds. These weapons are then stolen by the rebels after double-crossing Cabrillo before the Oregon's crew had the chance to do the same to them. After narrowly escaping from those individuals, the Oregon begins to track the location of the weapons in the hope that they can seize them once again. In addition to this they also hear that a billionaire with a controversial product has been kidnapped. They take up the quest to free him. During this operation Juan is nearly stranded in the desert, but manages to travel by parasurfing his way back to civilization. After rescuing the billionaire, they find out that his former partner is planning to dump millions of litres of toxic crude oil into the ocean in order to enlighten the world about the environmental effects that our continued ignorance is causing. Luckily, the Oregon and crew do battle (oddly enough it's the Congo revolutionaries) with the bad guys and save the planet. Their curtain comes by giving the rightful owners billions of dollars worth of diamonds that will allow them to free Zimbabwe from the evil regime that is currently in place. |
The Terror | Dan Simmons | 2,007 | The novel begins in the present tense at a point approximately midway into the novel's subsequent narrative. From the point of view of Captain Francis Crozier, the opening chapter deals with the Captain's attempts to force a seaman, who is too scared to venture into the lower decks, to follow orders. Crozier muses on the fate of the expedition and how HMS Terror and HMS Erebus have been trapped in sea ice, about 28 miles North-northwest of King William Island, for over a year. The weather has been much colder than normal, the tinned provisions are dwindling and often putrid and the sea ice and landmasses are mysteriously devoid of any wildlife that can be hunted. In addition to the natural dangers of the intense cold, disease and impending starvation, the crews face the horror of being randomly attacked by a monster on the ice. Resembling a huge Polar Bear, the creature is later revealed as a mythological Eskimo demon called the ‘Tuunbaq’. The writer, perhaps on purpose, only hints at the supernatural qualities of the beast. Simmons’ narrative frequently switches between past and present tense, to points in the story ranging from several years before the expedition to several years after, and the alternating point of view of different characters in each chapter. The fictional diary of Dr Harry Goodsir is a literary device that is also used by the writer. For instance, a diary entry describes how Sir John Franklin orders a number of exploration parties to set out in various directions across the ice. These are all doomed to failure. However, Goodsir’s party finds a mysterious Eskimo girl (they accidentally shoot and kill her aged companion). On their return to the ships, Crozier names the girl ‘Lady Silence’ as her tongue has been ripped out in the past. Following the death of Sir John Franklin at the hands of the monster on the ice, Captain Francis Crozier becomes the expedition commander with Captain James Fitzjames as his 2nd in command. The two men attempt to deal with the threats of the monster, disease and starvation. The friendship of the two officers, from very different social backgrounds, is touchingly described by the writer. Simmons goes into great detail describing an ill-fated ‘morale boosting’ New Year's Eve carnivale masque, during which a large number of the expedition, including three of the four Surgeons, are killed by the Tuunbaq and Royal Marine friendly fire. Crozier lays the blame for this disaster on Caulker’s Mate Cornelius Hickey and two other men. They are punished with 50 lashes of the cat each. The narrative makes it clear that their existing mutinous feelings are exacerbated by this treatment, setting the scene for the later troubles that the expedition leadership have with Hickey and his compatriots. The novel changes from a ship bound tale when HMS Erebus is eventually crushed by the ice and its crew decamp to HMS Terror for a short time until all of the expedition survivors are forced to move to what is named ‘Terror Camp’—a tented refuge that they create on King William Island. It is here that Crozier and Fitzjames decide that they will attempt to escape by hauling the small boats of both ships south to the Canadian mainland and then down Back's River to an outpost on Great Slave Lake, an arduous journey of many hundreds of miles. Sealing the doom of the crew by removing any possibility of help from the native population, Simmons describes the brutal murder of Lt Irving by Cornelius Hickey. The murder is blamed on a band of Eskimo hunters that Irving had, in fact, befriended. The Eskimo are massacred in a later revenge attack by men of the expedition. From this point on in the novel the native population is feared and avoided by the crew rather than sought. The narrative now goes into highly descriptive detail of the men’s painful efforts to haul the boats across the sea ice and frozen gravel of King William Island. Many men die from disease, including Captain Fitzjames whose demise is described by Simmons in horrifying detail. There are rumblings of mutiny from Cornelius Hickey and his growing entourage and the Tuunbaq appears with deadly frequency. The survivors eventually reach a position on the southern shore of King William Island that they name ‘Rescue Camp’. The novel concludes with mutiny, double cross, cannibalism, and the splitting of the survivors into several groups—all of which meet grisly ends. Captain Francis Crozier is the only survivor of the expedition and the last chapters of the novel describe how he becomes the lover of Lady Silence and joins her in her mystical role connected to the Tuunbaq. |
Love Story | null | null | The novel tells of "Love Story" is romantic and funny, yet a tragic story. It is the story of two young college grads, whose love was stronger than any of the tests life threw at them. Oliver Barrett IV, a Harvard jock and (very) rich heir to the Barrett fortune and legacy, and Jennifer Cavilleri, the quick-witted daughter of a Rhode Island baker. Oliver (Ollie) was expected to follow in his father's huge footsteps, while Jennifer (Jenny), a music major studying at Radcliffe College planned to study in Paris. From very different worlds, Oliver and Jenny immediately attracted and their love deepened. The story of Jenny and Ollie is a realistic story of two young people who come from two separate worlds and are joined together in the most unlikely of ways. Upon graduation from college, the two decide to marry against the wishes of Oliver's father, who thereupon severs all ties with his son. Without his father's financial support, the couple struggles to pay Oliver's way through Harvard Law School... with Jenny working as a private school teacher. Graduating third in his class, Oliver gets several job offers and takes up a position at a respectable New York law firm. Jenny promises to follow Oliver anywhere on the East Coast. The couple moves to New York City, excited to spend more time together... rather than in working and studying... as it was previously. With Oliver's new income, the pair of 24-year-olds decide to have a child. It is from then onwards, that there are several unexpected twists and turns. After Jenny fails to conceive, they consult a medical specialist, who after repeated tests, informs Oliver that Jenny is ill and will soon die as she is suffering from leukaemia. As instructed by his doctor, Oliver attempts to live a "normal life" without telling Jenny of her condition. Jenny nevertheless discovers her ailment after confronting her doctor about her recent illness. With their days together numbered, Jenny begins a costly cancer therapy, and Oliver soon becomes unable to afford the multiplying hospital expenses. Desperate, he seeks financial relief from his father. Instead of telling his father what the money is truly for, Oliver misleads him. From her hospital bed, Jenny speaks with her father about funeral arrangements, and then asks for Oliver. She tells him to avoid blaming himself, and asks him to embrace her tightly before she dies. When Mr. Barrett realizes that Jenny is ill and that his son borrowed the money for her, he immediately sets out for New York. By the time he reaches the hospital, Jenny is dead. Mr. Barrett apologizes to his son, who replies with something Jenny had once told him: "Love means never having to say you're sorry"... and breaks down in his arms. |
The Dead Zone | Stephen King | null | The prologue introduces the two main characters. In 1953, a young boy named Johnny Smith is knocked unconscious while ice-skating; while recovering he mumbles a strange message — "Don't jump it no more" — to an adult on the scene. The knot on Johnny's head fades after a few days, and he thinks no more of it. A few months later, the adult is seriously injured while jump starting a car battery. Two years later, in an unconnected incident in Iowa, a young door to door Bible salesman named Greg Stillson, suffering emotional issues and dreaming of greatness, vindictively kicks an aggressive dog to death. By 1970, Johnny is now a high school teacher in eastern Maine. After visiting a county fair with his girlfriend Sarah, and eerily winning repeatedly at the wheel of fortune, Johnny is involved in a car accident on his way home that lands him in a coma for five years. On waking, Johnny finds that he has suffered neural injury, but on touching people and objects he is able to tell them things they did not know - in this way he knows a nurse's son would have successful surgery, states that his doctor's mother, long believed dead, is living in Carmel, California, tells his Sarah that her lost wedding ring was in her suitcase pocket, and later recounts the story behind a St. Christopher medallion owned by a skeptical reporter. Johnny shrugs off local media reports of his supposed psychic talents and accepts an offer to resume teaching, but begins to suffer from severe headaches. A reporter for a national tabloid maliciously prints a story denouncing his clairvoyance as phony, but this brings Johnny relief and the hope he can resume a normal life - a hope broken when he is contacted by a local sheriff desperate to solve a series of murders, including that of a child. Johnny's extra sense provides enough detail to identify the killer, who commits suicide and leaves a confession. Stillson, now a successful businessman and elected mayor of Ridgeway, N.H., still suffers from his emotional problems. Asked to "straighten out" a friend's teenaged nephew for wearing an obscene t-shirt, he sets the shirt on fire and terrorizes the youth with a broken bottle, threatening to kill him if he tells anyone. In 1976 he decides to run an independent campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives, blackmailing a local businessman into raising funds for him. Johnny's offer to return to his teaching job is rescinded due to his being "too controversial to be effective as a teacher". He moves to New Hampshire and takes a job as tutor for a wealthy young man named Chuck. He also takes up an interest in politics, and becomes concerned when he watches a rally for Stillson. Later on, Johnny meets presidential candidate Jimmy Carter and shakes his hand. Having another clairvoyant incident, he tells Carter that he is going to be president. Johnny then makes a hobby out of meeting politicians to see their futures. Johnny attends a rally for Stillson and on touching his hand has a horrific vision of an older Stillson as President causing a massive, worldwide nuclear conflict. Johnny's health starts to worsen. He contemplates how he might prevent Stillson's presidency and compares the matter to the question whether one would kill Hitler in 1932 if time travel were possible. Eventually, he concludes that the only certain way to avoid the terrible future he has seen is to assassinate Stillson, but procrastinates, rationalizing his inaction because of doubt in the vision he has seen, abhorrence of murder, and belief there is no urgent need to act at the moment. As Johnny continues to contemplate the matter, he has another vision and warns Chuck not to go to his high school graduation party because the facility is going to be struck by lightning and burn down. Chuck's father agrees to host an alternative party for Chuck and other students, but their party at home is interrupted by news of a lighting strike and many deaths at the original venue. Johnny also learns that the FBI agent investigating Stillson has been murdered with a car bomb. Johnny moves to Phoenix, where he takes a job as a road maintenance technician for the local Public Works Department. He learns that his headaches and blackouts are due to a brain tumor and that without treatment he only has a few months left to live (although we do not learn this until the epilogue). Johnny takes the fire at the party as a warning, that he knew the fire would happen but had not taken it seriously enough and as a result people had died. Realizing that he won't live much longer whatever he decides, Johnny refuses surgery and buys a rifle to shoot Stillson at the next rally. At the rally, Stillson begins his speech and Johnny attempts to shoot Stillson, but misses and is wounded by Stillson's bodyguards. Before he can fire again Stillson grabs a young child and holds him up as a human shield. Johnny pauses, unable to shoot, and is shot twice by the bodyguards, falling off the balcony and fatally injuring himself. A bystander photographs Stillson in the act of using the child as a shield, a picture that it is implied destroys Stillson's political future when published. Dying, Johnny touches Stillson a final time but feels only dwindling impressions and knows that the terrible future Stillson would bring around as President has been prevented. An epilogue, "Notes from the Dead Zone", intersperses excerpts from letters from Johnny to his loves ones, a "Q & A" transcript of a purported Senate committee (chaired by real-life Maine Senator William Cohen) investigation of Johnny's attempt to assassinate Stillson, and a narrative of Sarah's visit to Johnny's grave. Sarah feels a brief moment of psychic contact with Johnny's spirit and drives away comforted. |
Robbery Under Arms | Thomas Alexander Browne | 1,888 | The book begins with Dick sitting in gaol, with just under one month before his scheduled execution for his crimes. He is given writing material, and begins documenting his life's story. He starts with his childhood, with a father (Ben) who is prone to violence, particularly when he has been drinking; his mother, his sister (Aileen) and brother, Jim. He documents his first exposure to his father's crimes, the theft of a red calf, and the disapproval of this crime by his mother, who says she thought he had given up stealing since the theft which lead to his transportation as a convict from England. Dick's first active involvement in crime, comes where the brothers choose to go cattle duffing (stealing), even though an offer of solid, honest work had been made with neighbour and friend, George Storefield. The divergent lives of the brothers to that of George is a recurring theme of the book from this point forward, as they continue to meet up at different points throughout the story's course. This first theft includes their introduction to Captain Starlight, his Aboriginal assistant, Warrigal, and their hideaway, Terrible Hollow. Further thefts follow, leading up to the brazen theft of 1000 head, driven overland to Adelaide with Starlight. After the success of this adventure, the brothers "lie low" in Melbourne, where they meet the sisters, Kate and Jeanie Morrison. The brothers return to home for Christmas, leading to incarceration and trial of Dick and Starlight. (The magistrate chooses to refer to Starlight only by this nickname, at the Captain's request). Warrigal helps Dick and Starlight escape to Terrible Hollow. The gang later has its first stage holdup. The brothers then move to the Turon goldfields. Their prosperity through honest, hard work gives them the chance for escape from the country to start a new life overseas. Jim is re-united with Jeanie Morrison and marries her. Dick meets Kate Morrison again, but her tumultuous nature leads her, in an angry mood, to alert the police to their presence, and they narrowly escape capture and return to the safety of Terrible Hollow. Seeing no alternative to crime, the gang joins forces with a soon- to- be rival Dan Moran and his friends to stage a major hold up of the armed, escorted stagecoach leaving the goldfields. The robbery is a success, with the members splitting up after sharing the gold takings. Starlight's crew hears word of Moran's planned home invasion of a police informant named Mr Whitman, at a time when Mr Whitman was known to be absent. Marsten and Starlight intervene, forcing Moran and his men to leave, thus preventing further harm to the women present and the home being burnt down at the end of the night. Chivalrous as ever, Starlight vows to dance with one of the women, Miss Falkland, at her upcoming wedding. This increases the existing animosity between Starlight and his rival, and highlights Starlight's code of honour. At the height of their infamy, the gang attend the Turon horse race, where Starlight's horse, Rainbow, wins. The same weekend, they attend the wedding of a publican's daughter, Bella Barnes, where Starlight fulfils his earlier promise to dance, unrecognised, with her at her wedding, despite the presence of the entire town, including the goldfields commissioner and other dignatories. Ben Marston is later ambushed and wounded by bounty hunters. Moran, nearby, releases him, and shoots all four bounty hunters in cold blood, again highlighting the different honour codes between the two gangs. Ben returns to Terrible Hollow, and is nursed by his daughter, Aileen. Aileen and Starlight begin a relationship, and arrange to marry. Despite the animosity between the rivals, they team up again to rob the home of the Goldfield Commissioner, Mr Knightley, but are met with more resistance than they expected. One of Moran's associates is shot in the skirmish, and Moran is keen to kill Knightley when they later have him face to face. Starlight turns the tables by giving Mr Knightley one of his own pistols. He them proceeds to arrange for Knightley's wife to go to Bathurst and withdraw some cash, and meet Moran's men by "the Black Stump", outside of Bathurst town. Starlight passes the time gambling with Mr Knightley, sharing his food, drink and company. Starlight loses money in the gambling, and arranges to repay by direct payment into his account, as well as paying for the horse he is offered when leaving. Throughout the book, there have been chance meetings with Dick's childhood friend and neighbour, George Storefield who, in contrast with the Marston boys, works hard, keeps within the law and thrives financially. Dick starts to hold up George, now a successful grazier, businessman, magistrate and landholder, before realising who it was. George offers the brothers safe haven and cattle mustering work, which would allow Dick, Starlight and Jim safer travel to Townsville in Queensland, from where they plan to leave to San Francisco. They accept the offer, but are caught, partially due to betrayal by Warrigal and Kate Morrison along the way, and Starlight and Jim are shot dead. Dick is wounded and brought to trial, bringing the story to where it began, with Dick expecting to be hanged shortly. In a surprise ending, Dick's sentence is reduced to fifteen years imprisonment due to petitions from Storefield, Knightley and other prominent people. He serves twelve years, is visited occasionally by Gracey Storefield, whom he marries shortly after his release, before moving to a remote area of Queensland to manage a station for her brother, George Storefield. |
Shadowland | Meg Cabot | 2,000 | Susannah 'Suze' Simon is a mediator, which means she can see and talk to ghosts and, when necessary, kick some ghost butt. Suze spends a lot of time directing the usually unhappy dead to the afterlife. However, her job is not easy, as not all ghosts want to be guided. Every day, she is haunted by the fact that they will not leave her alone until she helps them resolve their unfinished business with the living. At the beginning of the story Suze moves from New York to Carmel, California, because her mom remarries to Andy Ackerman after Suze's father dies ten years prior. She gets three stepbrothers in the deal, whom she nicknames Sleepy (a senior), Dopey (a sophomore like Suze), and Doc (12, and, according to Suze, going on 40, as he knows more than an encyclopedia), but to the rest of the world they're Jake, Brad, and David. When Suze gets to California and tries to get settled into her new room, she finds Jesse de Silva sitting on her window seat. She describes him as an exceedingly hot ghost who happens to be already living in their house, and he doesn't seem to need her help. Suze at first is annoyed with the living arrangements and tells Jesse to move on or find some other house to haunt, because now she is living there. Suze feels that now that she is in California and she can start fresh, with trips to the mall instead of the cemetery and surfing instead of tending to lost souls. But she has hardly settled in when her skills are put to the test. There is a ghost with revenge on her mind in Suze's new school (the Junipero Serra Mission Academy) and Suze plans to stop her. The ghost, Heather, died because she shot herself over Bryce Martinson when he broke up with her due to a scare of possible marriage. When Bryce and Heather's old friends begin to show interest in Suze, Heather claims Susannah is taking over the life she had. Father Dominic (the Priest of the church and principal of the school, who happens to be another mediator) tries helping Suze with Heather. Father Dominic insists that Susannah should try a more friendly way to deal with the ghosts she meets. She argues with him, saying she has done this job all her life and is not going to change. He often calls her into his office to talk about how to get rid of Heather, and many other ghost related things throughout the series. One night, after Heather had put Bryce Martinson in the hospital, Suze decides to go down to the Mission and put an end to it all. The idea was to talk Heather into moving on, but Suze slips up in her wording and Heather misconstrues her meaning, giving Heather the false hope that she might get her life back. Suze tries to carefully explain this isn't so, but Heather throws a fit, going into such a rage that she attempts to kill Susannah. She uses her abilities to boil water and to snap off of and levitate the bronze head of a statue of Junipero Serra, the man of whom the mission was named after. Just as the statue's head is about to collide with Suze, Jesse appears and knocks her aside. Having followed her from the house to watch over her, he helps her flee the building, the head pursuing them the whole way. Once outside he says that they are safe, not because Heather can't reach them there, but because she is too young a ghost to know she can. The next day, Father Dominic is very unhappy with Susannah. She tries to explain that it was going to work - she just didn't expect Heather's strength. Days later, Heather puts Bryce in hospital again in her attempts to kill him. By now Susannah is furious and despite Father Dominic telling Susannah not to handle it alone, she does a special Voodoo exorcism. It works and Heather is sent on to the afterlife. Father Dominic is pretty mad but very pleased that Heather is gone and that all the suffering will go away. Unfortunately for Susannah, Bryce got sent to another school since Father Dominic thought this would be best for him, therefore deleting their very small love life that didn't even consist of one date due to Heather and her envy. |
Moo | Jane Smiley | 1,995 | Moo contains over a dozen overlapping plot lines and multiple protagonists and is therefore very difficult to summarize traditionally. The following summary includes the plot lines that are clearly resolved in the end of the novel. Chapter one of Moo introduces Old Meats, a building at the center of the campus of Moo University no longer in use. However, Old Meats is home to a huge hog named Earl Butz whose only purpose in life is to eat as much as he would like in order to grow as large as possible as part of an experiment conducted by Dr. Bo Jones. Bob Carlson, a sophomore at Moo U, cares for Earl. Chapter two introduces the Dubuque House, a large residence hall on campus and four of its newest residents Mary, Keri, Sherri and Diane. It is move-in day, and each of the four girls briefly reflects on what has brought them to Moo University and their hopes for their college careers. Timothy Monahan, a professor of English, is returning to the campus for the beginning of the school year. He meets one of the new faculty members, Spanish professor Cecilia Sanchez, when their classes end up being in neighboring rooms. Marly Hellmich is an adult woman who works in the university cafeteria and lives at home caring for her elderly father. Marly also volunteers at her church, where she meets Nils Harstad, the dean of the agricultural extension. Later in Part One, Nils decides that what he needs to complete his life is a wife and a large family of small children. He decides that Marly would be the perfect mate and proposes to her. Marly contemplates the engagement and decides to accept on the basis that a life with Nils, a successful and economically stable older man, would offer her all of the things that she would not be able to have on her own; she literally believes she will become a kind of Cinderella. Book One continues with a lecture given by economics professor Dr.Gift on Costa Rica and the economic gains to be found there. The lecture is well attended by students and faculty but during the lecture Chairman X, the chairman of the Horticulture department, becomes outraged and attempts to point out how detrimental Gift’s pursuits will be to Costa Rica’s environment. Later, Ivar Harstad, provost of the university, meets with Elaine Dobbs-Jellinek, the associate vice-president, and Arlen Martin, CEO of the Trans National corporation. Arlen, a wealthy but not so virtuous businessman whose emphasis is on agricultural projects, is aware of the university’s budget constraints and attempts to make a deal with them. He offers to give them money if they would devote some of their research facilities and faculty to help him on a project. Another important aspect of Book One is the introduction of Loren Stroop, a local farmer and a paranoid old man who is so suspicious of the big agricultural companies and the CIA that he wears a bulletproof vest every day. This fear is promoted by the fact that Stroop is building a machine that he believes will revolutionize agriculture. Stroop meets with Nils to speak about the machine and the two men set up a future meeting for Nils to come to the farm and see the machine. At the close of Part One, though, Stroop suffers a stroke. Joy Pfistener oversees the university’s fleet of horses and is also the girlfriend of Dean Jellinek. Joy is introduced while teaching a class in which Bob Carlson is a student. After class, Joy reflects on her relationship with Dean, one that is strained because of Dean’s constant obsession over his calf-free lactation project and his failure to tend to Joy and their relationship. Smiley closes Book One with a chapter entitled “Who’s in Bed With Whom” in which she lays out some of the intimate details of relationships occurring between various students and faculty including Mary and Hassan, a graduate student, Nils and Marly, Bob and Diane, Tim and Cecilia, Chairman X and Lady X, and Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Lake. Book Two, the shortest section of the book, opens with a news article detailing Governor Early’s budget cuts, which include severe reductions for the university. The chapter also contains a series of memorandums within the university detailing the likely impact of the proposed cuts. One of the most significant developments is the relationship between Cecilia and Chairman X. The two meet one day in the library where Cecilia is reminiscing about her former life in Los Angeles. She recognizes Chairman X from Dr. Gift’s lecture. They strike up a conversation and surprisingly have sex on the library floor. Meanwhile, Keri is failing Dr. Gift’s economics class. She reflects on her family’s experiences on their farm. When one of her uncles buys out the other, it causes a deep family division that ruins the family dynamic, and Keri blames her uncle’s selfish drive for fortune and prosperity and his disregard for the family. Chairman X and Cecilia continue their relationship. Cecilia fabricates a story about her uncle Carlos and his farm in Costa Rica and her childhood that she spent there. By telling the story she manages to convince X to stay longer and spend more time with her rather than returning home to have dinner with his family and take his children to a movie. Book Two closes with a visit to Loren Stroop in the hospital after his stroke. His neighbors, the Millers, come to visit him and reassure him that they have taken care of everything around the farm except for visiting the shed where he keeps the machine locked up. He nods to try to tell them that they should look in the shed and tell someone about the machine but they fail to understand this since he cannot talk. The section opens with Dr. Gift reflecting on a report he wrote supporting the gold mine under a virgin cloud forest in Costa Rica. Mary, Keri, Sherri, and Diane are spending more time together. Mary is sick with a virus. Gary Olsen revises a short story, but is disappointed with the end result. After a night at the library, Diane decides to follow Bob in hopes of learning the mystery of his work-study job and she meets Earl Butz. Tim and Cecelia have an unhappy date. Multiple characters discuss the fall of and importance of Eastern European communism. Helen hosts a Thanksgiving feast with Ivar, Nils, Marly, and Marly’s father. Marly’s father and Nils debate Marly and Nils future, after Nils announces to everyone that “God’s plan” is that he and Marly have six children and live in Poland. Joy sets goals for her future, including marriage and a child. Tim Monahan’s third novel is accepted for publication. Helen, Dr. Garcia, Dr. Gift, and Dr. Cates consider Monahan’s promotion to full professor. Dr. Gift says Monahan's writing is salacious, and Helen disagrees. Monahan’s promotion is only given lukewarm approval. At the meeting, Helen distributes copies of Dr. Gift’s paper to everyone at the meeting, revealing the virgin cloud forest mining project much to Gift's chagrin. Gary Olson and Lydia go out. Lydia suggests Gary should kick Lyle, his roommate out, so she could come over more often. Margaret gets Tim to call Cecilia by giving him a copy of Dr. Gift's memo which she had secretly kept. A grant saves Old Meats, but it would have to be a chicken museum, which was not what Dr. Bo Jones requested. The book concludes with Mary being the victim of bigotry and feeling unable to discuss her experience with Keri, Sherri, and Diane. Gary continues to struggle with his writing. The main connection between characters in this section is the holidays. It is Christmas time, and Cecilia decides not to return to Los Angeles for the holiday because of Chairman X. However, she changes her mind the following day and goes to LA. A friend of Bob’s comes to care for Earl Butz, and Earl notices and is shaken up by the change. Drama unfolds in the X’s household. Chairman X spends the holiday at home with his family. He admits to Lady X that he is having an affair with Cecilia. As they fight, they both make accusations and blame the other for their unhappiness. Mary spends Christmas with her family. She is worried about her grades and somewhat disappointed she did not stay back at school. Joy is talking to Dean and becomes upset with their conversation. She goes outside, runs, and remains outside until she is nearly frozen to death. When she returns home Dean has to take care of her until an ambulance arrives. It is time to ring in the New Year. Chairman X writes a flyer opposing the destruction of the virgin cloud rain forest and revealing Gift’s role in the scheme. The media reports on the issue and tries to unravel the controversy. As word spreads of the mining plan, chaos occurs. Dean Nils Harstead is attacked by Chairman X. Tensions run high between Mary, Keri, Sherri, and Diane in Dubuque House until they hear about the riot at Lafayette Hall and leave to go there. Book five opens with Dr. Margaret Bell arriving at a conference in Florida where she is to present a paper. Her senses seem to awaken through this mini get-away, and she indulges in the experience. When the conference is abruptly cancelled, Margaret ends her vacation and receives a large bill. Back on campus, Dr. Gift reflects on Arlen Martin and the collapse of Seven Stones Mining. A memo is sent out announcing more proposed cuts in the budget, resulting in threats of layoffs. Another setback for the university occurs when Elaine Jellinek breaks the news to Dr. Bo Jones that there is no longer a grant for the chicken museum. Dr. Jones does not seem very disappointed and decides to take a trip to Kirghizia to research wild boars. Loren Stroop has moved home and maneuvers around on his own to the best of his ability. Although his physical stamina has diminished, his quirky personality still remains. Feeling the need to check up on his invention, Loren attempts to travel out to his barn during a snowstorm. He struggles against the winter wind and falls into the heavy snow, never reaching his destination. He perishes in the storm. The announcement of a future McDonald's takes the campus by surprise and forces Marly to contemplate her existence on campus. She decides to leave her job as well as abandon her relationship with Nils. In the end, Marly chooses to run off with her truck driver boyfriend. Another major event at the university occurs during the destruction of Old Meats. This pivotal scene showcases Earl Butz as he is trapped inside the building during the demolition. Bob realizes that Earl is in danger but is unable to stop the destruction process. Earl is aware of his dire situation. Instinct takes over, and Earl takes off running, making his way across campus. As Bob tries to catch Earl, Mrs. Walker, Chairman X, and Keri all witness Earl’s rampage through the university. Earl eventually stops from exhaustion and falls dead at the feet of Keri. His death makes front page news. Dean and Joy work on their couple’s therapy. Dean immerses himself in helping Joy out of her depression, which she finds exhausting. Cecelia continues to struggle with finding her place in the Midwest and Moo University, and considers returning to California. As the cutbacks continue to stress the faculty, Mrs. Walker realizes that her job is on the line as a result of leaking Gift’s memo as well as the discovery that she has transferred funds from the athletic budget to the library. Mary, Keri, Sherri, and Diane seem to be heading their separate ways as the school year closes out. For the following year, Sherri makes plans to room with friends from high school, and Mary decides to return to Chicago. When some of the future plans fall through, Mary and Keri decide to reside together again. As the university’s future appears bleak, Ivar reflects on how he originally viewed the university and how things have changed since he and Nils were first students at Moo. Just when the university seems doomed, Joe Miller arrives with a sense of hope by carrying out Stroop’s wishes to donate his invention to the university. Ivar, Nils, Bob Brown, and the president all assemble to begin a frantic search for the blue prints for Stroop’s machine. Coincidentally, Dr. Cates acquired these blue prints from a student, and thinking they were a work of art, Cates calls Mrs. Walker in effort to discover who the artist might be. At the same time, the committee contacts Mrs. Walker to discuss Stroop’s donation. Gaining power with this information, Mrs. Walker not only connects the missing prints to the hands in need, but saves her own position. The discovery of the machine uplifts everyone’s spirits and causes the governor to reverse the budget cuts. The campus atmosphere starts to lighten. Marriage comes into play towards the end of the novel when several characters contemplate their relationships and their plans for the future. Dr. Gift and Elaine Jellinek dine together and day-dream about the possibility of a life with each other, but in the end, they each discard the thought. Marriage is not in the cards for Nils and Marly, but Nils and Marly’s father reach an understanding and decide to reside with one another due to Marly’s absence. The biggest turn-around occurs between Chairman X and Lady X as they resolve their disputes and reunite their family. Chairman and Lady X have a small wedding which attracts the curiosity of the neighbors and close friends. The marriage upsets Cecelia, who has decided to stay, but Tim convinces her that this is for the best. The book then closes as Chairman X and Lady X embrace in a “legendary” kiss. |
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars | Keith R. A. DeCandido | 2,007 | The story is set simultaneously during the events of Tiberium Wars. Many game characters are either featured or mentioned such as Kane, Lieutenant Sandra Telfair, Gen. Jack Granger, and W3N reporter Cassandra Blair. The first chapter of the story involves a summit at the Philadelphia space station, with almost all of the top GDI directors and officials aboard, as well as Dr. Mobius, GDI's top scientist from the first Command & Conquer game. Nod annihilates the station, killing all of those on board, by firing a nuclear missile after disabling their defenses at Goddard Space Center. Part of the dialogue when Kane transmissions is broadcast to the world is also the end of the chapter. "Rejoice, children of Nod, the blood of your oppressors will flow..." The novel describes the actions of GDI's 22nd Infantry Division, led by Michael McNeil, who are decorated as heroes for their adventures, as well as describing the effects of Tiberium on the world with a trip to Atlanta by W3N reporter Annabella Wu. Atlanta is a "Yellow Zone" partially infested with Tiberium but still under GDI control. The story alternates between the experiences of Ricardo Vega and Annabella Wu during the conflict. |
The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina | Caroline Lawrence | 2,003 | The novel is set three months after The Dolphins of Laurentum and six months after the children solved their first mystery. The Geminus household is still suffering financially from the loss of the Myrtilla. It is winter AD 79 during the five-day festival of the Saturnalia, a time when the status quo is upset. Ostia is further excited by the escape of some exotic wild animals, possible man-eaters. The children narrowly escape an alarming-looking bird. Flavia is disturbed when her father Marcus starts talking about her betrothal and insisting that she should stop running around Ostia playing detective with her unconventional friends. She blames her father's change of attitude on his new ladylove, Cartilia Poplicola, and is determined to prove that the widow is a fortune-hunter, a witch, or even a murderess. Several signs, including a dream, make Flavia believe that following a trail guided by the twelve labours of Hercules will lead her to the truth. These are generally places in Ostia, such as the Hydra fountain and the Atlas tavern, but also events like the capture of the escaped lion or people such as the gladiator nicknamed the Cretan Bull. Flavia and the others pick up scraps of news and gossip about Cartilia and her family which they try to piece together. The detectives meet Cartilia's sister Diana and eventually discover her secret love for Aristo, which explains some strange events and clears Cartilia of wrongdoing. However, uncovering another secret destroys Marcus's trust in Cartilia, and Flavia is unexpectedly unhappy about it. A fever sweeps through Ostia and many fall sick, including Flavia and Marcus. The first wave of sickness, however, is just the precursor of a more deadly plague which will be important in the seventh book, The Enemies of Jupiter. |
Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley | Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany | 1,971 | A coming of age story set in the mythical "golden age" of Spain. The titular character is excluded from the inheritance of the family castle on the grounds that given his expertise with sword and mandolin he should be able to win his own estate and bride. Setting out to achieve his place in the world, Rodriguez quickly acquires a Sancho Panza-like servant, Morano, and goes on to experience a series of adventures en route to his goal. |
The History of Love | Nicole Krauss | 2,005 | Approximately 70 years before the present, the 10-year-old Polish-Jewish Leopold (Leo) Gursky falls in love with his neighbor Alma Mereminski. The two begin a relationship that develops over the course of 10 years. In this time, Leo writes three books that he gives to Alma since she is the only person whom he deeply cares about. The first book is too realistic and boring, the second one is entirely fiction and unconvincing, and the last book is dedicated to his love: "The History of Love." Leo promises he will never love anyone but Alma. Alma, now 20, is sent to the United States by her father, who feared the alarming news concerning fascist Germany. Leo does not know that Alma is pregnant and dreams of going to America to meet her. A short time after, the Germans invade Poland and Leo takes cover in the woods, living on roots, small animals, bugs and what he can steal from farmers' cellars. After two years of hiding he goes to America and finds Alma but is shocked to hear she thought he had died in the war and had married the son of the manager of the factory she works at. He is devastated when he finds she has had another child with her husband. He asks her to come with him, but she refuses. She tells him, however, about his son Isaac who is now five years old. Heartbroken, Leo leaves and becomes a locksmith. Leo regularly watches Isaac from a distance, wishing to be part of the boy’s life but scared to come in contact with him. In the present day, Leo is a lonely old man who waits for his death, along with his recently found (most probably in his imagination) childhood friend, Bruno, especially since Alma has been dead for five years. Leo still keeps track of his son, who has become a famous writer, much to Leo’s enjoyment since he believes Isaac inherited the talent from his father. Leo's depression deepens when he reads in a newspaper that his son has died at the age of 60, and Leo develops an obsession with finding his place in his son's world, to the extent that he breaks into Isaac’s house to see if he had read "Words for Everything". Leo wants to reread "The History of Love", so he tries to obtain a copy of the book that he gave to his friend Zvi Litvinoff, who had immigrated to Chile. Their friendship dates from when Leo fell gravely ill in Poland and wrote his own obituary, after which Lev stole it in the hope that it would keep his friend alive. Leo writes a letter to Zvi, but his wife informs him that the book was destroyed in a flood, conspiring to hide that her husband did not write "The History of Love". Unknown to Leo is that the book had been published in a small printing of two thousand copies (and re-published upon the supposed author's death) in Spanish, but under the name of Zvi Litvinoff, who copied the book thinking Leo was killed in Poland. Zvi felt so guilty for copying his book that he added his friend’s stolen obituary as the last chapter, telling the publisher that including the obituary was conditional to printing the book, although doing so did not make sense with the plot. When Leo called to recover the book, Zvi's wife, Rosa, fearing her husband would lose his fame if the world found out his well-regarded book was plagiarized, lied by saying the manuscript had been destroyed in a flood, and then manufactured a flood in her house to realize the lie. Zvi died later without telling the world about the real author of "The History of Love". In a parallel story, a 15-year-old Jewish girl, Alma Singer, named after the Alma in "The History of Love", her parents’ favorite book, is struggling to cope with the loss of her father due to cancer. Her mother becomes distant and lonely, escaping into her work of book translation. Her younger brother Bird, so called for jumping from the second story of a building hoping he could fly, seeks refuge in religion and believes himself to be one of God’s chosen people, thus distancing himself from reality. Alma finds refuge in one of her father’s hobbies: surviving in the wild. Alma also bears a crush on her Russian pen friend Misha, who has moved to New York. The two become a couple but they break up because of Alma’s incertitude. One day, her mother receives a letter from a mysterious man named Jacob Marcus who requests that she translate "The History of Love" from Spanish to English for $100,000 dollars, to be paid in increments of $25,000 as the work progresses. Alma’s mother finds the sum suspicious, but the stranger confesses that his mother used to read the book to him when he was a child, so it has a great sentimental value. Alma sees this as an opportunity to help her mother recover from her depression and changes her mother’s straightforward letters to Jacob Marcus into more romantic versions. When the letters stop before her mother completes the translation of the book, Alma decides to find the mysterious client. She starts by noting down what she knows about Jacob Marcus in her diary, and concludes that the Alma in the book was real and proceeds to find her. She struggles in her search for Alma Mereminski, but succeeds when she realizes that Alma could have married and finds her under the name of Moritz. She is disappointed to hear that Alma has been dead for five years. However, she finds out that Isaac Moritz is the first of Alma's sons and a famous writer. When she starts reading his bestselling book, she finds that the main character's name is Jacob Marcus and realizes that Isaac Moritz had hired her mother to translate the book. Isaac is dead, however, which explains why his letters had stopped coming to their home. To be sure about her suspicions, Alma leaves a note on Isaac’s door asking who the writer of the novel is. In the meanwhile, Bird finds Alma’s diary and misinterprets the names Alma Mereminski and Alma Moritz as being his sister’s real names, and believes they had different fathers. Isaac’s brother calls Alma, after reading the note and the original manuscript of the book, to tell her that Gursky is the real author, but Bird answers the telephone and it confuses him even further. He now suspects that Leopold Gursky is Alma's real father. To cleanse his sin of bragging and to regain the status as one of the chosen ones, he decides to set up a meeting with Alma and Gursky, thus doing a good deed without anybody knowing except God. When the two receive the letter regarding their meeting, both are confused: Alma tries to discover which of the people she met during her searches could have sent her the note, while Leo comes to believe it was Alma who sent him the note, despite her being dead. Leo settles himself on a park bench, waiting a long while for Alma to appear. He ponders his life, key moments from his past, the loss of his love, and what it means to be human. He imagines that he will die while he is waiting there, his own death and mortality being one of his preoccupations in the novel. When Alma finally appears, he and she are both confused, although at first Leo believes that she is his Alma from the past and that she is really just in his imagination. After he realizes that she doesn't look like his Alma, and he gets confirmation from a man walking by that the Alma who is there is actually real, Leo talks to her briefly about Bruno and Isaac, while Alma starts piecing together the puzzle of who Leo is. When Alma asks him if he ever loved a girl named Alma Mereminski, the old man finally feels a sense of transcendence in being recognized at long last, and instead of being able to respond to Alma's questions with words, he keeps tapping his fingers twice against her. She puts her head on his shoulder and hugs him, and he is finally able to speak again, saying her name three times and giving her her own feeling of transcendence at finally being recognized, too. (Some readers believe that Leo has a heart attack and dies at this point, possibly because of Leo's earlier assumption that he is about to die, and also because he says during this meeting with Alma, "I felt my heart surge. I thought: I've lived this long. Please. A little longer won't kill me." A more compelling case can be made that the novel, for all its poignancy, simply ends with this mutually transcendent moment for these two characters.) The last chapter is entitled "The Death of Leopold Gursky" and is identical with the last chapter of the book inside a book "The History of Love", both being the self-written obituary of Leopold Gursky. By ending the novel this way, Krauss is richly alluding to earlier parts of the novel and to her theme of how words keep people alive for us, indeed, make people in danger of becoming invisible, visible. Zvi Litvinoff carried Leo's self-written obit in his pocket for years, as a talisman guarding against Leo's death. Litvinoff, when preparing "History of Love" for publication, insists that his editor include the Leo Gursky obit at the end, his way of ensuring that Leo will continue to "live" in the hearts of all readers of the book. And finally, Nicole Krauss includes the same obit at the end of her novel, as a way of urging all readers to keep this Leo, and all Leos, alive. |
Hemlock and After | Angus Wilson | null | Bernard Sands, a prominent writer who has been given financial aid to start a writer's colony at Vardon Hall, faces a failing marriage, attempts to come to grips with his homosexuality and lives next door to a procuress for pedophiles. |
Rameau's Nephew | Denis Diderot | null | The narrator has made his way to his usual haunt on a rainy day, the Café de la Régence, France's chess mecca, where he enjoys watching such masters as Philidor or Legall. He is accosted by an eccentric figure : I do not esteem such originals. Others make them their familiars, even their friends. Such a man will draw my attention perhaps once a year when I meet him because his character offers a sharp contrast with the usual run of men, and a break from the dull routine imposed by one's education, social conventions and manners. When in company, he works as a pinch of leaven, causing fermentation and restoring each to his natural bend. One feels shaken and moved; prompted to approve or blame; he causes truth to shine forth, good men to stand out, villains to unmask. Then will the wise man listen and get to know those about him. The dialogue form allows Diderot to examine issues from widely different perspectives. The character of Rameau is presented as extremely unreliable, ironical and self-contradicting, so that the reader may never know whether he is being sincere or provocative. The impression is that of nuggets of truth artfully embedded in trivia. A parasite in a well-to-do family, Rameau has recently been kicked out because he refused to compromise with the truth. Now he will not humble himself by apologizing. And yet, rather than starve, shouldn't one live at the expense of rich fools and knaves as he once did, pimping for a lord? Society does not allow the talented to support themselves because it does not value them, leaving them to beg while the rich, the powerful and stupid poke fun at men like Buffon, Duclos, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot. The poor genius is left with but two options : to crawl and flatter or to dupe and cheat, either being repugnant to the sensitive mind. If virtue had led the way to fortune, I would either have been virtuous or pretended to be so like others; I was expected to play the fool, and a fool I turned myself into. |
Close to Critical | Hal Clement | 1,964 | The Tenebrans are intelligent, but primitive by human standards. Yet scientists from Earth have found ways to train and educate some of the Tenebrans. This training becomes crucial when two beings—a young girl from Earth and the son of an alien diplomat—are marooned in a bathyscape that is headed toward the surface of the planet, where neither can hope to survive. |
Heyday | Kurt Andersen | 2,007 | The protagonist, Ben Knowles, is from a London manufacturing family. In 1848 he experiences the disorders in Paris and then resolves to move to the United States, the 'New World,' "craving vulgarity and strangeness" (page 6). In New York he encounters Timothy Skaggs, a journalist, novelist and pioneering photographer, Duff Lucking, a fire-fighter and Mexican–American War veteran, and Duff's sister Polly, an actress and prostitute. The novel charts the characters as they journey west and participate in the California Gold Rush. |
Sick Building | Paul Magrs | null | The TARDIS arrives on Tiermann's World. Professor Tiermann and his family live alone here in a futuristic, fully automated Dreamhome, protected by a supposedly impenetrable force shield. An enormous alien creature called the Voracious Craw is heading towards their home with the intent to devour everything. But the Craw is not the only enemy - outside sabre-toothed tigers roam a frozen landscape, and the Dreamhouse itself turns against its occupants. |
Making Good Again | Lionel Davidson | 1,968 | In Germany to settle World War II reparations, James Raison is plunged into the old conflict between Jew and Nazi. |
Smith's Gazelle | Lionel Davidson | 1,971 | An old Bedouin and two boys, one Jewish and the other Arab, have a miraculous adventure in the Israeli desert during the Six-Day War. |
Under Plum Lake | Lionel Davidson | 1,980 | A young boy, Barry, explores a cave on the Cornwall coast and discovers a highly advanced subterranean civilization called Egon. |
Tales of the City | Armistead Maupin | 1,978 | Seeking a change in her life, Mary Ann Singleton moves to San Francisco in 1976, soon finding herself living at 28 Barbary Lane. Her life becomes intertwined with those of her varied neighbors and myriad colorful characters. The novel is a look at San Francisco in the 1970s, exploring "alternative lifestyles" and "underground" culture. |
A Plague of Frogs | null | 2,000 | The book begins with the discovery of a large number of deformed frogs by schoolteacher Cindy Reinitz and her students in August 1995. They were on a field trip to a farm owned by Donald Ney near the town of Henderson, Minnesota. As the students approached the rain-fed pond, they noticed that a large number of the northern leopard frogs (rana pipiens) had deformities, such as missing legs, extra legs, and other disfigurements. Concerned about the possibility that the deformities occurred because of a contaminant in the water, Ms. Reinitz contacted the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). As the MPCA did not have an amphibian specialist at the time, Reinitz was referred to the MPCA's invertebrate researcher, Dr. Judy Helgen. At the time Ms. Helgen was studying frogs as part of an effort to develop a bio-index for measuring the overall health of a pond or wetland. As Helgen was busy at the time, she sent an intern, Joel Chirhart, to investigate the pond. Chirhart is alarmed by the widespread nature of the deformities - present in over 1/3 of frogs collected. Later that year, Ms. Helgen called Robert McKinnell, a biologist at the University of Minnesota. Mr. McKinnell is considered the authority on frogs in Minnesota, having specialized in herpetology for over 50 years. While initially the two thought that the deformities were an isolated occurrence that would disappear like an earlier outbreak at Granite Falls, the persistence of leg deformities into late summer and the discovery of other outbreaks, elsewhere around Henderson and elsewhere around the state, such as at Litchfield, quickly disabused of that notion. In that same month (August 1995), Dennis and Rhonda Bock found many deformed frogs near their lake in Brainerd, Minnesota. At first they were unconcerned, thinking the appearance of these frogs was a freak, but natural occurrence. However, as more reports of frog deformities came from the rest of the state, they grew concerned and called the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). While the DNR could not do anything about the frogs, they sent the information on to David Hoppe, a herpetologist at the University of Minnesota Morris campus. Hoppe was unable to come to the Bock's lake until October, because of previous commitments. When he did manage to go to the Bock property, Hoppe was very surprised, as the Bocks lived on a relatively large natural lake, rather than on the small farm ponds where others had reported deformed frogs. The presence of these deformities in both natural and man-made bodies of water cast doubt on the theory of chemical contamination, as the larger, natural lakes should not have been as susceptible to harboring high concentration of pollutants as smaller, man-made agricultural ponds. The next year Hoppe, Helgen and McKinnell obtained a $150,000 grant from the state to study the frog deformities. Even more sightings of deformed frogs were reported that year. Short on funds, the MPCA managed to successfully confirm 21 sites with deformed animals. Of the 3000 deformed frogs collected, just under 12 percent had deformities. However, there was a considerable variance in the incidence of deformities between sites and between collection intervals at the same site. As deformed frogs were more systematically collected and dissected, there was considerable evidence of internal abnormality. Digestive systems and reproductive systems were especially hard hit, with some frogs "starving to death, despite being stuffed to bursting with food". As the summer of 1996 progressed, Hoppe paid more attention to the Bock lake. Although the frogs at the lake seemed normal at the beginning of the summer, the number and variety of deformities rose dramatically as the season progressed. As alarming as the findings at the various sites were, there was very little published material on the subject of frog deformities. Therefore, the researchers could not conclude that there was anything out of the ordinary, simply because they didn't know what the baseline rate of these deformities were. A review of existing literature on the subject showed that although deformities were a known phenomenon, there was no precedent for the variety or the rate of deformity that was being observed. As the mystery deepened, internal tensions within the investigative team mounted. David Hoppe became increasing concerned with protecting the integrity of sites from outside interference. He was especially concerned about the Bock's lake, labeled CWB ("Crow Wing county - Bock"), as it was one of the few natural bodies of water that had been affected by the deformities. While Helgen was also concerned about the integrity of sites, Hoppe felt that the MPCA, as a public agency was not well equipped to ensure site integrity. The story then takes a detour and discusses the findings of Martin Ouellet, a French-Canadian biologist who was studying the effect of agricultural chemicals on frogs in the St. Lawrence river valley. Ouellet found that the frogs in agricultural ponds developed deformities at a significantly higher rate than frogs in natural control environments. He had seen and noted the same abnormalities that were being discovered in Minnesota. He became convinced that the deformities were being caused by agricultural chemicals. After introducing Ouellet, the book moves on to a discussion of possible causes of frog deformities. There are two main theories: parasites, and agricultural chemicals. The parasite theory, advocated by Stan Sessions stated that parasitic cysts from flatworms blocked limb buds, forcing the tadpoles to try to adjust their limb development around the invaders. The pollutant theory, pushed by McKinnell, stated that there were pollutants that were having teratogenic effects on the frogs. The unknown pollutant or pollutants were theorized to be mimics of retinoic acid. Retinoic acid is a hormone that signals limb development in metamorphosing frogs. The pollutant theory stated that these pollutants were disrupting retinoic acid levels in tadpoles, leading to missing or misplaced limbs, in addition to internal developmental abnormalities. The rest of the book revolves around the interplay between advocates of these two theories. As both sides move to gather evidence to support their theory (retinoic acid disruption vs. parasites) conflicts inevitably develop. The book covers the emergence and development of those conflicts, especially between Sessions and Ouellet. The book equivocates on the actual cause of the deformities. It states that both parasites and deformities can be traced back to environmental changes caused by humans. Parasite ranges are altered by global warming. Modern farming techniques rely on a large variety of chemicals, whose breakdown and interaction in the environment is still virtually unknown. These changes create, as McKinnell puts it, a "quality of life" issue for ambphibians. The deformities in the frog population are a result of the extraordinary stresses thrust upon them by the modern world. |
More Tales of the City | Armistead Maupin | 1,980 | The story begins about a couple months from where Tales of the City ended. Michael ("Mouse") Tolliver and Mary Ann Singleton go on a cruise, thanks to money given to her by her former boss, Edgar Halcyon. While on the cruise, Maryann begins a relationship with a handsome amnesiac, while Mouse rekindles his relationship with Jon who has now long distanced himself from the "A Gays" because he got fed up with their elitist and shallow ways. Maryann then begins to devote her time to helping her boyfriend figure out why he lost his memory. Signs point to a traumatic event he had while reporting on a story for his newspaper. What they find out is explosive and risks shaking the foundations of San Francisco elite society. Meanwhile, Mouse becomes extremely ill and is hospitalized, profoundly affecting his relationship with Jon. |
Significant Others | Armistead Maupin | 1,987 | It is now 1985 and much of the action is set in the Russian River area north of San Francisco. Here, successful businessmen from around the globe gather at Bohemian Grove for a three-week encampment of male bonding, while downriver from them events at Wimminwood, a lesbian music and arts festival, threaten the relationship of DeDe Halcyon-Day and D'orothea Wilson. Returning characters include Mary Ann Singleton, who is having difficulty balancing her commitment to her career as a local talk show hostess with her obligations as a wife to Brian and mother to Shawna, the child of her friend Connie, who entrusted the girl's care to Mary Ann on her deathbed; Michael Tolliver, the romantic gay man who has tested HIV-positive and is taking AZT to combat the threat to his immune system; and Anna Madrigal, the transgendered landlady who mothers her tenants at 28 Barbary Lane on Russian Hill and is fighting to preserve the historic wooden steps of the lane. New characters include Thack Sweeney, who meets Michael during a tour of Alcatraz and Wren Douglas, a plus-size model whose best-selling self-help book offers hope to overweight women. There is also a focus on a previously minor character, Roger "Booter" Manigault, DeDe's stepfather and a member of the Bohemian Club, who accidentally stumbles into Wimminwood and is held captive by one of its more militant organizers. Brian's college-aged nephew Jed also makes an appearance as a young Reaganite more interested in getting into Harvard Law and making money than having fun. |
Sure of You | Armistead Maupin | 1,989 | Anna Madrigal's "logical" children have fledged from 28 Barbary Lane and she rattles around with her new brood until a Greek holiday and a romance whisk her away. Her daughter Mona Ramsey, now a Lady, wanders back in from the cold and briefly warms her toes in the sands of Lesbos. Michael (not often referred to as Mouse any more) Tolliver is settled with his lover Thack in their own house in Noe Valley. Having tested positive for HIV, he is coming to terms with his anticipated short time left. Brian Hawkins has given up his tomcat ways to settle down as 'house husband' and chief caretaker of adopted daughter, Shawna (aka Puppy). With Michael, he is co-owner of Plant Parenthood, a gardening nursery. Then there's Mary Ann Singleton. Ambitious and even more beautiful, she is now a TV talk show host famous in the San Francisco area. She is offered a once-in-a-lifetime job as the host of a nationally syndicated show - in New York! Mary Ann, who started the whole series and introduced us to the beauty and excitement of the Tales world, tears the band apart. The ingenue, naif, every person who wriggled into our affections by also mispronouncing Beauchamp, "BoShomp", and noticing the sprinklers on the ceiling, calls the party over and breaks our hearts. |
Michael Tolliver Lives | Armistead Maupin | 2,007 | The novel represents Maupin's return to the Tales of the City characters some eighteen years after the sixth book in the series was published. As well as further developing familiar characters, it explores the differences between the San Francisco of the 1980s, bearing the brunt of the developing AIDS crisis, and the city in the first decade of the new millennium. The realities of aging, both distressing and graceful, is a major theme of the book – as well as the generation gap between gays from the 1970s and 80s and gays from the 2000s. In a departure from the third-person style of the original Tales sequence, Michael Tolliver Lives is narrated in the first person by the title character. In the book's opening pages, Michael encounters a half-remembered old flame, prompting him to reflect on his status as a survivor of both the HIV epidemic (which killed many of his peers in the 1980s and 1990s but is now a more treatable chronic illness thanks in part to better medication) and of a San Francisco that has transformed due in large part to the dot com boom. Characters from the original series include Anna Madrigal, the one-time landlady of 28 Barbary Lane; Brian Hawkins and his now-adult daughter Shawna, a pansexual aspiring writer; and Brian's ex-wife Mary Ann Singleton. New characters include Michael's much younger partner Ben and his transgendered co-worker Jake Greenleaf. Much of the plot's tension derives from the impending death of Michael's elderly mother in Florida, a test case of changes in attitude since she refused to accept Michael's homosexuality in the second Tales book. Several chapters involve a secondary plot thread concerning Michael's relationship with his brother Irwin. Eventually Michael finds himself forced to choose between being present for his mother's last days and attending to an aging Anna, described in the book as part of his "logical" (as opposed to "biological") family. |
The Sorcerer's Ship | Hannes Bok | 1,969 | A man named Gene finds himself cast into a new world by a powerful godlike being. Gene has been changed in such a way that he has every talent needed to survive this new world, including the ability to understand the language of its inhabitants. Gene is rescued from the seemingly endless oceans of this new world by a passing ship that is similar to the looks of a Viking galley. Aboard the ship he makes himself useful as best he can while meeting new friends and enemies. Eventually they come to an island where a mysterious creature who some see as a friend, and some see as an enemy, joins them aboard their ship to help deal with the threat of war from their neighboring kingdom known as Koph. The creature, utilizing his sorcerer-like abilities is employed by the other country known as Nanich to help aid them in the war, but will the sorcerer, and his magic be enough to save the land of Nanich from being overrun by Koph? |
Beyond the Golden Stair | Hannes Bok | 1,970 | Hibbert, an imprisoned innocent, is caught up in the jailbreak of his cellmate Scarlatti, engineered with the assistance of another man, Burks. Forcing Hibbert to accompany them, Scarlatti and Burks make for the Florida Everglades, picking up Scarlatti's girlfriend Carlotta on the way. In the Everglades the four encounter a miraculous golden stairway extending into the sky. Ascending, they find a pool defended by a blue flamingo, which is killed by Burks. Another stairway leads them to the land of Khoire, a strange and mysterious paradise. There a man named Patur exposes the true nature of each by means of a crystal mask. He warns them that they will be transformed in accordance with those natures within a day, and must leave Khoire. Scarlatti and Carlotta's alteration is horrible, and they are consumed by a huge beast; Burks agrees to become a blue flamingo, taking the place of the guardian of the pool, in the hope of some day being readmitted to Khoire. Hibbert is little changed. Returning to the mundane world, he undertakes to find certain persons who can help him gain his own readmittance to Khoire, having fallen in love with one of its denizens, Mareth of the Watchers. |
The Shaving of Shagpat | George Meredith | 1,856 | Shibli Bagarag, a Persian barber, and Noorna, an enchantress, are given the quest of shaving the tyrant Shagpat, who by the power of his magical hair holds his city in thrall. Along the way Shibli acquires a magic sword and meets a series of exotic creatures, including a talking hawk and several genies. The second paragraph of the book provides a capsule summary of the story: "Now the story of Shibli Bagarag, and of the ball he followed, and of the subterranean kingdom he came to, and of the enchanted palace he entered, and of the sleeping king he shaved, and of the two princesses he released, and of the Afrite held in subjection by the arts of one and bottled by her, is it not known as 'twere written on the finger-nails of men and traced in their corner robes?" |
Star Light | Hal Clement | 1,971 | Star Light is set several decades after the events of Mission of Gravity. It takes place mostly on the supergiant planet Dhrawn, which some suspect of being a failed star. The planet has an ammonia/water atmosphere with some oxygen, at temperatures ranging from 70 kelvins to almost the freezing point of water. The planet rotates extremely slowly, taking around two months for one revolution. It also has a long eccentric orbit around its star, which is a red dwarf, Lalande 21185. Much of the planet's heat seems to come from within. The gravity at the surface is 40 times the Earth's. Almost everything about the planet defies scientific theory, including its size, lack of hydrogen, its temperature, and the presence of free oxygen in its atmosphere. A consortium of spacefaring races, including humans, recruits Mesklinites, the centipede-like natives of the high-gravity planet Mesklin, to explore Dhrawn. The recruits include Barlennan and Dondragmer, respectively the Captain and First Mate of the Bree, a merchant vessel of Mesklin, which sailed to Mesklin's south pole to rescue a probe sent by humans. Now, thanks to institutes of learning set up on Mesklin, the natives have produced capable explorers who can go where other races cannot. Barlennan is in command of the main base on Dhrawn while Dondragmer commands a "land cruiser", the Kwembly. This is a tracked vehicle about 30 meters long, 6 meters high and the same wide. It is designed to move like a large worm on independently steerable trucks. The power is supplied by self-contained fusion generators but the controls are simple pulley-and-rope systems using Mesklinite materials which the crew can repair themselves. There are several more cruisers, and each has audio/video links for communication with satellites. The humans and others are on a satellite in synchronous orbit above the explorers on the ground. Unfortunately the planet's slow rotation means that they are about 10 million kilometers above the surface, and signals take over 30 seconds to travel to the satellite. Real time conversations are therefore impossible. On the satellite are linguist "Easy" Hoffman and her son Benj, who is both an engineer and a linguist. Both speak fluent Stennish, the Mesklinite language, and have formed close personal relationships with the explorers on the surface. They are later joined on the satellite by Ib Hoffman, Easy's husband and Benj's father. One of the cruisers, the Esket has apparently suffered a catastrophe and all the crew have vanished, much to Easy's dismay. The cruisers communicators still function, but all they show are views of a deserted ship. In reality, Barlennan is executing a complicated deception. A wily negotiator who successfully blackmailed the humans into giving him technology in Mission of Gravity, he is apparently plotting to gain yet another advantage from the situation he created. The exact nature of his objectives is unclear. Soon, however, the Kwembly is in very real trouble. As the planet warms, the complicated phase transitions of water and ammonia mixtures at these low temperatures mean that a frozen lake can melt in seconds, carry the ship off in a flood, and equally suddenly leave it hung up on large rocks, unable to move as the liquid around it freezes again, trapping some of the crew below the surface in their protective suits. These events, along with some bad timing, lead to the discovery of Barlennan's trickery when Easy recognizes a friend of hers from the Esket as he appears, as if from nowhere, but actually from one of the dirigibles that Barlennan is clandestinely using to move his men and materiel around. The Hoffmans would prefer to deal honestly with the Mesklinites, but they have to deal with the prejudices, not only of fellow humans with political motives, but with the more paranoid of the non-human supervisors of the mission. Having an inkling of what Barlennan is really after, Ib Hoffman finally breaks the deadlock with an idea that will save the crew of the Kwembly and make the mission successful beyond the dreams of its planners. |
Mind Game | Christine Feehan | null | After being targeted by an assassin, A Dahlia Le Blanc; a Telekinetic who shirks the company of others, is forced to rely on the mysterious warrior Nicolas Trevane to protect her. A man whom she finds herself falling in love with despite not wholly trusting. |
Night Game | Christine Feehan | null | Gator Fontenot of the Special Forces paranormal squad can't refuse an urgent response to save the elusive Iris "Flame" Johnson, a victim of the same horrific experiments that warped Gator. Now unleashed, she's a flame-haired weapon of unimaginable destructive powers, a walking time bomb bent on revenge in the sultry bayous of New Orleans, and hunted by a shadowy assassin. It's Gator's job to reel Iris in. But can two people haunted by violent betrayals trust the passion that soon ignites between them? Or is one of them just playing another seductive and deadly night game? |
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon | null | 1,971 | The main story centers around Mrs. Caroline Fish Carillon's search for her missing husband, Leon. They were married as children to solidify a business arrangement between their parents who had started a soup company. After several years apart, they plan to meet again as adults. During a sailing trip, Leon (who has changed his name to Noel), falls overboard. He shouts a message to his wife which is partially obscured by his going underwater: "Noel(glub) see (blub) all... I (glub) new..." When she recovers in the hospital and learns that her husband has checked out with no further news, Mrs. Carillon is convinced the answer to his whereabouts are contained in the mysterious message. She spends years trying to interpret the "glub-blubs", eventually enlisting her adopted twin children, Tony and Tina, and childhood friend, Augie Kunkel. When they finally figure out the truth, they are quite surprised. |
Modoc | Ralph Helfer | 1,998 | Modoc tells the story of Bram, a German boy, and his elephant, Modoc. Bram and Modoc are born on the same day and the same hour. Brams' father wished for a boy and girl. He felt his dream was fulfilled. Brams' father is a third generation elephant trainer and from an early age Bram followed in his father's footsteps. Brams' family is unique in the way they trained the elephants. Instead of threat and intimidation the elephants are treated with praise and respect. Once old enough Modoc begins to perform in the circus. The circus owner fell ill and the circus is sold to an American, Mr. North. Bram is unwilling to be parted from his elephant and acts as a stow away across the Indian Ocean. The ship is wrecked, leaving Modoc, Mr. Pitt, Bram and others adrift in the ocean. The survivors stay afloat on Modoc’s back until help comes for them at the last possible second. Modoc and Bram recuperate in India where Bram [learns much about elephant training and care at the Elephantarium as well as Indian life becoming a favorite 'son' of the maharaja]. Afraid the circus owner will find them, boy and elephant flee into the teak forests and [is able to] join the ranks of the mahouts and marry a village daughter because of his 'son of the maharaja' status. Rebels eventually take the town, killing Bram’s wife along with many of the population. The circus owner is unexplainably able to find them through the rebellion and transports Modoc and Bram to America where they become stars of the big top. Modoc survives a poisoning attempt, a fire and a hook-wielding drunk before the circus owner decides she is too scarred to appear in the ring any longer and sells her without Bram's knowledge. Ten years pass in which Modoc’s life deteriorates into abuse until she is purchased by Ralph Helfer, a Hollywood animal trainer. Helfer nurses her back to health and is surprised to find the variety of acts she already knows. Drawn by their supernatural connection, Bram locates her some years after. They spend the rest of their lives in constant contact [at Helfer's ranch], nursing one another through old age. Bram is first of the pair to die, saying he is going to show Modoc the way. |
Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry | B.S. Johnson | 1,973 | Christie Malry, being a "simple man", above all longs for sex and money. In order to understand how money works, he takes a job in a London bank. This leads him to enrol in a bookkeeping course, where he learns the double-entry system. Bored by his bank job, he quits and starts work at Tapper's, a sweet factory. One day, he has the idea to apply the double-entry system to his life. Every aggravation Malry suffers from society—such as being forced to walk along a particular stretch of pavement due to a building's placement—is revenged by a recompense—in this case, "[scratching] an unsightly line about a yard long into the blackened portland stone facing of the office block" (23–4). Having established this system, and growing progressively angry at society, Malry graduates from minor acts of personal revenge (mostly vandalism) to large-scale terrorism: bombing hoaxes, an actual bombing, and poisoning West London's drinking water. Shortly before he manages to bomb the House of Commons, he dies of cancer. Christie compares himself to "Guy Fawkes, with the difference that he was caught" and strictly follows a code of twelve principles. The first principle, "I am a cell of one" (89), forbids him from discussing his actions with anyone else, not even with his few friends or with the Shrike, his beloved girlfriend. |
Dying While Black | Vernellia Randall | null | The book begins with statistics of short life expectancy, high death rates, high infant mortality, low birth weight rates, and high disease rates as compared to European Americans. Randall states that they are a direct result of slavery and the lack of health care that was provided from the time of slavery to the Jim Crow laws, the Affirmation Action time, and to the Racial Entrenchment time of the present. She points out the racial barriers to the access of health care, nursing homes, hospitals, physicians, and other professionals. In addition, she acknowledges a lack of minority health professionals and thus a shortage of minority input into the health care system. She insists that the health care system rid itself of intentional and inadvertent racism. The managed care organizations entice providers and facilitators to engage in discrimination. This has also led to a mistrust of the health care system by blacks. Randall insists that this is not simply paranoia but is based on a history of experimentation, Sickle Cell Screening Initiative, planning/involuntary sterilization, and the excuses that the medical system gave to justify its discriminations. These abuses contribute to her accusation of the human rights violations by institutional racism in the health care system, the large inequality in health status, and the lack of legal protection. She concludes her book with the authenticity of her call for reparations from the American government. The slave health deficit will continue to negatively impact African Americans unless a well planned legal program is enacted. |
Loop | Koji Suzuki | null | The story revolves around a medical student named Kaoru Futami whose father has contracted a deadly disease called Metastatic Human Cancer(MHC), a cancer involving both animals and plants. Kaoru knew that his father was involved with a massive supercomputer project named LOOP. The LOOP was a computer simulation of the emergence of life but still unable to simulate such a thing. It is known that everyone who was involved in the LOOP has died of the same cancer. In the course of events, he meets a woman named Reiko and falls in love with her. Reiko becomes pregnant with Kaoru's child, which makes Reiko vulnerable to MHC. Kaoru continues his investigations which lead him to a man (and the last surviving person involved in the LOOP) named Amano. Amano revealed to him that LOOP was a project involving a hundred supercomputers strung together with the aim to recreate life. Amano tells Kaoru of a lab in New Mexico where another scientist might be alive. Kaoru venturs there only to find the scientist dead. He enters the lab and finds a pair of virtual reality goggles and gloves. He tries them and minutes later, he is in the LOOP. In the loop, he sees everything but one event intrigued him, the emergence of the Ring Virus. There in the LOOP, he sees complete details of the events in the previous novels from different angles. After some discussion with Amano, he knows that the LOOP's creator wanted to recreate Ryuji's death and by doing that, he could clone him and insert him into a woman's womb. But what they made was a cloned Ryuji with the Ring Virus in him. When Ryuji was born, the virus escaped and mutated. Desperate to find a cure for MHC, he ventures only to encounter a storm leaving him on the verge of death. Then, he was saved by an old man. After telling the old man the truth, it turned out that Kaoru was Ryuji's clone. Because of that, Kaoru has an exceptional gift, immunity to MHC. In order to know what made Kaoru immune, he had to be analyzed. An analysis machine was created. The bad side though is that the analyzed object must be molecularized, meaning that Kaoru could die. As a hero, he agreed. After that, the old man transferred Kaoru's analyzed molecules in the LOOP. He promised that his wife could see him through the VR Goggles and Reiko won't be alone. In the LOOP, Kaoru is sitting watching the stars, thinking that Reiko is watching over him. |
The Festival of San Joaquin | null | 1,997 | Upon her release from prison at the start of the novel, Luz Marina must figure out how to approach her mother-in-law to release her children. The novel takes place during the festival of the patron saint of the village and other villagers are themselves in turmoil. Edgell explores issues of women's rights. |
Time and the River | Zee Edgell | 2,007 | Main character Leah Lawson, 18, is a slave in mid to late 19th century Belize (the colony of British Honduras not having been formed until 1862). The story traces her rise in stature to slaveowner, continuing the tradition of female protagonists in Edgell works. |
Past Perfect | Yaakov Shabtai | 1,984 | The novel focuses on Meir, a 42 years old architect from Tel Aviv, who at the beginning of the novel is suddenly stricken with the fear of dying. The novel's plot surrounds the changes in his life following this realization of his mortality, including an affair with his doctor, the death of his mother, and a trip to Europe. The novel ends with a birth following Meir's death, which could be seen as Meir's reincarnation as a baby, or else as a return to his own birth, following Nietzsche's concept of the eternal return. |
Leviathan | Scott Westerfeld | 2,009 | It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet. Aleksandar Ferdinand, prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battle-torn Stormwalker and a loyal crew of men. Deryn Sharp is a commoner, a girl disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered. With the Great War brewing, Alek's and Deryn's paths cross when the airship carrying Deryn is forced to crash-land onto a glacier near Alek's mountain hideout. German perusal forces them to make hasty repairs and takes them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure. Meanwhile, a young girl, Deryn Sharp, is staying with her brother Jaspert in London. Her father died in a ballooning accident and her mother and aunts want her to grow up as a proper lady. Deryn dreams of joining the British Air Service and to serve on one of the great airbeasts. In order to do so, she must pretend to be a boy ("Dylan Sharp"). To pass the starting exam, she goes aloft with a Huxley (a combination of jellyfish and hot-air-balloon) to prove her air-worthiness. However, a storm hits while she is aloft, severely tossing Deryn and the Huxley about, and they narrowly survive--she is forced to cut the Huxley loose from its mooring in order to avoid crashing into a nearby building. This results in Deryn and the Huxly being blown out over the North Sea; she is thrilled when she and the Huxley are rescued by the Leviathan, the most famous of the air-beasts, a massive ecosystem comprising many different animals but based largely on a whale. She is inducted into the crew of the Leviathan, and makes friends with the Monkey Luddite Newkirk. The Leviathan's mission is to transport a top British scientist (“boffin”) and a secret package to Constantinople. Deryn is surprised to learn the boffin is a woman, Dr. Nora Barlow, and is afraid Barlow will discover her secret. In the air over Europe, the Leviathan comes under attack from German airplanes. The crew fights back and manages to defeat the planes, but not before the great whale’s hydrogen bladder is severely punctured. The airship crash-lands in Switzerland on the very glacier where Alek’s group is hiding. Alek and Volger witness the crash, but Volger insists they do nothing to interfere, as they will risk giving away their position to the Germans or being captured by the British. Alek is unable to stomach letting the crew of the Leviathan suffer out on the ice, and secretly leaves the fortress to bring medicine to the crew of the fallen ship. The first person he finds is an unconscious Deryn, who had fallen from the rigging during the crash. Alek revives her and claims unconvincingly to be a Swiss villager. Deryn is suspicious of him and sounds the alarm, resulting in Alek’s capture. Alek continues to insist he is just a bystander trying help, but the captain refuses to release him and instead leaves him under Deryn’s charge. The secret cargo brought by Dr. Barlow is revealed to be eggs of some kind, though most were destroyed in the crash. Alek's "family" comes to his rescue, and battle would have erupted between the two if Deryn's quick thinking in bringing Alek to the front and holding him as a hostage hadn't brought everyone to the table to talk under a flag of truce. Realizing their differences are outweighed by their similarities, Alek offers a sizable chunk from their food storage so the ship can replenish its hydrogen supply and take off again. However, as they travel back to the Leviathan, two German zeppelins appear and send out commandos to capture them. Unfortunately, one of the zeppelins escapes, and the Stormwalker is severely damaged by an aerial bomb, making it impossible to stand up and repair. Thanks to the diplomacy of Dr. Barlow and a bright idea from Alek, the two groups decide to combine their technologies and leave together as one group. Alek also admits his true origins to Deryn/Dylan and Dr. Barlow when he realizes he let a few too many things slip. The Austrians dismantle the Stormwalker and use its engines to replace those lost by the Leviathan. The Austrian engines prove to be much more powerful than its previous ones, propelling them quickly away from danger and the deadly Herkules (Clanker Ship). In the aftermath, Dr. Barlow reveals information about a fabricated ship in England that was sold to the Ottoman Empire but then taken back (even though it was paid in full) by Winston Churchill, thus creating rivalry among the British and the Ottomans. The novel closes with the Leviathan continuing its flight towards Constantinople with Alek watching the mysterious eggs that will hatch into some unknown fabricated species. |
Le Docteur Pascal | Émile Zola | 1,893 | Pascal, a physician in Plassans for 30 years, has spent his life cataloging and chronicling the lives of his family based on his theories of heredity. Pascal believes that everyone's physical and mental health and development can be classified based on the interplay between innateness (reproduction of characteristics based in difference) and heredity (reproduction based in similarity). Using his own family as a case study, Pascal classifies the 30 descendants of his grandmother Adelaïde Fouque (Tante Dide) based on this model. Pascal has developed a serum he hopes will cure hereditary and nervous diseases (including consumption) and improve if not prolong life. His niece Clotilde sees Pascal's work as denying the omnipotence of God and as a prideful attempt to comprehend the unknowable. She encourages him to destroy his work, but he refuses. (Like other members of the family, Pascal is somewhat obsessive in the pursuit of his passion.) Pascal's explains his goal as a scientist as laying the groundwork for happiness and peace by seeking and uncovering the truth, which he believes lies in the science of heredity. After he shows her the Rougon-Macquart family tree and demonstrates his refusal to sugarcoat the family's acts, Clotilde begins to agree with him. Her love for him solidifies her faith in his theories and his lifelong work. Clotilde and Pascal eventually begin a romance, much to the chagrin of his mother Félicité. (She is less concerned about the incestuous nature of the relationship than by the fact that the two are living together out of wedlock.) Félicité wants to keep the family secrets buried at any cost, including several family skeletons living nearby: her alcoholic brother-in-law Antoine Macquart and her centenarian mother-in-law Tante Dide. When Clotilde's brother Maxime asks Clotilde to come to Paris, Félicité sees this as an opportunity to control Pascal and access his papers in order to destroy them. Pascal suffers a series of heart attacks, and Clotilde is not able to return from Paris before he dies. Félicité immediately burns all of Pascal's scholarly work and the documents she considers incriminating. The novel, and the entire 20-novel series, concludes with the birth of Pascal and Clotilde's son and the hope placed on him for the future of the family. |
Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America | Jonathan Raban | null | In Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Raban sets off from the Port of Liverpool on board the 56,000 ton container ship Atlantic Conveyor, following in the footsteps of the first emigrants to America ("Having arrived in Liverpool, I took ship for the New World.") His meandering journey takes him to New York City, whose inhabitants he divides into the Street People - poor New Yorkers who have to face the daily threat of poverty and mugging - and the Air People - rich New Yorkers who rely on elevators to keep them off street level. He leaves New York in distaste and proceeds in his hired car down to the Deep South, choosing to lie up for a time as a temporary resident of Guntersville, Alabama, a town which he immediately takes a liking to on one of his stopovers. He decides to devote some time to meeting the residents and absorbing the local lifestyle in his rented lakeside cabin in the company of Gypsy, an old black lab bitch on loan to scare off the anonymous caller who keeps on making threatening calls in the middle of the night. He then makes his way up to Seattle and rents a room in the Josephinum Residence. From here, he makes forays into the city and comes across some of the Korean immigrants who have struggled to carve out a new life for themselves in America. The books ends with Raban's search for the end of America in the Florida Keys, "the Land of Cockaigne". To fully explore and familiarise himself with the character of the Keys, he hires Sea Mist, a 32-foot sloop: |
Love and War in the Apennines | Eric Newby | 1,983 | Newby takes part in a Special Boat Service operation on the east coast of Sicily. He and his colleagues fail to make their rendezvous with a British submarine and are picked up by a fishing boat. Newby is imprisoned in an orphanage at Fontanellato in the Po valley. With the Armistizio, the Italians let the English prisoners escape. Because Newby has a broken ankle he is abandoned and is hidden in a farmer's hay loft until an Italian doctor takes him to the hospital. Here he is visited by Wanda, the daughter of a Slovene teacher, who gives him Italian lessons in exchange for English lessons and they fall in love. The Germans discover he is there but Newby escapes and hides, moving from one house to another. Newby is nearly captured and moves into the mountains to stay with a shepherd; villagers build him a camouflaged cave. Further exciting adventures follow, and a meeting with Wanda. |
The Heaven Shop | Deborah Ellis | 2,004 | The plot of "The Heaven Shop" centers around 13 year old Binti, a girl from Malawi with above-average socio-economic status for the country.Binti's mother had died from AIDS about 6 years ago. Binti's father owns a coffin shop called The Heaven Shop, hence the title of the book. Binti is a star on a radio show called "Gogo's Family" and helps support the family with the money she earns through her work on the show. Binti's father, Bambo, is infected with AIDS and contracts pneumonia due to his suppressed auto-immune system. After Bambo dies, Binti and her siblings are placed in the care of her less wealthy relatives, who take all of their belongings and force them to move to their homes. The rest of the novel focuses on the hardships the siblings have to go through, and the effect one AIDS-related death can have on a family. In the end, their Gogo died. The family of children will have to survive together, but it's a new start for all of them. |
Operation Typhoon Shore | null | null | It continues the journey of Becca and Doug MacKenzie. In this second adventure, Becca and her brother, Doug, have escaped Wenzi Island and Sheng-Fat, but find themselves right back in the action. Their ship is struck by a powerful typhoon and is driven ashore on Sulphur Island. There the two teens, Doug and Becca; their uncle, Captain MacKenzie; his brave crew and the Sujing Quantou warriors find themselves once again facing their nemesis, Julius Pembleton-Crozier, his hired army of Kalaxx warriors, and several other people such as his wife Lucrieta, Alfonso Borelli, a Treasurer of the HGS who has betrayed the HGS and joined Julius Pembleton-Crozier in the resurrected Coterie Of St. Petersburg. Alfonso Borelli also gives Julius the Eastern gyrolabe, which he took from the HGS after he betrayed it. It takes all of their ingenuity, bravery, and wit to figure out his intent and why the islands are so very important to these enemies of the Honourable Guild of Specialists (HGS). The captain's Northern gyrolabe is stolen by the Kalaxx and Becca and Doug discover clues that lead to the finding of the Southern chapter of The 99 Elements and the Southern gyrolabe. Xu and Xi manage to save the southern part of The 99 Elements but the southern gyrolabe is taken by Julius Pembleton-Crozier. Also the Expedient, the captain's ship, is broken beyond repair and has to be scuttled. They also say goodbye to Liberty Da Vine who, failing to regain her plane Lola, is given the plane that was aboard the Expedient, called the Fighting Dragon, and flies off to find her father. The captain plans to send Doug and Becca back to school, but they decide to take a ship to the harsh desert of Sianking to search for their parents. This book rolls along with plenty of action and fun and includes sketches, photographs, newspaper clippings, and foldout information on technology. |
The Maid of Honour | John Philip Kemble | null | The play is set in Palermo and Siena in Italy. The court of King Roberto of Sicily receives an ambassador from Roberto's ally Ferdinand, the duke of Urbino. Frederick has launched a military assault on the duchy of Siena, because the duchess, Aurelia, has refused his proposal of marriage. Frederick and his forces have taken Siena, but now face a vigorous counterattack, led by the general Gonzaga, a member of the Knights of Malta. Ferdinand has sent an appeal to his ally Roberto for help. Roberto, however, responds that the alliance between Sicily and Urbino is purely defensive in nature—the two have promised to come to each other's aid if attacked. The alliance does not cover aggressive warfare; and on that basis Roberto refuses to send any troops. The King's sensible decision is protested by his "natural" (illegitimate) half-brother Bertoldo, another Knight of Malta. Bertoldo is a fiery character who has his own following among the kingdom's younger nobility and gentry, and he criticizes his brother's caution and passivity. Roberto allows Bertoldo to lead a contingent of volunteers to Ferdinand's assistance—as long as it is understood by all concerned that their mission is unofficial and will receive no direct support from the Sicilian monarch. This is Roberto's way of ridding his kingdom of troublesome malcontents, especially Bertoldo. The play's second scene introduces Camiola, the title character. Her "beauty, youth, and fortune" make her the target of several suitors, including: Signior Sylli, a ridiculously vain "self-lover;" Fulgentio, the corrupt and egomaniacal favorite of the king; Adorni, a retainer of Camiola's late father; and Bertoldo himself. Bertoldo is the man Camiola loves; but her high principles lead her to reject his suit. (They could only marry if Bertoldo obtained a dispensation from his vows as a member of a knightly monastic order—a course of action Camiola cannot approve.) After a touching farewell, Bertoldo leads his followers off to war. The situation in Siena has gone badly for Ferdinand. Gonzaga's army is starving out the forces of Urbino, and can take the city at any time. His captains are eager for plunder, but the capable Gonzaga delays the final assault, since he expects a counter-attack. His expectation is fulfilled when Bertoldo and his forces arrive; but Gonzaga's troops have no trouble in defeating the new arrivals. (Many of Bertoldo's followers are effete courtiers inexperienced in combat—their antics provide some of the play's comedy.) The courtiers are ransomed from prison for two thousand crowns apiece; but Gonzaga is incensed that a member of his order has led the opposition, and sets Bertoldo's ransom at fifty thousand crowns. Roberto not only refuses to pay the ransom, but forbids any of his subjects to pay it either. At home in Palermo, Camiola is oppressed by the arrogant attentions of Fulgentio. She refuses him, and when he slanders her in revenge, she protests to the King, leading to the favorite's disgrace. Bertoldo languishes in chains in a dungeon—but he is redeemed when Camiola pays his ransom. Roberto has decreed that no man among his subjects pay for Bertoldo's freedom; but Camiola is not a man. Bertoldo's difficulties have worked a change on Camiola's resolution. Her ransom comes with a price: Bertoldo signs a marriage contract to attain his freedom. The ransom becomes moot, however, once Aurelia, the duchess of Siena, catches sight of Bertoldo. She falls in love with him instantly, and orders the ransom returned, much to Gonzaga's displeasure. The pair travel to Palermo, where the story comes to its climax. Camiola challenges the intended marriage of Bertoldo and Aurelia. But then she surprises everyone by rejecting Bertoldo and entering a nunnery; she distributes her fortune to worthy causes and asks Roberto to forgive Fulgentio and restore him to his place. The play's overt comedy comes from several directions—Signior Sylli most notably, but also Fulgentio, the effete courtiers Antonio and Gasparo, and the soldiers of Gonzaga's army. ---- The Maid of Honour, based on one of the tales of Boccaccio, has been called "an improbable and escapist drama" comparable to Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and No King and other plays of its period. Other critics, though, have seen in the play the "un-Fletcherian moral earnestness" typical of Massinger. It has been argued that a passage in The Maid of Honour served as a source for "The Definition of Love," one of Andrew Marvell's most famous poems. |
My Idea of Fun | Will Self | 1,994 | A lonely boy grows up just outside Brighton in a caravan park with his over-sexual mother and the tenant Mr Broadhurst who takes the boy on a disturbing and often violent journey. The novel works as a strange Bildungsroman, in which the main character - Ian Wharton learns the art of black magic from his benafactor Mr. Broadhurst who is also known as The Fat Controller. At The Fat Controller's behest Ian engages in a series of strange acts including time travel and trips to an alternate reality - the Land of Children's jokes: a grotesque alternate universe inhabited by the menacing and deformed characters from jokes. The protagonist's education culminates in bizarre rites of bestiality and necrophilia. However he finds that in exchange for knowledge of the black arts Mr. Broadhurst begins to take over more and more aspects of the protagonist's life. The novel could also be seen as an example of an unreliable narrator as it is unclear whether the strange events in the novel are meant to be real or hallucinatory. |
Rise the Euphrates | Carol Edgarian | 1,994 | Rise the Euphrates begins with Casard’s story. At the time of the genocide, Casard is ten and still goes by her original Armenian name Garod. In Armenian, “Garod” means yearning which is what Casard does the rest of her life: yearn for an Armenia which no longer exists. Casard’s mother’s name is Seta, the same name given to Casard’s granddaughter. The Turks invaded Garod’s town of Harput, murdering the men and raping many women and girls. Among those to escape rape and death, Garod and her mother Seta are driven out of town into the desert. After walking for two weeks without water or food, the caravan reaches the Euphrates River. The river lies in front of the caravan, and a band of murdering Turks emerges from behind, forcing a choice; death by drowning or death by Turkish sword. Seta takes Garod’s hand and prepares to jump into the Euphrates. At the last second, Garod remains on the bank and watches her mother drown. Turning around, Garod sees the band of Turks departing. Garod then wanders in the desert for several days, forgetting her name in the process. Later, under the care of nuns, Garod is given the name Cafard, which is a French word meaning melancholy of the soul. She eventually emigrates to the United States. At Ellis Island, immigration officials hear her name as Casard. While at Ellis Island, Casard meets, and after an afternoon of courtship, marries her husband Vrej; another exiled Armenian. Casard and Vrej had one daughter, Araxie. Araxie grows up and marries an odar, a non Armenian husband, named George Loon. George and Araxie have three children, Van, Seta, and Melanie. When Seta is born, Casard takes Seta into her arms and whispers her story of the genocide. Casard then tells Seta that her task is to recover Casard’s forgotten name. Araxie was also given the task to find Casard’s name. However, one generation removed from the genocide has left Araxie near Casard’s pain to achieve the type of reconciliation Seta is capable of. Seta’s younger years are marked with the tensions occurring between her mother and grandmother. Casard dies unexpectedly when Seta is twelve from a fatal car crash. Similar to the Armenian genocide, the Loon family life after Casard’s death is never the same once Casard is gone. The remainder of the book highlights Seta’s growing up years. However, with Casard’s passing, Seta’s life becomes more American and less Armenian-American. Araxie finds herself without a final opportunity to reconcile with her mother and becomes depressed. Later she divorces George Loon. Without Casard, the family structure and its place in the Armenian- American community disintegrates. Despite this, Seta remembers Casard’s hidden story and the desire that her lost name be recovered. This recovery is achieved through another Armenian-American girl, Theresa Van. Several years later, Seta betrays Theresa with a lie in order to secure her own popularity. After this betrayal, the girls do not interact for several years. Shortly after Seta and Theresa turn 15, Theresa’s mother dies. A few weeks after her mother’s death, Theresa is abducted and severely beaten by a well known member of the town. While Theresa is recuperating, Seta brings offerings of sorts to Theresa’s house. Her interaction with Theresa and the offerings she brings draw Seta back into the Armenian community. At the end of the book, Seta and Theresa play the duduk together. That night after playing the duduk with Theresa, and wholly embracing her Armenian heritage, Seta dreams of the women who were at the Euphrates River the day Casard forgot her name. The women tell the story of what Casard was only able to verbalize as “the indignities”. When she wakes up from her dream, Seta has recovered Casard’s name, Garod, which she then relays to Araxie. |
Coasting | Jonathan Raban | null | Written as a travelogue, Coasting describes Jonathan Raban's single-handed 4,000 mile voyage around Britain which he made in 1982 (at the age of 40) in an old restored 32-foot sea-going ketch, the Gosfield Maid. An important point is that Raban sailed with a chart and a hand-bearing compass; he sailed by the look of the coastline. His story takes various digressions, just as his journey does, as he mulls over his childhood as the son of a vicar in the Church of England, and the current state of Britain under Margaret Thatcher during the time of the Falklands War. Chapter Two is a description of the dogged insularity of the Manx, who he compares to the Falkland Islanders, whilst the Isle of Man becomes a metaphor for the insularity of the larger island on which he himself had been brought up and lived up till this point. Raban himself has commented on his own attitude to England and the influence of Margaret Thatcher on Britain at the time of writing his book. The British he sees as being famous for their insular arrogance and condescension. As he describes them: 'They love fine social distinctions and divisions and are snobbishly wedded to an antique system of caste and class ... They are aggressively practical and philistine, with a loud contempt for anything that smells abstract or theoretical. They are a nation of moneygrubbers and bargain-hunters, treasuring peenies for treasuring's sake...When it comes to sex, they are furtive and hypocritical - and their erotic tastes are known to be extremely peculiar. Many Englishmen will pay a woman to take their trousers down and spank them...For the most part, though, the English, both men and women, are afflicted by such a morbid decay of thei libido that it has always puzzled the rest of the world how the English manage to reproduce themselves at all.' The author is equally bitter about the dominant, hectoring Mrs Thatcher. Whilst comfortably moored up in the Gosfield Maid on a beautiful stretch of the River Yealm, he tunes in to the House of Commons debate on the Falkland's invasion. The Prime Minister talks about sovereign territory being invaded by a foreign power, but to Raban '...her cross, nanny's voice made it sound as if there had been ructions in the nursery and the children were going to be sent to bed without any tea.' Equally absurd are the majority of MPs who are baying for Argentian blood. Raban turns his radio off in disgust, '...sick of the sound of growning men baying like a wolf pack. It wasn't a debate, it was a verbal bloodletting, with words standing for the guns and bayonets that would come later when the fleet reached the islands.' and adds, 'Listening to it, I felt that I'd been eavesdropping on the nastier workings of the national subconscious; I'd overheard Britain talking in a dream, and what is was saying scared me stiff.' And it is his negative feelings towards an increasingly alien Britain under the dominance of Thatcher that finally persuade him to make the decision to leave his homeland, although the paradox is that they share a ike-minded attitude towards its rigid social hierarchy: The book is remarkable for its penetrating and highly perceptive insights into the character and state of the British nation at the time of writing. One also has to greatly admire him for taking on the challenge of a single-handed voyage around the British Isles, a feat that requires great personal courage on the part of the sailor. For most of the book, Raban, rather like Joyce, is able to form an objectively detached view of his country whilst out at sea on board his boat. However, rather than taking the battering ram approach of his eccentric predecessors (men like Middleton, McMullen, and Hilaire Belloc), he uses beautifully crafted language to describe the life of a single-handed sailor in great awe of the sea, with detailed almost lyrical descriptions of the characters he encounters along the way. Two passages that particularly stand out are of Raban's rather hostile meeting with Paul Theroux at Brighton Marina, himself in the midst of researching a similar book about Britain, and a much friendlier one with Philip Larkin at Hull, a city Raban knows well from his student days while working as a part-time minicab driver. |
The Afghan Campaign | Steven Pressfield | null | Young Matthias from Macedonia follows his two older brothers’ example and enrolls in Alexander’s cavalry together with his close friend Lygaios/Lucas (Λυγαίος in Greek). This special convoy departs from Tripoli, Lebanon and after 125 days of marching meets the rear of Alexander's army. The hero takes part into his first battle and gets shocked by the atrocities of his adversaries and his own people as well. Noteworthy is the fact that the enemy, apart from its guerilla methods, recruits women and children to fight for their freedom. While marching, Matthias meets Shinar, an Afghan woman who, having abandoned her own people, offers her services as carrier of the Greek army’s supplies. Nanguali is the barbarian warrior’s code; its three elements are: honour, revenge and hospitality. Their women’s honour, if blackened, could be redeemed (turn back into white) only by death. Matthias stands up to Baz, Shinar’s brother, but fails to reach a compromise and is deceived by Baz, who in the end kills his sister and her baby. At the end of the story, Matthias is left with nothing – he has lost his family, friends, health and hope. Instead of returning home (his wife and son having been killed) as initially planned and having nothing to lose, he decides to follow the Greek army in its way to India. The absurdity of the war is revealed in all its grandeur. |
Five Are Together Again | Enid Blyton | 1,963 | The children are supposed to be staying at Kirrin Cottage but as soon as George's mother and father's maid Joanna catches scarlet fever, the Five are sent to live with an old friend, called Tinker, and his famous scientist father. When Tinker's (who appeared in 'Five Go To Demon's Rocks' (1961)) father's top secret papers go missing, it is left up to the children to find the thief, whoever he is. There are some circus folk camping in Tinker's field. |
No Telephone to Heaven | Michelle Cliff | 1,987 | The novel begins with a small group of guerilla soldiers, a much older Clare Savage among them, traveling through Jamaica’s remote cockpit country. The soldiers have set up on piece of land once owned by Clare’s grandmother Miss Mattie, where they train and grow food as well as ganja. The second chapter tells the story of Paul H. who is initially at a party with Harry/Harriet—a transsexual half-brother/half-sister to one of Paul’s friends. Paul returns home after a late night to find a horrific scene: his family and all of their servants have been murdered with a machete. He stumbles upon Christopher, another servant employed by Paul’s parents, and enlists his help in dealing with the bodies and the burials. But we learn in flashback that Christopher, an orphan whose family including his grandfather has worked for Paul’s parents for a long time, committed the murders when he went to ask a favor from the Paul’s father—to help Christopher find where his grandmother is buried so that he can help her spirit rest—that was denied. In fact, Christopher has been waiting for Paul and kills him before Paul figures out what has happened. The story then shifts time periods to 1960 when Boy Savage, Clare’s father, is taking immigrating with his family to the United States. Kitty Savage, Clare’s mother, is not happy about moving away from all she has ever known but she resolves herself to a quiet depression upon departure from Jamaica and arrival in Miami. Boy purchases a used car and the family travels north towards New York City. While traveling through Georgia Boy attempts to get a room in a segregated motel, the innkeeper suspects that he is black but Boy is able to convince the innkeeper that he is white by telling him that his ancestors owned plantations. When the family arrives in New York they go to stay with Winston and Grace, relatives from Kitty’s mother’s side of the family. Boy eventually takes a job driving a laundry truck and Kitty goes to work in the office of his employer. Fed up with the constant racism she encounters, Kitty decides to slip messages into the linens before they are delivered—messages such as “Marcus Garvey was right” and “America is cruel. Consider kindness for a change” aimed at the white customers. Kitty then takes Clare’s younger sister Jennie and returns to Jamaica. After her mother and sister leave, Clare becomes increasingly lonely since she has not yet started school and is not allowed to leave the house by herself. She stays home and watches movies and remembers the first American she met—a white teacher at her catholic school in Jamaica that taught about the American Civil War, took the girls to see the “documentary” Gone With the Wind, and extolled the benefits of racial hierarchies. When Clare begins school she is told that, despite her intelligence, she will be held back for one year because children from Third World countries develop differently than American children. Boy tries to convince the school that Clare is white, but the school does not believe him and nor do they have a category for “bi-racial” students—a student is either black or white. We learn that after five years Kitty is still living with Clare’s younger sister in Jamaica. Clare, who is now a sophomore in college, comes home one evening to find her father crying. He tells her that her mother has died and later that her sister Jennie will be coming to live with them. After Jennie moves in Clare borrows some money from her uncle Fredrick and leaves home for England. Upon arriving in London Clare finds a room to rent and spends some time visiting various museums, browsing bookshops and generally getting to know England. She eventually becomes a legal resident of England and enrolls at the University of London to study art history. After some time at the university Clare decides to take her uncle up on his invitation to come back to Jamaica where she attends the same party as Paul H., before he was killed by Christopher, and meets Harry/Harriet. Clare and Harry/Harriet become good friends while Clare is in Kingston, Jamaica, spending time together first in a Spanish Galleon-themed bar and then on a beach discussing the history and current social conditions of Jamaica. The two keep in touch, via letters, after Clare returns to England. Upon her return, Clare witnesses a National Front march and is deeply disturbed by the aggression and racism on display on her college campus. She tries to explain why she is so disturbed to her friend Liz, but gets nowhere and ends up feeling isolated and alone. In the next chapter Clare meets up with Bobby, a Vietnam War veteran who has a wound on his ankle that, despite Clare’s best efforts, will not heal. The two of them leave London together and travel around Europe. While traveling she receives a letter from Harry/Harriet telling her that her aunt and uncle in Kingston are moving to Miami and leaving her grandmother’s old place in the country to her alone. Clare continues to travel around Europe with Bobby, who is still struggling mentally and physically with the after-effects of the war until one day he disappears without warning. Clare waits for Bobby but eventually decides it is time for her to return to Jamaica. Clare becomes increasingly ill upon her return and discovers that she has an infection in her womb that will most likely leave her sterile. After she recovers, Harry/Harriet suggests that the two of them travel to Clare’s grandmother’s farm. Once there, Clare finds the river where she used to bathe and with Harry/Harriet takes a bath there for the first time in twenty years. In chapter nine we learn that Christopher was never arrested for his crime, and so has been left to wander the back alleys of Kingston’s ghettos. He becomes known throughout the city as the watchman of Kingston—a sort of mad prophet or mendicant, and becomes the subject of a reggae song. On the night of a terrible fire where many old women are burned alive, alluded to earlier in the book by a letter from Harry/Harriet, Christopher shows up at the scene shouting prophecies at the top of his lungs. After visiting the countryside Clare learns of the difficult economic conditions in Jamaica. Then, Harry/Harriet takes her to a small tenement room in Kingston so that she can join a clandestine revolutionary group. She is interrogated as to her motives and convinces them that she is genuine in her desire to make revolution on behalf of the poor and oppressed in Jamaica. In her answers Clare connects the experiences of her life and travels to the oppressed condition of Jamaica—a former colony, part of the Third World. Finally, Clare recalls that in one of her final letters before her death her mother told her to help her people in whatever way that she could, this in the end becomes the ultimate justification for her desire to join the revolutionaries. In the final chapter of the book a film crew has come to make Jamaica to make a movie about the Maroons, and they have hired Christopher, “de Watchman”, to play a small role. Clare and the revolutionaries decide to attack the crew but when they begin their assault it is apparent that someone has sold them out, and tragedy ensues. |
Loving Che | null | null | Loving Che centers on the lives of an unnamed female protagonist who is searching for her mother, and Teresa de la Landre, who claims to be her mother. Broken into three distinct parts, the novel begins with the female protagonist, moves into a commentary by Teresa de la Landre, and closes with the female protagonist. Not long after Fidel Castro’s successful Cuban Revolution in 1959, the protagonist’s grandfather takes his infant granddaughter to America, at the request of his daughter (the protagonist’s mother). Growing up in Miami, the protagonist knows little about her parentage or about Cuba. After years of silence and numerous unanswered questions, the protagonist confronts her grandfather about her heritage, particularly pressing him for details about her mother. Talking about his daughter (the protagonist’s mother) for the first time, he reveals she wanted her daughter out of Cuba and promised she would reunite with them six months later. Although the grandfather claims he did not want to separate his daughter from her only child, he obliged. The grandfather recalls that it was only after he had safely arrived in Miami with his granddaughter that he found his daughter’s farewell note pinned to his granddaughter’s sweater. Unable to return to his homeland because of the political unrest between America and Cuba, the grandfather revealed he tried to contact his daughter, but all his attempts failed. Although the protagonist now has some idea about her heritage, she still feels somewhat lost, drops out of the university, and starts traveling the world. While traveling the world, the protagonist learns of her grandfather’s death and returns to America. Realizing the passing of time is reducing her chances of locating her mother, the protagonist travels to Cuba with her mother’s farewell note. Unable to locate her mother, the protagonist returns to Miami, starts a career as a travel writer and tries to forget her past. When a mysterious package arrives from Spain, the protagonist’s interest in her heritage resurges. The package, filled with photographs and letters, is from a woman named Teresa de la Landre, who claims to be her mother. The contents of the package are the subject of the second section of Loving Che in which the protagonist sifts through the contents seeking to uncover details of her heritage. Somewhat skeptical of the letters at first, the protagonist reads about Teresa’s life, her career as a painter, and her marriage to Calixto de la Landre. Within her letters, Teresa also states she had an affair with the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and claims the protagonist is the result of their affair. The possible connection between the protagonist and Guevara is important to the novel because of his mythical status throughout the world, especially Cuban culture. Guevara played a significant part in helping Castro seize control of Cuba, and his desire to help the poor and oppressed throughout the world work together to overthrow imperialist governments in order to live free of capitalistic ideals, further built his legendary status. Realizing that being an illegitimate daughter of such an idealized person could have wide-ranging implications for the protagonist prompts her to uncover more details about her past. In the third section of the book the protagonist seeks authentication of Teresa’s story, particularly Teresa’s claim that she had an affair with Guevara and the likelihood that she is the product of their affair. The protagonist contacts Dr. Caraballo, a professor of history, and Jacinto Alcazar, a photographer who knew Fidel Castro and Che Guevara briefly. With neither believing the likelihood of Guevara and Teresa’s affair, the protagonist travels to Cuba once again. This time, however, the protagonist seeks to verify Teresa’s story along with trying to locate her mother. During this later trip to Cuba, the protagonist gains a better understanding of herself by connecting with her country of birth. Although she does not find her mother – a Cuban local claims that her mother is dead – nor does she find out if Teresa and Guevara were her parents, the protagonist no longer appears to feel displaced from her heritage. Previously, when she had visited Cuba the protagonist felt detached, like a tourist. On this latest trip, however, she sees the city with fresh, more favorable eyes and refers to herself as Cuban. Having this connection with all things Cuban, the protagonist also sees Guevara in a new light. Having little knowledge of Guevara prior to receiving Teresa’s letters, the protagonist reads many books about him and now feels like he is less foreign to her. Seeing a picture of Guevara in a Manhattan store, the protagonist reflects on what might have been: “a beautiful stranger, who in a different dream, might have been the father of my heart” (226). |
Havana Heat | null | null | In 1911, Taylor, a former big-league pitcher, has been sent down to the minor leagues at age 37 due to problems with his pitching arm. He longs for a second chance and approaches his former manager, John McGraw, about re-joining the New York Giants. Short of players, McGraw eventually agrees to take him on a post-season exhibition trip to play baseball in Cuba, where the political atmosphere is tense in the aftermath of the Spanish American War. During the games in Cuba, Taylor is introduced to a promising Cuban prospect who is also deaf also. Taylor encounters moral dilemmas as he balances his desire to return to the big leagues against difficult issues involving racism, discrimination, disability, fading dreams, and the sports philosophy of winning at any cost. |
Guess How Much I Love You | null | 1,994 | This is the story of two Nutbrown Hares, Big Nutbrown Hare and Little Nutbrown Hare. The two are never stated to be father and son in the original storybooks, though are referred to as such in the narration for the animated television series. Little Nutbrown Hare asks Big Nutbrown Hare the titular question, "Guess how much I love you?", and the book continues as the two use larger and larger measures to quantify how much they love each other in answer to the question. The story is simple, but effectively shows the love the two share for each other. |
More Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School | Louis Sachar | 1,994 | The first 18 problems in More Sideways Arithmetic, encompassing the first six chapters, contain verbal arithmetic problems involving only addition. Among the plot developments driving the first 6 chapters include: * Allison inviting all of the girls in Mrs. Jewls' class to her birthday party, but only two boys (Jason and Stephen), believing that the presence of more than two boys would cause all of them to act silly. While the boys complain about Allison's claim, Mrs. Jewls uses a cryptarithm to show that this is the case, but also uses another cryptarithm to show that the presence of more than two girls would cause all of them to act silly, which causes the girls to complain similarly. * Mrs. Jewls teaches the class about arcs and bras. Dana and Rondi both complain, believing that teachers should not talk about bras because it is crass. * Sue, the new student introduced in Sideways Arithmetic, acquires a new pet dog named Fangs. Although mean-sounding, Sue asserts that Fangs is a good dog, to which Mrs. Jewls agrees using a cryptarithm. * Myron, Dameon, DJ, and Joy complain about the hot weather, to which Mrs. Jewls concurs using another cryptarithm. * Miss Worm, the teacher of the 29th-floor class, complains to Mrs. Jewls about the loud noises that were frequently disturbing her class. As Mrs. Jewls asserts to her colleague that the class gets excited when they are taught arithmetic, Miss Worm becomes confused by Mrs. Jewls' teaching style (that is, using cryptarithms instead of ordinary arithmetic), attempting to teach "one plus one" to no success (as Miss Worm asserted the solution to the arithmetic equation is 2 while the class asserted that the solution to the cryptarithm is "zero"). Miss Worm's attempts to correct the unusual behaviour of the students (namely, Sharie's habit of sleeping in class) also fails. In the end, Miss Worm leaves without her concerns being addressed, while Mrs. Jewls, clueless to Miss Worm's concerns, compliments on her ability to inadvertently solve cryptarithms in her head. The nineteenth problem, taking up the seventh chapter, is a reference to the nonexistent nineteenth floor of Wayside. In the narrative leading up to the problem, Mrs. Jewls proposes a pop quiz to be held at some point during the following week, and that the 19th problem to the book would be the hardest problem from that quiz. Although the students complain, Todd realizes that if the pop quiz had not been held by the end of the following Thursday, then the students would expect the quiz the very next day. Convinced by this counterfactual conditional statement and treating it as a material conditional statement (i.e. without taking into account that the premise in Todd's argument may be false), Mrs. Jewls' declares that the quiz would not be held on the following Friday. Bebe and Maurecia then, using the same (faulty) logic, conclude that the pop quiz could not have been held on the following Thursday or the following Wednesday (again, without considering that the premises of their arguments may be false). Mrs. Jewls' convinced by the faulty arguments, declares that the pop quiz could be held on one of the two remaining days, to which Benjamin, Leslie, and Stephen conclude that it could not have been held on the following Tuesday, causing Mrs. Jewls' to cancel the pop quiz (as the students are now aware when the pop quiz will occur). Hence, there is no 19th problem. The next 10 problems, taking up the next three chapters, are cryptarithms involving multiplication as well as addition. Unlike the first part of the novel, very little backstory is provided beyond a throwaway line by Benjamin involving him moving again (but still attending Wayside) and cryptarithms introduced during a lesson on foreign languages. The eleventh chapter of the book contains eight logical problems, all revolving Mrs. Jewls' marking students' report cards. To avoid the debacle from marking student report cards by hand, Mrs. Jewls' had purchased a home computer, which would keep track of her students' records for her and print out 29 report cards (Sammy the dead rat from Sideways Stories From Wayside School being the 30th student) at the press of a button. However, while using the computer, her cat Monkey Face had pounced on and chased after the computer mouse, scrambling her data and rendering her data unrecoverable (partially due to her cat also having pounced on the keyboard, but mainly due to Mrs. Jewls not knowing the password to an undocumented software feature that would automatically recover her data). Resigned to marking whatever papers she can find by hand, Mrs. Jewls proceeds to endure a marathon grading session. Like Sideways Arithmetic, each report card problem consists of answers given by four of five students on a test with five problems, as well as data regarding how well the students performed recalled from Mrs. Jewls' memory (such as a student's performance relative to other students or knowledge that one of the students received a given grade), the reader is tasked to find both the answers on the test as well as assessing each student's performance. In More Sideways Arithmetic, however, variations on the theme are introduced: in one, three marked tests were given (although whether a student's specific answer to a question was right or wrong is not given) and readers are asked to determine the grade of a fourth student, while in another, readers are given the questions in random order and a few marked papers (again, which answers were right or wrong on which paper were hidden), and were asked to determine the order in which the questions were asked. {| class="wikitable" style="float:left" |+ Nominated Heights for Wayside's flagpole ! Height !! Nominator |- | 6'0" || Stephen |- | 10'0" || Dana |- | 25'0" || Allison, Benjamin, Eric Fry, Rondi, Sue, Todd |- | 30'0" || Dameon |- | 50'0" || Bebe, Calvin |- | 60'0" || Joe, John |- | 65'0" || Kathy |- | 75'0" || Joy, Mac, Sharie |- | 80'6" || DJ |- | 85'0" || Eric Ovens, Leslie, Paul, Terrence |- | 91'0" || Eric Bacon |- | 100'0" || Deedee, Jason, Jenny, Maurecia, Ron |} The twelfth chapter, involving the next six problems, are problems based on voting revolving around Wayside's flagpole, which had been destroyed by lightning. Mrs. Jewls' class was commissioned to determine the height of the replacement flagpole, which generated a lot of debate: several students debated that, as the old flagpole was dwarfed by the school, that a taller flagpole was to be built, while others (Stephen in particular, as he was responsible for raising and lowering the flags) wanted the new flagpole to be shorter. To settle this issue, Mrs. Jewls asks the students to write down what their ideal flagpole height would be. The answers (which formed the data set needed for these 6 problems) shown that the range of flagpole heights varied, from six feet (Stephen) to 100 feet (five students), with the mode at 25 feet. Because the "winning decision" of 25 feet was not decided by the majority of the class, the students demanded a series of runoff votes between two candidate heights (in which each student would vote for the closest height to their nominated one). Ultimately, the reader is asked to determine the height that would win against any other candidate height (which would be the height of the new flagpole), and the student that had nominated it, as well as the student that had voted for the winner in every series of runoff votes. In the end, the nomination of the generally-detestible Kathy (who is also the student to vote for the winner in every series of runoff votes) wins out, and the height of the new flagpole was determined to be at 65 feet. The remainder of the 58 problems, covering the last three chapters, are all logical problems, where the reader is tasked to make logical conclusions based on a series of assumptions. The first five problems in this set, covering chapter 13, as well as the final problem, covering the whole of chapter 15, asks the reader to determine the truth or falsity of given statements given the assertions (some statements, however, can be true in some contexts and false in others). The nine problems of chapter 14 revolve around more complicated logics (such as those that impose some form of ordering), but are problems in a similar manner. The last two chapters of the book all revolve around "game day" at Wayside, where students and staff at Wayside compete together in a series of activities. Events included: * a relay race involving eight of the students (Benjamin, Deedee, Joy, Leslie, Maurecia, Paul, Sue, and Todd) in two teams of four, where the reader had to identify the members of both teams * a sack race also involving eight students (Allison, Jenny, Rondi, Sharie, Terrence, and the three Erics) in four teams of two, where the reader had to determine the members in all four teams * a race up and down the 30 stories of stairs (involving Allison, Dameon, Deedee, Kathy, and Ron), where the reader had to identify the finishing order in both races * "The Great Watermelon Drop", where five students (Dameon, Dana, DJ, Jenny, and Myron) were paired with five faculty members (Louis the Yard Teacher, Mrs. Jewls, Mr. Kidswatter, Miss Mush, and Miss Worm) in a unique event that saw the faculty members catch watermelons pushed by the students off of the windows from each floor of Wayside. If the faculty member fails to catch a watermelon, their team is eliminated. The reader is tasked to find each pairing as well as the order of finish, including the floors in which the four losing teams were eliminated. * an egg toss, where Jenny, Joy, and Todd are entered. * a somersault race, where Todd is unbeatable - except if Jenny also enters. * a pie-eating contest, where Joy is unbeatable - except if Jenny also enters. |
They Went Thataway | James Horwitz | 1,976 | Serving as the title of the book's first section, the Front Row Kid is a phrase that Horwitz uses to describe the children of his youth, and how they would congregate at the local movie theaters and watch the latest movie serials and westerns, and re-enact them in their play throughout the week. It also becomes a metaphor for his lost youth, as well as for the fans of the old movie westerns who grew up and moved on. As the section advances, Horwitz muses on a stay in the legendary Hotel Chelsea in New York City, as well as on his brief life in Paris. He decides to escape New York, and to hunt down the surviving western heroes of his youth. For his pilgrimage, he takes along some relics of his "Front Row Kid" past—his Hopalong Cassidy boots and spurs; his favorite Gene Autry records, and his Lone Ranger comic books. As he drives across the country, he stops off at a variety of places that he had known only through western movie legends: Dodge City and Tombstone, only to find them too modernized. The second section of the book is a thorough analysis of the advent of the western movie, and focuses on the early, deceased cowboy film legends. Horwitz notes that the first true American movie, The Great Train Robbery, was a western, despite being filmed in New Jersey. A bit-player in that movie, Bronco Billy Anderson, ultimately formed his own production company, Essanay Studios, and brought the western to the West, namely California. Other early screen legends that followed in Anderson's path included William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Fred Thomson and Ken Maynard, whose funeral Horwitz attended after failing to reach him in time for an interview. Horwitz analyzes their careers, especially their successes and failures out of the saddle. Early on, Horwitz intended not to interview John Wayne, despite the fact that he was a fan of his (even admitting that his friends would question his sanity if he admitted that to them). He decided that Wayne's conservative politics and adamant support of the Vietnam War ruined the image of his hero, and Wayne was still a popular performer who had not 'disappeared' like many of the other film legends. Horwitz covers Hopalong Cassidy's career with detail, in particular the seminal image of William Boyd as the original "man in black". Other performers Horwitz recalls with nostalgia includes Tex Ritter, Audie Murphy, and the role that television played in the death of the old-time Hollywood cowboys. This section of the book documents Horwitz's journey to Hollywood, where he gamely tries to locate the surviving Western film stars. Almost immediately he confronts barriers, as the Screen Actors Guild refusing to release the mailing addresses of the now-retired stars, nor even tell him who is alive or dead. So, he is forced to leave his contact letters at the Guild office, of which several return unanswered (and one informs him that Allen "Rocky" Lane was deceased). He then places an ad in the Hollywood Reporter, asking for any of the actors willing to participate in the writing project to contact him. While in Hollywood, Horwitz attended the funeral of western hero Ken Maynard, partially out of respect, but also as a way to meet screen legend Gene Autry, Horwitz's childhood idol. He described the service as depressing, with only about seventy-five mourners—many of them dressed in full-Western costume (Autry, who allegedly had supported Maynard though his last years, did not appear at the funeral). The funeral motivated Horwitz to track down as many of the surviving actors as he could before they died before their stories could be told. Horwitz's first interview wound up being Autry, after an article documenting a brief encounter with him was published in Rolling Stone. Autry proved to be a friendly man, though unwilling to give out much information as he was planning his own autobiography at the time. What distressed Horwitz the most was that Autry had not aged gracefully, and that his once-melodious voice was now rough and harsh. Other interviews went poorly. Producers William Witney and Sol Siegel refused to discuss their western past, and Jay Silverheels' agent flatly rejected Horwitz's request. An attempt to interview Clayton Moore, aka The Lone Ranger was a tremendous disappointment, as Moore was unwilling to discuss anything except the Lone Ranger, and even then he suggested Horwitz use information from old interviews, as Moore would not offer anything that hadn't been said before. An attempt to interview Lash LaRue ended when he found that LaRue had just been arrested for drunkenness and drug possession. Horwitz also makes a stop at the Roy Rogers Museum (after repeatedly being refused an interview), where he is overwhelmed by the collection of kitsch and memorabilia (he even considers stealing a Hopalong Cassidy drinking glass just like one he had as a child) until he sees Rogers' horse Trigger, stuffed and mounted, a sight that disgusted him. The interviews that went well for Horwitz included: * Sunset Carson, who Horwitz meets at a country western movie festival in Siler City, North Carolina, and prove to be a witty, giving man (even though he was robbed at a similar festival after a car accident) * Charles Starrett, "The Durango Kid", who actually contacted Horwitz himself because he was happy to still be remembered after twenty-two years in retirement * Russell Hayden, "Lucky" in the Hopalong Cassidy movies, who was a movie fan that actually became a movie hero himself, and who was trying to make a success out of an old movie set that he wanted to offer as a tourist attraction * Joel McCrea, who actually made a name for himself as an actor outside of westerns, but who retunerd to the medium he loved, and who starred in the last "true" old western, Ride the High Country with Randolph Scott (who refused to be interviewed by Horwitz, as a matter of protecting his privacy) * Jimmy Wakely, the "last" of the singing cowboys * Duncan Renaldo, The Cisco Kid, who took Horwitz to see Diablo, his horse from the Cisco Kid television shows * Tim McCoy, who was the last of the 'original' movie cowboys, who proved to be the most open and emotional about his career and life, and whom Horwitz devotes the most time in the text Horwitz ends the book at the site where Tom Mix died in a car accident. He takes out his childhood cowboy boots, tries to polish them, and leaves them at the monument marking the location. He felt that such a sacred place was a good place to leave a memento of his childhood, and of memories that "went thataway". |
Steel Beach | John Varley | null | The Golden Globe and Steel Beach take place in a universe similar to, but different from, Varley’s "Eight Worlds" universe; in both universes, the solar system has been colonized by human refugees fleeing aliens (known simply as "the Invaders") invading the Earth. Earth and Jupiter are off-limits to humanity, but Earth's moon (known as Luna) and the other planets and moons of the solar system have all become heavily populated. There are also minor colonies set in the Oort cloud beyond the solar system itself. The Steel Beach in question is Luna, Earth's moon and the most heavily-inhabited world in the solar system since the Invaders obliterated human civilization on Earth. The allusion being that humans were thrown onto the inhospitable moon, just as fish made their way onto land as they evolved. The protagonist, Hildy Johnson, is a newspaper reporter who finds trouble beneath the near-utopian society run by the Central Computer. The Central Computer runs every aspect of every person's life: it is the government, court, information source, and friend to every citizen. Hildy Johnson starts off as a male reporter in the beginning of the book. He, like many people in the moon, has become dissatisfied with life. As a result, society, as well as Hildy, take part in destructive activities such as "slash boxing" (a blend of knife fighting and boxing), and in Hildy's case, attempting suicide multiple times. The first half of the story deals with the bizarre occurrences of life on the moon, such as the indoctrinations of celebrity heads-in-jars, negotiating with brontosaurus herds to figure out who they will sacrifice to make burger patties, and Earth-themed Disneylands which come complete with snakes, sand and sunburns. In the second half, Hildy makes contact with a group of people who have figured out how to travel through space without spacesuits. These people then reveal that they are hiding from the Central Computer, partially to keep their technology secret, and to keep free of secret experiments the Central Computer has been performing on people. Hildy then learns that the Central Computer has been attempting to clone the deceased in order to keep the population up. Hildy then becomes suspect, as she (he has had a sex change by now) has attempted to commit suicide several times, and it is unclear if she has been rescued or cloned. The Central Computer eventually resorts to launching a military raid on the people, which eventually causes the machine itself to crash. This leaves the moon city in chaos, and in its death throes, the Central Computer sends a projection of itself to Hildy, explaining that the schizoid nature of having multiple versions of itself was conflicting and strenuous, and that the city's doom was inevitable. |
And The Big Men Fly | Alan Hopgood | null | The coach of the Crows football team, J.J Forbes, sends Wally (his assistant) out to find a new player for the big season championship which was to start in 2 weeks. J.J thought that they would never have a chance, as Wally couldn't seem to find anyone with some decent talent. J.J was getting very upset at Wally and told him on the phone to do anything to get someone, as he says, “I don't care if you have to rewrite the law books. That's what we put you through university for!” A little while later, Wally bursts into the room yelling and screaming. “J.J… I've got him! I've got him! Oh, you've never seen anything like him, he's beautiful, he's a Greek god.” At this point J.J starts to think that Wally has gone mad and needs to see a psychiatrist. Wally is trying to convince J.J that this guy can kick a wheat bag 10 yards. Wally doesn't believe J.J at first, but thinks that he has nothing to lose so they decide to go and meet this man, so they drive all the way out to Manangatang, where this “Greek God” lives, and J.J finally gets to meet Achilles Jones. At first, things are a bit stressful as Achilles gets the shot gun out and threatens to kill them when they arrive. They try convincing Achilles to come and play football for the Crows but Achilles is just too happy where he is and won’t go anywhere. J.J & Wally aren't happy, so they decide that they are going to get Achilles to play through bribing his partner Lil with nice things and getting her to convince Achilles to try it out and play a few games. To start with convincing Lil, they tell her that she will get all sorts of nice things and they even give her a fur coat. They end up telling Achilles that the Williamses (Achilles' neighbors and worst enemies) think that he would never be able to play football in his life, so he decides that he will go and play for the Crows, only so he can show the Williamses that he can play and that he is better than them. Once Achilles arrived in Melbourne, he was taught the rules of the game and did private training. He was kept private from the public as Wally and J.J wanted to make a big showcase on the first day of the football championship. At the first game of the championship, Achilles got onto the field and did nothing. J.J and Wally started to get very stressed out and worried that he wouldn't do anything, until J.J sent Wally out onto the field to see what was wrong with him and found out that it was partly because he was wearing football boots (which he much disliked) and partly because Achilles can't play or kick when he's not angry. J.J then told Wally to send Lil out onto the field and make up a story about the Williamses so that he would get all angry and start to run and kick the ball around. This kept going on every week of the championship. Lil would have to keep making up stories, and telling Achilles that the Williamses said bad stuff about him when they actually didn't. This is the only way that they could get Achilles to actually get out there on the football field to run around and play the actual game. Just before the season had begun, Wobbly Coates and J.J made a public bet on the radio over their yearly wages that the Crows wouldn't get into the championship grand final and win, as they haven't done for the past 30 years. Near the end of the season, Wobbly knew that he was going to lose this bet if he didn't do something to stop Achilles playing the grand final, so he rang up the Williamses and told them that Achilles had been saying lots of bad stuff about them and their farm. This then set the Williamses off, and they went to fight him. This plan by Wobbly had already been working excellently as he wanted to tire Achilles out before the big game so that he couldn't play. The fight between the Williamses and Achilles went on for three days straight, but Achilles was still pushing on strong for the grand final match. On the night before the big game, Les Williams gave up and decided that he didn't want to fight anymore - this is when Achilles found out that his best mate, Milly the horse, had died back at home on the farm. Les and Achilles decide to come together inside and have a cup of tea and decide that they are going to stop all of this nonsense between the two of them. Achilles doesn't want to play the game when he gets to the field on the big day, but luckily enough, Les Williams heard on the radio who rang him up and told him all the lies – it was Wobbly Coates. This report got Achilles playing the game for a while and both the commentators and the crowd were going wild by this time because of his performance in the game. The game came to a near end and Achilles has to make a decision whether he is going to win the game or make them lose. He thinks about it and suddenly decides that he is going to get the score even, and then kick the ball straight up into the commentary box where Wobbly Coates is sitting, and hopefully it hits him and injures him. This decision was going to be his payback for all of the lies that he had told to Les Williams. The grand final game ends in a draw and is rescheduled to next week without the participation of the new team recruit, Achilles. He then decides that he is going to live back on the farm with Lil and spend a lot more time with her.. |
Good King Harry | Denise Giardina | 1,984 | An imagined autobiography of Henry V, King of England, from his neglected but happy youth in Wales, his tumultuous relationship with his father, who usurped the throne, through his storied victory at the Battle of Agincourt, and his troubled later years. |
Each Man's Son | Hugh MacLennan | null | Mollie MacNeil and her son Alan, miss Archie (Mollie's husband) who is away in the United States trying to make a living as a professional boxer. Archie has been away for four years and it is not clear whether he will return at all. He is adamant that he will never go and work in the coal mines. Meanwhile, Louis Camire, a French expatriate, is trying to convince Mollie to come with him to France where people are more equal than those in the company-owned mining town. The company doctor, Daniel Ainslie, takes a liking to young Alan, since his own wife Margaret is unable to bear children herself. Margaret was made barren by her own husband, who had to perform a procedure on her. Ainslie tries to exert his influence on Mollie and Alan. Daniel believes that Alan has the intelligence to escape the mining town. Mollie and Margaret share their fears about Daniel's influence and contrive to blunt it. After much soul-searching, Daniel realizes that he cannot both have Alan like a son and his wife Margaret at the same time. This contradiction is violently resolved in the book's conclusion where Archie kills Mollie. |
Monkey Bridge | Lan Cao | 1,997 | Lan Cao’s debut novel Monkey Bridge traverses several opposing worlds. The novel consists of two narrators: Mai, a teenage Vietnamese immigrant, who flees to America on the day Saigon falls in 1975, and her mother, Thanh, who manages to join Mai a few months after Mai is settled in United States Of America. Three years after their arrival in the United States, Thanh is in the hospital with a blood clot in her brain, suffering paralysis of half side. She has been calling out for Baba Quan, her father, in her sleep. Thanh and Baba Quan are supposed to meet in Saigon and leave for America together back in 1975, but this plan fails because Baba Quan, due to some unknown reason, does not show up. Since then, Thanh has “never truly recovered from the mishap that left him without the means to leave Saigon” (4). Mai, who worries about her mother’s health condition and understands how desperately her mother wants to see Baba Quan, decides to make a dangerous trip to Canada with her best friend Bobbie, where they plan to make a phone call to Baba Quan once they cross the border and hopefully take a wild chance to bring her grandfather to the United States. The plan, however, does not succeed. Mai retreats at the last minute because she not only fears for being deported by the U.S government but also recalls what her father says all the time: “One wrong move…the entire course of a country changed” (25), in which he refers to America’s decision to make the crucial commitment in the Vietnam War. Thanh gets discharged by the hospital and decides to temporarily leave her Vietnam past behind so she can move on. She becomes socially active again in the Vietnamese American community, Little Saigon. Meanwhile, Mai, idling around at home in the summer before attending college, gets very curious about her mysterious grandfather and starts to pry into things about Baba Quan from her mother and different acquaintances, such as Mrs. Bay, Thanh’s best friend, and Uncle Michael, a Vietnam veteran who befriends with her father and brings her to the United States when Saigon falls. After several attempts, Mai still fails to learn anything specific about Baba Quan, all they would tell her are some basic facts and superficial comments. She also fails to convince Uncle Michael to help her grandfather relocate in the United States. Wanting to know more about her mother’s and Baba Quan’s Vietnam past—“the vivid details that accompanied every fault and fracture, every movement and shift that had forced her apart and at the same time kept her stitched together" (168), Mai sneaks in her mother’s room and steals the letters that her mother has kept writing her, but has not let her read them yet. From her mother’s secret letters, Mai finally learns the unspoken family history that Thanh has been avoiding telling her and the reason why Baba Quan did not show up at their escapade: Unable to maintain his rental payments, Baba Quan, who Thanh once believed to be her father, prostitutes his wife to his rich landlord, Uncle Khan, whose wife is sterile. Tuyet, Baba Quan’s wife, later on has Khan’s child, Thanh. From this act, Baba Quan secures his land and gets endless benefits from the rich landlord. The Khan’s soon adopt Thanh and send her to a catholic boarding school. Living with shame and rage, Baba Quan has been planning to get revenge on his landlord by committing a murderous act but never succeeds. Later on when the war begins, Baba Quan becomes a Vietcong. His village is declared a free-fire zone, and his family is moved away from their ancestral land to a nearby strategic hamlet, while he stays there to keep working with the Vietcong. Thanh’s mother dies during the transition. In accordance with Vietnamese ritual, Thanh has to escort her mother’s body back to their home village for burial. By a riverbank on her way back home, Thanh witnesses Baba Quan murder his landlord. Struck with panic, Thanh runs away and incautiously leaves her mother’s body behind. Because Thanh loses her mother's body and fails to perform the proper burial rituals, she is left with a permanent scar and never adjusts her to new life in America. |
Expedition to the Demonweb Pits | null | null | Expedition to the Demonweb Pits revolves around the reading of the Dark Pact. The demon lord Graz'zt seeks to form an alliance with Lolth against Orcus. Lolth spurns his offer, and Graz'zt, not taking rejection lightly, now schemes to undermine Lolth. With the aid of his cambion son, Rule-of-Three, Graz'zt plans a Demon Council within the Abyss. While he is doing this, Rule-of-Three spreads word among the drow that their goddess is coming to the Prime Material Plane to wage the eternity war against their hated cousins, the surface elves and their god, Corellon Larethian. After the Demonic Council is arranged, Rule-of-Three and Graz'zt involve a group of mortals (the PCs) about Lolth's coming. Their goal is to bring attention to Lolth in her own Demonweb and then use the mortals to embarrass her in the eyes of the other demon lords, while at the same time, sealing the Dark Pact of planar binding using the divine spark Lolth gives it. It is the PC's goal to prevent the reading of that pact. Expedition to the Demonweb Pits offers the characters many items, including two new legend items: Thaas and Spidersilk. Thaas is an ancient magical elven bow dedicated to slaying demons. Spidersilk is a suit of fine armor for arcane spell casters that grants many spider-oriented benefits. |
The Sleepwalker | Robert Muchamore | 2,008 | A plane crashes over the Atlantic and all 345 passengers are killed. Among the dead are the wife, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren of Dr. Terrence McAfferty (Mac), former CHERUB chairman. A troubled boy named Fahim Bin Hassam calls the aircrash investigation hotline and attempts to blame his father, Hassam Bin Hassam, but gives into his fear before he can relay any of the information. While James is sleeping, the instructor Kazkov pulls him out of bed, gags him with a rubber gag, handcuffs him, and takes him outside. It is revealed all the black shirts are being taken on a training exercise. They have to leave the area, with red and white shirts after them using quad bikes and night-vision goggles. Lauren hides in a ditch, and is able to steal night-vision goggles. She gets James' motorcylcled engined golf buggie which was raced at the beginning of the book and decides to rescue James, Kerry and Dana. Later she tells Zara quad bikes made it uneven, and is told next time bicycles will probably be used, it would make things more even, and prevent damage, as one of the quad bikes was sent to the bottom of a lake. CHERUB agents Lauren and Jake are sent on a mission to befriend Fahim and discover the truth. Mac becomes the acting mission controller, trying to find out if the deaths of his family were accidental or acts of terrorism. Lauren plants audio devices all over the house, but when Hassam discovers one, he thinks it was the cleaning lady and he tortures her in painful ways, before shooting her in the kneecap. Fahim feels guilty about this and admits to his father about how it was Lauren and Jake. He throws some stinging antiseptic in his father's eyes in an attempt to flee. Hassam chases him across a golf course, but when an armed tactical response team threaten to shoot him, Hassam takes his own son hostage with a knife to his throat. Jake bravely attacks Hassam from behind and saves Fahim, after which Hassam is shot dead. After all of the trouble is cleared, it is discovered that the plane crashed due to faulty parts which Hassam and his brother Asif Bin Hassam sold to the people constructing the plane. As the brothers were aware of their faults, Asif was sent to prison. Fahim was taken in to start life as a CHERUB, but when a camcorder showed that he sleepwalks every night and talks out loud about all of the things he has done, Zara Asker states that it is too dangerous to send him on missions because he might blow his cover. Instead, Fahim will live with Dr Terence McAfferty, CHERUB's former chairman. Meanwhile, James has been assigned his work experience with his former girlfriend, Kerry, at the Deluxe Chicken restaurant. They are invited to a club by a co-worker called Gemma and her boyfriend Danny. James, Dana, and Kerry go and have a good time, but James discovers Danny pushing Gemma about and fights with him. On the last day of their work experience Gemma shows up with a black eye. Outside, James meets Danny but James is not eager to have another row with him. Danny calls Gemma and pulls her hair to taunt James, but it is Kerry who attacks him, and James rushes to aid her. The police are called and James is arrested. Zara, the CHERUB chairwoman, uses her status to free James from prison. She then sentences Kerry and James punishment laps and hours of decorating service. James realises he is still attracted to Kerry, but he wants to be faithful to Dana. and suddenly rejects Kerry after they start making out. |
Dreaming in Cuban | Cristina García | 1,992 | As a young woman living in Havana, Celia Almeida meets and falls in love with a married Spaniard named Gustavo. The two become lovers until Gustavo returns to Spain. After Gustavo leaves, Celia loses the will to live. Though she has no known medical condition, she wastes away (due to depression). While she is housebound Jorge del Pino courts her and persuades her to marry him. After their honeymoon, he leaves her at home with his mother and sister while he goes on long business trips, punishing her out of his jealousy for her past with Gustavo. His mother and sister are cruel to Celia, even more so after she becomes pregnant. By the time she gives birth to her daughter Lourdes, her mind has snapped. Thus, for the first months of Lourdes’ life, Celia is in a mental institution and Jorge is the one who cares for Lourdes. When Celia is released, Jorge brings her to a new home on the edge of the ocean in Santa Teresa del Mar. Lourdes is distant from her mother and closely bonded to her father. A couple years later, a second daughter named Felicia is born. Finally, they have a son named Javier, who is born eight years after Felicia. Ideologically, Jorge and Celia are very different. Jorge prefers the American-friendly government, while Celia supports attempts at revolution. Over the years, the three children grow up, and their lives take different paths. Lourdes attends the university and falls in love with a man named Rufino Puente, the son of a wealthy family. They are married in spite of his mother’s disapproval. After Rufino and Lourdes are married, they live at the Puente family ranch. Eleven days after the Cuban revolution takes place, Lourdes gives birth to a daughter named Pilar. Two years later, Lourdes is pregnant with a second child. One day, she is thrown from her horse while riding frantically to return to the house, and it causes her to lose the child. Lourdes reaches the house just in time to find two soldiers holding Rufino at gunpoint. She scares the soldiers off, but the soldiers return later. They claim the Puente estate as property of the revolutionary government. Lourdes tries to resist, but one of the soldiers rapes her at knifepoint. Soon after, the Puente family flees to Miami. Lourdes finds life in Miami intolerable, and soon they drive north until they reach New York City, where they make their new life. Rufino does not fit in well, and he spends his time working on his inventions. It is Lourdes who supports the family, saving up enough money to purchase a bakery. She runs the bakery herself. Pilar grows up rebelling against her mother and feeling much closer to her father. She becomes a sort of stereotypical "teenage punk artist". Felicia, the second oldest daughter, becomes the best friend of the daughter of a santería high priest at age six. From that time forward, santería has a presence in Felicia’s life. She drops out of high school and drifts from job to job until she meets Hugo Villaverde. Felicia is enamored with him immediately, and they soon consummate their relationship. Felicia becomes pregnant as a result. Hugo vanishes for seven months before returning and marrying Felicia in a City Hall wedding. He becomes physically abusive almost immediately and then departs to sea the next day. Thus, Felicia is without her husband when she gives birth to her twin daughters, Luz and Milagro. Hugo continues to be a sporadic presence in their lives after that. He manages to impregnate Felicia again and give her syphilis. It is during Felicia’s pregnancy that her lack of mental stability becomes apparent. She attempts to kill Hugo by dropping a burning rag onto his face while he is sleeping; Hugo wakes up just as she drops the rag on him and he flees, never to be seen again. She later gives birth to a son, who she names Ivanito. While the twins resent their mother, Ivanito is extremely close to her. The youngest child of Jorge and Celia, Javier, has a talent for science and shares his mother’s support of the revolution and El Líder. As a result of his rebellion against his father, Javier eventually leaves for Czechoslovakia without telling his parents. He goes on to become a professor of biochemistry and marries a Czech girl, having a daughter with her named Irinita. When Jorge develops stomach cancer, he travels to New York for treatment, where he spends the last four years of his life. His health gradually fails and he is hospitalized. Over the course of her father’s illness, Lourdes has a constant desire for food and sex. When Jorge dies, his spirit leaves his body and appears to bid farewell to his wife. She glimpses him briefly, but she cannot understand his words. Felicia turns to santería to make peace with her father, but she becomes mentally unwell again. When Celia discovers Felicia’s illness, she takes Luz and Milagro to her home, but Ivanito will not leave his mother. Eventually, Felicia’s mental state deteriorates to the point where she tries to kill Ivanito and herself with drugged ice cream. The attempt fails. As a result, Felicia is sent to join a Cuban military brigade and Ivanito is sent to boarding school. Celia becomes a full devotee of the revolution and El Líder, performing a wide variety of tasks and becoming a local judge of the People’s Court. Meanwhile, in New York, Pilar discovers that her father is cheating on her mother. She tries to run away to Cuba, but she only makes it as far as Miami. She gets caught while seeking out one of her cousins for help. Her mother is called, and Pilar is made to return home to New York. Lourdes becomes an auxiliary policewoman. Her father’s spirit begins speaking to her regularly. Eventually, Lourdes’ business becomes so successful that she buys a second bakery. She has Pilar paint a mural for the opening. Pilar, unbeknownst to her mother, paints a punk Statue of Liberty for the unveiling, but when the crowd disapproves, Lourdes defends her daughter’s work. In Cuba, Felicia meets and marries a man named Ernesto Brito, but he dies in a fire soon afterwards. Felicia blames El Líder for his death, though there is no evidence to support this belief. She descends into madness again, and then vanishes, losing her memory and identity for months. When she recovers herself, Felicia discovers that she has married a man named Otto. Whether or not his death was Felicia's fault is debatable. While on a ride, he stands up while Felicia performs oral sex. When the ride begins again, he falls over and lands on electrical wires and is electrocuted, but it is unclear as to exactly how he falls, and later in the story, Felicia says that she pushed him. Meanwhile, the day after Felicia’s disappearance, Javier returns home to his mother. Celia learns that his wife has left him and taken their daughter. In his heartbreak, Javier wastes away, just as Celia once did, until he vanishes to die. Felicia returns to Havana and fully embraces santería, becoming a priestess. She is still distanced from her mother and children, who do not come to see her. Gradually, Felicia’s health fades for reasons unknown and she too dies. In the U.S., Jorge’s presence begins to fade from the world, and he goes to Lourdes to ask her to go to Cuba and apologize on his behalf and make amends with her mother. One day while Pilar is out in the city, she encounters a botánica (a store that sells the paraphernalia of santería). The proprietor instructs her in a ritual she must perform and gives her the items she needs. On her way home, Pilar is attacked by boys in the park. Pilar recovers herself and returns home to carry out her ritual, which reveals that she and her mother should go to Cuba. Celia wanders out into the ocean at night after Felicia’s burial, and she is found in the aftermath by a newly arrived Lourdes and Pilar. They care for her. Lourdes views Cuba with great dislike, but she becomes fond of her nephew Ivanito. Pilar listens to Celia’s stories and paints her portrait many times. Lourdes finds herself unable to forgive her mother. She resolves to help Ivanito leave Cuba, taking him to join the defectors at the Peruvian embassy. Celia sends Pilar to find him, and though Pilar manages to do so, she tells her grandmother that she did not. After Pilar and Lourdes are gone, Celia walks into the ocean a final time. |
No Humans Involved | Kelley Armstrong | 2,007 | Necromancer Jaime Vegas is hired by a television show, along with other celebrity spiritualists (i.e. frauds) to raise Marilyn Monroe's spirit for a little chat on the anniversary of her death. Filming begins with Jaime and the other celebrity necromancers raising the spirits of other dead celebrities as stock footage for the show. In addition, she's asked Pack Alpha Jeremy Danvers to join her as a guest/escort... and Jaime hopes a little more. During filming, Jaime experiences something that should never happen, a ghost that she can not see but can feel touching her. Frightened that she, like other necromancers before her, is going crazy, she reaches out to other supernaturals on the Interracial Council for help. Going to Portland to visit the head of the Council, Paige Winterbourne, her husband/business partner Lucas Cortez and their teenage ward Savannah Levine, Jamie is nearly killed by a woman whom Savannah believes can help. Rescued by the teenager, Savannah leaves Jamie in the care of Jeremey who accompanies back to LA. Together Jaime and Jeremey along with the Angel Eve (Savannah's mother) and Ghost Kristof (Savannah's father and once head of the Nast Cabal), discover the ghosts are those of children killed by humans trying to learn the art of witchcraft! this requires additional information |
The Two Tigers | Emilio Salgari | null | India, 1857. Just when Tremal-Naik's life was getting back to normal, the Thugs of the Kali cult return to exact their revenge by kidnapping his daughter Darma. Summoned by Kammamuri, Sandokan and Yanez immediately set sail for India to help their loyal friend. But the evil sect knows of their arrival and thwarts them at every turn. Have our heroes finally met their match? It's the Tiger of Malaysia versus the Tiger of India in a fight to the death! |
Sharpe's Enemy | Bernard Cornwell | 1,984 | In the winter of 1812 a group of deserters from all the armies of the Peninsular War - French, British, Spanish and Portuguese - descends on the isolated hamlet of Adrados, on the Spanish-Portuguese border, led by Obadiah Hakeswill, the antagonist of Sharpe's Company, and Pot-au-Feu aka Sergeant Deron, who appears in Sharpe's Havoc as Marshal Soult's cook. The seize a number of women on pilgrimage to a convent in the village, including Josefina Lacosta who is travelling as "Lady Farthingdale", and an Madame Dubreton, the English-born wife of a French colonel of cavalry. Sharpe, recently promoted to the rank of Major is sent, with Patrick Harper, to deliver the ransom demanded for the release of Lady Farthingdale. Upon reaching Adrados they meet Colonel Dubreton and his Sergeant on a similar mission. They see both ladies are safe and deliver the ransom but Hakeswill then demands more by the New Year. Colonel and Madame Dubreton are careful not to let the fact that they know each other be picked up by the deserters. Sharpe and Harper note that Adrados is extremely defensible with a castle, a watchtower and a convent all defensible buildings against attack. Madame Dubreton gives Sharpe a clue that she is in the convent. Nairn believes that the deserters will not agree to a release at all regardless of ransom and thinks a rescue is the best option. It is proposed that Sharpe and the Light Company, with two companies of the 60th American Rifles, will attack the watchtower and the convent to free the ladies and then wait for Colonel Kinney to come with his 113th Fusilier Regiment and Sir Augustus to supervise the surrender of the deserters. They propose to capture the convent on Christmas Eve when the deserters will be almost certainly inebriated. They capture the convent and free the women. Unfortunately, Sharpe discovers that multiple French battalions are on their way to capture the village in order to occupy South Portugal. Sharpe decides to make a stand and blackmails Lord Farthingdale into leaving the village, thus making Sharpe the commanding officer. He ingeniously defends the village by setting a trap for the French, using the rockets to destroy a battalion, mining a building, and generally anticipating his enemies' moves. His wife, a Spanish partisan commander Teresa Moreno, rides to fetch reinforcements who arrive just in time to assist the tiring men. Hakeswill, who was kept as a prisoner, escapes during the last hours of the fight and kills Teresa. Hakeswill tries to desert to the French, but falls in the hands of Dubreton who returns him to Sharpe as a thank you for rescuing the Colonel's wife. Hakeswill is executed by a firing squad and the last shot at the man is taken by Sharpe himself. |
Valmouth | null | null | Two wealthy elderly Valmouth-area ladies, Mrs Hurstpierpoint and Mrs Thoroughfare, are concerned with the marriage prospects of the latter's son, Captain Dick Thoroughfare. Captain Thoroughfare, away at sea, is rather scandalously engaged to a black girl, Niri-Esther, but he also favours his 'chum', Jack Whorwood. Thetis Tooke, a local farmer's daughter, is obsessed with Captain Thoroughfare. Meanwhile the exotic Mrs Yajnavalkya, a black masseuse and chiropodist, attempts to procure a sexual dalliance with Thetis's virile brother David for the centenarian Lady Parvula de Panzoust. Eventually, Captain Thoroughfare returns to England. It comes to light that he has virtually married Niri-Esther, that they have a baby, and that she is also pregnant with his second child. |
Exodus | Julie Bertagna | 2,002 | In the year 2100, 15-year-old Mara lives on the island of Wing, with fellow villagers. The melting ice cap has caused the shoreline to rise and they are now almost out of land. Through her cyberwizz, a laptop-like gadget, she navigates through information to find where they can go. She meets a mysterious creature called Fox, who demands to know where she is. Mara is excited because beyond him she can see a new world, but she loses connection before she can learn more. Mara tells the villagers about New Mungo, a place where they can go which is a new land raised high above sea level. They eventually leave in fishing boats, but are forced to leave behind the elder generation who couldn't part from their home. Once they reach New Mungo, they realize it is actually not a welcoming place; a huge outer wall surrounds the whole sky-city. They then are forced to join a refugee boat camp and some of them die there, including Mara's best friend Gail. The Sky Police, from New Mungo, occasionally take the strong up to the city in a procedure called Pickings, but Mara has a bad feeling about this. Mara learns all her family drowned in the perilous journey to New Mungo, and attempts to commit suicide. When she realizes her will to live is too strong, Mara manages, with the help of an urchin she names Wing (after her drowned island), to enter the city gates. There she meets the people of the Netherworld (a strange twilight place in the shadow of the sky city, with the roofs of the drowned city of Glasgow jutting above the sea), who are known as the treenesters. They immediately recognise her as their messiah, the Face in the Stone, from an old prophecy called the Stone Telling. She lives with them for some time, exploring and helping them to survive. One day, while she is with her friend Gorbals (a treenester) in the forbidden university, Gorbals and Wing are taken by the Sky Police, along with many sea urchins (a wild breed of children without language, but hairy bodies and webbed hands) are slaughtered. Determined to save her friends, she takes the uniform of a police woman that the police accidentally killed in the massacre and sneaks up to the city. She is overwhelmed by its superficial beauty and shallow entertainments. At first, she needed some help with searching. Doll, a computer worker, helps her with the computers. While searching through the Noos, a virtual, evoluted version of the world wide web, she meets Fox. She discovers it is David, the quiet, hard-working grandson of Caledon, creator of the Sky City and the one who allowed many people to drown if they couldn't pass an intelligence test to allow them entrance to the new world. Together, they organize an escape plan that involves David crashing the Noos with a 20th century virus, allowing Mara to free the slaves and then leave the city unnoticed. The only catch is that David would not be able to leave with Mara, with whom he has fallen in love, because he must stay to begin a rebellion against the unfair New World. While executing her plan, Mara fatally stabs Tony Rex, a man she believes is a spy, with an ancient bone dagger, and then rescues Gorbals, Wing and all the people chosen in the Pickings, who have become slaves. They slide down air vents into the Netherworld and board a supply ship. They break free of the city walls, also saving the people in the refugee boat camp and the Netherworld. The boats are programmed to Greenland, a place that is thought to have risen high above the water like a cork. Fox also slides down the air vents, to begin his rebellion outside the reach of his grandfather. The book finishes with Mara wondering how far people will go to save themselves, and if Caledon was right to save a special few. The book ends with the hope that the refugees will reach safety in Greenland. A screenplay for this book is currently under way. The movie adaptation of Exodus is not yet scheduled for release. |
Khaled: A Tale of Arabia | Francis Marion Crawford | 1,891 | From the cover blurb of the Ballantine edition: "Khaled is a hardworking, conscientious djinn, a true believer working industriously in the service of Allah. So industriously in fact that he rather oversteps the mark and causes the demise of a certain non-believer, and as a result, is condemned to being human for a while. In the company of a superlatively gorgeous princess, of course. "She, However, in her own gentle, obedient and docile way (she is after all a true Arabian wife) is as stubborn as a mule..." Khaled has no soul - but he is offered one chance: if his wife comes to love him, despite his lack of a soul, he will become fully human. |
A Bad Spell in Yurt | C. Dale Brittain | 1,991 | This story takes place in the tiny kingdom of Yurt. It reads like a charming, light-hearted story at first, but darker forces soon reveal themselves. Amongst themselves, the characters refer to the "three that rule the world", the aristocracy, the church, and wizardry. Though the aristocracy do the actual ruling, organized wizardry generally considers itself to be the superior of the three, in part because they put an end to the "Black Wars," wars between kingdoms so violent and bloody that individual wizards were forced to band together to stop them. Churchmen considers themselves superior to wizards, and they are traditional rivals in this semi-medieval world. The first-person narrator is Daimbert, who has just barely graduated from the wizard's school. He takes up his first post as Royal Wizard of Yurt. Daimbert barely graduated, owing to all that embarrassment with the frogs, yet he has amazing improvisational skills that manage to get him by. Daimbert soon befriends Joachim, the castle chaplain, attempts to make magical telephones from scratch, learns old herbal magic from his predecessor, fights a dragon from the northern land of wild magic, searches for the source of an evil spell on the king, and is forced to bargain with a demon. Here, magic is a wild force of four dimensions that is shaped by a wizard's spells or potions, and (usually) is spoken aloud using the Hidden Language, needed to channel magic for the means of a spell. However, wizards can also choose to sell their soul to a demon in return for supernatural powers. The book reads somewhat like a mystery, where Daimbert follows up on many clues throughout the story, eventually suspecting everyone in the castle. The caster of the evil spell is not revealed until the end of the book. |
Son of the Red Corsair | Emilio Salgari | null | The Son of the Red Corsair, one of the most captivating stories written by Emilio Salgari, is a mixture of adventure, humor, and romance that has delighted readers of all ages for many years. Part of the series usually referred to as Pirati delle Antille, it is the story of Enrico di Ventimiglia, the Son of the Red Corsair, as he travels through the Spanish conquests of Central America in search of the stepsister he has never met. In his adventure, the Count is helped by a cast of colorful characters, the faithful Mendoza, the incomparable Don Barrejo, Buttafuoco, a nobleman-turned-buccaneer, and bands of pirates of the Caribbean. |
The Chameleon's Shadow | Minette Walters | 2,007 | When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality. Crippled by migraines, and suspicious of his psychiatrist, he begins to display sporadic bouts of aggression, particularly against women, and especially his ex-fiancee, who seems unable to accept that the relationship is over. After his injuries prevent his return to the army, he cuts all ties with his former life and moves to London. Alone and unmonitored, he sinks into a private world of guilt and paranoid distrust; until a customer annoys him in a Bermondsey pub. Out of control and only prevented from killing the man by the intervention of a 250-pound female weightlifter called Jackson, he attracts the attention of police who are investigating three 'gay' murders in the Bermondsey area which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage. Under suspicion, Acland is forced to confront the real issues behind his isolation. How much control does he have over the dark side of his personality? Do his migraines contribute to his rages? Has he always been the duplicitous chameleon that his ex-fiancee claims? And why, if he hates women, does he look to a woman for help? |
The Dreamwalker's Child | null | null | Sam Palmer has always been fascinated with insects, but now he has become obsessed. Suddenly insects also appear to be fascinated with Sam. Wherever he goes, a few wasps follow him. One day he finds a horse-fly in his room. He gently corrals it in a glass and sets it free, informing it that it is not very smart. But that fly knows more than Sam could ever imagine. Meanwhile, an army in the state of Vermia in another world called Aurobon prepares for war against humans on earth. Their weapon: a virus to be spread by mosquitoes. As they refine their technique, word comes that "the Dreamwalker" has been found—and that she has a son. Odoursin, Vermia's evil emperor, demands the boy be brought to him. Sam takes a bike ride and notices a peculiar cloud of wasps. He cannot resist following them. Pain stabs his neck, and then everything goes black. He awakens to nighttime in a strange landscape, marshlands lit with blue-green light. Confused and frightened, he walks toward distant city lights. But his travels are disrupted by a horrendous encounter with a slavering pack of creatures like no one has seen on Earth. The crazed beasts are intent on killing him. Sam realizes he will surely die, but then a group of soldiers appears. His relief is short-lived, however, when the soldiers act like he is a criminal, violently hauling him off to prison. What is going on? Vermia's enemy state is called Vahlzi, and the army is led by Commander Firebrand. Realizing the Dreamwalker's son has been kidnapped by Vermia, Firebrand decides to send a rescuer, Skipper, who is his best pilot despite her young age. In prison, Sam meets Skipper who gives him hope of escape. Looking through the window of his cell, he sees three moons and realizes he is in a whole new world. When Sam learns the truth behind his plight, he is shocked. He must fight the evil that seeks to destroy Earth's humans. Meanwhile, his damaged body on Earth remains in a coma. In the midst of an urgent plot fueled by a dangerous mission, we find humor, a gutsy female role model, friendship, family relationships, questions about the guardianship of Earth and the balance of nature—plus a subtle, thrilling celebration of life itself. |
Dorian, an Imitation | Will Self | 2,003 | It is the summer of 1981 and 'the royal broodmare' - as Henry Wotton has dubbed her - is about to be married to the Prince of Wales, while Brixton is in flames. Wotton, uneasily gay, egregiously drug-addicted and queasily snobbish, is at the centre of a Chelsea clique dedicated to a timeless dissolution. His friend Baz Hallward, a sometime Warhol acolyte and video installation artist, has discovered a most remarkable young man, the very epitome of male beauty, Dorian Gray. Hallward's installation Cathode Narcissus captures all of Dorian's allure, but perhaps it's captured another more integral part of him as well? Certainly, after a night of debauchery that climaxes in a veritable conga line of buggery, Wotton and Hallward have been snared by a sinister retrovirus which becomes synonymous with the decade. Sixteen years later the broodmare's shattered body lies dying in a Parisian underpass. But what of Wotton and Hallward? How did they fare as the stock-market soared and their T-cell counts plummeted? And what of Dorian, a sultan of style in an era of mass superficiality? How is it that he remains so healthy and youthful while all around him sicken and age and die? |
The Lost Continent: The Story of Atlantis | C J Cutcliffe Hyne | 1,900 | The novel uses the common nineteenth-century device of a "framing story" to set its narrative in context and augment its believability. The story proper was written supposedly by Deucalion, a warrior-priest of ancient Atlantis; the text having been partly destroyed inadvertently by one of its discoverers at the time of its finding, it is not entirely complete. Deucalion's account describes his heroic but ultimately doomed battle to save Atlantis from destruction by its avaricious and selfish queen, Phorenice. |
Est: The Steersman Handbook | Leslie Stevens | null | The "est" in the book's title refers to what Stevens described as "Electronic Social Transformation". The book described a future society and the rise of what Stevens described as the "est people". The "est people" were a new generation of postliterate humans who were to bring about a "transformation" of society. The "est people" were to be technically-minded, eclectic, and computer literate. They would possess qualities necessary for social transformation, integral to Earth's survival. Individuals named as examples of "est people" in the book included R. Buckminster Fuller, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ralph Nader, Marshall McLuhan, Malcolm X, Albert Einstein, Lewis Mumford, and Eric Hoffer. |
Gentlemen of the Road | Michael Chabon | 2,007 | The story centers on two world-traveling Jewish bandits who style themselves with the euphemism "gentlemen of the road." Amram is a hulking Abyssinian (African) who is equally proficient with an axe as a game of shatranj; he is haunted by the disappearance of his daughter many years ago. His companion is Zelikman, a Frankish (German) physician who uses an over-sized bloodletting lance as a rapier. Zelikman has a morbid personality due to the trauma of watching his family slaughtered in an anti-Jewish pogrom. The two bandits begin in the Kingdom of Arran, where they con the customers of an inn with a staged duel. Before they can collect their winnings, a mahout attempts to hire them to safeguard his charge, Filaq, a fugitive Khazar prince. Filaq's family was murdered by the usurping bek, Buljan. Before the pair can give their answer, Buljan's assassins kill the mahout, and the two gentlemen escape with Filaq, intent on collecting a reward from his wealthy relatives. Filaq, on the other hand, is committed to escaping and taking vengeance on Buljan. The group arrives at the hometown of Filaq's relatives and discovers that everyone has been slaughtered by Kievan Rus'. An army of Arsiyah arrives too late to save the town. Filaq attempts to rally the troops to rescue his kidnapped brother Alp, but the army decides to place Filaq on the bek's throne instead. The army travels to the bek's palace, but a ruse by Buljan leaves the Arsiyah army obliterated. Filaq is captured and exposed to all as a girl. Amram is also captured while trying to rescue her. In disguise as a Radanite, Zelikman meets with Buljan and manages to rescue Amram. Beaten and raped, Filaq is sold to a brothel where Zelikman and Amram take refuge. They treat her injuries and then plan to see the kagan, the spiritual ruler of Khazaria. Zelikman uses his physician's skills to anesthetize the kagan's guards and gain an audience. The kagan agrees to help, as long as Zelikman helps him fake his own death to escape from his life of comfortable imprisonment. Filaq meets with tarkhan of the Khazar army in disguise as her brother Alp, who died in captivity. The tarkhan supports her claim to the bek throne. While paying off a band of Kievan Rus' for their pillaging services, Buljan is overthrown by the Khazar army and killed by a war elephant. After the battle, Filaq and Zelikman make love for the first, and probably last, time in each of their lives. Filaq begins her life as Alp, both bek and kagan of Khazaria, while Zelikman and Amram leave to pursue their fortunes elsewhere. |
Measle and the Wrathmonk | null | null | A 10-year-old boy named Measle is living with his horrid guardian, Basil Tramplebone. Measle's life is horrible and boring. Basil builds a detailed train set out using money that was left for Measle by his parents and plays with it, while all Measle can do is watch him. Desperate to play with it, Measle tricks Basil into leaving the house by telling him that there is extra money in the bank. His plan backfires, and Basil catches him playing with the train set when he gets home. Basil magically shrinks Measle and placed him in the train set. Measle meets Frank, the electrician who wired the train set, who is all plastic except for his mouth. Measle then feeds him some carrot, which restores Frank to his previous human-form.Frank reveals that the glazed-donut crumbs and lemonade left by Basil turn you to plastic if eaten. Together they continue Prudence, a wrathmonkologist; William, an encyclopedia salesman; Kitty, a Brownie scout; Lady Grant, a town official; and Kip, the carpenter who built the table and most of the train sets detail work. |
Idylls of the Queen | Phyllis Ann Karr | 1,982 | The Idylls of the Queen is set in the Great Britain of King Arthur, as portrayed by Sir Thomas Malory's classic Le Morte D'Arthur; as specifically stated by the author, no attempt is made at depicting with historical accuracy the time of the actual King Arthur. It expands an incident in Malory, in which the Queen is accused of murder, into a complex mystery novel mingling the genres of historical mysteries, Arthurian legend and fantasy. Although set in a magical world, the puzzle is unraveled through straight investigation with no sorcerous shortcuts. The obscure knight Sir Patrise is poisoned at a dinner party given by Queen Guenevere in Camelot, and Sir Mador, the dead knight's cousin, accuses the Queen of the murder. Her fate is to be determined through trial by combat. If the champion fighting on her behalf wins she will be declared innocent; if not, she will be burned at the stake. Unfortunately for her, the best Knights of the Round Table were all present at the dinner, which disqualifies them from championing her, and the mightiest of all, her secret lover Sir Lancelot, has gone missing. Guenevere's only hope is her admirer, King Arthur's sarcastic Seneschal Sir Kay, the first-person narrator of the tale. Kay suspects that Sir Patrise's true killer had a more prominent target in mind, probably Sir Gawaine, and will likely try again; he is also cynical as to the efficacy of trial by combat in establishing anything other than which fighter is the better combatant. Therefore, playing the role of detective, he unites with Gawaine, Gareth and Morded in a two-pronged quest to locate the vanished Lancelot and unmask the real culprit. Kay investigates the recent actions and motivations of a number of the characters in the Arthurian stories, examining many of the suspects in techniques familiar to modern psychology, such as motivation, the background of the personality, etc. Various familiar names come under suspicion, and the author illuminates their characters in a fashion both insightful and true to their portrayals in medieval literature, if not always in Malory. For instance, Sir Kay's characterization harkens back as much to the heroic version of the early Welsh legends as it does to Malory's irascible boor, and Gawaine's more to the high-minded champion of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight than the narrow and clannish bully of the Morte. Lancelot, meanwhile, is taken down more than a few pegs, while Morded, far from the stock villain so often seen, is gloomy, misunderstood, and surprisingly sympathetic. Others, such as Morgan le Fay and Sir Bors, are also presented in unique and insightful ways that provide arch sidelights on the standard legend. In the end, Guenevere is cleared, and justice of a sort prevails. The book ends with Sir Kay - who is himself deeply in love with the Queen, and bitterly jealous of Lancelot - sitting down to play chess with her, and contenting himself with at least having a deep though platonic relationship. |
Anne Frank: The Biography | Melissa Müller | 1,998 | Anne Frank born on 12 June 1929 to a middle class Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, Germany feels the early threats of Nazism as Hitler rises to power in 1933. Soon her family emigrates to the Netherlands where Anne enjoys an idyllic life centered arounds school, boys and sleepovers. However, the situation changes quickly once Germany invades the Netherlands in May 1940. The family is soon forced to go into hiding with another family at the back building of the family business. While there Anne faithfully keeps a diary describing everyday situations and her thoughts and beliefs. After two years and one month they are betrayed and sent to concentration camps where they all perish with the exception of Anne's father, Otto Frank. The book ends with an afterword by one of the women who hid them, Miep Gies. |
L.A. Confidential | James Ellroy | 1,990 | The story revolves around a group of LAPD officers in the early 1950s who become embroiled in a mix of sex, corruption, and murder following a mass murder at the Nite Owl coffee shop. The story eventually encompasses organized crime, political corruption, heroin trafficking, pornography, prostitution, institutional racism, and Hollywood. The title refers to the scandal magazine Confidential, which is fictionalized as Hush-Hush. It also deals with the real-life "Bloody Christmas" scandal. The three protagonists are LAPD officers. Edmund Exley, the son of legendary detective Preston Exley, is a "straight arrow" who informs on other officers in a police brutality scandal. This earns the enmity of Wendell "Bud" White, an intimidating enforcer with a personal fixation on men who abuse women. Between the two of them is Jack Vincennes, a flashy cop who is a technical advisor on a police television show called Badge of Honor (similar to the real life show Dragnet) and provides tips to a scandal magazine. The three of them must set their differences aside to unravel the conspiracy linking the novel's events. |
Let the Right One In | John Ajvide Lindqvist | null | In 1982 Blackberg, Stockholm, Oskar is a 12-year old boy who resides with his mother and occasionally visits his father in the countryside. He lives with his mother, who is loving and with whom he initially seems to have a close connection. His father is an alcoholic who lives out in the countryside. Because he is the victim of merciless bullying, Oskar has gained morbid interests, which include crime and forensics, and keeps a scrapbook filled with newspaper articles about murders. One day, he befriends Eli, a child of about the same age, who just moved in next door. Eli lives with an older man named Håkan, a former teacher who was fired when caught with possession of child pornography and has since become a vagrant. Eli is revealed to be a vampire who was turned as a child and therefore stuck forever in a young body. Oskar and Eli develop a close relationship, and Eli helps Oskar fight back against his tormentors. Throughout the book their relationship gradually becomes closer, and they reveal more of themselves and in particular fragments of Eli's human life. Among the details revealed is that Eli is a boy who was castrated when he was turned into a vampire over 200 years ago. However, Eli dresses in female clothing and is perceived by outsiders as a young girl. Håkan serves Eli, whom he loves, by procuring blood from the living, fighting against his conscience and choosing victims whom he can physically trap, but who are not too young. Eli gives him money for doing this, though Håkan makes it clear he would do it for nothing if Eli allowed them to be physically intimate. Håkan offers to go out one last time under the condition that he spend a night with Eli after he gets the blood, but with the caveat that he may only touch Eli. Håkan's last attempt to get blood fails and he is caught. Just before capture, however, he intentionally disfigures himself with acid so that the police will not be able to trace Eli through him. When Eli finds him in the hospital, Håkan offers his blood and is drunk dry while sitting on the window ledge, but a guard interrupts them and Eli fails to kill him. So that he will not end up becoming a vampire also, Håkan throws himself out of the window to the ground below. Despite this, he soon reanimates as a mindless vampire driven only by his desire for Eli. Then relentlessly pursuing him, Håkan manages to trap Eli in a basement, but Eli fights him off and escapes. Later, the wounded Håkan is destroyed by a youth from the neighborhood who accidentally gets locked in the basement with him. Meanwhile, the Blackeberg local Lacke suspects a child is responsible for the murder of his best friend, Jocke (whom Eli has killed for blood). Later, Lacke witnesses Eli attack his sometime-girlfriend, Virginia. He attempts to drink her blood, but is fought off by Lacke. Virginia survives, but starts turning into a vampire. She does not realize her "infection" until she tries to prolong her life by drinking her own blood, and finds that exposure to the sun causes boils on her skin. Upon being hospitalized, Virgina realizes what she has turned into and kills herself in her bed by deliberately exposing herself to daylight. Oskar eventually fights back and injures his tormentor, Jonny, for which the boy's older brother Jimmy hunts down and attempts to hurt Oskar in retaliation. Oskar further incurs their wrath when he sets fire to their desks, destroying a treasured photo album belonging to their father. They corner Oskar at night at the local swimming pool and attempt to drown him, however Eli rescues Oskar and kills two of the other boys, and together they flee the city with Eli's money and possessions. |
The Day the Leader was Killed | Naguib Mahfouz | 1,983 | The novel follows multiple narratives written in the stream of consciousness format. The novel is set during the early 1980s whilst Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was introducing the infitah or open door free-market economic policies which led to widespread unrest. The plot revolves around a young Egyptian man who is in love with a co-worker, but her father will not permit their marriage because the young man cannot earn enough money to purchase and furnish an apartment. Eventually their engagement is called off, and the woman is engaged to their boss. In a fit of rage and despair, the protagonist murders his boss on the same day that Sadat is assassinated by terrorists, and the two narratives are intertwined. Hearing the news of the President's death is the catalyst for the protagonist's decision to kill his employer. The grandfather of the protagonist reflects on the generational gap in Egypt throughout the novel. Like many of Mahfouz's novels, the book uses Egyptian history and society to analyze universal themes such as the relationship between love and economics, familiar relationships, death, and the irrationality of human emotion. |
The Necklace Affair | null | 1,967 | The necklace of Queen Marie-Antoinette that was believed to have been destroyed centuries ago has been found by Sir Henry Williamson, a wealthy British collector based in France. Blake and Mortimer arrive in Paris in order to testify at the trial of their sworn enemy Colonel Olrik only to learn that he has managed to slip away under the very noses of the police during a transfer to the court house from the main jail. Williamson then invites them to a reception where he intends to show off the necklace for the first time in public. The party is held at the residence of Duranton-Claret, the jeweller who restored the necklace, but as he is on his way to fetch it a large explosion shakes the house. Going to the cellar, Blake and Mortimer find it in a state of collapse with water pouring in from the burst water main. They barely manage to save the jewel case from the strongroom, but when they open it the necklace is gone and they find a note in which Olrik claims responsibility. The explosion was caused by an actual bomb and Olrik and his men escaped using the Paris Catacombs over which the house rests. Blake summons his contact Commissaire Pradier of the DST, the French security service (similar to the FBI or MI5) who is in charge of the Olrik case. Olrik himself leaks the news to the press and before long Duranton is harassed by phone calls from reporters and becomes a bundle of nerves. In the morning, Blake and Mortimer are visiting Duranton when they witness an attempt by Olrik's men, led by his henchman Sharkey, to kidnap him. The two Britons manage to rescue Duranton but the crooks escape. A couple of nights later, Duranton is again the subject of an attempt, this time led by Olrik himself. With the help of Vincent, Duranton's loyal valet, Blake and Mortimer manage to rescue the terrified jeweller, but, in spite of the sudden arrival of the police, Olrik and his men escape, again via the catacombs. Pradier has arranged a wire-tapping of the phones in the Duranton residence. They thus intercept a call from Olrik to the jeweller in which it emerges that Duranton, facing financial ruin, arranged for the theft of the necklace with Sharkey in return for help in springing Olrik from prison. However, Duranton also double-crossed Olrik by placing a fake necklace in the strongroom — the real item is still somewhere in his house. Olrik tells him that to end the nightmare Duranton is to deliver the real necklace to him at night at Montsouris Park. That night Duranton recovers the necklace and discreetly leaves his house, his real intention being to flee abroad. Following him from a distance are Blake, Mortimer and Pradier, but Duranton's car is hijacked by Sharkey who was hidden inside. Driving erratically, the terrified Duranton crashes into the park fence. With the police surrounding the area he hides the necklace in a merry-go-round. He then hails a cab only to find it driven by Olrik who promptly drives through a police roadblock. Blake, Mortimer and Pradier find Sharkey who was knocked unconscious in the crash. He agrees to co-operate and leads them to an entrance to the catacombs. While walking through the tunnels, Sharkey gives the police the slip. Blake and Mortimer go after him but then get hopelessly lost in the underground maze. Sharkey himself manages to make his way to an old underground bunker which was used by the resistance during World War II and is now Olrik's HQ. Duranton is placed in a deep, dry well which is filled bit by bit with water. As it reaches his throat he finally confesses to Olrik where he left the necklace. Olrik leaves him with the fake and sets off to recover the genuine article. Just as he is leaving, Blake and Mortimer manage to find their way through the maze and reach the bunker. As they take on the guards they are on the verge of being killed when the police led by Pradier arrives. In the battle that follows, the police manage to capture Olrik's gang, including Sharkey, and recover Duranton and the fake necklace. Olrik himself evades the police by making his way through the sewers. He reaches Montsouris Park and recovers the necklace from the merry-go-round. At that moment he is surrounded by police but manages to escape, again via the sewers. Driving to a safe-house, Olrik learns on the radio that there will be a special TV broadcast about the recent events. Arriving at his hide-out he switches on the TV: during the programme Mortimer announces that the necklace Olrik obtained from the park is in fact the fake! The police had recovered the genuine article just moments before the crook's arrival! Enraged, Olrik smashes up the fake necklace. Sir Henry Williamson then announces that he is donating the necklace to the French nation. |
Dark Challenge | Christine Feehan | null | Julian Savage, the twin brother of Aidan (Dark Gold), is sent to warn a young singer, Desari, that she and her band have come under suspicion by a fanatical vampire hunting society. Believing this to be his last task to his Prince, Mikhail, Julian was prepared to greet the dawn and his own destruction. However, upon hearing the singer's hauntingly beautiful voice, he was mesmerized. The colours he hadn't seen in over eight hundred years were now vivid and bright. Julian instantly knew he had found his lifemate because of his ability to see in colour, accompanied by the return of emotions. While he revels in his discovery, gunfire rings out on stage. Julian rushes in to find three of the band members, including Desari, lying amongst blood-spattered instruments. To save her life, Julian heals her wounds and provides her with a large volume of his blood, while performing the ritual to bind Desari to him. Weak from blood loss, he is surprised by a huge panther. To counter the attack, he in turn shape-shifts into a large, golden leopard. The two cats seemed evenly matched until the arrival of two more leopards. With these unfavourable odds, Julian makes good on his escape, deciding to hunt down the assassins. To his puzzlement, he finds all six of the humans slaughtered in a Carpathian fashion. Julian gathers the bodies, reduces them to ashes and scatters them into the ocean in an effort to throw off the vampire hunting society. As Julian courts Desari, he and Desari's older brother, Darius, test each other's strengths. Meanwhile, Julian's lifelong enemy hunts his lifemate. In light of a common goal, the two Carpathian men strike an uneasy truce to destroy the vampire. |
The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories | Mark Twain | 1,893 | "The £1,000,000 Bank-Note" charts the magical rags-to-riches ascent of a virtuous and resourceful mining broker's clerk from San Francisco who arrives in London with a single dollar in his pocket, and proceeds to ultimate and splendid financial success and fame in London society—a paean to ingenuity and a celebration of its cunning confidence-man narrator. The other pieces range from "Mental Telegraphy," a serious essay reflecting Twain's continuing interest in the occult—he and his wife would later try several seances, poignantly and unsuccessfully, to contact their daughter Suzy—to a tongue-in-cheek "Petition to the Queen of England" for relief from taxes. |
What Mad Universe | Fredric Brown | null | Keith Winton is a journalist for a science-fiction review. With his glamorous co-worker girlfriend, Betty, he visits his friends one day in their elegant estate in the Catskills, unfortunately on the same day as an experimental rocket is to be launched. Betty has to go back to New York. Keith is alone in his friends' garden, deep in thought, when, suddenly, the engine of the rocket (whose launch has been a failure) crashes and explodes on his friends' residence, taking him to a strange but deceptively similar parallel universe. Wild-eyed, Keith is astonished to see how credits have replaced dollars; is amazed when he encounters some scantily-clad pin-up girls who are, at the same time, astronauts; is driven to stupor when he encounters his first Arcturian. But it is when he tries to get back to his usual world when he finally understands his problem, if not the solution. |
Martians, Go Home | Fredric Brown | null | The story begins on 26 March 1964. Luke Deveraux, the protagonist, is a 37-year-old sci-fi writer who is being divorced by his wife. Deveraux holes himself up in a desert cabin with the intention of writing a new novel (and forgetting the painful failure of his marriage). Drunk, he considers writing a story about Martians, when, all of a sudden, someone knocks on the door. Deveraux opens it to find a little green man, a Martian. The Martian turns out to be very uncourteous; he insists on calling Luke 'Mack,' and has little in mind other than the desire to insult and humiliate Luke. The Martian, who is intangible, proves to be able to disappear at will and to see through opaque materials. Luke leaves his cabin by car, thinking to himself that the alien was but a drunken hallucination. He realises that he is wrong when he sees that a billion Martians have come to Earth. |
Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein | null | null | At the beginning of the novel, Lol Stein (her middle initial is omitted in the English translation) is a woman in her thirties. She was born and raised in South Tahla in a bourgeois family and is engaged to Michael Richardson at 19. However, at a ball in the seaside resort of Town Beach, Michael Richardson leaves Lol for Anne-Marie Stretter, an older woman. After a difficult recovery from this shock, Lol marries Jean Bedford, a musician she meets on one of her daily walks. Lol leaves South Tahla with her husband. Ten years later, with three children, Lol is an established woman with no time for fantasy. She returns with her family to South Tahla and moves into the house she grew up in. Lol goes on her daily walks as she did ten years before. She thinks she recognises Tatiana Karl one day, the friend who consoled her after her breakup with Michael Richardson. The man who accompanies Tatiana makes a deep impression on Lol. Lol reestablishes her contact with Tatiana and gets to know both her husband and her lover, Jacques Hold. Lol is able to get information from Jacques about events at the ball at T Beach 10 years before. Lol reveals to Jacques her interest in him but forbids him to stay with her instead of Tatiana. Lol spies on Tatiana and her lover but Jacques notices her. One day Lol tells Jacques that she has been to T Beach alone and plans to return with him. While doing this, Lol shows Jacques the room where she and Michael Richardson had split up. Lol and Jacques spend the night together. The next day, Jacques has one last meeting with Tatiana Karl. The novel is seen through the obsessive eyes of Jacques Hold. The primary character in novel shifts from Lol to himself as you delve further into his pursuit of Lol. |
Come Rack! Come Rope! | Robert Hugh Benson | 1,912 | Robin Audrey and Marjorie Manners, both aged seventeen, are secretly engaged. They both come from recusant Catholic families in Derbyshire, but she is the more devout of the two. Robin's mother died when he was about seven, and his father has continued to practise the Catholic faith, despite having to pay heavy fines for refusing to attend services in the established Church of England. The two families meet several times a year, when Mass is being secretly offered by a priest. The story begins when Robin visits his fiancée and tells her that his father has announced that he can no longer tolerate the persecution and fines, that he will take the bread and wine in the Anglican church at Easter, and that Robin must do the same. Marjorie advises her lover to leave the area for Easter, so that his father will have time to accept that his son will not follow him. She gives him a rosary which belonged to the recently-executed priest Cuthbert Mayne, kisses him for the first time, and urges him to trust in God. When he arrives home, Robin finds his friend Anthony Babington waiting for him. Anthony is also a Catholic, fanatically devoted to the imprisoned, Catholic Queen of Scots. Robin tells Anthony of his troubles. Later, the two men are out riding, and pass three other men. One of them, Mr. Garlick, recognises Anthony, having heard Mass in his house, and on being assured that Robin is also a Catholic, introduces the newly-ordained Mr. Simpson and his travelling companion Mr. Ludlam to the two friends, telling them that Mr. Simpson will say Mass the following Sunday. Robin realises, as he goes home, that he must not mention this to his father. Robin's troubles at home increase, as he has to cope with his father's anger and sneers. Meanwhile, Marjorie is tormented by unexpected but persistent ideas that perhaps God is calling Robin to the priesthood, to atone for his father's sin. She feels that if a love higher than hers is calling, she must not stand in the way, but is unsure whether such thoughts come from God or from her own imagination. She talks to Mr. Simpson, but he is unable to advise her. She is afraid to mention it to Robin, in case she has merely imagined this to be God's will, yet feels she should at least sow a seed in his mind. She prays for guidance, thinking that "a broken heart and God's will done would be better than that God's will should be avoided and her own satisfied." On Easter Sunday, after the two lovers have met secretly for Mass with other Catholics at Padley, home to the FitzHerbert family, Marjorie tells Robin her thoughts, promising that she will marry him if he wishes, but saying that if it is God's will that Robin should be a priest, she will not hold him for a day. Horrified, Robin accuses Marjorie of wanting to be rid of him. On seeing how hurt she is, he kisses her and begs her forgiveness, but tells her that he cannot make that sacrifice. Later that day, Mr. Simpson, looking pale and speaking with a trembling voice, reads out to the group of Catholics a letter he has received, telling of the execution of a priest Mr. Nelson, and of a layman Mr. Sherwood, and how bravely they both faced martyrdom. Both were hanged, drawn and quartered for their faith; Mr. Sherwood had also been racked several times. The host, Mr. FitzHerbert, announces that the letter is from Mr. Ludlam, who has decided to go to Douai and study for the priesthood. There have also been rumours that Mr. Garlick will go too. The following week, Robin returns home, full of doubts and fears, and worried about his financial situation, as he has no money of his own, and his father has made it clear that he will not pay fines for Robin's refusal to attend church. On his way home, he meets Anthony, who hints at some enterprise to restore the Catholic Faith to England, and urges Robin to join him and his friends. Robin's doubts increase: unsure of what Anthony's secret enterprise involves, hopeful that it may offer him a way out of his dilemma and enable him to marry Marjorie, yet unclear as to the morality of the enterprise, he tells Anthony he cannot decide immediately. When he goes back into the house, he faces his father, who angrily demands to know his intentions. Robin begs his father not to pressurise him, but to give him time; and his father gives him until Pentecost. That night, after several failed attempts to sleep, Robin hears the noise of horses, is seized with curiosity, and goes out to see who is riding at that hour. Hiding behind a wall, he sees Mr. Simpson setting out on one of his perilous journeys with two other men. The sight of the priest risking his life to serve God and bring consolation to souls inspires Robin to make the decision against which he has been fighting. He goes to his father's room, wakes the old man, and says he is ready to give his answer: "It is that I must go to Rheims and be a priest." A few days later, Robin comes to Marjorie, to say goodbye before setting out for Rheims. They agree that he must always remember that he is to be a priest, and that if he comes to her house, it must just be as to any Catholic neighbour. More than two years have passed. Robin is studying for the priesthood at Rheims, and Marjorie is living with her mother, her father having died. Marjorie's home is sometimes used to harbour priests. Anthony Babington visits her and tells her of some business he is involved with in London. He has to go there to meet a priest called Ballard, but there will be many priests travelling together. He urges Marjorie to come to London with him and his sister Alice to meet these priests, so that she may be in a better position to recognise and assist them if every they come to Derbyshire. He mentions also that Robin will be coming. Although Robin will not be a priest for another five years, such students are sometimes sent back to England temporarily as servants, to learn how to avoid the Queen's men. Some of Anthony's business he does not mention to Marjorie. He has become increasingly impatient with the thought of using prayer alone to combat the persecution of Catholics, and is involved in some conspiracy with Ballard and others; but most of his friends whom he has attempted to influence have drawn back and a priest has even told him he is on dangerous ground. Marjorie agrees to come. In London, Marjorie meets Father Campion, one of the most hunted priests in the kingdom, famous for his preaching. Campion explains his position of mixing boldly with the crowd to avoid suspicion, rather than hiding behind locked doors. He arranges to go with the others to see the sights of London the next day, and they see the Tower of London, and the notorious priest-hunter and torturer Richard Topcliffe. They also catch a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth, of whom Campion speaks with gentleness and loyalty. Marjorie overhears some disagreement between Campion and Ballard, which seems to be on political matters. When Robin arrives, Marjorie is careful to address him as "Mr. Audrey". She asks him for prayers and advice, saying that she thinks of him as a priest already, and that although her duty is clearly to remain with her mother at present, she has wondered if she should leave the country to serve God as a nun, in the event of her mother's death. Robin promises to pray for her, but reminds her that he is not yet a priest, and gives her no advice. A year later, Marjorie is in her home with her sick mother, thinking of Father Campion and of the numerous escapes that he is reported to have had. Anthony Babington arrives, and furiously tells Marjorie that Campion, Sherwine and Brian were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn three days previously, that they had been racked continuously, and that they all died praying for the Queen. The next day, Marjorie realises that her mother is dying, and sends some men to find a priest. In the evening, her mother's condition worsens. Marjorie tells her mother that there is no priest, says that God will accept her sorrow, and urges her to make an Act of Contrition. Her mother cries out for a priest, and Marjorie reminds her that priests are forbidden in the kingdom. She says that three priests have just been executed for being priests, and tells her mother to say, "Edmund Campion, pray for me." Marjorie has a sudden, strong sensation that Campion is in the room; her mother smiles, looks around with no fear, and dies. Mr. Simpson arrives two hours later. Marjorie, calm and controlled, tells him that it is all over. She tells him of the martyrdom of Father Campion and his two companions. Mr. Simpson is seized with a fear that shames and disgusts him, but is unable to overcome it. Marjorie tells him that she will invite Alice Babington to come and live with her, and hints that she will now be able to do more to assist fugitive priests. The following summer, Marjorie meets a young Catholic carpenter called Hugh Owen. He is building a special hiding place for priests at Padley, and comes to Marjorie's house to do the same. He tells her of how much he was inspired by Campion, and that he thinks he will die for his faith some day. Some time later, Marjorie falls from a horse near Robin's old home, twisting her foot. Robin's father takes her into the house, and insists that she must dine there. In a private conversation, he asks when Robin will be ordained, and she tells him that if Robin has not told him that, she cannot. He understands, but tells her that he is now a magistrate, and that Robin will have no mercy from him. He warns her that the authorities are aware of some of the movements of Catholics such as the FitzHerberts. When she asks why he is telling her this, he says that he was friend to the FitzHerberts before he was a magistrate. He becomes angry when she mentions Robin, telling the old man that it is not too late, and that his duty to God is higher than his duty as a magistrate. Robin is now a priest, and has returned to England, under the name Mr. Alban. He meets Anthony Babington again; the latter confides to him, as to a priest, the details of the enterprise at which he had only hinted some years before. Anthony and a number of others, including Ballard, intend to kill the Queen and to set the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne. He tells how they have been helped by Gilbert Gifford, and how they send messages to Queen Mary, in code. Robin begs him to give up the plot, saying that it is against God's law. He is uneasy at the plan for practical reasons, too, saying that too much hangs on Mr. Gifford, who may not be as trustworthy as Anthony thinks. Robin tells Anthony that he cannot give him absolution as long as Anthony intends to kill Queen Elizabeth. He says that as Anthony was speaking to him as a priest, he will regard the conversation as under the seal of confession, but warns Anthony not to come to him the next day as if he knows it as a man, as it would be his duty to inform the authorities. A few days later, Robin receives a letter from Anthony, saying that he has been betrayed and is being watched at every point, and that Mr. Gifford has been a traitor all along. A letter to Queen Mary is enclosed, and Anthony begs Robin to deliver it to her, or if that proves impossible, to memorise the contents and deliver it orally. Robin destroys the letter. Anthony and his companions are arrested soon after. Robin makes his way to Chartley Hall, where Queen Mary is held captive. He speaks to her apothecary, a Catholic called Mr. Bourgoign, and tells him that he is a priest, and has a message for the Queen. Suspicious at first, Mr. Bourgoign is finally convinced when Robin offers to confide the message to him and ride away again. He urges Robin to stay and to find some way to have a private interview with the Queen, who longs to make her confession, knowing that she will soon be executed. They decide that Robin, who has some skill as a herbalist, will be presented to Sir Amyas Paulet, the Queen's jailer, as one who may be able to help the Queen's health. Sir Amyas reluctantly allows Robin to see the Queen alone for a few minutes, and Robin hears her confession and gives her Holy Communion. The Queen declares herself to be completely innocent of the plot against Elizabeth. Some months have passed. Anthony Babington and his companions have been executed. Robin returns to Derbyshire, and is received by Marjorie. He hears confessions and says Mass at her house. Marjorie knows that Mr. Bourgoign is likely to send for Robin again to hear Queen Mary's confession before her execution, and that the message will be sent through her. Knowing that there can hardly be a greater danger for a priest than to risk arrest near the Queen of Scots, she realises that she will face temptation to suppress the message if and when it comes. The months pass by, and finally the message comes. Marjorie plans to send the messenger away and say nothing to Robin. However, the messenger tells her of the Queen's distress, and she suddenly remembers how her own mother, when dying, cried out for a priest. Though her religion has taught her that God will save and forgive without a priest, she thinks of the guilt and heartlessness of one who would keep the priest away from a person near death. She calls Robin, tells him that she nearly destroyed the letter, and prays that God will keep him safe. Robin goes to Fotheringay, where the Queen is to be executed. Sir Amyas refuses to allow him to see her, but he hopes to be present at the execution, and to be in close enough proximity to give her absolution. When he arrives at the hall of execution, he sees that this will be impossible. He is present as she is beheaded. A year later, Robin and a group of Catholics gather in Marjorie's parlour to discuss the latest news. Mr. Simpson has been captured and is awaiting trial. To the dismay of Catholics, he is beginning to falter, and there is real fear that he will agree to go to an Anglican service to avoid execution. Marjorie hopes to visit him to encourage him to remain firm, but her friends urge her not to, as her work in harbouring priests is so valuable, and could be compromised if she draws attention on herself. A month later, Robin is at Padley with Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick, who have also been ordained. They each say Mass, and when the third Mass is over, they hear men coming to surround the house. They hide in the priest holes previously built by Hugh Owen. Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick are discovered and arrested. Robin is in a different priest hole, and is not found. When he feels it is safe to do so, he leaves the house and makes his way to Marjorie's home. She arranges that he will ride away at one in the morning, to a place she has marked on a map. There he will find a shepherd's hut, and will hide there for at least two weeks. Food and drink will be brought to him, and Marjorie will also send him news about the priests who were taken at Padley. Robin, in his hiding place, receives an unsigned letter from Marjorie, telling him that the authorities had put Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick in gaol with Mr. Simpson, perhaps hoping that Mr. Simpson, having agreed to go to church so that his life might be spared, would convince them to do the same; but that the two other priests had managed to persuade Mr. Simpson to confess himself openly a Catholic again. The three men had been tried, condemned, and executed. At the trial, and at the gallows, Mr. Simpson had shown as much courage as his two companions. Nearly a week later, Robin becomes aware that he is being watched. He leaves the shepherd's hut, and makes his way back to Marjorie's house. As he tells her how he felt he was being followed, they hear horses. He plans to escape to the hills, but she urges him to hide in the place that Hugh Owen built some years before. He slips into the hiding place, just as the magistrate, old Mr. Audrey arrives with his men. Mr. Audrey is extremely uncomfortable with his commission, especially as he was once friendly with the Manners family. The thought that the priest, if there is a priest hiding there, might be his own son does not occur to him, but he hopes to do as little damage to the house as possible. Marjorie whispers to him urgently that he must leave at once, but faints before she can say more. Embarrassed, Mr. Audrey tries to end the search as soon as possible, and is secretly relieved that nothing has been found. His men, however, mention one more wall they want to test. To his dismay, the men find a young bearded man behind the wall. The old man turns sick and rushes forward, screaming, as he realises that he has just arrested his own son. Robin is in prison, and it is reported that Lord Shrewsbury has given orders that the prisoner must be dealt with sternly. It is believed that Mr. Alban has a great deal more against him than the mere fact of being a priest. It is thought that he was involved in the Babington plot, and that he had on at least one occasion had access to the Queen of Scots. It is soon reported that Mr. Topcliffe, the torturer, has arrived in Derby on a special mission. Marjorie has the task of reporting this to her former lover, and breaks down, crying under the strain. He gently tells her that God's grace is strong enough, reminds her that it was she who turned him to the priesthood, and says that she had surely known what this meant. He thanks her, tells her he is at peace, and asks her to pray for him. Robin is severely tortured for three days, spending several hours in the rack-house each day, while being interrogated by Topcliffe. He prays throughout the ordeal, and betrays nothing. He is then tried and is sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He is offered his life if he will conform and go to church, but refuses. He has one final interview with Marjorie, in which he urges her not to leave the country to become a nun, but rather to serve God by remaining in England and continuing her work at assisting priests. A large crowd gathers for the execution, as the exciting story of the young priest, taken by his own father in the house of his former fiancée, draws far more interest than an ordinary hanging. Old Mr. Audrey is believed to be still ill, not having fully recovered from his fit, and there are rumours that Marjorie will be present at the execution. Robin is drawn on a cart to the gallows, and a rope is passed around his neck, causing a moment of terror. He makes a final speech, proclaiming his innocence of treason, and praying for Queen Elizabeth. He then looks down from the ladder and sees a man in bare feet, writhing and embracing the rungs. He looks beyond for some explanation, and sees a girl in a hooded cloak, who raises her eyes to his. Looking down at the man again, he sees a face "distorted with speechless entreaty", and recognises his father. He smiles, leans forward, and speaks the words of absolution: :"Te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Fillii et Spiritus Sancti . . ." |
The Problem of the Covered Bridge | Edward D. Hoch | 1,974 | The story, which is set in March 1922, begins with old Dr. Sam Hawthorn telling a story to an unnamed listener. He tells about how he came to the small town of Northmont, in his new yellow Pierce-Arrow. He focuses on the Bringlow family, Jacon and Sarah, their daughters Susan and Sally, their son Hank, and his fiancee Millie. Dr. Sam is treating Sarah, and has come to really know the Bringlows. He even notices that Hank is reading copies of Hearst's International magazine that include the two-part Sherlock Holmes story, The Problem of Thor Bridge. Hank has to take a jar of apple sauce to Millie's house in a horse and buggy. Sam and Millie ride behind Hank, also in a horse and buggy. Along the way, Walt Rumsey stops Sam and Millie's buggy by taking his cattle across the road to drink. Sam and Millie follow Hank's tracks to a covered bridge. The tracks enter the bridge, but don't come out the other side, and there is a smashed jar of applesauce in the middle of the bridge. The horse and buggy, and Hank, have disappeared. The Bringlows decide to call Sheriff Lens, who believed that Hank would turn up because he was in the habit of playing tricks. Eventually, they do find Hank, sitting on the side of the road in his buggy, shot in the back of the head. The reins have been tied to the horse, and the horse was sent off on its own, meaning that Hank was already dead when the horse was set loose. Dr. Sam investigates Walt Rumsey, and tries to apply the solution of the Problem of Thor Bridge to this problem. When he works out what has happened, he gathers all of the suspects at the Bringlow house to reveal the solution. What tipped off Dr. Sam was that Walt had been taking his cows to drink at a pond with ice on the top. Dr. Sam reveals that the disappearance started out as a joke by Hank, who had enlisted the assistance of Walt Ramsey. Walt Ramsey used an old pair of carriage wheels, linked by an axle, to create a fake horse and buggy track. When the cows blocked Sam and Millie, Hank and Walt created the fake set of tracks, and then Hank hid in Walt's barn. Walt had been in love with Millie and saw his opportunity to kill his romantic rival and escape punishment. |
On Chesil Beach | Ian McEwan | 2,007 | In July 1962, Edward Mayhew and Florence Ponting, have just been married and are spending their honeymoon in a small hotel on the Dorset seashore, at Chesil Beach. The couple are very much in love despite being from drastically different backgrounds, with Mayhew the son of a schoolmaster and Ponting the musically gifted daughter of a wealthy industrialist and an Oxford philosophy lecturer. During the course of an evening, both reflect upon their upbringing and the prospect of their futures. Edward is sexually motivated and though intelligent has a taste for rash behaviour, while Florence, bound by the social code of another era is terrified of sexual intimacy: eventually this leads to an experience that will change their relationship irrevocably. The novel focuses upon the couple's different personalities and attitudes and the development of their love in the dawning of a sexual awakening in 1960s Britain. 1962 was the year when the contraceptive pill became available in the United Kingdom. Before this, sex before marriage ran the risk of unwanted pregnancy and possibly unwanted marriage. Edward and Florence represent the last generation who would never have sex before marriage; in their case with disastrous results. |
The Problem of the Old Gristmill | Edward D. Hoch | 1,975 | Old Dr. Sam tells the story of how everyone in town is sad to see Henry Cordwainer leave. Cordwainer, who lived in the old gristmill owned by Seth Hawkins and his mother, is a full-bearded naturalist, who has been writing a book, A Year in Snake Creek. Now that year is up and he is leaving. When he first came, he was cold and uncaring, but when winter began his whole personality changed, and he became helpful, evan helping at the ice house. Sam and Seth help Cordwainer pack up his stuff, including his lock boxes with three dozen journals in them, and Seth reveals that his mother wants him to start up the gristmill (and also that Seth does not want to start it up). Sam does not think much about this, even when he sees Seth at the local cockfights that night. The next morning everyone learns that the gristmill has burned down, and Cordwainer has had his head bashed in. Sheriff Lens is brought in and suspicion falls on Seth -- but Seth was at the cockfight the night before. To complicate matters, Cordwainer's journals that were mailed to Boston in locked strong boxes, have disappeared. The strong boxes arrived, with a very small hole in the bottom, completely empty except for some sawdust. Sam attempts to prove Seth's innocence by injecting him with an experimental truth drug, "scopolamine". Sam proves that Seth could not have committed the murder, and begins to wonder about the sawdust that was found on the bottom of the strong boxes. When Sam works out the solution, Sam and Lens than drive to Albernathy, on Sam's urging. Here, they find the man they thought was Cordwainer, alive and well -- who is actually an escaped convict named Delos. Delos killed Cordwainer before winter, which explains the change in personality. He then pretended to be him. The journals in the strong boxes were revealed to be blocks of ice, which explains the small holes and the traces of sawdust. The gristmill was set on fire in order to thaw Cordwainer's body, which had been frozen since winter. |
Queen Bee | null | null | Haley Madison is a young and unpopular teenager that discovers that she has psychokinetic powers which tend to manifest themselves whenever she becomes excited or angry. After discovering that her family will have to move in order for her foster mother to take a new job, Haley decides to reinvent herself at her new school as one of the cool kids. On her first day in school Haley meets and befriends Trini Turner, but quickly shows more interest in befriending the clique of popular girls in the school that call themselves the "Hive". Haley gains the attention of the Hive once she intervenes with a bully using her powers, but loses her friendship with Trini as a result. Haley's popular status is threatened when Alexa Harmon comes to school. Alexa also has psychokinetic powers and recognizes that Haley has them as well. She joins the Hive and quickly begins to usurp Haley's popularity. As a result the pair begin to fight one another using their powers, resulting in Haley being accused of cheating on a test and being forced to work on a project with the quietest boy in the class, Jasper Reines. Jasper and Haley initially do not get along, but eventually become friends. Jasper remarks on a locket that Haley wears, to which Haley replies that it was a family heirloom. Haley later tries to regain her popularity during a talent contest, which almost backfires due to Alexa's constant interference and spying. Jasper helps Haley win the performance, discovering that both Alexa and Haley have powers in the process. Haley wins by one point and thanks Jasper. She shows him the locket, which contains a picture of two infant girls, one of which is Haley and the other she assumes is her sister. Haley later manages to restart her friendship with Trini, but is confronted by Alexa who informs them that she has been scouted to be a makeup model. |
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