text
stringlengths 111
3.01k
|
---|
<|fantasy|>Radix is the story of a young man s odyssey of self discovery , from dangerous adolescent to warrior , from outcast to near god , in a far future Earth dramatically changed from the one we know . |
<|action|>In four cities across the world , four people die violently and mysteriously . The dead share a single crucial link each was connected to an all powerful environmental think tank . Two of the victims widows accomplished artist Diane Stevens and international supermodel Kelly Harris may hold the key to their husbands demise . Terrified for their lives , suspicious of each other , and armed only with their own wits and guile , they must join forces in a nightmare cycle of they loved . . . and about an awesome conspiracy whose ultimate target is as big as the earth and as close as the air we breathe . |
<|novel|>The story is set in New England in a town called Newport . Dr . Hopkins is a 40 year old minister . Mary is the daughter of his hostess in town , and Hopkins soon falls in love with Mary . Mary is unable to return his affections because she is still in love with James Marvyn , a sailor presumed lost at sea . Mary is a very religious and saintly girl , so after a period of mourning , she decides that she will marry Dr . Hopkins . Mary has other suitors , including Aaron Burr , but she sees that even though he is the grandson of Jonathan Edwards and has been raised in Calvinism , he is mired in evil . James eventually returns from sea and Dr . Hopkins knows that he cannot compete with Mary s love for James . Hopkins calls off the marriage , and Mary and James are free to marry and live happily . |
<|fantasy|>The setting is the fictional Missouri frontier town of Dawson s Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century . David Wilson , a young lawyer , moves to town and a clever remark of his is misunderstood , which causes locals to brand him a pudd nhead a nitwit . His hobby of collecting fingerprints does not raise his standing in the townsfolk s eyes , who see him as an eccentric and do not frequent his law practice . Puddn head Wilson moves into the background as the focus shifts to the slave Roxy , her son , and the family they serve . Roxy is only one sixteenth black , and her son Valet de Chambre referred to as Chambers is only 1 32 black . Roxy is principally charged with caring for her inattentive master s infant son Tom Driscoll , who is the same age as her own son . After fellow slaves are caught stealing and are nearly sold down the river , to a master further south , Roxy fears for her life and the life of her son . First she decides to kill herself and Chambers to avoid being sold down the river , but then decides instead to switch Chambers and Tom in their cribs so that her son will live a life of privilege . The narrative moves forward two decades , and Tom Driscoll formerly Valet de Chambre , believing himself to be wholly white and raised as a spoiled aristocrat , has grown to be a selfish and dissolute young man . Tom s father has died and granted Roxy her freedom . Roxy worked for a time on river boats , and saved money for her retirement . When she finally is able to retire , she discovers that her bank has failed and all of her savings are gone . She returns to Dawson s Landing to ask for money from Tom . Tom meets Roxy with derision and Roxy tells him that he is her son , and uses this fact to blackmail him into financially supporting her . Twin Italian noblemen visit the town to some fanfare , a murder is committed , and the story takes on the form of a crime novel . The reader knows from the beginning who committed the murder , and the story foreshadows how the crime will be solved . The circumstances of the denouement , however , possessed in its time great novelty , for fingerprinting had not then come into official use in crime detection in the United States . Even a man who fooled around with it as a hobby was thought to be a simpleton , a pudd nhead . From Langston Hughes introduction to the novel The story describes the racism of the antebellum south , even as to seemingly white people with minute traces of African ancestry , and the acceptance of that state of affairs by all involved , including the black population . |
<|novel|>The tiger recounts his story of capture by a circus owner , and his eventual escape . He lived freely in the wild jungles of India in his youth . He mates and has a litter with a tigress , and raises a litter until one day he finds that hunters have captured and killed his entire family . He exacts revenge by attacking and eating the cattle and livestock of nearby villages , but is captured by poachers . He is sent to a zoo in Malgudi , where a harsh animal trainer known only as the Captain starves him and forces him to do tricks in the circus . He lives in captivity successfully for some time , but eventually his wild instincts overcome him and he mauls and kills the Captain . After an extended rampage though town , he is recaptured , but this time voluntarily by a monk renunciant with whom he passes the rest of his life on the hills . hi |
<|fantasy|>Tiffany is working as the Chalk s only witch in a climate of growing suspicion and prejudice When the local Baron dies of poor health , she is accused of murder . Tiffany travels to Ankh Morpork to inform the Baron s heir , Roland , who happens to be in the city with his fiancée Letitia . On the way Tiffany is attacked by the Cunning Man , a frightening figure who has holes where his eyes should be . In the city she meets Mrs Proust , the proprietor of Boffo s joke shop , where many witches buy their stereotypical witch accoutrements . When they find Roland and Letitia the Nac Mac Feegles , who have as usual been following Tiffany , are accused of destroying a pub . Tiffany and Mrs Proust are arrested by Carrot and Angua , and nominally locked up although it is mostly , in fact , for their protection as people start to resent witches . When they are released the next day , Tiffany meets Eskarina Esk Smith not seen since the events of the third Discworld novel , Equal Rites , who explains to her that the Cunning Man was , a thousand years ago , an Omnian witch finder , who had fallen in love with a witch . That witch , however , knew how evil the Cunning Man was . She was eventually burnt to death , but as she was being burned she trapped the Cunning Man in the fire as well . The Cunning Man became a demonic spirit of pure hatred , able to corrupt other minds with suspicion and hate . Esk announces that the Cunning Man is coming . Tiffany and the Feegles return to the Chalk , where they find the Baron s soldiers trying to dig up the Feegle mound . She stops them , and goes to see Roland , who throws her in a dungeon which she locks on the inside , and is brought bacon , eggs , and coffee in the morning . It is later learned that the Cunning Man was responsible for these actions . She escapes , however , and goes to see Letitia , whom she discovers is also an untrained but talented witch . She sees the Cunning Man twice while at Letitia s home , and as guests begin to arrive at Roland and Letitia s wedding , the other witches start to arrive . . . so that if the Cunning Man takes over her body , they can kill her . The night before the wedding , Tiffany , Roland , Letitia and Preston a castle guard whom Tiffany has befriended meet at one of the fields that needs to be burned to clear it of stubble Tiffany lures the Cunning Man into the flames and defeats him . After some discussions , the story then jumps forward a year where she is offered a beautiful black dress by Amber . We can see Preston , who is about as smart as Tiffany , showing his love for her and Tiffany reciprocating it . |
<|childrens|>The Edge of the Cloud is set in London where , after Will and Christina elope , Christina briefly stays with their Aunt Grace . Will finds a job as a mechanic and later as an instructor at a flying school , and Christina finds employment at a nearby hotel to be close to Will . Uncle Russel and Mr Dermont both die during the course of the story . One death fills Will with pain the other indifference . Will and Christina become close friends with Sandy , another flying instructor , and his girlfriend , Dorothy , the spoiled daughter of Christina s employer . Will gives exhibition flights to make extra money and designs and builds his own airplane . Mark joins the army . At the end , Will becomes famous as a stunt pilot and is thinking of joining the army , which on the eve of their long awaited wedding worries Christina . |
<|childrens|>The final novel in the original Flambards trilogy opens in the middle of the First World War with Christina , now a widow , returning to Flambards . Flambards has greatly deteriorated since she left with Will , and is almost in ruins . As distraction from her grief over Will s death and the news that his brother Mark has been reported missing and presumed dead , Christina sets herself the tedious and difficult task of restoring the farm . She not only wishes to restore the house and grounds but also a semblance of her old life , the people , horses and hounds . Finding she is pregnant with Will s baby , Christina adopts Mark and Violet s six year old son Tizzy Thomas , along with an original Flambards bitch called Marigold and a nervy five year old bay thoroughbred called Pheasant . Eventually she persuades Dick to come back to work on the farm and things slowly begin to go smoothly , until the reappearance of Mark . Christina s joy quickly turns to anxiety and apprehension as Mark tells her that if she wishes to remain at Flambards , she must marry him . But Christina fears Mark become like his father , and when she finds she has feelings for Dick , her confusion increases as she still loves Will . |
<|fantasy|>Six weeks after returning from the Jovian system , David Lucky Starr learns that Jack Dorrance , the chief of a Sirian spy ring uncovered by Starr in the Jovian system , has escaped from Earth . Starr and his sidekick Bigman Jones follow Dorrance to the Saturnian system , where Dorrance tries to lose them in Saturn s rings , but his ship is destroyed by a ring fragment . A Sirian ship then contacts Starr and informs him that the Sirians have built a colony on Titan and claimed it for Sirius , contrary to established precedent that all worlds in an inhabited stellar system belong to that system s inhabitants , whether they have permanent settlements on those worlds or not . Starr orders the pursuing Terrestrial fleet back to Earth but returns with Bigman and Councilman Ben Wessilewsky to the Saturnian system . When several Sirian ships pursue the Shooting Starr , Starr conceals himself and his ship in the interior of Mimas leaves Wessilewsky below the surface with enough supplies to maintain himself for several months then takes the Shooting Starr back into space , where they are captured by the Sirians and taken to the colony on Titan . There , Sirian commander Sten Devoure threatens to have Bigman killed unless Starr agrees to testify at an upcoming interstellar conference on the asteroid Vesta that he entered the Saturnian system to attack the Sirians . When Bigman endangers himself by defeating Devoure in a duel , Starr makes a deal with Devoure if he spares Bigman s life , Starr will testify that he entered the Saturnian system in an armed ship , and will lead the Sirians to Wessilewsky s base on Mimas . At the Vesta conference , Devoure admits that the Sirians have established a base on Titan , but insists that the fact that Saturn and its moons are part of Earth s stellar system is irrelevant An empty world is an empty world , regardless of the particular route it travels through space . We colonized it first and it is ours . Devoure then brings out Starr , who admits to having re entered the Saturnian system after being warned off , and also that Wessilewsky established a base on Mimas . When asked his reasons , according to a secret plan of his own , Starr replies that Wessilewsky was placed to establish a colony on Mimas whereupon Conway states that by removing Wessilewsky from Mimas , the Sirians violated the very principle they attempted to establish . The conference ends with three client worlds voting with the Sirians , and the rest voting with Earth , with the result that the Sirians are ordered to leave Titan within a month . |
<|action|>Jenny and Lisa Paige , two sisters , return to Jenny s hometown of Snowfield , California , a small ski resort village nestled in the Sierra Nevada Mountains where Jenny works as a doctor , and finds no one alive . The few bodies they find are either mutilated , or reveal some strange form of death . Finally , after growing more alarmed by the town s mysterious and alarming situation Jenny manages to call police in a neighboring town to come help . Together , the girls and the police are able to request help from the military Biological Investigations Unit . The police managed to find only one clue as to what was causing the town s disappearances and deaths . A victim of whatever was trying to kill him managed to write the name Timothy Flyte , on a mirror moments before he was killed . Flyte is a British academic and author of a book , The Ancient Enemy . His book catalogs and describes various mass vanishings of people in different parts of the world over the centuries . It is discovered that the town was built over the hibernating place of this creature , an amoeboid shapeshifter . The Ancient Enemy rarely feeds , but when it does , the effects are devastating . It was theorized that the Enemy either caused or aided in the extinction of the dinosaurs , as well as many of the great mysterious mass vanishings Mayan civilization , Roanoke , ghost ships , etc . The creature consumes other life forms to increase its mass and is able to perfectly mimic other creatures . It can create small probes or phantoms imitating consumed life forms to go forth and hunt more prey , obeying the orders of its hive mind in addition the creature absorbs the mental capacity of those it consumes . Its only vital organ is a nucleus located in the center of its main body . The creature s cells are similar in molecular structure to fossil fuels upon discovering this the scientists use oil eating bacteria to destroy the Enemy s core or brain . The genetically modified bacteria are the real life creations of Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty |
<|childrens|>The Great Redwall Feast tells about the creatures of Redwall preparing for a feast while Matthias the Warriormouse , Constance the Badger Guardian , Foremole , and the Abbot are traveling in Mossflower Woods questing for a mysterious Bobbatan Weary Nod . The book features the Abbeydwellers bustling in Redwall , cooking , gathering flowers , and doing other chores for their beloved Abbot presumably Abbot Mordalfus . Many characters from Redwall and Mattimeo are present in the book , however , the baby mole Bungo is the only character to appear and not be featured in any other Redwall novel . |
<|action|>The book focuses on a fictional MiG 31 aircraft developed by the USSR during the Cold War . The highly advanced fighter aircraft given the NATO code name Firefox includes a form of stealth technology that makes it completely undetectable to radar and is capable of attaining speeds of Mach 5 or more with a range in excess of 3 , 000 miles . Its weapons are controlled by the thought impulses of the pilot , allowing them to be very rapidly aimed and fired . Faced with an aircraft which will give the Soviet Union the ability to completely dominate the skies , the CIA and MI6 launch a mission to steal one of the two Firefox prototype aircraft . The first section of the book details how fighter pilot Mitchell Gant covertly travels to Russia . Gant is ideally trained to steal Firefox , having already trained to fly in captured Russian planes . But he is also scarred by his experiences in Vietnam , including his capture by Viet Cong after being shot down , an ordeal exacerbated when the enemy guerrillas are wiped out almost immediately by napalm from an American air strike . With the help of a network of dissidents and sympathizers , he makes his way to the Bilyarsk air base on which the two prototype aircraft are being developed . With the assistance of some of the scientists working on the project , he is able to penetrate the base and successfully steal a MiG 31 . The second section of the book deals with Gant s flight . Here the novel focuses on military technology and tactics . First heading east towards the Ural Mountains , then north to the Barents Sea , Gant narrowly escapes a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft and cruiser . Low on kerosene , Gant makes a pre arranged rendezvous with an American submarine to refuel , using an ice floe as an impromptu runway . Refueled and armed with captured Soviet missiles , Gant continues on his journey , only to confront the second Firefox prototype , which the Soviet dissidents failed to destroy . Nearly defeated by the second MiG , Gant accidentally destroys it when he reflexively orders his plane s thought controlled weapon s system to launch a decoy flare . The flare is immediately ingested by the jet intake of the pursuing MiG , triggering an internal explosion that destroys the other plane . Free of pursuit , Gant continues on his journey . |
<|novel|>Set in pre war England , the novel begins in Jacob s childhood and follows him through college at Cambridge , and then into adulthood . The story is told mainly through the perspectives of the women in Jacob s life , including the repressed upper middle class Clara Durrant and the uninhibited young art student Florinda , with whom he has an affair . His time in London forms a large part of the story , though towards the end of the novel he travels to Italy , then Greece . |
<|novel|>Pope Alexander VI formerly Rodrigo Borgia believes God will ultimately forgive his many sins simply because , as Pope , he is infallible and divine . The Family focuses on this cunning , ambitious despot and his children the ruthless Cesare and the beautiful but wicked Lucrezia . A passionate love story runs through the novel , but it is a sinful one . Lucrezia lost her virginity to her brother Cesare when she was only thirteen , and the two have loved only each other ever since . Alexander marries Lucrezia off for political reasons . She remains submissive to her father , if not to her many husbands and lovers . Pope Alexander aims to unify Italy s feudal states under papal rule . Cesare , who exchanges his cardinal s miter for a warrior s helmet to become commander in chief of his father s armies , carries out conquest after conquest to fulfill Alexander s grandiose ambitions . As in Puzo s The Godfather , the lovemaking , the opulent festivities , the sub rosa plotting , and the complex double dealing are interspersed with outbursts of violence , including one memorable scene in which the reformist priest Girolamo Savonarola is torn apart on the Rack . cs Rodina kniha es Los Borgia novela pl Rodzina Borgiów powieść pt Os Bórgias |
<|fantasy|>As one of three survivours of the orbiting hibernation tanks , a Raja Flattery clone has established himself as Director of Pandora . He keeps the Pandorans in an iron grip by heavy food rationing , violently enforced by his security forces . The kelp is being held down by bombing that keeps it from achieving consciousness . The kelp is still being remotely controlled from an orbiting space station The Orbiter , and is used as Current Control . Current Control is run by Dwarf Mac . The kelp has produced a human like being , called Crista Galli . She appeared in the water after a kelp bombing , at about age twenty . She doesn t have any memory of being part of the kelp . She has been kept a prisoner by Raja Flattery for several years . An underground resistance , known as Shadowbox , has been growing . The Shadowbox breaks in on Holovision transmissions , ordinarily dictated by Raja Flattery . The plan of Raja Flattery is to build a new Voidship , that will take him away from Pandora . His intention is not to build an artificial intelligence for ship control , but use three OMCs Organic Mental Core left in hibernation . fr Le Facteur ascension |
<|fantasy|>The story is set in 13th century England and concerns the fictitious outlaw Norman of Torn , who purportedly harried the country during the power struggle between King Henry III and Simon de Montfort . Norman is the supposed son of the Frenchman de Vac , once the king s fencing master , who has a grudge against his former employer and raises the boy to be a simple , brutal killing machine with a hatred of all things English . His intentions are partially subverted by a priest who befriends Norman and teaches him his letters and chivalry towards women . Otherwise , all goes according to plan . By 17 , Norman is the best swordsman in all of England by the age of 18 , he has a large bounty on his head , and by the age of 19 , he leads the largest band of thieves in all of England . None can catch or best him . In his hatred for the king he even becomes involved in the civil war , which turns the tide in favor of de Montfort . In another guise , that of Roger de Conde , he becomes involved with de Montfort s daughter Bertrade , defending her against her and her father s enemies . She notes in him a curious resemblance to the king s son and heir Prince Edward . Finally brought to bay in a confrontation with both King Henry and de Montfort , Norman is brought down by the treachery of de Vac , who appears to kill him , though at the cost of his own life . As de Vac dies , he reveals that Norman is in fact Richard , long lost son of King Henry and Queen Eleanor and brother to Prince Edward . The fencing master had kidnapped the prince as a child to serve as the vehicle of his vengeance against the king . Luckily , Norman Richard turns out not to be truly dead , surviving to be reconciled to his true father and attain the hand of Bertrade . |
<|romance|>Romantic novelist Edith Hope is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva , where her friends have advised her to retreat following an unfortunate incident . There she meets other English visitors , including Mrs Pusey and her daughter Jennifer , and an attractive middle aged man , Mr Neville . Edith reaches Hotel du Lac in a state of bewildered confusion at the turn of events in her life . A secret and often lonely affair with a married man and an aborted marriage later , she is banished by her friends , who advise her to go on probation so as to grow up , and be a woman , atoning for her mistakes . Edith comes to the hotel swearing not to change . The silent charms of the hotel and her observations of the guests there all tug at Edith with questions of her identity , forcing her to examine who she is and what she has been . At the hotel , she observes people from different walks of life Mrs Pusey and her daughter , Jennifer and their love for each other and the splendid oblivious lives they live Mme de Bonneuil , who lives at the hotel in solitary expulsion from her son and Monica , who came to the hotel , acceding to her husband s demands . She falls for the ambiguous smile of Mr Neville , who asks for her hand . She considers a life of recognition the married state would confer but ultimately rejects the possibility of a relationship with him when she realises he is an incorrigible womaniser . This also finally leads her to realize what her life is expected to be . Once again , she breaks chains and decides to take things into her own hands . |
<|crime|>Commissar Bärlach of the Bernese police , who is dying of cancer and must solve the murder of his best officer , Lieutenant Ulrich Schmied . Bärlach is assisted in his investigation by officer Walter Tschanz . As Schmied had been investigating the crimes of Richard Gastmann , a career master criminal who is an old friend and enemy of Bärlach s , suspicion immediately falls upon Gastmann . But Bärlach and Tschanz s investigation of Gastmann yields an unexpected twist after Tschanz kills Gastmann , supposedly in self defense . Bärlach then reveals that he has known all along that Tschanz is the one who murdered Schmied . Tschanz had purposefully killed Gastmann so that Gastmann would be forever blamed for Schmied s murder . Furthermore , Bärlach had manipulated Tschanz into this action with the manner in which Bärlach had pressed forward with their seeming investigation of Gastmann . Bärlach had deliberately pushed Tschanz toward a final , fatal confrontation with Gastmann , resulting in Gastmann s death the punishment Bärlach considers just for all of the previous crimes Gastmann had committed , but which Bärlach had been unable to prove . In fact , Gastmann and Bärlach went back forty years . They had long ago made a personal bet with one another as to whether it was possible to commit the perfect crime , such that even an investigator who personally witnessed it would never be able to prove the perpetrator guilty . After that bet , Gastmann , as Bärlach well knew , had pursued a lifelong career as a purveyor of crime , evil in its comprehensiveness , arrogant and mocking of civilization itself . And indeed he always remained one step ahead of Bärlach s tireless but fruitless efforts to convict him . Gastmann recalled to Bärlach I wanted to prove that it was possible to commit a crime that couldn t be solved . Gastmann had been correct , and Bärlach s final plot is an acknowledgment thereof . By murdering Schmied during Schmied s investigation of Gastmann , Tschanz had ruined the terminally ill Bärlach s final chance to bring Gastmann to justice in a courtroom . Therefore , using Tschanz as a pawn , Bärlach finds an alternate method to mete out the justice for which he feels Gastmann is overdue . |
<|childrens|>The story centers on Opus the Penguin who was at the time one of the main characters in Breathed s comic strip Outland . Opus is downhearted because as a penguin , he cannot fly . He orders a machine and assembles it when it comes time to test the machine by jumping off a three mile high cliff , Opus decides to do something less dangerous , and goes home to make anchovy Christmas cookies . He does not give up on his dream though , and makes a Christmas wish to Santa Claus for wings that will go ! . On Christmas Eve , Santa is making his usual delivery when he loses his reindeer and crashes into the lake . Opus jumps in and uses his natural swimming skills to pull Santa out . To thank Opus for his daring rescue , a group of ducks pick him up and take him flying through the air . |
<|fantasy|>Enoch Wallace , an American Civil War veteran , is chosen by an alien called Ulysses to administer a way station for interplanetary travel . Wallace is the only human being who knows of the existence of these aliens , until almost a hundred years later , when the US government becomes aware of and suspicious about his failure to age or die . Factions in the galactic federation want to close off development of Earth s entire arm of the galaxy to concentrate resources elsewhere , and the government s stealing the body of a dead alien gives them impetus to push forward , while the loss of an artifact giving contact with the spirit of the universe causes galactic civilization to begin to fray . The novel has a number of seemingly disconnected subplots that are not resolved until the conclusion of the book . One such subplot is related to the fact that the government is very interested in Enoch and spies on him for an indeterminate time . Enoch s closest neighbors are an asocial and coarse hillbilly family whose daughter is a deaf mute . She heals warts , birds and butterflies and is the total antithesis of her clan . By adopting an alien math , Enoch is able to compute that the world will go to war and eventual nuclear suicide . Strangely , Enoch has a gun he never uses except in an elaborate hunting simulation . Enoch s ghostly support system , which he created years ago , collapses on him during the course of the novel . Finally , Enoch is left with the choice of allowing the Earth to destroy itself in war or call down a galaxy sponsored dumbing down that would last for generations but avert the looming war . |
<|childrens|>The book tells the story of four young siblings Edwin , Angeline , Sebastian and Maud who live together in a London mansion in Victorian society c . the 1870s , along with their wealthy parents . These four children have been longing all their lives for their maiden visit to Tantamount , a castle on the Cornish coast , built by their great great great grandfather . From time to time , the children wonder about its mysterious past as they look at the gigantic painting of the castle that dominates a wall in their drawing room . Their lives are changed one fateful , unforgettable July when their father contracts a serious illness . The children are sent to stay at the castle while their parents go on a sea voyage to repair his health . Only when the children begin to explore do they realize that despite being built and furnished in magnificent style , the castle is suffering from decades of neglect . The tutor and governess are shocked by the condition of the place and leave abruptly . Soon the recently engaged servants do the same , but the children decide to stay on alone . Regarding themselves as castaways , they enjoy their freedom despite the hardships . They make friends with two local children , Nancy and Dick , and are worried when they disappear . They begin to suspect that the castle is being used for smuggling and even wrecking . Tantamount is destroyed by fire , but when the parents arrive at last they are relieved to find their children have survived . |
<|action|>Troy Phelan , an eccentric elderly billionaire , commits suicide minutes after leaving his vast fortune to an illegitimate daughter , Rachel Lane , instead of his six children by three marriages . His reason is revulsion over years of fighting with , and embarrassment from , his family , as well as their greed mdash much of which was due to his neglect of his children and multiple affairs both personal and business . His lawyers are now tasked with protecting Troy s wishes as well as finding the heiress . Nate O Riley , a high powered litigation lawyer and now recovering alcoholic , is sent to Brazil , where Rachel is believed to be living as a missionary . While Nate is trying to find Rachel , Troy s family does everything in their power to contest the new will . They argue that although Troy was examined by three of the top psychiatrists in the nation , he was lacking sanity at the time of the new will . The journey into the Pantanal of South America by way of Corumbá nearly kills Nate , but finally he and his guide locate the tribe with which Rachel Lane is living . She refuses the legacy or anything connected with it . Nate is unable to convince her otherwise , and returns to the United States after contracting dengue fever from a mosquito . In the meantime , the ex wives , children and respective lawyers continue attempting to destroy and disprove all evidence of Troy Phelan s sanity and even the will itself . They finally decide not to contest the will in court , fearing that their testimony during the deposition will further hurt their case . They also realize that two witnesses for the plaintiff are lying and would be torn to shreds by Nate should a trial ever take place . To settle the matter , Nate agrees that the relatives of Troy Phelan will be paid fifty million dollars each minus lawyers fees to stop turning the will contest into a legal quagmire . When all is over , Nate returns to the jungle in order to get Rachel to sign off on the settlement , but when he arrives he learns that Rachel has died from malaria . She has , however , left instructions that the money be put into trust for the benefit of the indigenous peoples and that Nate will have control of the trust . The end of the book shows Nate riding off in a boat into the Pantanal , not caring if it took a month to get back to civilization . |
<|novel|>The plot is conveyed through mail or notes sent between various characters , though with the banned letters missing , creating passages that become more and more phonetically or creatively spelled , and requiring more effort to interpret . The novel is set on the fictitious island of Nollop , off the coast of South Carolina , which is home to Nevin Nollop , the supposed creator of the well known pangram The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog . This sentence is preserved on a memorial statue to its creator on the island and is taken very seriously by the government of the island . Throughout the book , tiles containing the letters fall from the inscription beneath the statue , and as each one does , the island s government bans the contained letter s use from written or spoken communication . A penalty system is enforced for using the forbidden characters , with public censure for a first offense , lashing or stocks violator s choice upon a second offense and banishment from the island nation upon the third . By the end of the novel , most of the island s inhabitants have either been banished or have left of their own accord . The island s high council becomes more and more nonsensical as time progresses and the alphabet diminishes , promoting Nollop to divine status . Uncompromising in their enforcement of Nollop s divine will , they offer only one hope to the frustrated islanders to disprove Nollop s omniscience by finding a pangram of 32 nbsp letters in contrast to Nollop s 35 , or just 33 in the version A quick brown . . . . With this goal in mind Enterprise nbsp 32 is started , a project involving many of the novel s main characters . With but five characters left L , M , N , O , and P , the elusive phrase is eventually discovered by Ella in one of her father s earlier letters with him knowing all along that this would happen Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs , which has only 32 nbsp letters . The council accepts this and restores the right to all 26 nbsp letters to the populace . |
<|fantasy|>The book tells the story of a woman who returns to her hometown in Canada to find her missing father . Accompanied by her lover and another married couple , the unnamed protagonist meets her past in her childhood house , recalling events and feelings , while trying to find clues for her father s mysterious disappearance . Little by little , the past overtakes her and drives her into the realm of wildness and madness . |
<|novel|>In New York City in the early 1980s , John Marr , a black gay graduate student , is researching a dissertation on Timothy Hasler , a Korean American philosopher and academic stabbed to death under unexplained circumstances outside a gay bar in 1973 . As details emerge , Marr finds his lifestyle converging with that of Hasler , and he becomes increasingly involved in intense sexual encounters with homeless men , despite his growing awareness of the risks of HIV . |
<|novel|>The main characters of the book are Jane , a woman from London , and her romantic partner Roche , a white South African man , who have recently arrived on the island . Roche is engaged with helping the poor on the island , which puts him in contact with a dishonest revolutionary opportunist named Jimmy . As they socialize with the privileged , Roche finds Jane contradictory and politically naive about her own place in the power structure , while also being challenged about his own motives and purpose . Jimmy has sexual fantasies about Jane , and has a perverse relationship with the boys he keeps in his commune . Amid the tumult of a societal crisis , the climax of the book is violent and tragic . |
<|fantasy|>Obscure scholar Roland Michell , researching in the London Library , discovers handwritten drafts of a letter by the prestigious fictional Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash , which leads him to suspect that the married Ash had a hitherto unknown romance . He feels compelled to take away the documents secretly an unprofessional act and begins to investigate . The trail leads him to Christabel LaMotte , a minor poet and contemporary of Ash , and to Dr . Maud Bailey , a modern LaMotte scholar and distant relative of LaMotte s family , who is drawn into helping Roland with the unfolding mystery . They become obsessed with uncovering the truth and unearth more letters and evidence of an affair between the poets , and their own personal romantic lives neither of which are happy or even satisfactory develop and become entwined in an echo of Ash and LaMotte , whose story is told in parallel to theirs . The news of this affair will make headlines and reputations in academia , and colleagues of Roland and Maud become competitors in the race to discover the truth , for all manner of motives . And the truth is this Ash s marriage was barren and unconsummated , although he loved and remained devoted to his wife . He and LaMotte had a short , passionate affair resulting in the suicide of LaMotte s companion and possibly lover and the secret birth of an illegitimate child , whose existence LaMotte sought to conceal from Ash , but whom he did once meet , unknown to her . As the Great Storm of 1987 strikes England , all the interested parties come together in a dramatic scene at Ash s grave , where documents buried with Ash by his wife are believed to hold the final key to the mystery . Reading them , Maud learns that rather than being related to LaMotte s sister , as she has always believed , she is in fact directly descended from LaMotte and Ash s illegitimate daughter , who was raised by LaMotte s sister and passed off as her own child , and she is therefore heir to their correspondence . Roland , freed from obscurity and a dead end relationship , manages to live down the potential professional suicide of the theft of the original documents , and sees an academic career open up before him . Maud , who has spent her adult life confused and emotionally untouchable , finds her human side and sees possible future happiness with Roland . And the sad story of Ash and LaMotte , separated by the mores of the day and condemned to secrecy and separation , is resolved at last through Roland and Maud . |
<|fantasy|>The novel deals with a government installation at Blind Lake , Minnesota , where scientists observe sentient life on a planet 51 light years away , using telescopes powered by quantum computers that have advanced beyond human understanding . A sudden and unexplained facility lockdown extends into a long term quarantine . Observation department head Marguerite Hauser tries to carry on with her work studying the alien life while taking care of her socially challenged daughter Tess , warding off her ex husband Ray , and deciding how she feels about houseguest and disgraced journalist Chris . |
<|childrens|>A Yellow Raft in Blue Water follows a young woman named Rayona , her mother Christine , and Christine s mother Aunt Ida . The novel begins with Rayona playing cards with Christine in the hospital , when Rayona s African American father Elgin visits , angering Christine . Christine leaves the hospital with Rayona , threatening suicide at the spot where Rayona was conceived . Christine eventually leaves Rayona with Aunt Ida , where over time , Rayona begins to learn about herself and where she came from . Rayona eventually runs away and lives with a family at Bear Paw Lake until she returns to Aunt Ida . |
<|romance|>Katherine tells the true story of Katherine de Roet , born the daughter of a minor Flemish herald , later knight . Katherine has no obvious prospects , except that her sister is a waiting woman to Queen Philippa , wife of King Edward III , and the fiancée of Geoffrey Chaucer , then a minor court official . By virtue of this connection , Katherine meets and marries Sir Hugh Swynford of Lincolnshire and gives birth to a daughter , Blanchette , and a son , Thomas . After Hugh s death , Katherine becomes the mistress of John of Gaunt , Duke of Lancaster , and bears him four children out of wedlock . She is also appointed official governess to the Duke s two daughters by his first wife , Blanche of Lancaster , and helps raise his son by Blanche , the future King Henry IV . The Duke and Katherine separate for a number of years , immediately following Wat Tyler s Peasants Revolt in 1381 , when the rioting peasants sacked and burnt the Duke s Savoy Palace to the ground . The novel s explanation for their separation is Katherine s shock over revelations concerning the death of her husband . However , the couple eventually reconcile and marry after the death of the Duke s second wife and after their children are grown . |
<|crime|>Poirot boards Le Train Bleu , bound for the French Riviera . So does Katherine Grey , who is having her first winter out of England , after having inherited a huge sum . While on board she meets Ruth Kettering , an American heiress bailing out from a marriage to meet her lover . The next morning , though , Ruth is found dead in her compartment , a victim of strangulation . The famous ruby , Heart of Fire , which had recently been given to Ruth by her father , is discovered to be missing . Ruth s father , the American millionaire Rufus Van Aldin , and his secretary , Major Knighton , convince Poirot to take on the case . Ruth s maid , Ada Mason , says she saw a man in Ruth s compartment but could not see who he was . The police suspect that Ruth s lover , the Comte de la Roche , killed her and stole the rubies , but Poirot does not think he is guilty . He is suspicious of Ruth s husband , Derek Kettering , who was on the same train but claims not to have seen Ruth . Katherine says she saw Derek enter Ruth s compartment . This also throws suspicion on Derek when a cigarette case with the letter K on it is found . Poirot investigates and finds out that the murder and the jewel theft might not be connected , as the famous jewel thief The Marquis is connected to the crime . Eventually , the dancer Mirelle , who was on the train with Derek , tells Poirot she saw Derek leave Ruth s compartment around the time the murder would have taken place . Derek is then arrested . Everyone is convinced the case is solved , but Poirot is not sure . He does more investigating and learns more information , talking to his friends and to Katherine , eventually coming to the truth . He asks Van Aldin and Knighton to come with him on the Blue Train to recreate the murder . He tells them that Ada Mason is really Kitty Kidd , a renowned male impersonator and actress . Katherine saw what she thought was a boy getting off the train , but it was really Mason . Poirot realized that Mason was the only person who saw anyone with Ruth in the compartment , so this could have been a lie . He reveals that the murderer and Mason s accomplice is Knighton , who is really The Marquis . He also says that the cigarette case with the K on it does not stand for Kettering , but Knighton . Since Knighton was supposedly in Paris , no one would have suspected him . Derek did go into the compartment to talk to Ruth once he saw she was on the train , but he left when he saw she was asleep . The police then arrest Knighton , and Van Aldin thanks Poirot for solving the case . |
<|action|>Dr . Jason Howard is a resident surgeon at Massachusetts General . When a patient of his is admitted complaining of heart problems and later dies , Jason finds that , though having received a clean bill of health less than a month before , that the heart attack came totally out of left field and the patient looks decidedly older than he ought to at 56 . Soon two more cases come to his attention , both healthy a month before , now dead , both looking older than their years . Alvin Hayes , a former classmate of Jason s at Harvard , asks to speak to him about his recent strange caseload . Hayes is a shifty , twitchy man whose personal life is a subject of some question who seems unduly paranoid , and Jason wonders if the resident mad scientist has gotten into something illicit . At dinner Hayes , while talking about his genetic research on aging , suddenly begins expelling blood violently . He dies a gory death right there in the restaurant . Jason begins investigating the connection between the man s sudden demise , his nervous demeanor , and the patients in his hospital who have all been admitted with what seems to be a mutant strain of progeria that killed them in mere days . nl Doodsangst boek pl Śmiertelny strach |
<|childrens|>The story starts in 1958 . Anders Roos , 14 years old , arrives one week late at Södra Latins summercamp which is 10 weeks in total . The leaders of the camp have put him in another barrack than his peers , because they know there are troubles at school . Usually peers are together . The other people in the barrack have to decide on a nickname for him all people in the camp have one . They think he looks like a girl . Therefore , they decide to call him Anna Vi kallar honom Anna . Anders is far too small for his age , cannot play football and cannot swim . He can At summercamp , Anders gets severely bullied . In the morning , when all boys have to fix their bed , the other people won t let him . This results in a low number of points , and because he gets a low number of points for his bed , the other boys throw him into the sea . A number of times , he is beaten up so badly that he is unable to leave his bed for many days . The camp leaders don t want to send anyone home the camp reputation would be severely damaged . Micke is the sports leader at the camp . Through the ten weeks at summercamp , Anders discovers that he can trust Micke . He tells Micke that he is the only one he likes at home , his father mistreats him . When he eats , his father tells him exactly how much money he owes . On the other hand , his father always complains that Anders is much too small and that he is an imbecile . His father forces him to watch when his father rapes his mother . At school , everyone bullies him , and at camp , it s not different . Micke finds it very difficult to react to this openness , but tries to be open and be a friend . When the summercamp is finished , Micke needs to work for his exams , at the end of the year . He also trains a lot , and wins a lot of matches by running fastest . He has hardly any time left for Anders , and the few times he sees him , Anders tells him a lot about how he is mistreated everywhere . Micke finds it increasingly difficult to know how to handle the situation . He tries to contact the school about it , but the school does not believe him the school direction does not believe that there is any bullying at Södra Latins . Later , it seems Anders life might be getting better , for he and his mother are finally moving out of fathers house and maybe Anders can even change school . However , at a later moment , Anders has a fight with his mother . The neighbours , who he visits sometimes , are not at home , and he can t find Micke either . At this moment , he commits suicide by hanging himself . The suicide method requires a strong will he hangs himself in a place where his feet reached the ground , so he needed to pull up his feet all the time . When Micke visits Anders parents after his suicide , Anders father asks Micke if he wants to sell his model railway track . |
<|crime|>Stevie Taggert tells of the mystery of Señora Linares s missing child . Set in 1897 , the mystery is complicated by rising tensions between Cuba and the United States and forces the team to ask , within the context of their era , a complex ethical question , could the act of a woman murdering her own kids be looked at as her trying to gain control over her life and her world ? |
<|fantasy|>As a young woman , the British priestess Eilan , known to the Romans as Helena , falls in love with the charismatic Roman Constantius . The Roman noble takes her away from Avalon as she is banished for this forbidden love and , before long , Helen bears him a son , who will become Constantine the Great . Helen s position in Roman society now gives her the freedom to travel about in the empire . When her son Constantine becomes Emperor , she slowly discovers brand new roles . She faces the spread of the new Christian religion and seeks to understand the old knowledge of the goddess in light of the new religion . As Empress Mother , Helena travels on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to find the answers to questions that arise between the old religion and the new . |
<|childrens|>This is the story of Asher Lev , a boy born with a prodigious artistic ability into a Hasidic Jewish family , set in the 1950s in the time of Joseph Stalin and the persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union . During Asher s childhood , his artistic inclination brings him into conflict with the members of his Jewish community , which values things primarily as they relate to faith and considers art unrelated to religious expression to be at best a waste of time and possibly a sacrilege . It brings him into particularly strong conflict with his father , a man who has devoted his life to serving their leader , the Rebbe , by traveling around the world bringing the teachings and practice of their sect to other Jews , and who is by nature incapable of understanding or appreciating art . In the middle is Asher s mother , who in Asher s early childhood was severely traumatized by the death of her brother , who was killed while traveling for the Rebbe she suffers anxiety for her husband s safety during his almost constant traveling . It didn t just affect her , but it affected her whole family and community . After her anxiety had passed , she decided she wanted to continue her brother s work . Asher begins to go to art museums where he studies paintings . He becomes very interested in the paintings , especially the ones of the crucifixions . He starts copying the paintings of the crucifixions and nudes , but this would only get him into trouble . Asher s father returned home one night after a long trip to Russia for the Rebbe . He then sees Asher s paintings of the crucifix and nudes and is furious . Asher s father thinks that his gift is foolish and from the Sitra Achra , or Other Side . Asher s mother doesn t know whether to support her son or her husband . She is torn between the two of them . The Rebbe asks Asher s father to travel to Vienna , since it would make his work easier . Asher becomes very upset about this and complains that he doesn t want to go to Vienna . His mother decides to stay in Brooklyn with Asher , while his father goes to Vienna . While Asher s father is away , Asher gets more into his paintings and neglects his Jewish studies . Yet the gift will not be denied , and finally the Rebbe intercedes and allows Asher to study under one of the greatest living artists , Jacob Kahn , a non observant Jew who is an admirer of the Rebbe . Asher grows up to be a formidable artist as an apprentice of Jacob Kahn , and even his father cannot help but be proud of his son s success . Jacob Kahn becomes more than just an art teacher to Asher . Jacob Kahn also teaches Asher about life and they eventually become very good friends . However , the gift finally calls upon Asher to paint his masterpiece a work which uses the symbolism of the crucifixion to express his mother s torment . This imagery so offends his parents and his community that he is asked to leave . Asher goes away not wanting to hurt the ones he loves further . |
<|fantasy|>In the early days of the conquest , when the Roman Legions are aggressively persecuting the Druids , the sanctuary of the Goddess on the isle of Mona is destroyed and its Druids are murdered and its priestesses are raped . The raped priestesses that conceive children kill all of the girl children but leave the boys alive that are born and then kill themselves rather than live with the atrocities done to them the males later became a rebel group known as the Ravens , which swore vengeance against Rome . Lhiannon , one of the remaining priestesses , re establishes a new sanctuary at Vernemeton Most Holy Grove , or The Forest House , which is partially controlled and protected by the Romans . The novel tells the story of Eilan , granddaughter of the Arch Druid of Britain . She hears the calling of the Goddess and is chosen to become a priestess at Vernemeton , and later to succeed the dying Lhiannon as High Priestess . However , before her calling , she hears the voice of her heart , and during the magic night of Beltaine , conceives a son with Roman officer Gaius Macellius , son of the high ranking Camp Prefect at nearby Deva . Gaius is an inheritant of royal blood through his Celtic mother of a southern tribe , the Silures . Eilan knows their son , Gawen , whose bloodline comes from the Dragon Celtic royalty , the Eagle Roman Empire , and from the Wise Druids , will play a crucial role in Britain s future , and makes great sacrifices to protect him in his youth . A major shift in the balance of power is in the air Eilan senses that the death of her peace loving Arch Druid grandfather will cause it . She tells her friend Caillean who was rescued from her uncaring mother in Hibernia by Lhiannon to take a group of young priestesses to the isle of Avalon to found a new sanctuary and become the first high priestess of Avalon . In Vernemeton , Eilan is increasingly pressured by the new Arch Druid , her father , to stop promoting peace and collaboration with the Romans . In a dramatic showdown she sacrifices herself along with her love Gaius to avoid a bloody insurgency and , in particular , to save the life of her son Gawen . |
<|fantasy|>The protagonist , Larry Dever , is gravely injured resulting in a radical surgical procedure , a hemicorporectomy , in which tissue below the waist is removed . He is outfitted with a set of intelligent mechanical legs , a manniquin , and is placed into suspended animation until the damaged tissue can be restored . He wakes at a time when cloning technology can replace his legs for a price . Years before he was awakened , a clone , or bud child , was created and is now a thriving young boy without language . Horrified by the prospect of his child being sacrificed to provide him with a new lower body , Larry opts to return to suspended animation . His child , Dim Dever , is selected by the guiding world computer , Olga , to carry his ancient genes to a possible new colony on a planet orbiting Procyon . Larry awakens again in a nightmare future . Far from the highly advanced past , now an enormous human population possibly in the trillions covers every inch of the planet . Technology and science have degraded , and all freely breeding species have been exterminated . The Hive or human population within its computer supported subterranean culture ruthlessly hunts , kills , and recycles anyone who does not conform . As Larry is trying to adapt to his new life , without most of his own body or his cyber torso , something re awakens an ancient , half derelict cyborg , the Godwhale of the title . This enormous rake is an ocean going biota harvester built in part from a genetically modified blue whale . Initially attempting to rejoin human civilization , the Godwhale named Rorqual Maru or Whale Ship in Japanese eventually teams up with a genetically modified clone of Larry , Larry himself , and an assortment of misfits and refugees from the Hive . Together they set out to try to find out what mysteriously brings the marine biota back to the previously sterile oceans , while a tiny group from the Hive , the outcasts , and their cyber deities survive and thrive in the face of incredible bungling by the Class One computer that manages humanity and the various castes of Nebish humans brought into the fight . |
<|fantasy|>The novel is a romanticised retelling of the overthrow of King Zhou , the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty , by King Wu , who would establish the Zhou Dynasty in place of Shang . The story integrates oral and written tales of many Chinese mythological figures who are involved in the struggle as well . These figures include human heroes , immortals and various spirits usually represented in avatar form like vixens , and pheasants , and sometimes inanimate objects such as a pipa . Bewitched by his concubine Daji , who is actually a vixen spirit in disguise as a beautiful woman , King Zhou of Shang oppresses his people and persecutes those who oppose him , including his own subjects who dare to speak up to him . King Wu of Zhou , assisted by his strategist Jiang Ziya , rallies an army to overthrow the tyrant and restore peace and order . Throughout the story , battles are waged between the kingdoms of Shang and Zhou , with both sides calling upon various supernatural beings deities , immortals , demons , spirits , and humans with magical abilities to aid them in the war . Yuanshi Tianzun bestows upon Jiang Ziya the Fengshen Bang , a list that empowers Jiang Ziya to invest the gods of Heaven . The heroes of Zhou and some of their fallen enemies from Shang are eventually endowed with heavenly ranking and essentially elevated to their roles as gods , hence the title of the novel . |
<|novel|>The narrative of Clotel plays with history by relating the perilous antebellum adventures of a young slave Currer and her mixed race , light skinned daughters fathered by Thomas Jefferson . Their girls are born into slavery . The book includes several sub plots related to other slaves , religion and anti slavery . Currer , described as a bright mulatto , gives birth to two near white daughters Clotel and Althesa . After the death of Jefferson , Currer and her daughters are sold . Horatio Green , a white man , purchases Clotel and takes her as a common law wife , although they cannot legally marry . Her mother Currer and sister Althesa remain in a slave gang . Currer is eventually purchased by Mr . Peck , a preacher . She is enslaved until she dies from yellow fever , although his daughter was preparing to emancipate her . Althesa marries her white owner , Henry Morton , a Northerner , with whom she has daughters Jane and Ellen . Their daughters are enslaved after Althesa and Morton both die . Ellen commits suicide to escape sexual enslavement and Jane dies from heartbreak . Green and Clotel have a mixed race daughter named Mary . Becoming ambitious and involved in local politics , Green abandons Clotel and Mary . He marries a white woman who forces him to sell Clotel and enslave his child . Dressing as a white man , Clotel escapes to Ohio an account based on the 1849 escape of Ellen Craft and William Craft . Her accomplice , William , continues to Canada . Clotel returns to Virginia in an attempt to free Mary . After being captured in Richmond , she is held in a slave pen in Washington , DC , for sale but eventually escapes . Pursued by slave catchers , she is surrounded on the Long Bridge and commits suicide by jumping into the Potomac River . Mary works as a servant to her father Horatio Green and his wife . Mary arranges to trade places with the slave George , her lover , in prison and he escapes to Canada . Sold to a slave trader , Mary is purchased by a French man who takes her to Europe . Ten years later , George and Mary reunite in Dunkirk . The novel ends with their marriage . |
<|novel|>Clearly frustrated at the refusal of his contemporaries to recognise the inequity and iniquity of society , Tressell s cast of hypocritical Christians , exploitative capitalists and corrupt councillors provide a backdrop for his main target the workers who think that a better life is not for the likes of them . Hence the title of the book Tressell paints the workers as philanthropists who throw themselves into back breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters . The hero of the book , Frank Owen , is a socialist who believes that the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees all around him . In vain he tries to convince his fellow workers of his world view , but finds that their education has trained them to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their betters . Much of the book consists of conversations between Owen and the others , or more often of lectures by Owen in the face of their jeering this was presumably based on Tressell s own experiences . |
<|fantasy|>In the novel , young humans i . e . recreations of the medieval originals are transported through the Big Collapse at the end of time to seed the next cycle of the universe . They are transported to Hegira , an artificial environment of the scale of the planet Jupiter which has habitats for several species on its surface . The habitats are protected and uncoupled from the universe s entropy by means of force fields projected by giant obelisks . In the human realm these are inscribed with the recorded history of humankind , sorted chronologically from the bottom up , including the science that went with it . People try to understand and copy what they can read on the obelisks , using balloons in some places to reach higher points on the obelisks . A legend tells the protagonist that his beloved frozen in stasis will awaken if he goes on quest to the rim walls of the habitat , so he does . On the way he lands on an island with a good view of an obelisk at least high which is just tumbling down in the distance . Its fall causes a tsunami and devastates a continent . After the devastation , the inscriptions at the top of the fallen obelisk about human history are revealed . The hero s quest to the rim succeeds . He makes contact with an artificial intelligence guardian of Hegira who tells him the story and advises him to go and populate the new universe , having become part of the last one . |
<|crime|>Set against the mounting dissatisfaction at the ineffective and over self indulgent Tory government of John Major all hell breaks loose when conservative tabloid media mogul Roland Voss is found murdered in his country house in Scotland . Next to Voss s body is that of his murdered wife , while their two slain bodyguards lie outside their room . The culprits seem obvious the burglars caught fleeing the scene covered in blood and almost immediately four men are arrested for the crime , including former burglar Thomas McInnes , his son Paul and a very strange guy who likes to be known as Spammy . However , if it s really that obvious , why did McInnes pay a visit to his Edinburgh lawyer a few days before the crime took place , and what are the secret contents of the envelope he left with her ? When the lawyer , Nicole Carrow , turns up at the Police station demanding to see her client , announcing under the glare of intense media attention claiming to have a letter that proves her client s innocence , the last thing she expects is have an attempt made on her life within hours . |
<|novel|>The novel is set just before the start of the battle of Troy . The Greek army under King Agamemnon is stuck on the island of Aulis enroute to Troy because of a mysterious dying down of the winds . The army is restless and rumor and gossip fly around seeking a reason for the becalming as the men gamble and squabble while they wait and Odysseus connives and schemes behind the scenes with the help of Chasimenos , Agamemnon s chief scribe . The king is slowly convinced that he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia for the gods to be satisfied and Iphigenia is brought to Aulis under the pretext that she is to marry Achilles , the Greek hero . Along with her slave , Sisipyla , Iphigenia arrives in Aulis and discovers the plot . Sisipyla offers to take her place but , at the last moment , convinced of her own destiny , Iphigenia sacrifices herself . |
<|novel|>The novel is based on an extant document , the confession of Turner to the white lawyer Thomas Gray . In the historical confessions , Turner claims to have been divinely inspired , charged with a mission from God to lead a slave uprising and destroy the white race . Styron s ambitious novel attempts to imagine the character of Nat Turner it does not purport to describe accurately or authoritatively the events as they occurred . Some historians consider Gray s account of Turner s confessions to be told with prejudice , and recently one writer has alleged that Gray s account is itself a fabrication . Styron takes liberties with the historical Nat Turner , whose life is otherwise undocumented . The Confessions is largely sympathetic to Turner , if not to his thoughts . |
<|fantasy|>Styled as the memoir of a famous composer named Kuhn , Gertrud tells of his childhood and young adult years before it comes to the heart of the story his relationships to two troubled artists , the eponymous Gertrud Imthor , and the opera singer Heinrich Muoth . Kuhn is drawn to Gertrud upon their first encounter , but she falls in love with and marries Muoth , whom the composer befriended as well some years before . The two are hopelessly ill matched , and their destructive relationship provides the basis for Kuhn s magnum opus . |
<|novel|>The first fifth of Another Country tells of the downfall of jazz drummer Rufus Scott . Rufus begins a relationship with Leona , a white woman from the South and introduces her to his friends , including the struggling novelist Vivaldo , his more successful mentor Richard and Richard s wife Cass . Although the relationship is initially frivolous , it becomes serious and the two leave town for several weeks . Rufus is abusive towards Leona and she is eventually committed to a mental hospital and Rufus returns to Harlem in a deep depression . He commits suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge . Rufus friends cannot understand his suicide , but afterwards they become closer and Vivaldo begins a relationship with Rufus sister Ida , which is strained by racial tension and Ida s bitterness after her brother s death . Eric , Rufus s first male lover and an actor , returns to New York after a stay in France where he met his longtime lover Yves . Eric returns to the novel s social circle but is more calm and composed than most of the clique . He also begins an affair with Cass , who has become lonely due to Richard s dedication to writing . |
<|novel|>This novel begins two years after the events of Barbara Kingsolver s first novel , The Bean Trees . Taylor and Turtle are visiting the Hoover Dam when Turtle sees a man fall down a spillway . Because of Taylor s unwavering faith that Turtle is telling the truth , a search is conducted and a man s life is saved . As a result , Turtle and Taylor make the headlines and are invited as guests on The Oprah Winfrey Show . A Cherokee lawyer named Annawake Fourkiller sees the broadcast and recognizes Turtle as a child of Cherokee heritage , beginning a campaign under the Indian Child Welfare Act to return Turtle to her birth family and the Cherokee Nation . Afraid of losing Turtle , Taylor leaves home and takes Turtle on the run . Taylor leaves behind her friend Lou Ann Ruiz from The Bean Trees and her new boyfriend Jax , and sets out with Turtle . Her mother , Alice , has left her new husband and joins the pair in Las Vegas . The trio are temporarily joined by Barbie , a waitress obsessed with the dolls of the same name , who appears to be down on her luck but later proves to be a thief and counterfeiter . Alice eventually leaves Taylor , Turtle , and Barbie to visit the Cherokee Nation in person . The others travel to Seattle , where Barbie leaves them . Taylor works a number of jobs , including lingerie sales and hired driving , but has great trouble earning enough money for food , lodging , clothes , and child care . Annawake lives in the area around Heaven , Oklahoma , a fictional town near Tahlequah . Annawake strongly suspects she knows who Turtle s biological grandfather is . It turns out that Sugar Hornbuckle , who also lives in Heaven and was a friend of Annawake s mother , is second cousin to Alice , and that Alice and Sugar grew up together . Alice has a vague hope of exploring alternatives with Annawake . Meanwhile , Annawake schemes to set up Turtle s true grandfather , Cash Stillwater , with Alice . Eventually , Taylor and Turtle come to Heaven and a compromise is established custody of Turtle will be shared between Taylor and Cash . |
<|fantasy|>Mace Windu s former Padawan and fellow Jedi Master Depa Billaba has been sent to Haruun Kal Windu s homeworld to start a revolution against the Separatist allied government however , all contact has been lost with her . A message is found on a voice chip inside a dead woman s mouth that implies Billaba has fallen to the dark side of the Force or gone insane . Since Windu taught her the lightsaber combat form Vaapad , he knows he is the only one who can stop her , and so he is sent by the Jedi Council alone to his homeworld . While Haruun Kal is not much of a military target , the majority of the population had many Force sensitive beings , which the Republic wants to keep away from the Separatists . Billaba had been sent to train the planet s population to fight against the Separatists . This was successful in itself , but after a hologram was discovered showing Billaba killing an innocent person , Windu was sent to extract his former apprentice . Eventually , after a fight , he puts his former apprentice under arrest , and calls the Republic cruiser Halleck . At this time , tribes on the planet begin warring with each other . Halleck arrives in system , and is immediately attacked by Vulture droids . The ship starts deploying Gunships , which come under attack by the droid starfighters . Clone troopers start spilling out of the Halleck , and put themselves in front of the droid starfighters to destroy them . Some of the landing craft make it to the surface , but many are picked off . The cruiser eventually defeats the Separatist enemy , however . On the surface , Windu uses the gunships to destroy the droid starfighters that followed them onto the surface , then orders the clones to take out a nearby droid control station . Lorz Geptun is forced to surrender to the Republic , and Billaba falls into a coma . All clone troopers on the surface are killed . A Republic force stays on Haruun Kal to police the local tribes . Upon his arrival on Haruun Kal , Windu meets such personages as Planetary Security Chief Lorz Geptun , soldier Nick Rostu , and untrained Force master Kar Vastor . The latter has trained several soldiers , known as the Akk guards , and Windu himself says that Vastor has power on the level of a Jedi . During the course of the book , Windu ends the Summertime War , a conflict that has raged between the immigrant Balawai and the native Korunnai for centuries , in a matter of hours , and takes Vastor into custody . Windu nearly falls to the dark side himself in order to defeat Billaba , who is possibly vegetative at the end of the book . |
<|novel|>The book tells the story of Chunky Rice , a small turtle who leaves his familiar surroundings , including his mouse deer best friend , to enter the next phase of his life . Other side characters in the novel also experience similar losses of friendship through tragedy or their own choice . |
<|fantasy|>Raised in the tranquil beauty of the Summer Country , Princess Guenevere has had a charmed and contented life until the sudden , violent death of her mother , Queen Maire , leaves the Summer Country teetering on the brink of anarchy . Only the miraculous arrival of Arthur , heir to the Pendragon dynasty , allows Guenevere to claim her mother s throne . Smitten by the bold , sensuous princess , Arthur offers to marry her and unite their territories , while still allowing her to rule in her own right . Their love match creates the largest and most powerful kingdom in the isles . Arthur s glorious rule begins to crumble , however , when he is reunited with his mother and his long lost half sisters , Morgause and Morgan . Before Arthur s birth , his father the savage and unscrupulous King Uther banished his wife s young daughters , selling Morgause into a cruel marriage and imprisoning Morgan in a far off convent . Both daughters have reason to avenge their suffering , but only one will strike the deadliest blows against the King and Queen , using her evil enchantments to destroy all Guenevere holds dear . When the Queen flees to Avalon , even her marriage with Arthur comes under threat . In the chaos that follows , a new young knight comes to Arthur s court to offer his services to the Queen . Her loyalty to Arthur betrayed , Guenevere falls in love with Lancelot , a love that may spell ruin for Camelot . |
<|crime|>Vincent Parry , convicted of murdering his wife , escapes from prison and is taken in by Irene Jansen , an artist with an interest in his case . Helped by a friendly cabbie , Parry gets a new face from a plastic surgeon , thereby enabling him to dodge the authorities and find his wife s real killer . He has difficulty staying hidden at Irene s , because Madge Rapf , the spiteful woman whose testimony sent him up to prison , keeps stopping by . |
<|fantasy|>The Iron Man arrived from seemingly nowhere and his appearance is described in detail . To survive , he feeds off local farm equipment . When the farm hands discover their destroyed tractors and diggers , a trap is set consisting of a covered pit on which a tractor is set as bait . Hogarth , a local boy , lures the Iron Man to the trap . The plan succeeds , and the Iron Man is buried alive . The next spring , the Iron Man digs himself free of the pit . To keep him out of the way , the boy Hogarth takes charge and brings the Iron Man to a metal scrap heap to feast . The Iron Man promises to not cause further trouble for the locals , as long as no one troubles him . Time passes , and the Iron Man is treated as merely another member of the community . However , astronomers monitoring the sky make a frightening new discovery an enormous space being moving from orbit to land on Earth . The creature soon dubbed the Space Bat Angel Dragon crashes heavily on Australia and demands that humanity provide him with food . Terrified , humans send their armies to destroy the dragon , but it remains unharmed . When the Iron Man hears of this global threat , he allows himself to be disassembled and transported to Australia where he challenges the creature to a contest of strength . If the Iron Man can withstand the heat of burning petroleum for longer than the space being can withstand the heat of the Sun , the creature must obey the Iron Man s commands forever more if the Iron Man melts or is afraid of melting before the space being undergoes or fears pain in the Sun , the creature has permission to devour the whole Earth . After playing the game two rounds , the dragon is so badly burned that he no longer appears physically frightening . The Iron Man by contrast has only a deformed ear lobe to show for his pains . The alien creature admits defeat . When asked why he came to Earth , the alien reveals that he is a peaceful Star Spirit who experienced excitement about the ongoing sights and sounds produced by the violent warfare of humanity . In his own life , he was a singer of the music of the spheres the harmony of his kind that keeps the Cosmos in balance in stable equilibrium . The Iron Man orders the Star Spirit to sing to the inhabitants of Earth , flying just behind the sunset , to help soothe humanity toward a sense of peace . The beauty of his music distracts the population from its egocentricism and tendency to fight , causing the first worldwide lasting peace . |
<|fantasy|>Most of the story is centred around McMurdo Station , the largest settlement in Antarctica , which is run as a scientific research station by the United States . Robinson s characteristic multiple protagonist style is employed here to show many aspects of polar life among the viewpoints presented are those of X , an idealistic young man working as a General Field Assistant at McMurdo Val , an increasingly embittered trek guide and Wade Norton , who works for the Californian Senator Phil Chase Wade and Phil also appear in the Science in the Capital trilogy . As well as McMurdo , the story involves the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station , the Shackleton Glacier , the McMurdo Dry Valleys and a South American drilling platform near Roberts Massif . Antarctica involves many of the ideas Robinson uses elsewhere as in the Mars trilogy , much emphasis is placed on the importance of living sustainably and the issues of existing in a hostile environment . The significance of Antarctica as a continent for science is contrasted with the need to provide a decent environment also for the support staff essential in a place so marginal . Other recurring themes include rock climbing , physical athleticism , the process and ideology of science , exploitation of natural resources , and the formation of cooperative and anarchic social systems . The novel was heavily influenced by Robinson s 1995 stay in Antarctica as part of the National Science Foundation s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program , and was nominated for a Locus Award in 1998 . |
<|fantasy|>Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots , the narrative runs back and forth between the two , taking up each plotline in alternating chapters . The odd chapters tell the 15 year old Kafka s story as he runs away from his father s house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister . After a series of adventures , he finds shelter in a quiet , private library in Takamatsu , run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming Oshima . There he spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of A Thousand and One Nights and the collected works of Natsume Sōseki until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with a brutal murder . The even chapters tell Nakata s story . Due to his uncanny abilities , he has found part time work in his old age as a finder of lost cats a clear reference to The Wind Up Bird Chronicle . The case of one particular lost cat puts him on a path that ultimately takes him far away from his home , ending up on the road for the first time in his life . He befriends a truck driver named Hoshino , who takes him on as a passenger in his truck and soon becomes very attached to the old man . Nakata and Kafka are on a collision course throughout the novel , but their convergence takes place as much on a metaphysical plane as it does in reality and , in fact , that can be said of the novel itself . Due to the Oedipal theme running through much of the novel , Kafka on the Shore has been called a modern Greek tragedy . |
<|fantasy|>Rohan , Prince of the Desert , is newly come to the throne . He must outwit the High Prince Roelstra in order to protect his vast lands and to maintain peace throughout the world . Sioned , a Sunrunner witch and his chosen bride , must help him in this dangerous quest and during the harsh times of war to come . Rohan and Sioned have some hard times at first , but they eventually get through . After Rohan s father died and Rohan inherited , he pretended to be a stupid , ignorant young man . The other princes believed him until he showed his true colors . Roelstra , however , thought that he could get Rohan s lands by marrying one of his seventeen daughters off to him . Rohan always came to a head with him . Roelstra wanted the desert , and Rohan was just as determined not to let him have it . No one knew that Sioned was Rohan s Chosen , except his Aunt , the scheming statecrafter Lady Andrade , until he revealed it at one of the many dinners that all of the princes attended . Roelstra was furious , of course , but he managed to keep his cool . For awhile , that is . Ultimately , Roelstra s daughter Ianthe captured Rohan and seduced him , convincing the drugged prince that she is Sioned . She also captured Sioned , locked her in a lightless dungeon and sent soldiers to rape her . When Rohan discovered the truth , he was enraged and took Ianthe fiercely as a form of revenge . Ianthe got what she wanted a child was conceived of this . Sioned returned to Feruche and stole the babe from Ianthe just before Rohan s vassal Ostvel burned Ianthe s Castle Feruche to the ground nbsp with Ianthe in it . Sioned adopted the child , naming him Pol , which means star in the Old Tongue . War erupts between Rohan and Roelstra , ending when Rohan killed Roelstra in a duel and became High Prince in his stead . |
<|novel|>Tandia , whose parents were a South African Indian man Mr . Patel and his house worker a black woman , is raped by a police officer at her father s grave the day after his funeral . With Mr . Patel s death , Tandia knew things were going to be very hard for her . But after his wife Mrs . Patel kicks her out of the dark corrugated iron shed in the back yard , her only house , her situation has been changed more drastically than she expected . She is arrested by the police and meets the policeman who brutalised her on her father s grave and becomes her lifelong enemy , Jannie Geldenhuis . Tandia finds a home in the brothel where Geldenhuis drops her . The brothel s owner and the other residents adopt her and she learns a lot of life lessons . Some of the clients of the brothel end up becoming her sponsors for her ambition to enter law school . While Peekay and Hymie Morrie in the American version go to Britain to read law at Oxford University , they want to conquer the world boxing field , Peekay as world welterweight champion and Hymie as Peekay s manager . They also want to pursue justice for the country they love , South Africa . When they arrive back in South Africa , their rivalry with Jannie Geldenhuis , which began in the school where they first met , extends to both boxing and politics . Tandia grows up to be a smart , intelligent and very beautiful lawyer . She joins the law firm formed by Peekay and Hymie and is dedicated to providing counsel to the under represented black and coloured population of South Africa . Her defense of a black terrorist causes her to again confront her lifelong enemy Jannie Geldenhuis who is now a powerful officer in the police force . Tandia and Peekay develop a romantic relationship , in a country where mixed relationships are outlawed . Their growing love is very dangerous and it leads them into the most fearful consequences . |
<|fantasy|>The Drenai Empire is under threat . The tribal Nadir people have been united for the first time by the great warleader Ulric , who has forged a massive empire in the North . The Drenai leader Abalayn is trying to negotiate new treaties with Ulric , but war is brewing and an over 500 , 000 strong Nadir army marches on the fortress of Dros Delnoch , gateway to the Drenai heartlands . Dros Delnoch is the greatest fortress in the world , a narrow pass guarded by six high walls and a great keep , but under Abalayn its complement of defenders has been reduced to less than 10 , 000 men under the leadership of an unfit General . The fate of the Drenai hinges on the defence of Dros Delnoch . If the fortress can hold the Nadir horde for three months , the Drenai general Magnus Woundweaver might be able to gather and train a Drenai army . However , given the odds , no one truly believes that Delnoch can be held . The novel follows the stories of two men who find their destiny at Dros Delnoch . Regnak Wanderer Rek for short an ex army officer and natural baresark , seeing a war brewing , resigned his commission because he lacked the courage to risk his life and took to a life of wandering . Rek is an idealist and eventually he returns to Delnoch at the persuasion of the woman he falls in love with and finds his destiny as the Earl of Bronze . The other man is the greatest hero of the Drenai people Druss the Legend . His death was foretold defending Delnoch and while given the choice to avoid it and fall into senility Druss and his once possessed axe Snaga marched to the great fortress to defend his people one last time . In this story Druss is in his sixties and much weaker than his prime but still a formidable warrior and an inspirational leader to the Drenai . The story also flicks into the perspective of several defenders during different stages of the siege as time goes on . It also follows The Thirty , a group of 30 warrior priests of the light whose purpose is to fight and die except for one priest that leaves to continue the order at the end of each great battle for the greater good and their people , the Drenai . |
<|novel|>The novel is based on the events that occurred to Agee in 1915 when his father went out of town to see his own father , who had had a heart attack . During the return trip , Agee s father was killed in a car accident . The novel provides a portrait of life in Knoxville , Tennessee , showing how such a loss affects the young widow , her two children , her atheist father and the dead man s alcoholic brother . |
<|novel|>The main protagonist of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a nine year old boy named Oskar Schell . Oskar Schell s father Thomas Schell dies in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11 , 2001 , before the narrative begins . While looking through his father s closet , Oskar finds a key in a small envelope inside a vase , on the outside of the envelope the word Black is written in the top left corner . Curious , Oskar sets off on a mission to contact every person in New York City with the last name Black , in alphabetical order , in order to find the lock to the key his father left behind . The novel also tells a separate narrative that eventually converges with the main story through a series of letters written by Oskar s grandfather to Oskar s father and by Oskar s grandmother to Oskar himself . Based on real life events . One of the first people Oskar meets in his search for the key s origin is a forty eight year old woman named Abby Black . Oskar makes friends instantly , but she has no information on the key . Oskar continues to search the city , meeting an old man he calls the renter as he is the new tenant in Oskar s grandmother s apartment the renter is actually Oskar s grandfather . Eight months after he meets Abby he finds a message on the answering machine . He had not touched that phone since his father died since his father s last words had been on an identical answering machine which Oskar had kept hidden from his mother . It is revealed that Abby had called Oskar directly after his visit , saying she wasn t completely honest with Oskar , and she think s that she might be able to help . Oskar returns to Abby s apartment , and Abby directs him to her ex husband , William Black . When Oskar talks to William Black , he learns that the vase used to belong to William s father . In his will , William s father left William a key to a safe deposit box , but William had already sold the vase at the estate sale to Thomas Schell . Oskar tells William something that he never told anyone the story of the last answering machine message Oskar received from his father , during the attack of 9 11 a repetition of the words Are you there ? Are you there ? Are you there ? Oskar then gives William Black the key . Disappointed that the key does not belong to him , Oskar goes home angry and sad , not interested in the contents of the box . After Oskar destroys everything that had to do with the search for the lost key , his mother reveals that she knew Oskar was contacting all the Blacks in New York City . After the first few visits she called every Black that he would meet and informed them that Oskar was going to visit and why . In response , the people Oskar met knew ahead of time why he was coming and usually treated him in a friendly manner . |
<|novel|>The novel tells the story of Divine , a drag queen who , when the novel opens , has died of tuberculosis and been canonised as a result . The narrator tells us that the stories he is telling are mainly to amuse himself whilst he passes his sentence in prison and the highly erotic , often explicitly sexual , stories are spun to assist his masturbation . Jean Paul Sartre called it the epic of masturbation . Divine lives in an attic room overlooking Montmartre cemetery , which she shares with various lovers , the most important of whom is a pimp called Darling Daintyfoot . One day Darling brings home a young hoodlum and murderer , dubbed Our Lady of the Flowers . Our Lady is eventually arrested and tried , and executed . Death and ecstasy accompany the acts of every character , as Genet performs a transvaluation of all values , making betrayal the highest moral value , murder an act of virtue and sexual appeal . |
<|fantasy|>The focus of the novel is the effects of global warming in the early decades of the 21st century . Its characters are mostly scientists , either involved in biotech research , assisting government members , or doing paperwork at the National Science Foundation NSF . There are also several Buddhist monks working for the embassy of the fictional island nation of Khembalung . |
<|fantasy|>The story follows Iris , another Blade Runner , on an assignment to find Tyrell s owl , which seems to have special importance for the Tyrell Corporation and other dubious organizations . |
<|fantasy|>Paradyzja from paradise is the story about the human colony on a space station orbiting a distant and mineral rich star system . The colony is controlled by a totalitarian regime . All human activity is tracked by electronic devices . It had been primarily devised as a ring , in which the gravity force is simulated by the centrifugal force exerting upon all objects inside a ring tube in the direction opposite to the centre of the ring . This space station was built accidentally . The expedition had to settle on planet Tartar in order to live there and exploit the natural goods . But general Cortazar , the leader of settlers , decided that Tartar was not suitable for settling because of a lack of good conditions for living , so the living place had to be built as a space station on the Tartar s orbit . On Paradise , living rooms are made of transparent material and to get to some of them you have to pass through other living rooms . Personal watches are not allowed , there the only clocks are those in living rooms . Rinah Devi s first impression is that all people strictly adhere to the regime law , but then he discovered that they had devised various ways to work around the system . One of them is the only language of truth Koalang , an artificial poetic language invented by the inhabitants of Paradise in order to cheat the electronic eavesdropping system . The government and the safety service is trying to suppress every possible knowledge of physics , which could allow a verification of the statements about what Paradise is as presented to Paradisians . That is why every research in physics is blocked , especially every research about Coriolis force . The main hero discovered this , when he was trying to check whether the forces really differ on every floor all things that would be used to make such an experiment even such as a spring from his ballpen have been taken from him by the customs officers and no other things that would make such a simple experiment possible are accessible . Then he discovers that minutes on clocks in living rooms are not equal in length . Finally , he finds out that Paradise is not a ring tube space station , but a train of buildings lying on the surface of Tartar planet . In addition , Tartar is a planet quite well suitable for settlement and the group in charge built some buildings and gardens for itself , keeping the majority of settlers in the fictional Paradise and making them believe that it was an artificial planet . |
<|childrens|>Hornblower alters the appearance of his own vessel , the Porta Coeli , so it can masquerade as the mutinous vessel . As dusk falls , he follows a valuable blockade runner into port , pretending to be the Flame . Then , once the two vessels are moored , he captures it and takes it out to sea . He then pursues the Flame , which retreats to the French port . Believing the mutineers responsible , the French send four gunboats to take her . Hornblower manages to exploit the fighting to capture both the Flame and a gunboat . Among the French prisoners is Lebrun , the young and ambitious assistant to the mayor of Le Havre . Lebrun asks to speak with Hornblower privately he proposes to surrender Le Havre to the English fleet . Hornblower and Lebrun arrange a plan Lebrun s role is to undermine those parties who would resist a British seizure of the city . Overcoming some tense moments with audacity , Hornblower is able to capture the city with a half battalion of Royal Marines and finds himself its military governor . Hornblower finds his new duties different from that of commanding a naval vessel or squadron . He finds his role demanding , in part because he is such a demanding perfectionist . The Duke of Angoulême , one of the heirs to the Bourbon dynasty , is sent to assume control of the civil leadership . Hornblower hears that Napoleon has been able to amass a strong force , to be transported by barge down the Seine to retake Le Havre . He sends a force , borne by half a dozen large ship s boats , to try to blow up the barges and ammunition . He puts his best friend , Captain William Bush , in command . The raid is a success and the French force is stopped , but an unexpected explosion kills most of the British , including Bush . Hornblower is raised to the peerage , possibly in part to provide him with more dignity , gravitas , when dealing with the French heir s entourage , as well to reward him for his accomplishments . During the following peace , Hornblower s wife Barbara accompanies her brother , the Duke of Wellington , to the Congress of Vienna , leaving Hornblower at loose ends . He decides to visit the Comte de Gracay , where he resumes his relationship with the Comte s widowed daughter in law , Marie . When Napoleon escapes from Elba and raises a new army , Hornblower , the Comte and Marie lead a guerrilla fight against the Imperial forces . They are eventually defeated , and Marie dies from a leg wound . Hornblower and the Comte are captured and condemned to death , but news of the Emperor s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo arrives just in time to save their lives . sv Lord Hornblower |
<|novel|>Married to a tenant farmer , Nathan , because her family can t afford the dowry for a better match , Rukmani must leave everything she has ever known and learn how to run a household by herself at the age of twelve . Nathan proves to be a tender , thoughtful husband and Rukmani soon comes to love him . Their first child , a daughter named Irawaddy , is born punctually then six years pass with no more children . In a society where sons were what mattered most , Rukmani grows desperate . She seeks out the help of an English doctor , Kenny , who successfully treats her infertility . Rukmani eventually gives birth to six more children . Meanwhile , a tannery is built in the village and begins to take over the land . The system of trading , and the quiet way of life for the people who live there is quickly disrupted . Rukmani seems to be the only one who recognizes this as a danger , and stands alone in her protest against modernization . Irawaddy is married off to a well placed young man then Rukmani s two eldest sons leave her to go work at a tea plantation in faraway Ceylon . After several years Irawaddy , divorced by her husband because she is barren , returns home . The family endure a time of drought and famine , and Rukmani s third son , weak with hunger , is beaten to death while trying to steal a calfskin from the tannery . Her youngest son Kuti begins to starve . Irawaddy is forced to turn to prostitution so she can provide food for her baby brother . Despite the extra food , Kuti dies . Irawaddy becomes pregnant from the prostitution and gives birth to an albino boy . Eventually , the tannery officials buy the land Nathan has been farming for thirty years and evict him . With nowhere else to go , the couple travel by oxcart and on foot to a city , hoping to move in with one of their sons . The son , however , has gone no one knows where . Completely destitute , they work as stonebreakers at a quarry in hopes of earning enough money to get home . There Nathan dies . Afterward , Rukmani returns to her home village accompanied by a resourceful street boy named Puli , who has lost his fingers to leprosy . She moves in with her daughter and her youngest son , who is now a doctor at the hospital Kenny has built . |
<|comedy|>Last Exit to Brooklyn is divided into six parts that can , more or less , be read separately . Each part is prefaced with a passage from the Bible . Another Day , Another Dollar A gang of young Brooklyn hoodlums hang around an all night cafe and get into a vicious fight with a group of US Army soldiers on leave . The Queen Is Dead Georgette , a transvestite hooker , is thrown out of the family home by her brother and tries to attract the attention of a hoodlum named Vinnie at a benzedrine driven party . And Baby Makes Three An alcoholic father tries to keep good spirits and maintain his family s marriage traditions after his daughter becomes pregnant and then marries a motorcycle mechanic . Tralala The title character of an earlier Selby short story , she is a young Brooklyn prostitute who makes a living propositioning sailors in bars and stealing their money . In perhaps the novel s most notorious scene , she is gang raped after a night of heavy drinking . Strike Harry , a machinist in a factory , becomes a local official in the union . A closeted homosexual , he abuses his wife and gets in fights to convince himself that he is a man . He gains a temporary status and importance during a long strike , and uses the union s money to entertain the young street punks and buy the company of drag queens . Landsend Described as a coda for the book , this section presents the intertwined , yet ordinary day of numerous denizens in a housing project . |
<|fantasy|>In I , Jedi , Corran Horn must develop his Jedi powers in order to save the life of his wife , Mirax Terrik . Corran Horn was a member of the elite X wing force Rogue Squadron . After returning home from a long campaign to find his wife kidnapped , he turns to Luke Skywalker , the only remaining Jedi Master at the time , for help . This coincides nicely with the master s timing , as he is seeking students for his new Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 . Corran knows that he is Force sensitive , and that only with the Force as his ally can he track down his enemy . It turns out that Corran s wife , Mirax , was tracking down a group of elusive pirates known as the Invids . The Invids primary tactic is to drop out of hyperspace with the flagship , an Imperial Star Destroyer named the Invidious , strike , and disappear with perfect timing . As she grew closer to solving the mystery of how these pirates performed their supernaturally accurate attacks , she was kidnapped and placed into stasis on their fortress planet . On the journey to save Mirax , Corran learns that his grandfather was a Jedi , a member of the Halcyon line . His adopted grandfather shows Corran the records that the Jedi had left behind , and with that , Corran eventually makes up his mind to follow in his ancestor s footsteps and become a Jedi . After extensive training and being caught in a crisis involving the risen spirit of the Dark Sith Lord Exar Kun , Corran goes as far as he can , and infiltrates the pirates using his CorSec training . He quickly rises through the ranks , and finds out where Mirax is being held . With the timely help of Luke Skywalker and his squadron friend and wingman , Ooryl Qrygg , he fights his way past the Jensaarai , a splinter group of Jedi who focus on stealth and premonition , and into the fortress , where he is able to rescue his wife . |
<|fantasy|>The chief of the CIA , Helen Dexter , decides , on her own , to order the murder of political figures of other nations on the basis of their views on the USA . The book starts with the murder of a candidate for the Colombian presidency . During this time , Helen finds out that she would be fired if she is found out to be ordering assassinations on several nations . To cover up her work she plans to have her chief assassin , Connor Fitzgerald , eliminated . The CIA rejects Connor s resignation and asks him to go on a final mission to assassinate a candidate for the Russian presidency . While attending a speech , Connor is arrested and placed in a Russian jail to be executed . A friend of his arrives in time and tries to rescue him by making a bargain with the Russian Mafia . In exchange for Fitzgerald to be replaced with his friend , Fitzgerald will have to assassinate the Russian president . Fitzgerald fails in the attempt and dies . Later on he returns home with the name of a professor and he has lost his arm . |
<|fantasy|>The plot is based around a modernization of the anti hero , Dr . Johannes Faust , who struggles with his growing discomfort with modern thought and questions how and why things happen without scientific explanation . After burning his library and contemplating suicide , a mysterious being named Mephistopheles comes to Faust and offers him all the information of the universe . With Mephistopheles help , the madman Dr . Johannes Faust becomes savior Jack Faust by accelerating human progress at a blinding speed , reshaping Germany and then all of Europe in his own image . |
<|novel|>Cosmopolis is the story of Eric Packer , a 28 year old multi billionaire asset manager who makes an odyssey across midtown Manhattan in order to get a haircut . He drives around in a stretch limo which is richly described as luxurious , spacious and highly technical , filled with television screens and computer monitors , bulletproofed and floored with Carrara marble . It is also cork lined to eliminate though unsuccessfully , as Packer notes the intrusion of street noise . Packer s voyage is obstructed by various traffic jams caused by a presidential visit to the city , a full fledged anti capitalist riot , and a funeral procession for a Sufi rap star . Along the way , the hero has several chance meetings with his wife and sexual encounters with other women . Packer is also stalked by two men , a comical pastry assassin and an unstable credible threat . Through the course of the day , the protagonist loses incredible amounts of money for his clients by betting against the rise of the yen , a loss that parallels his own fall . Packer seems to relish being unburdened by the loss of so much money , even stopping to make sure he loses his wife s fortune as well , to ensure his ruin is inevitable . He is finally murdered by the second of the two stalkers , a former employee who sees the assassination of Packer as the only possible meaningful act in his own life . |
<|fantasy|>The main character , David , finds a device at the beach that can duplicate any living organism . After testing the device on his pet fish , David makes a clone of himself so that he could go on a date with his crush , Angela , while his clone attends his grandmother s birthday . His plan backfires because the Duplicate believes himself to be the original , and refuses to take orders . David ends up having to go to his grandmothers birthday after he loses a coin toss to the duplicate . David s real problems begin when the Duplicate uses the device to create a clone of himself . The new duplicate is a less than perfect reproduction , being a copy of a copy , and has goals and desires that differ from the original David . Eventually , the second duplicate turns on Angela and the original David , and he has to find a way to stop him . Later , he stumbles upon something that will change his life . |
<|novel|>The novel tells of several generations of the fictional Gursky family , who are connected to several disparate events in the history of Canada , including the Franklin Expedition and rum running . Some fans and critics have cited this as Mordecai Richler s best book , and in terms of scope and style it is unmatched by his other works . The parallels between the Gursky family and the Bronfmans are such that the novel may be seen as a thinly disguised account of the Bronfman family . While Richler himself denied any similarities , one longtime Bronfman associate put it , I don t know why Mordecai bothered to change the names . |
<|fantasy|>Nohar is living in a cabin in the woods when he is approached by a lawyer to find a missing moreau . Nohar turns the case down and the lawyer leaves . Soon after , the cabin is assaulted by a para military team . Nohar escapes with his life and on the run , tries to find the moreau and discover why his life was threatened . |
<|fantasy|>John Carter discovers that a First Born knows the secret of the Temple of the Sun and he and the Holy Hekkador Matai Shang want to rescue the Holy Thern s daughter , who is imprisoned with Dejah Thoris and another Barsoomian princess , Thuvia of Ptarth . John Carter follows them in the hope of liberating his beloved wife . His antagonists flee to the north , taking the three women along . Thereafter John Carter follows them untiring into the north polar regions where he discovers more fantastic creatures and ancient , mysterious Martian races . These he overcomes in battle , and is later proclaimed Warlord of Barsoom by his allies . This book is the last to feature Tars Tarkas , John Carter s ally , in any major role indeed , the green Barsoomians of whom Tars Tarkas is an oligarch disappear altogether from most of the later novels . |
<|childrens|>Anne Shirley has now been married to Gilbert Blythe for 15 years , and the couple have six children Jem , Walter , Nan , Di , Shirley , and Rilla . After a holiday in Europe , Anne returns to the news that a new minister has arrived in Glen St . Mary . John Meredith is a widower with four young children Jerry , Faith , Una , and Carl . The children have not been properly brought up since the death of their mother , with only their absent minded father who is easily absorbed by matters of theology and their old , bitter , and partially deaf Aunt Martha to take care of them . The children are considered wild and mischievous by many of the families in the village who tend only to hear about the Meredith children when they have gotten into some kind of scrape , causing them to question Mr . Meredith s parenting skills and his suitability as a minister . For most of the book , only the Blythes know of the Meredith children s loyalty and kindness . They rescue an orphaned girl , Mary Vance , from starvation , and Una finds a home for her with Mrs . Marshall Elliot . When the children get into trouble , Faith sometimes tries to explain their behavior to the townsfolk , which generally causes an even bigger scandal . The Merediths , Blythes , and Mary Vance often play in a hollow called Rainbow Valley , which becomes a gathering place for the children in the book . Jem Blythe tries to help the Merediths behave better by forming the Good Conduct Club , in which the Merediths punish themselves for misdeeds . Their self imposed punishments lead to Carl becoming very ill with pneumonia after spending hours in a graveyard on a wet night , and to Una fainting in church after fasting all day . When this happens , John Meredith is wracked with guilt over his failings as a father . Mr . Meredith realizes that he should marry again and give the children a mother , though he has always thought he will never love anyone again as he did his late wife . He is surprised to find that he has fallen in love with Rosemary West , a woman in her late thirties who lives with her sister Ellen , who is ten years older . John proposes marriage to Rosemary , but Ellen forbids Rosemary to accept , as years earlier they had promised each other never to leave the other following the deaths of their parents . However , Ellen eventually reunites with her childhood beau , Norman Douglas , and asks Rosemary to release her from her promise so she can marry Norman . Rosemary agrees , but now thinks that John Meredith hates her . Una overhears her father expressing feelings for Rosemary and goes to ask Rosemary to marry her father despite her misgivings about stepmothers , who Mary Vance has told her are always mean . Rosemary sets her mind at ease and agrees to speak to John Meredith again . They become engaged , and Rosemary and Ellen plan a double wedding in the fall . |
<|fantasy|>Set in the year 2023 , the book follows Alcide Nikopol return to Paris after spending 30 years frozen in space as a punishment for dodging the draft . The Paris he once knew is now ruled by fascist dictator J . F . Choublanc , the city is swarming with aliens , decaying and succumbing to chaos . At the same time , a flying pyramid shaped space craft is hovering over Paris . It is inhabited by Egyptian gods who ask for fuel from the local authorities , as their pyramid vessel has run out of gas . In return for this service Choublanc wants immortality from the gods . One renegade god , Horus , meets up with the disillusioned Nikopol in the Metro , and Nikopol agrees to allow Horus control of his body . Together they go on a journey to oppose the corrupt and megalomaniacal powers of the 21st century . |
<|fantasy|>Artemis Fowl lures Mulch Diggums , a dwarf , to work with him to steal a tiara for a laser he is developing . A band of other dwarfs , using a circus as their cover have already stolen the tiara . The other dwarfs , led by Sergei the Significant , are planning to sell it to a jewellery fence . Captain Holly Short is on a break pending a tribunal after the Fowl Manor Incident , but Foaly tells her that the LEP have been alerted by Mulch Diggum s stolen helmet , about Artemis Fowl . Holly immediately heads to Ireland and confronts the dwarfs . Soon after Holly has tagged all of the dwarfs in Sergei s band , she chases Artemis and Mulch . Mulch and Artemis soon split with Artemis promising to write Mulch a cheque for the tiara . Holly chases after Artemis and demands the tiara and a LEP helmet from him . Artemis gives her the LEP helmet but keeps the tiara . Holly forces Artemis to give her the tiara , and then he hands it over . Later on we learn that Artemis switched the gemstone in the tiara with a fake one . He gives the real one to his mother because it reminds her of Artemis s father , specifically , the color of his eyes . |
<|fantasy|>The book starts off from the events at the end of The Clan of the Cave Bear detailing the life of a young Cro Magnon woman named Ayla who has just been exiled from the Clan , the band of Neanderthals who had raised her from early childhood . Ayla now searches for her own people , whom the Clan refer to as the Others . In a parallel narrative , Jondalar , a young Cro Magnon man of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii , accompanies his impetuous younger half brother Thonolan on a traditional rite of passage called the Great Journey . In these episodes , we learn of the Cro Magnon s neolithic nature religion , centered on the worship of the Great Mother of All , and follow their adventures and sexual exploits . It is also through these episodes that the animosity , verging on hatred , between the Others and the Clan whom they refer to derogatorily as flatheads is introduced . The Others have repeatedly persecuted the Clan , taking land and resources , but justify it by classing them as animals . However , over the course of his adventures , Jondalar starts to question this prejudice , noting that no other animals have fire , tools or communicate intelligently , nor are they actively hated or attacked as sport by his people . Ayla , alone and ritually ostracized from the only people she has ever known , travels steadily from the Beran Sea peninsular home of her former tribe north for around half a year until finding the book s titular valley sunk deep into the windy landscape of the periglacial loess steppes in Ukraine . Worried that she might never find the Others , she begins to prepare for winter . Finding a suitable cave and many conveniences in the valley , she establishes a comfortable but lonely life there . Her desire for companionship leads her to tame a filly whose mother she had killed , naming her Whinney . She also takes in and treats an injured cave lion cub , which she names Baby . In the course of their journey , Jondalar and Thonolan have met women and hope to settle with them , but Thonolan s mate dies in childbirth and Jondalar feels he is not really in love with his woman friend . They continue on their journey and meet up with the Mamutoi people , planning to join them later in the year . Jondalar and Ayla meet when Thonolan is killed by a cave lion Baby , now fully grown and with a mate of his own . Ayla heals Jondalar s injuries and they begin to learn to communicate and get to know each other . Jondalar overcomes his inbred prejudice against the Clan and Ayla learns that all her peculiarities which confused and angered the Clan are actually fully accepted and encouraged by the Others . The two fall in love as the book nears its end , and decide to leave the Valley of Horses and explore regions around the valley Ayla has not yet investigated . |
<|childrens|>Davey Wexler , along with her mother , Gwen , and her little brother , Jason , has just attended the funeral of her father , Adam , who was shot to death in a holdup at their 7 Eleven convenience store in Atlantic City . After lying in bed for days on end and not eating , she starts her sophomore year of high school , but ends up passing out three days in a row . Davey s mother , Gwen , then decides they needed to get away for a couple of weeks , so they take up an offer from Adam s older sister , Bitsy , and her husband Walter , to come stay with them in Los Alamos , New Mexico . However , a few days before they were scheduled to leave , Gwen gets news that their store was further vandalized , and she decides they re going to stay longer . It turns out to be pretty much the entire school year . While there , Bitsy and Walter , who do not have children and were never able to have them , start treating Davey and Jason like their own , which eventually creates tension between Davey and the both of them when they won t let her do a number of things out of fear of her getting hurt or killed , and more so when her mother just sits back and allow it to happen . Meanwhile , as Davey explores the town on her aunt s bicycle , she goes to a canyon and after climbing down she runs into an older boy who calls himself Wolf . Davey calls herself Tiger when they introduce each other . She also becomes a candy striper at the hospital with her new friend , Jane , and meets a cancer patient who turns out to be the father of Wolf . The inspiration from Wolf and his father changes Davey for the better . Another story is Jane s alcoholism and Davey s desire to help her get out of it . Also , in three different parts Davey describes the evening her father was shot and killed , which causes her in at least one part of the book to completely freak out when Jason experiences a nosebleed from the altitude . She carries a paper bag with her , which is revealed to contain the clothing she was wearing when she found her father and cradled him all the way to his death . The clothing was soaked with his blood . She eventually buries it and a bread knife she was carrying for self defense in a cave in the canyon she met Wolf in . Eventually , against Bitsy s wishes , Gwen decides to return the family to Atlantic City to begin a new life , so Walter helps them buy a car for the trip home . Once they re back home , Davey often wonders if anyone will know how much she had changed , particularly her friend , Laina , and her boyfriend , Hugh , then also has the realization that some changes happen deep down and only you know about them . |
<|crime|>Jill Paton Walsh writes At opposite ends of Grandinsula , a remote pre reformation Christian island , shepherds find a creature with strange footprints stealing their lambs , and fisherman find a swimmer near exhaustion struggling towards the shore . The child cannot stand , eat or speak like a human being the swimmer says he is a prince in the unheard of land of Aclar , and declares himself to be an atheist . Severo , Cardinal and Prince of the island , is confronted by a double conundrum . Could an atheist be in good faith ? Not if the knowledge of God is inborn then the atheist must once have known God , and reneged on the knowledge . If he is a renegade from the truth , he must be burned as a heretic but Severo would dearly like to save him . How could it be found out whether everyone has inborn knowledge of God , since the teaching of the Church as best known to the greatest scholar on the island is unclear ? Perhaps by teaching the wolf child to speak , and then asking her . . . That will take time . Meanwhile , it is worth while trying to demonstrate the truth of God to the mysterious atheist in argument . What becomes of the argument , of the atheist , and of the wild child , and the effect of their fates on Severo , and the islanders who come in contact with either the Prince of Aclar , or the ferocious child Amara makes up the thread of the story . This is a fable about tolerance , and its conflict with moral certainty . |
<|fantasy|>The Plains of Passage describes the journey of Ayla and Jondalar west along the Great Mother River the Danube , from the home of The Mammoth Hunters roughly modern Ukraine to Jondalar s homeland close to Les Eyzies , Dordogne , France . During this journey , Ayla meets the various peoples who live along their line of march . These meetings , the attitudes and beliefs of these groups , and Ayla s response form an essential part of the story . Characters range in description from innocent to bloodthirsty , from serious to comical , from noble to corrupt , from found to lost , and from peaceful to violent . All of these adjectives apply , interestingly , in some way to either Jondalar or Ayla . Ayla and to some extent Jondalar is often viewed by her new friends as mystic or supernatural , partially due to her friendships with the world s first known domesticated horses and wolf , but also due to her generous nature and wisdom . As they encounter people Jondalar and his brother met on their journey eastward they have a hard time leaving them , especially after an offer to become joined with a high ranking Sharamudoi couple . Jondalar declines the offer , giving as excuse his desire to have the lead mystic of his people search for and help his deceased brother cross over to the other side . It concludes with Ayla and Jondalar s successful return to the Zelandoni , and Ayla s unconfirmed pregnancy , and Whinney s definite pregnancy . The Plains of Passage is one of the longer books in the Earth s Children series . It was followed by The Shelters of Stone . |
<|fantasy|>Central to this book is the tension created by Ayla s healing art , her pregnancy , and the acceptance of her by Jondalar s people , the Zelandonii . Ayla was raised by Clan Neanderthals , known as flatheads to the Zelandonii and viewed as no better than animals . For the Zelandonii to accept Ayla they must first overcome their prejudice against the Neanderthals . Luckily for Ayla and Jondalar , some of the higher ranking Zelandonii already have doubts of this misjudgment . Two of their number , Echozar and Brukeval , are of partial Neanderthal ancestry and are ashamed of it . Echozar at least is pacified by Ayla s own story and by his Echozar s own marriage to Joplaya , Jondalar s close cousin half sister . Brukeval , on the other hand , rejects his heritage utterly and refuses to listen to reason . Jondalar s first romantic interest , Zelandoni , formerly known as Zolena , has now become the First among the spiritual leaders . She supports adopting Ayla into their society , if not least for the healing arts she brings to the cave , although Ayla also must overcome the feeling that she is uncomfortable with a full connection with the spirit world . After Ayla helps a mortally injured hunter live long enough to see his mate , the First senses that Ayla needs to be brought into the fold of the Zelandonia mystics , named after their culture so as to identify themselves with it so that she will be accepted as a healer by all the people of the cave . At one point , Ayla persuades the native mothers to nurse a neglected infant , on the pretext that even a flathead would have done so in their place . This both shames them into agreeing as noted by Jondalar s sister in law , Proleva and educates the Zelandonii in the ways of their ex neighbors . Ayla is drawn ever closer to an as yet undetermined role in the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii . Her knowledge of the healing arts as well as hunting force her to accept a role in the spiritual leadership of the group . Through it all Jondalar is waiting for the summer meeting and matrimonial that will finally tie the knot for the two of them . This has been his ultimate goal since The Valley of Horses . Their daughter , Jonayla , named for her mother s belief a man s essence creates babies , which leads to Jondalar and Ayla each being part of the baby , not just their spirits , is born sometime after this event . Not long after the birth , Ayla finally decides to become Zelandonii s acolyte , if only so that the members of the Zelandonii will accept her as a healer . This book is set in what is now the Vézère valley , near to Les Eyzies , in the Dordogne , southwest France . It was relatively densely populated in prehistoric times , with many open cliff top dwellings that can still be seen , some of which have been turned into tourist attractions . The national museum of prehistory is located in this valley . Ayla also discovers the world famous cave of Lascaux , which her adopted people subsequently paint . ! |
<|novel|>Part one begins shortly after Tyler s return from a European vacation . He is in a relationship with a girl named Anna Louise , and dreams of working for American Defense Contractor , Bechtel . He is obsessed with his haircare products , having a collection of different brand name products , most featuring names invented by Coupland . The first part of the novel details Tyler s life in Lancaster , Washington . The town is a near ghost town , after the town s largest employer , the Plants , was shut down . The effects of the Plants shutdown has caused many problems in the town , including the boarding up of many stores in the local mall . Tyler s family life is composed of himself , his mother , and his two siblings . He calls his mother by her first name , Jasmine . Jasmine is an ex hippie who is married to an alcoholic man named Dan . At the very introduction of the novel , Dan divorces Jasmine . Tyler , his sister , Daisy , and his brother , Mark , band together to help Jasmine through her troubling time . Tyler s grandparents are also introduced . They are quite wealthy , but they will not share their wealth with their family members . They have decided to start selling a product satirically labeled KittyWhip , which is a gourmet cat food product line . At the beginning of this part , two of Tyler s compatriots from his European vacation decide to visit Tyler in Lancaster . They are Monique and Stephanie . Stephanie is Tyler s secret shame from Europe , as he had a summer relationship with her . Tyler tells us about his European vacation , and the events that lead to him meeting Stephanie , and what it means to have Stephanie visit them in Lancaster . Tyler s world starts to turn upside down , as his Grandparents lose their fortune , his mother becomes a KittyWhip salesperson , and his relationship with Anna Louise enters a rough patch . Tyler feels himself become more drawn to Stephanie than Anna Louise . Tyler , deciding that his life in Lancaster is not interesting enough , leaves with Stephanie to live in Los Angeles . His time in Los Angeles is wrought with strife . Tyler s worst fear becomes realized as he finds himself working at a chicken fry shop manning the fryer . It is in Los Angeles that Tyler begins to comprehend advice that his mother gave him about loneliness . |
<|novel|>Four days after a Weiberfastnacht party , where Katharina met a man named Ludwig Götten , she calls on Oberkommissar Moeding and confesses to killing a journalist for the newspaper Die Zeitung . Katharina had met Götten at a friend s party and spent the night with him before helping him to escape from the police . The next morning , the police broke into her house , arrested her and questioned her . The story is sensationally covered by Die Zeitung , and in particular its journalist Tötges . Tötges investigates everything about her life , calling on Katharina s friends and family , including her ex husband and hospitalized mother , who dies the day after Tötges visits her . He paints a picture of Katharina as a fervent accomplice of Götten , and as a communist run amok in Germany . Katharina arranges an interview with Tötges . According to Katharina , upon his arrival he suggests that they have sex , whereupon she shoots him dead . She then wanders the city for a few hours before driving to police headquarters and confessing to Moeding . The book also details the effects of the case on Katharina s employers and friends the Blornas Mr Blorna is her lawyer , and Mrs Blorna one of the designers of the apartment block where Katharina resides . Their association with Katharina leads to their exclusion from society . |
<|childrens|>John Dolittle , MD , is a respected physician and quiet bachelor living with his spinster sister in the small English village of Puddleby on the Marsh . His love of animals grows over the years and his household menagerie eventually scares off his human clientele , leading to loss of wealth . But after learning the secret of speaking to all animals from his parrot Polynesia , he takes up veterinary practice . His fortunes rise and fall again after a crocodile takes up residence , but his fame in the animal kingdom spreads throughout the world . He is conscripted into voyaging to Africa to cure a monkey epidemic just as he faces bankruptcy . He has to borrow supplies and a ship , and sails with a crew of his favourite animals , but is shipwrecked upon arriving to Africa . On the way to the monkey kingdom , his band is arrested by the king of Jolliginki , a victim of European exploitation who wants no white men traveling his country . The band barely escapes by ruse , but makes it to the monkey kingdom where things are dire indeed as a result of the raging epidemic . He vaccinates the well monkeys and nurses the sick back to health . In appreciation , the monkeys find a pushmi pullyu , a shy two headed gazelle unicorn cross , whose rarity may bring Dr . Dolittle money back home . On the return trip , they again are captured in Jolliginki . This time they escape with the help of Prince Bumpo , who gives them a ship in exchange for Dolittle s bleaching Bumpo s face white , his greatest desire being to act as a European fairy tale prince . Dolittle s crew then have a couple of run ins with pirates , leading to Dolittle s winning a pirate ship loaded with treasures and rescuing a boy whose uncle was abandoned on a rock island . After reuniting the two , Dolittle finally makes it home and tours with the pushmi pullyu in a circus until he makes enough money to retire to his beloved home in Puddleby . |
<|novel|>The book tells the story of Ted Mundy , a Pakistani born Briton who as a student becomes proficient in the German language . He joins a 1960s era student protest group in West Berlin and becomes a lifelong friend of a West German student anarchist named Sasha . Having been brutally beaten by West Berlin police and ejected from Germany , Mundy fails at several careers , as a teacher at an English prep school , as a newspaper reporter , a radio interviewer and a novelist . Eventually Mundy obtains a position with the British Council . Meanwhile , Sasha has defected to East Germany to become a member of the notorious Stasi secret police . On a trip to East Germany with a youth theatre group , Mundy and Sasha meet again . By this time Sasha has become totally disillusioned with the Communist Bloc and enlists the naive Mundy to become a double agent . Sasha has access to state secrets and he recruits Mundy to help him smuggle them out of East Germany and deliver them to MI6 , the British Secret Service . Their efforts contribute to the collapse of the GDR and eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall . Later , Sasha and Mundy once again conspire in grandiose schemes to combat American military and industrial globalization . The two ideologues become pawns of the group they thought they were combating . After they are killed , they are portrayed as terrorists with connections to Al Qaeda , in efforts to convince European governments to support the United States in its war on terror . After Mundy s death , Amory , his controller from the British intelligence service during his espionage years , tries to publicize the truth , but slander by the British government results in his story being totally discredited . The novel is a chilling reminder of the ability of governments and groups to manipulate public thinking to achieve their private ends , and underlines the need for people to not simply believe what they are told sold without question . |
<|childrens|>The novel is set in the small town of Friendly , West Virginia , Nicknamed the Mountain State , West Virginia abounds in mountains and rivers . For hundreds of years , the state has been home to hunters of deer , bears , beavers , and other animals . Before 1600 , Native American tribes of the Iroquois , the Cherokee , and the Shawnee hunted for food . In the contemporary day , people hunt despite most of the large animals having disappeared . Numerous laws in West Virginia determine when , where , how , and what animals may be hunted . In the rural hill setting , neighbors because of local customs rarely meddle with each other s business . Respect of elders and a commitment to honesty are expected of children . where an eleven year old boy named Marty Preston finds a stray beagle wandering in the hills near his house . The dog follows him home , and Marty names him Shiloh , a tribute to a neighborhood schoolhouse . Shiloh s real owner is Judd Travers , who owns several hunting dogs . Fearing for the dog s safety because Judd drinks and treats his hunting dogs poorly , Marty does not want to return Shiloh . His father insists Shiloh be returned to his owner and they take the dog to Judd Travers . Shiloh returns to Marty who hides him from his family . Concealing Shiloh in the woods in a wire pen he builds , Marty smuggles some of his dinner to the dog each evening . After his mother discovers Marty feeding the dog , he persuades her not to reveal the secret . That night , Shiloh is attacked by a German Shepherd Dog while in his makeshift cage and his family discovers Marty has been lying and hiding the dog . After taking the dog to the town doctor , the family must return Shiloh to his rightful owner . Before doing so , Marty travels up to Travers house to try to convince Travers to allow him to keep Shiloh . Judd does not see Marty approaching , and shoots a doe out of season , which would mean a stiff fine Judd cannot afford . Marty lets Judd know he knows , and attempts to blackmail him out of Shiloh . Judd and Marty eventually negotiate a deal in which Marty will earn Shiloh for 40 dollars , paid with 20 hours of working for Judd . At the end of the first week , Judd says that he will not keep his end of the deal because the evidence of the dead doe has with the passage of time disappeared . Second , the contract that Marty had him sign is worthless in the state of West Virginia without the signature of a witness . Despite Judd s pointed disapproval of his work , Marty continues to work for him . They begin discussing dogs and Judd s father who began physically abusing Judd when he was four years old . In the end , Judd warms to Marty , relents , and lets him keep Shiloh . |
<|action|>In the small town of Burnside , the Jerome family house is destroyed by teenage vandals , who defecate on the floors and push their daughter down the stairs , placing her in a coma . However , a childlike stalker calling himself The Avenger witnesses the whole incident and , enraged , begins to track down each culprit . |
<|romance|>When the beautiful and glamorous Helen is deserted by her lover , she marries the kindly Martin McMahon and moves to the small village of Lough Glass . Although Martin and Helen have two children , Helen still pines for Louis , the man who broke her heart . Helen seems restless and unhappy living in Lough Glass . Then one day , Helen disappears , leaving behind only a note for Martin . Kit , Helen and Martin s 13 year old daughter , finds this letter , and burns it without opening it . Kit knows that her mother was unhappy and assumes that her mother has committed suicide . A suicide note would mean that her mother could not be buried in consecrated ground according to Catholic tradition . However , Helen hasn t committed suicide . Rather , she decided to run away to England with her former lover . Kit McMahon struggles to grow up without her mother and with the stigma of her mother s death . While Kit has many friends and mentors to help her grow , she forges a close relationship via letters with Lena Gray . Lena Gray claims to be a close friend of Helen . However , Lena Gray is really Helen herself . The story then traces the fallout of Kit finding out that her mother isn t dead and is Lena Gray . |
<|novel|>In this book set during the Napoleonic Wars , Sharpe repeatedly runs into problems caused by his lower social class and his officer standing . This is the only book in the series to be set in England though in the Television series a second was produced Sharpe s Justice and involves Sharpe looking for the missing Second Battalion of the South Essex Regiment which he needs to reinforce the dwindling First Battalion in Spain . The story also involves Sharpe and Harper having to rejoin the South Essex as recruits to find the missing men . |
<|childrens|>Doctor Dolittle meets Tommy Stubbins , the young son of the local cobbler , who becomes his new assistant . Tommy learns how to speak animal languages and becomes involved in the Doctor s quest to find Long Arrow , the greatest naturalist in the world . This novel takes us to the Mediterranean , South America , and even under the sea . |
<|fantasy|>Luke Garner , a twelve year old child , lives on a farm with his mother , father , and two brothers , Matthew and Mark . The Mothers objective was to have a Matthew , Mark , Luke , and John . As a third child or a Shadow child , Luke s parent s have to break the law . Like all third and fourth children , must spend his days without being seen by the public . Luke meets a person named Jen and she leads a rally against the population law then dies , luke feels guilt |
<|novel|>During a visit from her daughter , Niki , Etsuko reflects back on her own life as a young woman in Japan , and how she left that country to live in Britain . As she describes it , she and her Japanese husband , Jiro , had a daughter together , and a few years later Etsuko met a British man and moved with him to Britain . She took her elder daughter , Keiko , to Britain to live with her and the new husband . When Etsuko and her new husband have a daughter , Etsuko wants to call her something modern and her husband wants an Eastern sounding name , so they compromise with the name Niki , which seems to Etsuko to be perfectly British , but sounds to her husband at least slightly Japanese . In Britain , Keiko becomes increasingly solitary and antisocial . Etsuko recalls how , as Keiko grew older , she would lock herself in her room and emerge only to pick up the dinner plate that her mother would leave for her in the kitchen . This disturbing behavior ends , as the reader already has learned , in Keiko s suicide . Your father , Etsuko tells Niki , was rather idealistic at times . . . H e really believed we could give her a happy life over here . . . But you see , Niki , I knew all along . I knew all along she wouldn t be happy over here . Etsuko tells her daughter , Niki , that she had a friend in Japan named Sachiko . Sachiko had a daughter named Mariko , a girl whom Etsuko s memory paints as exceptionally solitary and antisocial . Sachiko , Etsuko recalls , had planned to take Mariko to America with an American soldier identified only as Frank . Clearly , Sachiko s story bears striking similarities to Etsuko s . |
<|childrens|>Doctor Dolittle s assistant , Tommy Stubbins , reports on Professor Quetch , curator of the Dog Museum in the Home for Crossbred Dogs . Meanwhile , the doctor has learnt insect languages and hears ancient tales of a giant race of insects . Fascinated , the doctor plans a voyage to find them mdash but before he does so , one arrives in his garden . ja |
<|childrens|>Doctor Dolittle has landed on the Moon and each day brings a new discovery . He meets Otho Bludge the Moon Man , a Stone Age artist who was the only human on the Moon when it broke away from the Earth . The animals of the Moon flock to Doctor Dolittle , and he discovers how to communicate with the intelligent plants there . But will the lunar flora and fauna ever let him leave ? There is no pretence that the Lunar environment , described in meticulous detail , in any way conforms to what was known to science at the time of writing thus , the book can be considered as fantasy more than science fiction . ja |
<|novel|>It tells the story of Anthony Patch a 1920s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon s fortune , his relationship with his wife Gloria , his service in the army , and alcoholism . Toward the end of the novel , Fitzgerald references himself via a character who is a novelist by quoting this statement given after the novel You know these new novels make me tired . My God ! Everywhere I go some silly girl asks me if I ve read This Side of Paradise . Are our girls really like that ? If it s true to life , which I don t believe , the next generation is going to the dogs . I m sick of all this shoddy realism . |
<|crime|>The protagonist of the story is Sun Piao , a Chief Investigator of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau Homicide Department . He has a sidekick of sorts , an overweight and spirited rural Chinese , Yaobang . Sun Piao is a jaded , righteous man determined to do his job and with a reputation for being good at it alternatively he is the archetypical hardboiled detective of film noir cynical , pessimistic and somewhat self destructive . The storyline of the book revolves around an investigation of several horrifically but surgically mutilated corpses , all chained around their necks and ankles , and one night resting on the muddy banks of the Huangpu , near the Bund . Other characters in the book worth noting are Barbara Hayes an American politician who goes to Shanghai in search of her missing son , Chief Liping a Party member several grades higher than Sun and an Englishman named Charles Haven . |
<|childrens|>Tommy Stubbins is waiting for Doctor Dolittle s return from the Moon and when the Doctor does so , he is anxious to write of what he has experienced . This proves more difficult than expected . The poignancy of the doctor s lunar experiences is juxtaposed with his hilarious attempts to be put into jail so he will be free of all responsibilities and will be able to write his book . ja |
<|crime|>Archer is hired by a woman to investigate a slanderous letter she received . The family lives in the house situated on the line between two Southern Californian towns , one an idyllic , oil rich town , and the other the small , seedy town from which the oil comes , corrupt and destroyed by the industry . It is not long before Archer is more concerned with investigating murder instead of just blackmail . The book was the basis of the 1975 Paul Newman film of the same name , but the movie has radical departures from the plot of the novel , including moving the location to Louisiana . |