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<|fantasy|>Merlin has spent the last several years on Earth learning computer science while building Ghostwheel , a trump and pattern based computer , elsewhere in Shadow . Having completed his project , he wishes to know who has been trying to kill him every April 30 , and why some of the better attempts failed , before he leaves . He meets with his friend Lucas Reynard Luke , a salesman , who tries to convince him to stay , and who tells him that Julia Barnes , Merlin s ex girlfriend , may be in trouble . Merlin investigates and finds Julia slain by creatures from another shadow . Merlin investigates through shadow , and is given orders by king Random to shut down Ghostwheel . However , Ghostwheel has become sentient and capable of defending itself . Eventually , Luke who , it turns out , is Brand s son imprisons Merlin in a blue crystal cave so he can attempt to take control of Ghostwheel for himself .

<|novel|>The novel provides a detailed , episodic record of the two branches of the wealthy and aristocratic Jia clan the Rongguo House and the Ningguo House who reside in two large , adjacent family compounds in the capital . Their ancestors were made Dukes and given imperial titles , and as the novel begins the two houses are among the most illustrious families in the city . One of the clan s offspring was made an Imperial Consort , and a lush landscaped garden was built to receive her visit . The novel describes the Jias wealth and influence in great naturalistic detail , and charts the Jias fall from the height of their prestige , following some thirty main characters and over four hundred minor ones . Eventually the Jia clan falls into disfavor with the Emperor , and their mansions are raided and confiscated . In the novel s frame story , a sentient Stone , abandoned by the goddess Nüwa when she mended the heavens aeons ago , begs a Taoist priest and a Buddhist monk to bring it with them to see the world . The Stone , accompanied by a character named Divine Attendant in Waiting while in Cheng Gao versions they are merged into the same character , was given a chance to learn from the human existence , and enters the mortal realm . The main character of the novel is the carefree adolescent male heir of the family Jia Baoyu . He was born with a magical piece of jade in his mouth . In this life he has a special bond with his sickly cousin Lin Daiyu , who shares his love of music and poetry . Baoyu , however , is predestined to marry another cousin , Xue Baochai , whose grace and intelligence exemplifies an ideal woman , but with whom he lacks an emotional connection . The romantic rivalry and friendship among the three characters against the backdrop of the family s declining fortunes forms the main story in the novel .

<|novel|>The book describes encounters between Robyn Penrose , a feminist university teacher specialising in the industrial novel and women s writing , and Vic Wilcox , the manager of an engineering firm . The relationship that develops between the unlikely pair reveals the weaknesses in each character . Robyn s academic position is precarious because of budget cuts . Vic has to deal with industrial politics at his firm . The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre , particularly referencing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell . This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of Robyn , who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable in the minds of authors of industrial novels of elevating the female to a serious social position . Robyn acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents and Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life . The story is set in the fictional city of Rummidge , a grey and dismal fictionalised Birmingham . It is part of the same series as the novels Changing Places , Small World , and Thinks . . . . In Nice Work , Philip Swallow is still head of the English Department from Small World and thus is Robyn Penrose s boss . Morris Zapp makes a cameo appearance in the last part of Nice Work , to add a plot twist where he tries to arrange for Robyn to have a job interview at his American university , Euphoric State a fictionalized UC Berkeley , in order to stop his ex wife from being a candidate for an open faculty position . Robyn Penrose makes a cameo appearance in Thinks . . . .

<|childrens|>Carly Beth Caldwell is an 11 year old girl who is a target for pranks and practical jokes , some of which are played by Chuck Greene and Steve Boswell , two of her friends at Walnut Avenue Middle School . Before Halloween , she is humiliated after the two boys trick her into eating a sandwich that contains a living worm . Disgusted , she flees home and discovers her mother has made a plaster of Paris model of Carly Beth s head . On Halloween day , after frowning at the duck costume her mother gave to her , she goes to a party store and discovers a room filled with hideous masks . The store owner unwillingly sells her one of the masks and Carly Beth goes home . Later that day , after she takes the mold of her head that her mother made , she puts on the mask and goes in search of Chuck and Steve , determined to avenge herself against them . She starts acting differently she chokes her best friend , Sabrina Mason , throws apples at a house and steals a bag of candy from a boy . While at Sabrina s house , Carly Beth is shocked to find she is physically unable to remove the mask and that the mask has , in fact , become her face . She returns to the store and finds the owner waiting for her . The store owner tells her that the mask is a real face and it can only be removed by a symbol of love , but if it attaches itself to her or another person again , it will be forever . Carly Beth screams in horror , and the other masks begin to pursue her . While running away from the masks , she realizes that the mold her mother made is a symbol of love . Carly Beth finds the mold and uses it to deter the masks and remove the mask from her face . She returns home to her mother , tossing the mask away . Noah , Carly Beth s kid brother , later bursts in and asks her , How do I look in your mask ?

<|childrens|>In the tale , a long train must be pulled over a high mountain . Larger engines , treated anthropomorphically , are asked to pull the train for various reasons they refuse . The request is sent to a small engine , who agrees to try . The engine succeeds in pulling the train over the mountain while repeating its motto I think I can . The story of the little engine has been told and retold many times . The underlying theme is the same mdash a stranded train is unable to find an engine willing to take it on over difficult terrain to its destination . Only the little blue engine is willing to try and , while repeating the mantra I think I can , I think I can , overcomes a seemingly impossible task . An early version goes as follows A little railroad engine was employed about a station yard for such work as it was built for , pulling a few cars on and off the switches . One morning it was waiting for the next call when a long train of freight cars asked a large engine in the roundhouse to take it over the hill . I can t that is too much a pull for me , said the great engine built for hard work . Then the train asked another engine , and another , only to hear excuses and be refused . In desperation , the train asked the little switch engine to draw it up the grade and down on the other side . I think I can , puffed the little locomotive , and put itself in front of the great heavy train . As it went on the little engine kept bravely puffing faster and faster , I think I can , I think I can , I think I can . As it neared the top of the grade , which had so discouraged the larger engines , it went more slowly . However , it still kept saying , I think I can , I think I can . It reached the top by drawing on bravery and then went on down the grade , congratulating itself by saying , I thought I could , I thought I could .

<|fantasy|>Naked Lunch is a non linear narrative that is difficult to describe in terms of plot . The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant . The book begins with the adventures of William Lee aka Lee the Agent , who is Burroughs alter ego in the novel . His journey starts in the US where he is fleeing the police , in search of his next fix . There are short chapters here describing the different characters he travels with and meets along the way . Eventually he gets to Mexico where he is assigned to Dr . Benway for what , he is not told . Benway appears and he tells about his previous doings in Annexia as a Total Demoralizator . The story then moves to a state called Freeland ndash a form of limbo ndash where we learn of Islam Inc . Here , some new characters are introduced , such as Clem , Carl , and Joselito . A short section then jumps in space and time to a marketplace . The Black Meat is sold here and compared to junk , i . e . heroin . The action then moves back to the hospital where Benway is fully revealed as a cruel , manipulative sadist . Time and space again shifts the narrative to a location known as Interzone . Hassan , one of the notable characters of the book and a notorious liquefactionist , is throwing a violent orgy . AJ crashes the party and wreaks havoc , decapitating people and imitating a pirate . Hassan is enraged and tells AJ never to return , calling him a factualist bitch ndash a term which is enlarged much later when the apparently clashing political factions within Interzone are described . These include the Liquefactionists , the Senders , the Factualists , and the Divisionists who occupy a midway position . A short descriptive section tells us of Interzone University , where a professor and his students are ridiculed the book moves on to an orgy that AJ himself throws . The book then shifts back to the market place and a description of the totalitarian government of Annexia . Characters including the County Clerk , Benway , Dr Berger , Clem and Jody are sketched through heavy dialogue and their own sub stories . After the description of the four parties of Interzone , we are then told more stories about AJ . After briefly describing Interzone , the novel breaks down into sub stories and heavily cut up influenced passages . In a sudden return to what seems to be Lee s reality , two police officers , Hauser and O Brien , catch up with Lee , who kills both of them . Lee then goes out to a street phone booth and calls the Narcotics Squad , saying he wants to speak to O Brien . A Lieutenant Gonzales on the other end of the line claims there s no one in their records called O Brien . When Lee asks for Hauser instead , the reply is identical Lee hangs up , and goes on the run once again . The book then becomes increasingly disjointed and impressionistic , and finally simply stops .

<|fantasy|>Desperation is a story about several people who , while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada , get abducted by Collie Entragian , the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation . Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions , from an arrest for drug possession to rescuing a family from a nonexistent gunman . It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak , who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive . They begin to fight for their freedom , sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation , they must trap Tak in the place from where he came .

<|fantasy|>Set in the near future , A Gift traces the first generations to survive nuclear war and its aftermath . Writer Mary Hope and painter Rachel Morrow scratch out a meager existence on a farm called Amarna on the Oregon coast . They are determined to collect and preserve for a new civilization all the great books of western culture . Farther down the coast lives the Arkites , a fundamentalist group that denies all knowledge not found in the Bible . After a plague strikes the Arkites Mary agrees to take in a few survivors on the condition that she be allowed to educate the children as she sees fit . From the back cover of the backinprint , com paperback edition A Gift Upon the Shore is a lyrical , haunting story of two women , an artist and a writer , who survive pandemic , the collapse of civilization , and a deadly nuclear winter . Driven by rich and fully drawn characters , this is a powerful , compelling story of a friendship that endures the devastation and finds a purpose for survival to preserve the books , the shards of a lost golden age , as a gift to an unknowable posterity . Yet this gift is threatened by the only other survivors the women encounter , the people of the Ark , who believe that except for the Bible , all books are evil . A Gift Upon the Shore is a story about remaining human under the worst of conditions , and the humanizing influence of books and art and love .

<|fantasy|>Merlin escapes from the crystal cave , and decides to gain leverage over Luke by rescuing his mother from the Keep of the Four Worlds . He spars with the sorcerer who now controls the keep , and who seems to know him . He escapes with the petrified Jasra , and returns to Amber where an unusual Trump summoning imprisons him in the Mad Hatter s tea party .

<|fantasy|>Merlin realises that Wonderland , where he and Luke are trapped , is an LSD induced hallucination made real by Luke s powers over shadow . As a Fire Angel a vicious creature from Chaos pursues them , he administers medicine to Luke . The Fire Angel is weakened in a fight with the Jabberwock and Merlin is able to finish it off with the vorpal sword . He leaves Luke to sober up . He seeks his stepbrother Mandor , who thinks that their half brother Jurt may be trying to kill Merlin in order to take the throne of Chaos . Fiona contacts them , and they investigate a shadow storm . Merlin and Mandor return to Amber , and then along with Jasra they wrest the Keep of the Four worlds from Jurt and the sorcerer , Mask . They learn that Jurt has at least partially turned himself into a living Trump , as Brand did , and that the sorcerer Mask is in fact Merlin s ex girlfriend Julia .

<|fantasy|>Merlin returns to his birthplace in the Courts of Chaos in order to solve the existential riddle in which he is involved . He realizes he is but a pawn in the hands of the powerful and cynical superpowers that rule the universe . Merlin becomes the new king of Chaos and is reunited with his father , Corwin . In the Courts of Chaos , Merlin uses all his magical powers in the final fight for survival . fr Prince du Chaos pl Książę Chaosu ro Prin ul Haosului ru

<|novel|>According to Publishers Weekly s 1993 review of the edition reconstructed by Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J . Bruccoli , The Love of the Last Tycoon is g enerally considered a roman a clef , inspired by the life of film producer Irving Thalberg , on whom protagonist Monroe Stahr is based . The story follows Stahr s rise to power in Hollywood , and his conflicts with rival Pat Brady , a character based on studio head Louis B . Mayer .

<|novel|>Save Me the Waltz , according to its author , derives its title from a Victor record catalog , and it suggests the romantic glitter of the life which F . Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald lived and which Scott s novels have so indelibly written into American literary and cultural history . Divided into four chapters , each of which is further divided into three parts , the novel is a chronological narrative of four periods in the lives of Alabama and David Knight , names that are but thin disguises for their real life counterparts . Save Me The Waltz is the story of Alabama Beggs , a Southern girl who marries a twenty two year old artist , David Knight . As with Zelda and Scott , Alabama met David when he was in the South during World War I . Knight becomes a successful painter , and the family moves to the Riviera where Knight begins an affair with an actress . Determined to be successful in her own right , Alabama decides to become a ballet dancer and devotes herself relentlessly to the cause , eventually achieving success . Alabama dances her solo debut in the opera Faust . Though outwardly successful , Alabama and David are miserable . At the novel s end they return to the South when Alabama s father dies . Though she says otherwise , her friends from the South go on about how happy and lucky Alabama is . Alabama searches for meaning in her father s death , but finds none . While cleaning up after their final party before returning to their unhappy lives , Alabama remarks an interesting contrast to the closing lines of The Great Gatsby that emptying the ashtrays is very expressive of myself . I just lump everything in a great heap which I have labeled the past , and having thus emptied this deep reservoir that was once myself , I am ready to continue .

<|fantasy|>In 2001 Rowling penned two companion books to the Harry Potter series , Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , for British charity and off shoot of Live Aid , Comic Relief with all of her royalties going to the charity . As of July 2008 , the books combined are estimated to have earned over 30 nbsp million for Comic Relief . The two books have since been made available in hardcover . Foreword Chapter 1 The Evolution of the Flying Broomstick Chapter 2 Ancient Broom Games Chapter 3 The Game From Queerditch Marsh Chapter 4 The Arrival of the Golden Snitch Chapter 5 Anti Muggle Precautions Chapter 6 Changes in Quidditch Since the Fourteenth Century Pitch Balls Players Rules Referees Chapter 7 Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland Chapter 8 The Spread of Quidditch Worldwide Chapter 9 The Development of the Racing Broom Chapter 10 Quidditch Today

<|fantasy|>An experienced witch named Miss Tick and her toad arrive on the chalk . She feels that something is not right , so she decides to find out what s going on . Her intuition is right . The Queen of the Elves has made another attempt at invading the Discworld , this time by stealing children and infesting dreams . With the help of the Wee Free Men , the Nac Mac Feegle , nine year old Tiffany Aching finds out that her grandmother used to be the witch of the Chalklands , and that she has inherited the trade . When her baby brother is stolen , Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle enter the elves world to steal him back . The novel contains a scene inspired by the painting The Fairy Feller s Master Stroke .

<|fantasy|>Dominickdaniel Dom Sabalos IV is the son of the inventor of probability math , a science able to predict anything apart from anything to do with the Jokers , and the first person to have had his life fully quantified using p math . Before being mysteriously assassinated , his father predicted that Dom too would be killed , on the day of his investiture as Chairman of his wealthy home planet of Widdershins . However , not having been told of his father s prediction , and against incalculably distant odds , Dom survives the assassination attempt . When the recording of his father s prediction is played back , a time delay added specifically for this unlikely eventuality plays a little more of the recording , in which his father makes a further prediction that Dom will discover the Jokers homeworld . Dom sets out , with Hrsh Hgn his tutor , a swamp dwelling phnobe , Isaac his robot , equipped with Man Friday subcircuitry and Ig his pet swamp ig in tow , on a picaresque adventure to find the Jokers world . He visits many corners of the life bubble , encountering Joker artefacts , his god father , who is a sentient planet , and the sexless , octopoid Creapii , among many other weird and diverse aliens and planets . At the same time he finds himself surviving at increasingly improbable odds numerous assassination attempts by a mysterious conspiracy which has long worked to prevent anybody from locating the Jokers , assassinating anybody deemed by p math having a chance of doing so .

<|fantasy|>The story follows the short lived but glamorous musical career of The Band with Rocks In , a group of musicians who become famous after their leader , Imp Y Celyn a . k . a . Buddy Buddy Holly the name is Welsh for bud of the holly , becomes possessed by the essence of an addictive new music dubbed Music With Rocks In . The band is discovered by Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler , who becomes the Disc s first manager . He tries to cash in on the band by any means possible while keeping them ignorant . He also hires the troll Asphalt as a roadie to accompany the band on its tour . Meanwhile , Death , in one of his philosophical moods , takes a holiday in search of a way to forget his more troubling memories , especially the recent demise of his adopted daughter Ysabell and her husband Mort . In the meantime , his granddaughter Susan discovers the truth about her heritage when she is forced to stand in for her missing grandfather . Complications ensue when she falls in love with Buddy , and tries to save him from his live fast , die young destiny as the Discworld s first rock star . Buddy wants to do a free concert , and after Dibbler figures out how much money he can make by selling T shirts , sausages in a bun etc . to the audience , he agrees . A large number of bands , all of whom have formed in response to the original Band with Rocks In , participate in the largest concert of all time . Afterwards the band flees from their crazed fans , pursued by the angry Musicians Guild , C . M . O . T . Dibbler , Susan and Death . The cart in which the band is riding falls into a gorge , killing all its passengers , but Death intervenes to save them , afterward destroying the guitar which was the source of the new music . Thus the band is freed from their self destructive destiny , and the spirit of the Music With Rocks in is driven from the Disc .

<|fantasy|>At the opening of the book , the narrator , Rabo Karabekian , apologizes to the arriving guests I promised you an autobiography , but something went wrong in the kitchen . . . He describes himself as a museum guard who answers questions from visitors coming to see his priceless collected art . He shares the lonely home with his live in cook and her daughter , Celeste . One afternoon , Circe Berman wanders onto Karabekian s private beach . When he reaches out to greet her , she catches him by surprise with the forward statement Tell me how your parents died . He tells her the story and proceeds to invite her back to his home for a drink . After a drink and supper , Karabekian invites her to stay with him , as Paul Slazinger does . After a time , he begins to find her charm manipulative , as she typically gets her way . Mrs . Berman does not respect his abstract art collection , including works by Jackson Pollock . She explores every inch of Karabekian s home , constantly asking him questions . The only place that is off limits to her is the potato barn . The potato barn is the home of Karabekian s studio and holds his secret . The barn has no windows , and Karabekian has gone through the trouble of nailing one end shut and immobilizing the other with six padlocks . The secret of the potato barn has enticed collectors to make outrageous offers and to raise suspicions of stolen masterpieces . It is to remain locked until after Karabekian passes away .

<|mystery|>Gypsy Rose Lee narrates her way through a tale of a double murder , backstage at the Old Opera burlesque theatre on Forty Second Street , New York . In a world populated by strippers , comics and costume salesman . A world where crime is part of the norm and where women struggle to earn a living and have gangster boyfriends . The narrative is a wise cracking and humorous tale of murder in a burlesque house , and with the unusual weapon of the title .

<|novel|>A young mother and her two daughters travel to Marrakech , Morocco , during the 1960s . The mother , Julia , is disenchanted by the dreary conventions of English life , hence the journey . They live in a low rent Marrakesh hotel and make a living out of making hand sewn dolls and with some money sent by the girls father , a poet in London . Whilst the mother explores Sufism and quests for personal fulfilment , the daughters rebel . The elder , Bea , attempting to re create her English life , wants to get an education and insists on going to school . The younger , Lucy , dreams of trivial things , like mashed potatoes , but also yearns for a father . Her hopes settle on a most unlikely candidate . The girls match their mother with Bilal , a Moroccan con man and acrobat the relationship turns sexual and he moves in , becoming almost a surrogate father . However , Julia s friend encourages her to travel to Algiers and study with a Sufi master at a school that advocates the annihilation of the ego . As money vanishes , Julia s response is to claim that God will provide , albeit in the person of Bilal .

<|comedy|>Myra Breckinridge is an attractive young woman with a mission . She is a film buff with a special interest in the Golden Age of Hollywood in particular the 1940s and the writings of real life film critic Parker Tyler . She comes to the Academy for Aspiring Young Actors and Actresses , owned by her deceased husband Myron s uncle , Buck Loner . Myra gets a job teaching , not just her regular classes Posture and Empathy , but also , as part of the hidden curriculum , female dominance . Myra selects as her first victim one of the studs at the Academy , a straight young man called Rusty Godowsky , and sets out to alienate him from his beautiful girlfriend Mary Ann Pringle . She lures Rusty to the school infirmary , where she verbally abuses him , ties him to an exam table and anally rapes him with a strap on dildo . Later , after she is injured in a car crash , it is learned that Myra is Myron , still in the process of sexual reassignment surgery unable to obtain hormones , Myra reverts to Myron , and , as a result of the injuries she has sustained , is forced to have her breast implants removed . Now a male eunuch , Myron decides to settle down with Mary Ann . The subplot of Myra Breckinridge revolves around the character of Letitia Van Allen , an aging , sexually voracious talent scout whom Myra meets and befriends at the academy , whose office boasts a four poster bed and whose kinky sexual practices Those small attentions a girl like me cherishes a lighted cigarette stubbed out on my derrière , a complete beating with his great thick heavy leather belt landed her in hospital , half paralyzed , at the same time Myra finds herself there towards the end of the novel . The spirit of the times is also well reflected in another , earlier chapter Ch . 14 where Myra attends an orgy arranged by one of the students . She goes , intending only to be an observer , but suffers a rude intrusion by a member of the band The Four Skins , from which she derives a perverse , masochistic enjoyment . At an earlier regular party , after mixing gin and marijuana , she eventually gets stoned out of her head and has a fit , then passes out in a bathroom .

<|mystery|>Eddie Valiant is a hard boiled private eye , and Roger Rabbit is a second banana cartoon character . The rabbit hires Valiant to find out why his employers , the DeGreasy Brothers , the sleazy owners of a cartoon syndicate , have reneged on a promise to give Roger his own strip . Soon after , Roger is mysteriously murdered in his home . His speech balloon , found on the crime scene , indicates his murder was a way of censoring the star , who apparently had just heard someone explain the source of his success . Valiant s search for the killer takes him to a variety of suspects , including Roger s widow Jessica Rabbit and his former co star Baby Herman .

<|childrens|>The book begins by introducing the character of Ms . Frizzle and describing her unusual teaching methods . Soon , she decides to take the class on a field trip to the waterworks , which the kids are sure will be boring , especially compared to the trips the kids in other classes go on . However , after driving through a tunnel , the bus becomes plastered with images of octopuses and everyone inside finds themselves wearing scuba diving outfits . Once this occurs , the bus rises up into a cloud along with evaporating water . Ms . Frizzle makes all the kids get out of the bus by threatening to give them extra homework if they don t . However , the kids begin shrinking once they re outside and , once they re each the size of a raindrop , they rain down into a river , which carries them into the town s water purification system . After going through the waterworks , the pipes take the class back to the school . They come out in the girl s bathroom , where , once out of the faucet , they are instantly restored to their regular size and normal clothing . Ms . Frizzle , however , appears to have no memory of the strange trip and the class later sees the bus outside . They wonder how it returned from the cloud and even consider that they may have imagined their whole adventure . The book ends with Ms . Frizzle informing them that they will be studying volcanoes next . The main story is then followed by two pages listing things that couldn t happen in real life .

<|fantasy|>Ms . Frizzle s class is learning about the solar system and Arnold s unpleasant cousin Janet , who constantly raves about herself , has joined them . The Friz decides to take the kids on a field trip to the planetarium , but , once they get there , they find the planetarium is closed . However , on the way back to school , Arnold reminds Mrs . Frizzle of the planetarium known as the big one . Ms . Frizzle pushes a button that makes the bus transform into a rocket and blast off into outer space . Once in outer space , the bus flies to the Moon , where the kids make the most of the lesser gravity . Ms . Frizzle then takes them to the Sun and then Mercury , Venus and Mars before flying into the asteroid belt . However , while in the belt , the bus is damaged by an asteroid and the Friz flies out to fix the damage with a tether line connecting her to the bus . However , the bus s autopilot malfunctions , causing the bus to fly off , breaking Ms . Frizzle s tether line and leaving her stranded in the asteroid belt . Janet looks through the Friz s things and finds Ms . Frizzle s lesson book , which documents the information she is supposed to tell the kids during the field trip complete with Arnold , are you listening ? written into it . Janet reads through the book as they pass the outer planets and until they pass Pluto , leaving the solar system . Janet then flips through the book and finds the instructions for the autopilot , so they can fly back to the asteroid belt and rescue Ms . Frizzle . After they rescue the Friz , they return to Earth . The kids try to tell everyone about their strange trip , but no one believes them .

<|childrens|>When the tale begins , a mother duck s eggs hatch . One of the little birds is perceived by the duck s surroundings as a homely little creature and suffers much verbal and physical abuse from the other birds and animals on the farm . He wanders sadly from the barnyard and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks . He then finds a home with an old woman but her cat and hen tease him mercilessly and again he sets off on his own . He sees a flock of migrating wild swans he is delighted and excited but he cannot join them for he is too young and cannot fly . Winter arrives . A farmer finds and carries the freezing little bird home , but the foundling is frightened by the farmer s noisy children and flees the house . He spends a miserable winter alone in the outdoors mostly hiding in a cave on the lake that partly freezes over . When spring arrives a flock of swans descends on the now thawing lake . The ugly duckling , now having fully grown and matured cannot endure a life of solitude and hardship any more and decides to throw himself at the flock of swans deciding that it is better to be killed by such beautiful birds than to live a life of ugliness and misery . He is shocked when the swans welcome and accept him , only to realize by looking at his reflection in the water that he has grown into one of them . The flock takes to the air and the ugly duckling spreads his beautiful large wings and takes flight with the rest of his new family .

<|novel|>Pel lives with his German girlfriend Ursula and their two children , and works in the IT department of a university library or Learning Centre . The story begins with Pel receiving an odd call from his boss , TSR , who quizzes him about extradition treaties within a week he has vanished without a trace , and Pel promoted to TSR s former position , Computer Team Administration , Software Acquisition and Training Manager though , in addition to his own job . The story follows both Pel s home and work lives at home , there are the arguments with Ursula over the search for a new home , after the latest burglary of their current home defrosting the fridge during the moving preparations Ursula terrifying the builders working on the repairs of the new house a skiing accident , leaving Ursula with a torn ligament in her shoulder . At work , Pel finds that taking on TSR s job involves more than it seemed at first he has to pay off student recruiters from the Pacific Ring , who happen to be members of The Triads he has to take care of the details of the building of a new Learning Centre building , which involves hiding the fact that skeletons from an ancient burial ground have been illegally dumped from the site , and a dangerous neurotoxin to be buried under it . These details lead him to become closely involved with the permanently hung over Vice Chancellor of the university , which leads to his receiving another promotion , to Learning Centre Manager the previous holder of that position having left to pursue his fetish website .

<|fantasy|>The Lazarus Effect continues the story of the planet Pandora that began in The Jesus Incident . The sentient kelp is almost extinct , Ship is gone , there is no more dry land , the majority of humanity is heavily mutated from the genetic experiments performed by Jesus Lewis , and a power hungry mad man is attempting to control the planet . But the kelp is returning and this time Avata does not remain passive while people refuse to Worship .

<|fantasy|>Diaspora begins with a description of orphanogenesis , the birthing of a citizen without any ancestors most citizens descend from fleshers uploaded at some point , and the subsequent upbringing of the newborn Yatima within Konishi polis . Yatima matures within a few real time days , because citizens subjective time runs about 800 times as rapidly as flesher and gleisner time . Early on , Yatima and a friend , Inoshiro , use abandoned gleisner bodies to visit a Bridger colony near the ruins of Atlanta on Earth . Years later , the gleisner Karpal , using a gravitational wave detector , determines that a binary neutron star system in the constellation of Lacerta has collapsed , releasing a huge burst of energy . Previous predictions portrayed the system s stable orbit as likely to last for another seven million years . By analysing irregularities in the orbit , Karpal discovers that the devastating burst of energy will reach Earth within the next four days . Yatima and Inoshiro return to Earth to urge the fleshers gathered in a conference either to migrate to the polises or at least to shelter themselves . Many fleshers reject this advice , or fail fully to appreciate its urgency quickly enough . Stirred up by a paranoid Static diplomat , many fleshers suspect that Yatima and Inoshiro have come to trick or coerce them into Introdus , or mass migration into the polises , involving masses of virus sized nanomachines which dismantle a human body and record the brain s information states as it is chemically converted into a crystalline computer . The gamma ray burst reaches Earth shortly after the conference , destroying the atmosphere and causing a mass extinction . The gleisners and the Coalition of Polises survive the burst , thanks to cosmic radiation hardening . Over the next few years , Yatima and other citizens and gleisners attempt to rescue any surviving fleshers from slow suffocation , starvation , or poisoning by offering to upload them into the polises . The novel s title itself refers to a quest undertaken by most of the inhabitants of Carter Zimmerman C Z , a polis devoted to physics and understanding the cosmos , along with volunteers from throughout the Coalition of Polises . The Diaspora consists of a collection of one thousand clones digital copies of C Z polis , deployed toward stars in all directions in the hope of gathering as much data as possible in order to revise the long held classical understanding of Kozuch Theory , which had failed to predict the Lacerta event . The bulk of the novel follows this expedition , rotating back and forth between different cloned instances of the same cast of main characters as different C Z clones make discoveries along the way , relaying information to one another over hundreds of light years and finally between universes .

<|fantasy|>Twenty thousand years in the future , Cass , a humanoid physicist from Earth , travels to Mimosa orbital station and begins a series of experiments to test the extremities of the fictitious Sarumpaet rules , a set of fundamental equations in Quantum Graph Theory , which holds that physical existence is a manifestation of complex constructions of mathematical graphs . However , the experiments unexpectedly create a bubble of something more stable than ordinary vacuum , dubbed novo vacuum , that expands outward at half the speed of light as ordinary vacuum collapses to this new state at the border , hinting at more general laws beyond the Sarumpaet rules . The local population is forced to flee to ever more distant star systems to escape the steadily approaching border , but since the expansion never slows , it is just a matter of time before the novo vacuum encompasses any given region within the Local Group . Two factions develop as the expanding bubble swallows star after star the Preservationists , who wish to stop the expansion and preserve the Milky Way at any cost and the Yielders , who consider the novo vacuum to be too important a discovery to destroy without understanding . Six hundred years after the initial experiment , aboard the Rindler , a vessel that has matched velocities with the border and is powered by multispectral light emitted as the ordinary vacuum collapses into its lower energy state , a variety of refugees are probing the novo vacuum in order to understand the physics that makes it possible . The novo vacuum turns out to be more complicated than anyone suspects , however , and Egan s usual topics of simulation and quantum ontology are taken to the extreme when we learn that a whole ordered universe exists within this zone of apparent chaos , existing as direct elaborations of the quantum graph s lattice structure , of which elementary particles , fundamental interactions , and our spacetime itself are only special cases .

<|fantasy|>The novel is set in various locations around the world , starting in 783 AH by the Islamic calendar 1405 AD by the Gregorian calendar with the Black Death plague killing nearly 99 of the population of Europe . The story follows a group jāti of protagonists who are continually reborn throughout the centuries into various cultural and geographical settings , as well as their meetings in bardo between their lives . The book features Muslim , Chinese Buddhist , Daoist , Confucianist , American Indian , and Hindu culture , philosophy and everyday life . It mixes sophisticated knowledge about these cultures in the real world with their imagined global development in a world without Western Christendom . The main characters , marked by identical first letters throughout their reincarnations , but changing in gender , culture nationality and so on , struggle for progress in each life . Each chapter has a narrative style which reflects its setting . Within the novel s re imagined world , many places are given unfamiliar names , mostly of Chinese or Arabic origin . For example , Europe becomes Firanja , Great Britain and Ireland become the Keltic Sultanate , and Spain becomes al Andalus while the Pacific Ocean and Australia are called by Chinese names Dahai and Aozhou , respectively , and North America becomes Yingzhou , a land from Chinese myth . The ten chapters are Book One Awake to Emptiness A plague in Christendom , Zheng He s explorations , feudal China . Book Two The Haj in the Heart Mughal India and the colonization of Europe . Book Three Ocean Continents The discovery of the New World by the Chinese military . Book Four The Alchemist An Islamic renaissance in Samarqand . Book Five Warp and Weft Native Americans align with Samurai . Book Six Widow Kang The Qing dynasty meets Islam in western China . Book Seven The Age of Great Progress Beginnings of industrialism in Southern India Japanese diaspora to North America . Book Eight War of the Asuras A worldwide Long War , fought for over 60 years in trenches with pre atomic weapons between the nations of Islam and an alliance of Chinese , Indian , and Native American nations . Book Nine Nsara Science , urban life and feminism in Islamic Europe s surviving post war metropolis . Book Ten The First Years Globalization and sustainability , and recovery from the Long War . Several historical figures make appearances in this world , including Tamerlane , Chinese explorer Zheng He , Akbar the Great , and Kampaku Toyotomi Hideyoshi . The first chapter is written in a style reminiscent of the Chinese classic , the Journey to the West . In the last chapters the book becomes increasingly reflexive , citing fictional scientists and philosophers introduced in previous chapters as well as referring to Old Red Ink , who wrote a biography about a reincarnating jati group .

<|childrens|>Artemis Fowl II , the 13 year old criminal mastermind , has created a supercomputer which he calls the C Cube , from stolen fairy technology . It far surpasses any human technology made so far . When Fowl meets Chicago businessman Jon Spiro to show him the Cube , Spiro ambushes Artemis and steals it . In the process , Butler , his bodyguard is killed by one of Spiro s staff . However , Artemis manages to revive him with the aid of cryogenics and fairy healing magic , courtesy of Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon squad . After Butler is revived , Artemis convinces the LEP to track down the Cube . They agree on one condition that Artemis mind is to be wiped later . They head to The Spiro Needle , where Jon Spiro has held the Cube . The Cube is recovered with the aid of Butler s sister and Mulch Diggums , who is later incarcerated . Nearing the end of the book , Mulch discovers that Artemis has cleared him of all charges and tasked him with restoring Artemis memory , which is wiped at the end . In the epilogue , it is revealed that the LEP questioned him to reveal any plans he had to retain his memory , but he managed to fool them , and his plans remained secret from the LEP .

<|fantasy|>The book begins when John Arable s sow gives birth to a litter of piglets , and Mr . Arable discovers one of them is a runt and decides to kill it . However , his eight year old daughter Fern begs him to let it live . Therefore her father gives it to Fern as a pet , and she names the piglet Wilbur . Wilbur is hyperactive and always exploring new things . He lives with Fern for a few weeks and then is sold to her uncle , Homer Zuckerman . Although Fern visits him at the Zuckermans farm as often as she can , her visits decrease as she grows older , and Wilbur gets lonelier day after day . Eventually , a warm and soothing voice tells him that she is going to be his friend . The next day , he wakes up and meets his new friend Charlotte , the grey spider . Wilbur soon becomes a member of the community of animals who live in the cellar of Zuckerman s barn . However , he learns from an old sheep that he is going to be killed and eaten at Christmas , and turns to Charlotte for help . Charlotte has the idea of writing words in her web extolling Wilbur s excellence some pig , terrific , radiant , and eventually humble , reasoning that if she can make Wilbur sufficiently famous , he will not be killed . Thanks to Charlotte s efforts , and with the assistance of the gluttonous rat Templeton , Wilbur not only lives , but goes to the county fair with Charlotte and wins a prize . Having reached the end of her natural lifespan , Charlotte dies at the fair . Wilbur repays Charlotte by bringing home with him the sac of eggs her magnum opus she had laid at the fair before dying . When Charlotte s eggs hatch at Zuckerman s farm , most of them leave to make their own lives elsewhere , except for three Joy , Aranea , and Nellie , who remain there as friends to Wilbur .

<|fantasy|>Kilgore Trout is a widely published , but otherwise unsung and virtually invisible writer who , by a fluke , is invited to deliver a keynote address at a local arts festival in distant Midland City . Dwayne Hoover is a wealthy businessman who owns much of Midland City , but is mentally unstable and is undergoing a gradual mental collapse . Kilgore arrives in Midland City and , by happenstance , piques the interest of Dwayne . A confused Dwayne demands a message from Kilgore , who hands over a copy of his novel . Dwayne reads the novel , which purports to be a message from the Creator of the Universe explaining that the reader in this case Dwayne is the only individual in the universe with free will . Everyone else is a robot . Dwayne believes the novel to be factual and immediately goes on a violent rampage , severely beating his son , his lover , and nine other people before being taken into custody . While Kilgore is walking the streets of Midland after Dwayne s rampage the narrator of the book approaches Kilgore . The narrator tells Kilgore of his existence , the narrator lets Kilgore be free and to be under his own will .

<|novel|>The main backdrop of Jasmine , which was based on an earlier short story in The Middleman and Other Stories , is the mixing of the East and West through the story telling of a seventeen year old Hindu woman who leaves India for the U . S . after her husband s murder . Her husband dies due to a religious attack in India . In her path she faces many problems including rape and eventually returned to the position of a health professional through a series of jobs . Here in this context the unity between the First and Third World is shown to be in the treatment of women as subordinate in both countries . The story expanded as a story of a young widow suddenly widowed at seventeen . She uproots herself from her life in India and re roots herself in search of a new life and the image of America as well . It is a story of dislocation and relocation as the protagonist continually sheds lives to move into other roles , moving further westward . The author in some parts of this novel shows some agony to the third world as she shows that Jasmine needs to travel to America to make something significant in her life . And in the third world she faced only despair and loss .

<|novel|>The novel recounts the story of a young British boy , Jaime Graham , who lives with his parents in Shanghai . After the Pearl Harbor attack , the Japanese occupy the Shanghai International Settlement , and in the following chaos Jim becomes separated from his parents . He spends some time in abandoned mansions , living on remnants of packaged food . Having exhausted the food supplies , he decides to try to surrender to the Japanese Army . After many attempts , he finally succeeds and is interned in the Lunghua Civilian Assembly Center . Although the Japanese are officially the enemies , Jim identifies partly with them , both because he adores the pilots with their splendid machines and because he feels that Lunghua is still a comparatively safer place for him . Towards the end of the war , with the Japanese army collapsing , the food supply runs short . Jim barely survives , with people around him starving to death . The camp prisoners are forced upon a march to Nantao , with many dying along the route . Jim then leaves the march and is saved from starvation by air drops from American Bombers . Jim returns to Lunghua camp and finds Dr . Ransome there , soon returning to his pre war residence with his parents .

<|comedy|>The novel takes place over Thanksgiving weekend 1973 , during a dangerous ice storm and centers on two neighboring families , the Hoods and the Williamses , and the difficulties they have dealing with the tumultuous political and social climate of the day , in affluent suburban Connecticut , during the height of the sexual revolution . The novel is narrated from four different perspectives , each of them a member of the two families , who are promoting their own opinion and views of the several complications that arise throughout the novel , including their encounters and daily life . The Hood family is overridden with lies Ben is currently in an affair with his married neighbor Janey , his wife Elena is alienated , her daughter ventures on her own sexual liaisons with both females and males of her age , including her neighbors Mikey and Sandy . The Hoods are Ben , Elena , Paul and Wendy and the Williamses are Jim , Janey , Mikey , and Sandy . The story focuses on the 24 hours when a major ice storm strikes the town of New Canaan , Connecticut , just as both families are melting down from the parents alcoholism , escapism and adultery , and their children s drug use and sexual experimentation .

<|novel|>The city , which is never referred to by name however , it is likely Berlin , is crowded by a growing number of jobless and marked by increasing violence between left and right . The novel starts out in the seedy milieu of bars where prostitutes mingle with the hopeless flotsam that the war left behind . While Robert and his friends manage to make a living dealing cars and driving an old taxi , economic survival in the city is getting harder by the day . It is in this setting that Robert meets Patrice Hollmann , a mysterious beautiful young woman with an upper middle class background . Their love affair intensifies as he introduces her to his life of bars and races and Robert s nihilistic attitude slowly begins to change as he realizes how much he needs Pat . The story takes an abrupt turn as Pat suffers a near fatal lung hemorrhage during a summer holiday at the sea . Upon their return , Robert and Pat move in with each other but her days in the city are numbered , as she is scheduled to leave for a Swiss mountain sanatorium come winter . It is this temporal limitation of their happiness which makes their remaining time together so precious . After Pat has left for Switzerland , the political situation in the city heats up and Lenz , one of the comrades , gets killed by a militant , not mentioned in the book by the actual name but supposed to be a Nazi . On top of this , Otto and Robert face bankruptcy and have to sell their workshop . In the midst of this misfortune , a telegram arrives informing them of Pat s worsening state of health . The two remaining comrades don t hesitate and drive the thousand kilometers to the tuberculosis sanatorium in the Alps to see her . Reunited , Robert and an increasingly moribund Pat celebrate their remaining weeks before her inevitable death amidst the snow covered summits of Switzerland . It is in the last part of the book that this beautiful love story finds closure and leaves the main character , a nihilist who has found love , forever changed .

<|fantasy|>The introduction to the book states The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid 1960s , with sit ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength . By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age . The population continued to climb and with it the youth percentage . In the 1980s the figure was 79 . 7 percent . In the 1990s , 82 . 4 percent . In the year 2000 critical mass . In the world of 2116 , a person s maximum age is strictly legislated twenty one years , to the day . When people reach this Lastday they report to a Sleepshop in which they are willingly executed via a pleasure inducing toxic gas . A person s age is revealed by their palm flower crystal embedded in the palm of their right hand that changes color every seven years , yellow age 0 6 , then blue age 7 13 , then red age 14 20 , then blinks red and black on Lastday , and finally turns black at 21 . Runners are those who refuse to report to a Sleepshop and attempt to avoid their fate by escaping to Sanctuary . Logan 3 is a Deep Sleep Operative also called Sandman whose job is to terminate Runners using a special weapon called the Gun , an unusual revolver which can fire a number of different projectiles . Runners are most terrified of one called the Homer which homes in on body heat and deliberately ignites every pain nerve in the body , killing the target . Sandmen practice Omnite , a fictional hybrid martial arts style . On his own Lastday , Logan becomes a Runner himself in an attempt to infiltrate an apparent underground railroad for runners seeking Sanctuary a place where they can live freely in defiance of society s dictates . For most of the book Logan is an antihero however , his character develops a sympathy towards Runners and he becomes more of a traditional hero figure . Jessica 6 , a contact Logan made after he chased her Runner brother Doyle 10 into Cathedral where he was killed by the vicious preteen Cubs , helps him , despite her initial distrust of him . Francis , another Sandman and a friend of Logan , catches up with Logan and Jessica after they have managed to make it to the final staging area before Sanctuary . He reveals that he is actually the legendary Ballard , who has been helping arrange their escape . The 42 year old Ballard is working from within the system he believes that the computer that controls the global infrastructure , buried beneath Crazy Horse Mountain , is beginning to malfunction , and that the society will die with it . Sanctuary turns out to be Argos , an abandoned space colony near Mars . Logan and Jessica escape to the colony on a rocket that departs from a former space program launch site in Florida . Ballard remains to help others escape .

<|novel|>The first part of the book covers the 17 years in the lives of this group of friends after Karen s lapse into a coma . Richard has to cope with losing Karen but gaining a daughter , Megan , as fatherhood is thrust upon him the outcome of their mutual loss of virginity just hours before Karen fell into her coma . Wendy throws herself into work and Linus loses himself , looking for that which is lost . Pamela becomes a supermodel and Hamilton a demolition expert , but none of the friends lives turn out how they imagined . Broken and lacking , they return to the suburbs of their youth to try to pull themselves together until one day , almost two decades after she fell asleep , Karen regains consciousness . The book is divided into three parts . The first chapter of the book is narrated by Jared , a ghost of a friend of the character s who died of leukemia at a young age . The rest of Part 1 is narrated by Richard , in the first person , as he tells the story of what happened in the 17 years . The second part of the book , with no narrator , deals with Karen s return to the world . It also begins to explain where she had been all those years and the reality she had hoped to escape . Then , suddenly , the world ends . This section is narrated in the third person , with insight into all the characters minds . The final part of the book details life after everyone except these seven people have fallen asleep and not reawakened . This section is again narrated by Jared . The characters have to deal with the end of the world as predicted by Karen in her coma .

<|novel|>This novel tells the story of Oskar Schindler , self made entrepreneur and bon viveur who almost by default found himself saving Polish Jews from the Nazi death machine . Based on numerous eyewitness accounts , Keneally s story is unbearably moving but never melodramatic , a testament to the almost unimaginable horrors of Hitler s attempts to make Europe judenfrei , or free of Jews . What distinguishes Schindler in Keneally s version is not , superficially , kindness or idealism , but a certain gusto . He is a flawed hero he is not without sin . He is a drinker , a womaniser and , at first , a profiteer . After the war , he is commemorated as Righteous among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem , but he is never seen as a conventionally virtuous character . The story is not only Schindler s . It is the story of Kraków s dying ghetto and the forced labor camp outside of town , at Plaszów . It is the story of Amon Goeth , Plaszów s commandant . His wife Emilie remarked in a German TV interview that Schindler did nothing remarkable before the war and nothing after it . He was fortunate therefore that in the short fierce era between 1939 and 1945 he had met people who had summoned forth his deeper talents . After the war , his business ventures fail , he separates from his wife , and he ends up living a shabby life in a small flat in Frankfurt . Eventually he arranged to live part of the year in Israel , supported by his Jewish friends , and part of the year as a sort of internal émigré in Frankfurt , where he was often hissed at in the streets as a traitor to his race . After 29 unexceptional postwar years he died in 1974 . He was buried in Jerusalem as he wished with the help of his old friend Pfefferberg .

<|action|>Jack Ryan , the Central Intelligence Agency , and the British Secret Intelligence Service help with transporting a Russian defector and his family to the United States . The defector tells of a KGB plan to kill Pope John Paul II .

<|novel|>The first few pages tell of Nariman s subjection to increasing decay in physical health and stinging insults revolving around his cost of medicine , lack of space and privacy , the daily routine of bedpans and urinals , sponge baths and bedsores from his stepdaughter . Very soon , the focus shifts to Roxana s household . With Nariman s inclusion , however , deterioration and decay creep into it . As Yezad comes to centre stage for the following part of the book , the author explores the problems faced by an average middle class family . Financial problems lure him and Jehangir towards greed and money . The subplot of the book , which involves Yezad hatching a plan to dethrone his employer , is a huge slap on the faces of the corrupt Shiv Sainiks . This subplot acts as the turning point in the main story . The book contains many details of the Parsis practices , rituals , intolerances , and the concerns of native Parsis . In the epilogue , the youngest of all characters , Jehangir , becomes the narrator , describing the metamorphosis that religion , age , death , and wealth bring to his family .

<|novel|>The novel deals with the decay of an aristocratic southern family just after the end of World War I . The wealthy Sartoris family of Jefferson , Mississippi , lives under the shadow of its dead patriarch , Colonel John Sartoris . Colonel John was a Confederate cavalry officer during the Civil War , built the local railroad , and is a folk hero . The surviving Sartorises are his younger sister , Virginia Du Pre Aunt Jenny or Miss Jenny , his son Bayard Sartoris Old Bayard , and his great grandson Bayard Sartoris Young Bayard . The novel begins with the return of young Bayard Sartoris to Jefferson from the First World War . Bayard and his twin brother John , who was killed in action , were fighter pilots . Young Bayard is haunted by the death of his brother . That and the family disposition for foolhardy acts push him into a pattern of self destructive behavior , especially reckless driving in a recently purchased automobile . Eventually young Bayard crashes the car off a bridge . During the convalescence which follows , he establishes a relationship with Narcissa Benbow , whom he marries . Despite promises to Narcissa to stop driving recklessly , he gets into a near wreck with old Bayard in the car , causing old Bayard to die of a heart attack . Young Bayard disappears from Jefferson , leaving his now pregnant wife with Aunt Jenny . He dies test flying an experimental airplane on the day of his son s birth .

<|fantasy|>The first chapter of this novel is a short story titled The Stoker . The story describes the bizarre wanderings of a sixteen year old European emigrant named Karl Roßmann in the United States , who was forced to go to New York to escape the scandal of his seduction by a housemaid . As the ship arrives in USA , he becomes friends with a stoker who is about to be dismissed from his job . Karl identifies with the stoker and decides to help him together they go to see the captain of the ship . In a surreal turn of events , Karl s uncle , Senator Jacob , is in a meeting with the captain . Karl does not know that Senator Jacob is his uncle , but Mr . Jacob recognizes him and takes him away from the stoker . Karl stays with his uncle for some time but is later abandoned by him after making a visit to his uncle s friend without his uncle s full approval . Wandering aimlessly , he becomes friends with two drifters named Robinson and Delamarche . They promise to find him a job , but Karl departs from them on bad terms after he s offered a job by a manageress at Hotel Occidental . He works there as a lift boy but is fired one day after Robinson shows up drunk at his work asking him for money . Robinson , in turn , gets injured after fighting with some of the lift boys . Being dismissed , Karl leaves the hotel with Robinson to Delamarche s place . Once there , a police officer tries to chase him , but he gets away after Delamarche saves him . Delamarche now works for a wealthy , and quite obese lady named Brunelda . She wants to take in Karl as her servant . Karl refuses , but Delamarche physically forces him to stay . He decides to stay but looks for a good opportunity to escape . One day he sees an advertisement for the Nature Theatre of Oklahoma , which is looking for employees . The theatre promises to find employment for everyone and Karl is taken in by this . Karl applies for a job and gets engaged as a technical worker . He is then sent to Oklahoma by train and is welcomed by the vastness of the valleys .

<|fantasy|>A cabal of Ankh Morpork s guild leaders seeks to gradually depose the Patrician , replace him with Nobby Nobbs as the new king and rule the city through him . To implement this , the cabal orders the golems newly made king , Meshugah , to make poisoned candles and have them delivered to the palace . However , the golems used a baker s oven rather than a proper kiln to bake Meshugah , meaning the king is literally half baked . Its mind overloaded with all the wishes and propositions of the many golems , it goes mad and starts killing people . At this point the City Watch steps in trying to solve the murders and the poisoning of Lord Vetinari . With the assistance of their new forensics expert dwarf Cheery Littlebottom , Commander Vimes and Captain Carrot slowly unravel the mystery . Carrot and Dorfl , one of the golems , fight and defeat the golem king at the candlestick factory . Afterwards , Vimes confronts the city s chief herald , a vampire , who instigated the whole affair . Dorfl arrests him despite tenuous evidence and Vimes burns down all the heralds records of the nobility as a sort of punishment . In the end , Vetinari has recovered completely , Dorfl is sworn in as a watchman , Vimes gets a pay rise , and the watch house gets a new dart board .

<|horror|>Montresor tells the story of the day that he took his revenge on Fortunato , a fellow nobleman , to an unspecified person who knows him very well . Angry over some unspecified insult , he plots to murder his friend during Carnival when the man is drunk , dizzy , and wearing a jester s motley . He baits Fortunato by telling him he has obtained what he believes to be a pipe about 130 gallons , 492 litres of a rare vintage of Amontillado . He claims he wants his friend s expert opinion on the subject . Fortunato goes with Montresor to the wine cellars of the latter s palazzo , where they wander in the catacombs . Montresor offers wine first Medoc , then De Grave to Fortunato . At one point , Fortunato makes an elaborate , grotesque gesture with an upraised wine bottle . When Montresor appears not to recognize the gesture , Fortunato asks , You are not of the masons ? Montresor says he is , and when Fortunato , disbelieving , requests a sign , Montresor displays a trowel he had been hiding . Montresor warns Fortunato , who has a bad cough , of the damp , and suggests they go back Fortunato insists on continuing , claiming that he shall not die of a cough . During their walk , Montresor mentions his family coat of arms a golden foot in a blue background crushing a snake whose fangs are embedded in the foot s heel , with the motto Nemo me impune lacessit No one insults me with impunity . When they come to a niche , Montresor tells his victim that the Amontillado is within . Fortunato enters and , drunk and unsuspecting , does not resist as Montresor quickly chains him to the wall . Montresor then declares that , since Fortunato won t go back , he must positively leave him . Montresor walls up the niche , entombing his friend alive . At first , Fortunato , who sobers up faster than Montresor anticipated he would , shakes the chains , trying to escape . Fortunato then screams for help , but Montresor mocks his cries , knowing nobody can hear them . Fortunato laughs weakly and tries to pretend that he is the subject of a joke and that people will be waiting for him including the Lady Fortunato . As the murderer finishes the topmost row of stones , Fortunato wails , For the love of God , Montresor ! Montresor replies , Yes , for the love of God ! He listens for a reply but hears only the jester s bells ringing . Before placing the last stone , he drops a burning torch through the gap . He claims that he feels sick at heart , but dismisses this reaction as an effect of the dampness of the catacombs . In the last few sentences , Montresor reveals that in the 50 years since that night , he has never been caught , and Fortunato s body still hangs from its chains in the niche where he left it . The murderer concludes Requiescat In Pace ! May he rest in peace ! .

<|fantasy|>Set both in the 18th century and the present day and centred on the mystery of an inscription on a rock about a death from exposure , the novel seeks to explain time and history in terms of setting and interaction . It is a complex novel that can be read on many different levels . Structurally it can be regarded as a Möbius strip , since the last chapter describes the same events as the first . One is then induced to read the book again , which becomes a different experience as a result of the first reading . Garner has discussed this in some detail . The name of the valley is first recorded in the 14th century and he argues that Thurs is from the Anglo Saxon þyrs . Applied to Grendel in Beowulf , it s usually translated as demon , although Garner reckons something big would be a more accurate translation . He s a formidable linguist in his own right and collaborated with Prof Ralph Elliott of the Australian National University in his research on Thursbitch . There s more detail in his lecture , The Valley of the Demon , but the snippets in this article Valley of the Living Dread give an idea .

<|fantasy|>Nova Express is a social commentary on human and machine control of life . The Nova Mob mdash Sammy the Butcher , Izzy the Push , The Subliminal Kid , and others mdash are viruses , defined as the three dimensional coordinate point of a controller . which invade the human body and in the process produce language . These Nova Criminals represent society , culture , and government , and have taken control . Inspector Lee and the rest of the Nova Police are left fighting for the rest of humanity in the power struggle . The Nova Police can be compared to apomorphine , a regulating instance that need not continue and has no intention of continuing after its work is done . The police are focused on first order addictions of junkies , homosexuals , dissidents , and criminals if these criminals vanish , the police must create more in order to justify their own survival . The Nova Police depend upon the Nova Criminals for existence if the criminals cease to exist , so do the police . They act like apomorphine , the nonaddictive cure for morphine addiction that Burroughs used and then promoted for many years . Burroughs not only uses the Nova Police as a function for catching the Nova Criminals , he also adds satire about his own life and addictions . Control is the main theme of the novel , and Burroughs attempts to use language to break down the walls of culture , the biggest control machine . He uses inspector Lee to express his own thoughts about the world . The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals . In Naked Lunch , Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested . . . . With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly . As Burroughs battles with the self and what is human , he finds that language is the only way to maintain dominance over the powerful instruments of control , which are the most prevalent enemies of human society .

<|fantasy|>A former astronaut is hired by a detective agency to help in an investigation of a case of mysterious deaths . Several victims became mad and committed suicide during their vacation in various Naples spas , apparently without reason . Due to certain similarities in the circumstances of the deaths the case is assumed to be a serial murder by poisoning , although it is never certain what if any real connection exists between the victims . During the investigation , it becomes apparent that certain innocent chemicals can be combined into a strong depressor , a kind of chemical weapon . The hero experiences its effects , but his training helps him to survive and solve the case . He discovers the industrial sources of the chemicals , and demonstrates how random chance chemical reactions led to the string of deaths .

<|fantasy|>It is about fifteen years since the events described in Tehanu , and eight after those in Dragonfly . King Lebannen has his share of problems . The dragons want the return of the lands men have stolen from them in the distant past , the Kargs want to marry him to their princess and thus cement a diplomatic relation between the two countries , and the dead seek release from the perpetual twilight of the afterlife . Accompanied by three wizards , two dragons in human form , and a Kargad princess , he sails to Roke where , together with the Masters of that island , they are able to right an ancient wrong and restore the balance .

<|fantasy|>The main character is an incompetent and cynical wizard named Rincewind . He involuntarily becomes a guide to the rich but naive tourist from the Agatean Empire , Twoflower . Forced to flee the city of Ankh Morpork to escape a terrible fire that was caused by a bartender who misunderstood the concept of insurance , which Twoflower told him about , they begin on a journey across the Disc . Unknown to them , their journey is controlled by the Gods playing a board game . Rincewind and Twoflower are controlled by the Lady , and is pitted against the champions of Zephyrus , the god of slight breezes , Fate and Offler the Crocodile God , in the game supervised by Blind Io . The duo face a mountain troll and are separated . The ignorant Twoflower ends up being led to the Temple of Bel Shamharoth , and Rincewind ends up in a tree nymph inhabited tree . Rincewind manages to escape while the tree nymphs try to kill him and is reunited with the tourist . Together with Hrun the Barbarian , they escape from the Temple of Bel Shamharoth the Soul Eater , which collapses . Later , Hrun agrees to travel with and protect Twoflower and Rincewind in exchange for Heroic pictures of him from Twoflower s magical picture box . They visit Wyrmberg , an upside down mountain which is home to dragons that only exist in the imagination . The names of the dragons riders feature punctuation in the middle , making reference and parody of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey . They nearly go over the waterfall on the edge of the Disc , only to be rescued and taken to the country of Krull , a city perched on the very edge of the Discworld inhabited by hydrophobic wizards . The Krullians wish to discover the gender of Great A Tuin , the giant turtle which carries the Discworld through space , so they have built a space capsule to launch over the Edge . They intend on sacrificing Rincewind and Twoflower to get Fate to smile on the voyage . Instead , Rincewind , Twoflower and Tethis the sea troll hijack the capsule in an attempt to escape and are launched off the Disc themselves .

<|fantasy|>After the wizard Rincewind has fallen from the edge of the Discworld , the Octavo magic book saves his life and he lands back onto the world . Meanwhile , the wizards of Ankh Morpork discover from Death via a rite that the Discworld will soon be destroyed by a huge red star unless the eight spells of the Octavo are read the most powerful spells in existence , one of which hides in Rincewind s head . Consequently , several orders of wizards try to capture Rincewind , led by Trymon , a former classmate of Rincewind s , who wishes to obtain the power of the spells for himself . After Rincewind , who has met again with Twoflower , escapes them , it becomes apparent that Great A Tuin , the giant turtle that carries the Discworld , has set a new course that leads it directly into a red star with eight moons . Rincewind and Twoflower are accompanied by Cohen the Barbarian , a toothless , ageing hero , and Bethan , a sacrificial virgin saved by Cohen , with assistance from Rincewind and Twoflower . Rincewind becomes one of the very few people ever to enter Death s Domain whilst still alive , where he finds Twoflower playing a card game with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse . He is nearly killed when he meets Death s adopted daughter Ysabell , but is saved by the quick acting Luggage . The group also encounter people who , anticipating the apocalypse , are heading for the mountains not for protection , but because they will have a better view . As well as this , they happen upon the kind of shop where strange and sinister goods are on sale and inexplicably vanish the next time a customer tries to find them . The existence of these shops is explained as being a curse by a sorcerer upon the shopkeeper for not having something in stock . As the star comes nearer and the magic on the Discworld becomes weaker , Trymon tries to put the seven spells still in the Octavo into his mind , in an attempt to save the world and gain ultimate power . However , the spells prove too strong for him and his mind becomes a door into the Dungeon Dimensions , whence strange , horrible creatures try to escape into reality . The seven leading wizards are meanwhile turned to stone . After winning a fight against them , Rincewind is able to read all eight spells aloud whereupon the eight moons of the red star crack open and reveal eight tiny world turtles that follow their parent A Tuin on a course away from the star . The Octavo then falls and is eaten by Twoflower s Luggage . The book ends with Twoflower and Rincewind parting company , as Twoflower decides to return home , leaving The Luggage with Rincewind as a parting gift .

<|fantasy|>In the novel , much of which was originally published in serial form in Astounding Science Fiction magazine , hidden throughout a future America of 1972 are a group of incredibly gifted children mdash all approximately the same age , all preternaturally intelligent , and all hiding their incredible abilities from a world they know will not understand them . These children were born to workers caught in an explosion at an atomic weapons facility , and orphaned just a few months after birth when their parents succumbed to delayed effects from the blast . Like the characters in the better known X Men series , these children are mutants , brought together to explore their unique abilities and study in secret at an exclusive school for gifted children , lest they be hated and feared by a world that would not understand them . The Oakland Tribune described it in 1953 as the invevitable adjustments and maladjustments of minority genius to majority mediocrity . In Shiras book , none of the children are given paranormal super powers such as telekinesis or precognition their primary difference is simply that of incredible intellect , combined with an energy and inquisitiveness that causes them to figuratively devour every book in their local libraries , to speed through university extension courses , and to publish countless articles and stories all over the world , but all done carefully through pen names and mail order , to disguise their youth , and protect them from the prejudicial stereotypes that less intelligent adults continue to try and enforce on children .

<|fantasy|>The story follows the progress of a group of disaffected computer wizards called warlocks in the story who are early adopters of a new full immersion virtual reality technology , called the Other Plane . Forming a cabal , they must keep their true identities their True Names secret even to each other and to avoid prosecution by their Great Adversary the government of the United States . The protagonist is one of these warlocks . Known as Mr . Slippery in the Other Plane his True Name is Roger Pollack . When a new warlock arrives in the Other Plane and begins to recruit other warlocks for a scheme in which the domination of cyberspace can be used to exert power in the real world , Mr . Slippery is forced to ally himself with the Great Adversary .

<|crime|>The story is narrated in the first person by Frank Chambers , a young drifter who stops at a rural California diner for a meal , and ends up working there . The diner is operated by a young , beautiful woman , Cora , and her much older husband , Nick Papadakis , sometimes called the Greek . There is an immediate attraction between Frank and Cora , and they begin a passionate affair with sadomasochistic qualities when they first embrace , Cora commands Frank to bite her lip , and Frank does so hard enough to draw blood . Cora , a femme fatale figure , is tired of her situation , married to a man she does not love , and working at a diner that she wishes to own and improve . Frank and Cora scheme to murder the Greek in order to start a new life together without Cora losing the diner . They plan on striking Nick s head and making it seem he fell and drowned in the bathtub . Cora fells Nick with a solid blow , but , due to a sudden power outage and the appearance of a policeman , the scheme fails . Nick recovers and because of retrograde amnesia does not suspect that he narrowly avoided being killed . Determined to kill Nick , Frank and Cora fake a car accident . They ply Nick with wine , strike him on the head , and crash the car . Frank and Cora are injured . The local prosecutor suspects what has actually occurred , but doesn t have enough evidence to prove it . As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on one another , he charges only Cora with the crime of Nick s murder , coercing Frank to sign a complaint against her . Cora , furious and indignant , insists upon offering a full confession detailing both their roles . Her lawyer tricks her into dictating that confession to a member of his own staff . Cora , believing her confession made , returns to prison . Though Cora would be sure to learn of the trickery , a few valuable hours are gained . The lawyer uses the time to manipulate those financially interested in the trial to have their private detective recant his testimony , which was the final remaining weapon in the prosecution s arsenal . The state is forced to grant Cora a plea agreement , under which she is given a suspended sentence and no jail time . Frank and Cora patch things up and plan a happy family future . Then Cora is killed in a car accident while Frank is driving . The book ends with Frank , from death row , summarizing the events that followed , explaining that he was wrongly convicted of having murdered Cora . The text , he hopes , will be published after his execution .

<|fantasy|>The wizard Drum Billet knows that he will soon die and travels to a place where an eighth son of an eighth son is about to be born . This signifies that the child is destined to become a wizard on the Discworld , the number eight has many of the magical properties that are sometimes ascribed to seven in other mythologies . Billet wants to pass his wizard s staff on to his successor . However , the newborn child is actually a girl , Esk full name Eskarina Smith . Since Billet notices his mistake too late , the staff passes on to her . As Esk grows up , it becomes apparent that she has uncontrollable powers , and the local witch Granny Weatherwax decides to travel with her to the Unseen University in Ankh Morpork to help her gain the knowledge required to properly manage her powers . But a female wizard is something completely unheard of on the Discworld . Esk is unsuccessful in her first , direct , attempt to gain entry to the University , but Granny Weatherwax finds another way in as a servant . While there , Esk witnesses the progress of an apprentice wizard named Simon , whom she had met earlier , on her way to Ankh Morpork . Simon is a natural talent who invents a whole new way of looking at the universe that reduces it to component numbers . His magic , however , is so powerful that it causes a hole to be opened into the Dungeon Dimensions . Eskarina and Simon discover the weakness of the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions if you can use magic , but don t , they become scared and weakened . They both manage to transport themselves back into the Discworld . Together they develop a new kind of magic , based on the notion that the greatest power is the ability not to use all the others .

<|fantasy|>The main character of Pyramids is Teppic , prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi . Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt . Young Teppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh Morpork for several years . The day after passing his final exam he somehow senses that his father has died and that he must return home . Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems , based on the fact that Dios , the high priest , is a stickler for tradition , and does not , in fact , allow the pharaohs to rule the country . After numerous adventures and misunderstandings , Teppic is forced to escape from the palace , along with a handmaiden named Ptraci . Meanwhile , the massive pyramid being built for Teppic s father warps space time so much that it rotates Djelebeybi out of alignment with the space time of the rest of the disc by 90 degrees . Teppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom . Meanwhile , pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi , as the kingdom s multifarious gods descend upon the populace , and all of Djelibeybi s dead rulers come back to life . Eventually , Teppic re enters the Kingdom and attempts to destroy the Great Pyramid , with the help of all of his newly resurrected ancestors . They are confronted by Dios , who , it turns out , is as old as the kingdom itself , and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom . Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same . Teppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid , returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom , thereby re starting the cycle . Teppic then abdicates , allowing Ptraci who turns out to be his half sister to rule . Ptraci immediately institutes much needed changes .

<|fantasy|>The story involves Mr . and Mrs . White and their adult son Herbert . Sergeant Major Morris , a friend of the Whites who has been part of the British Armed Forces in India , leaves them with the monkey s paw , telling of its mysterious powers to grant three wishes , and of its journey from an old fakir to his comrade , who used his third and final wish to wish for death . Mr . White wishes for 200 to be used as the final payment on his house . Following that , Herbert is killed by machinery at his company , but they do get compensation of 200 . Ten days after the funeral , Mrs . White , almost mad with grief , asks her husband to wish Herbert back to life with the paw . Reluctantly , he does so . After a delay , there is a knock at the door . Mrs . White fumbles at the locks in an attempt to open the door . Mr . White knows , however , that he cannot allow their son in , as his appearance will be too grotesque . Mr . White was required to witness and identify the body , which had been mutilated by the accident and then buried for more than a week . He wishes his third wish for Herbert to remain dead , and the knocking stops . Mrs . White opens the door to find no one there . The theme of the story is contained in this description of the paw It had a spell put on it by an old fakir , said the sergeant major , a very holy man . He wanted to show that fate ruled people s lives , and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow .

<|novel|>David Lurie is a South African professor of English who loses everything his reputation , his job , his peace of mind , his good looks , his dreams of artistic success , and finally even his ability to protect his own daughter . He is twice divorced and dissatisfied with his job as a communications lecturer , teaching one class in romantic literature at a technical university in Cape Town in post apartheid South Africa . His disgrace comes when he almost forcibly seduces one of his more vulnerable students which is thereafter revealed to the school and a committee is convened to pass judgement on his actions . David refuses to apologize in any sincere form and so is forced to resign from his both . Lurie is working on a play concerning Lord Byron s final phase of life in Italy which mirrors his own life in that Byron is living a life of hedonism and excess and is having an affair with a married women , and the irony is that he comes to grief from an escapade that Byron would have thought distinctly timid . He is dismissed from his teaching position , after which he takes refuge on his daughter s farm in the Eastern Cape . For a time , his daughter s influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life . But the balance of power in the country is shifting . Shortly after becoming comfortable with rural life , he is forced to come to terms with the aftermath of an attack on the farm in which his daughter is raped and impregnated and he is violently assaulted . The novel also concerns David s interaction with a few other characters Bev , an animal welfare and healer of sorts , and Lucy s former farmhand , the self described dog man who lives on the neighbouring property , who took care of his daughters dogs . David remains on the farm far past his welcome in order to try to keep his daughter safe , but instead finds himself apathetic and demoralized yet on a journey towards redemption .

<|childrens|>A willful , disorganized teenage girl , Annabelle Andrews , awakens one Friday morning to find herself in the body of her mother , with whom she argued the previous night . Suddenly in charge of taking care of the New York family s affairs and her younger brother Ben whom Annabelle has not so affectionately nicknamed Ape Face , and growing increasingly worried about the disappearance of Annabelle , who appeared to be herself in the morning but has gone missing after leaving the Andrews home , she enlists the help of her neighbor and childhood friend , Boris , though without telling him about her identity crisis . As the day wears on and Annabelle has a series of increasingly bizarre and frustrating misadventures , she becomes gradually more appreciative of how difficult her mother s life is , and learns , to her surprise , that Ben idolizes her , and Boris is actually named Morris , but has a problem with chronic congestion at least around Annabelle leading him to nasally pronounce ms and ns as bs and ds . The novel races towards its climax and Ben also disappears , apparently having gone off with a pretty girl whom Boris did not recognize , but Ben appeared to trust without hesitation . In the climax and dénouement , Annabelle becomes overwhelmed by the difficulties of her situation , apparent disappearance of her mother , loss of the children , and the question of how her odd situation came about and when whether it will be resolved . Finally , it is revealed that Annabelle s mother herself caused them to switch bodies through some unspecified means , and the mysterious girl who took Ben was Mrs . Andrews in Annabelle s body to which she is restored made much more attractive by a makeover Mrs . Andrews gave the body while using it , including the removal of Annabelle s braces , an appointment Annabelle had forgotten about and would have missed , had she been the one in her body that day . The book and especially the film adaptations and its second sequel , Summer Switch might be considered a modern retelling of Vice Versa , the 1882 novel by F . Anstey , in which the protagonists are a father and son .

<|fantasy|>The novel explores an unusual connection between molecular genetics and quantum computing , with criticism of some of what it considers the excesses of postmodernism and feminism . However , most of the novel focuses on future south east Asian politics Egan criticizes Indonesian imperialism and Australian treatment of refugees , repressed childhood guilt , evolutionary biology and academic life . As often in Egan s books , there is some focus on sexuality this time the lead character is gay , rather than one of the more exotic alternatives in other novels .

<|novel|>Adam Fenwick Symes is the novel s antihero his quest to marry Nina parodies the conventions of romantic comedy , as the traditional foils and allies prove distracted and ineffectual . War looms , Adam s circle of friends disintegrates , and Adam and Nina s engagement flounders . At the book s end , we find Adam alone on an apocalyptic European battlefield . The book s shift in tone from light hearted romp to bleak desolation has bothered Okoye . Waugh himself later attributed it to the breakdown of his first marriage halfway through the book s composition . Others have defended the novel s curious ending as a poetically just reversal of the conventions of comic romance .

<|fantasy|>The novel is told from the point of view of Gilgamesh , and is primarily ambivalent about the supernatural elements of the epic . Most of the events are portrayed in a fairly realistic manner , and the reader is left undecided as to whether certain events are coincidence , or divine intervention . Silverberg afterwards wrote a number of stories for the fantasy anthology series Heroes in Hell describing Gilgamesh s posthumous adventures in the underworld , including the award winning novella Gilgamesh in the Outback . fr Gilgamesh , roi d Ourouk fi Kuningas Gilgameš

<|fantasy|>The novel is presented as a series of vignettes over a period of about 1500 years , from 1282 ab urbe condita AD 529 to 2723 AUC AD 1970 . Most of the story chapters involve Roman politics , either the competition between the Western and Eastern Empires to dominate the other or the violent creation of the Second Roman Republic in about 2603 AUC AD 1850 . Others describe the first Roman circumnavigation of the world and unsuccessful attempts to conquer Nova Roma North America . Many features of our own history are repeated in this history , though under changed circumstances The equivalent of the 16th and 17th Centuries have bold navigators and adventurers , romanticised by later generations but unpleasantly brutal and ruthless when looked at closely in the late 18th to mid 19th Centuries , a decadent old order is overthrown by revolution followed by a reign of terror and the reemergence of Republicanism though Italy remains a central part of the Roman Empire , the Latin dialect spoken there develops into a kind of Italian , and the name Marcus changes into Marco though Vienna is a provincial capital which never had an Emperor of its own , its population dances the Waltz by the 20th Century , people travel by cars rather than carriages and by the second half of the century , space flight is achieved . It concludes with the first story to be written , when a group of Hebrew citizens in Alexandria prepare to depart Earth in a rocket which explodes shortly after takeoff . But they will try again , still believing God chose them to inherit the Promised Land , just not on Rome dominated Earth .

<|fantasy|>The novel is set in the future , on the fictional planet of Shora , a moon covered by water . The inhabitants of this planet , known as Sharers , are all female . Sharers use genetic engineering to control the ecology of their planet . They are peaceful beings who share that is , they have a spiritual and linguistic union with each other and treat everyone equally . The Sharers take egalitarianism for granted because they share and they lack the concept of power over , making their society one in which conflicts are settled without violence . When they are being threatened by an outside power , they resist nonviolently because they refuse to believe in power . Thus , the Sharers can never be subdued by force . The Sharer way of nonviolence is more than spiritual . It is based on historical realities of nonviolent resistance . The author based the events of her novel on much historical research , particularly the writings of peace historian Gene Sharp . The novel includes much biological research into the evolution of innate capacities for nonviolence . For example , the participation of children in nonviolent resistance draws on deep instinctual responses found in humans and related mammals . A unique expression of the Sharer way is their language , in which subject and object are interchangeable . The Sharers know by context what subject and object are but their language does not allow them to make a distinction . As a result , they always know that what one person forces upon another can always go the other way . Their language impedes anyone from giving orders to dominate others . For example , if a stranger says , You must obey me , the Sharer hears , I must obey you , or the closest translation , We must share agreement . Their language reinforces the Sharers inability to accept any situation in which one individual dominates another by force . The Sharer worldview extends to their environment , their surrounding ecosystem . They cannot act upon their plants and animals without being acted upon in return . So , for example , because Sharers consume plants and animals as food , they accept the fact that they in turn will become food for other life forms that predators will ultimately consume them . At the beginning of the novel , the Sharers are all female . But as they encounter a non Sharer community from another planet , which threatens them , the Sharer Merwen realizes that they must find out whether other kinds of people can share their life or not . Merwen goes to the other planet , Valedon , to recruit a young man , Spinel , to return to Shora and attempt to learn their ways . This venture leads to disagreement within the Sharer community they have plenty of disagreements , though addressed without violence . With many false starts , Spinel gradually learns the Sharer way , as a man and ultimately he works with the Sharers to help them defend their planet from a military invasion .

<|fantasy|>During their most recent outing , three friends see Zenia , a long dead university classmate who had stolen , one by one , their respective beaux . The novel alternates between the present and flashbacks featuring the points of view of Tony , Charis , and Roz , respectively . Zenia has given each woman a different version of her biography , tailor made to insinuate herself into their lives . No one version of Zenia is the truth , and the reader knows no more than the characters . Their betrayals by Zenia are what initially bring the three together as friends and bind their lives together irrevocably their monthly luncheons began after her funeral . The novel , like other works by Atwood , deals with power struggles between men and women it is also a meditation on the nature of friendship , power , and trust between women . Zenia s character can be read as either the ultimate self empowered woman , a traitor who abuses sisterhood , or simply a self interested mercenary who cunningly uses the war between the sexes to further her own interests . One reading posits Zenia as a kind of guardian angel to the women , saving them from unworthy men . Atwood claims that of all the characters she has written , she identifies most with Zenia . She is the professional liar , and what else do fiction writers do but create lies that other people will believe ? In the novel s present , Roz , Charis , and Tony finally each individually confront Zenia in a Toronto hotel room , where she tells each of them that the men they d been with got what they deserved , and gives various versions of her earlier staged death , each as implausible as the accounts of her life . One of the four women never leaves that hotel alive . The novel itself leaves the reader questioning who was or were the victim s of life .

<|novel|>Lázaro is a boy of humble origins from Salamanca . After his stepfather is accused of thievery , his mother asks a wily blind beggar to take Lazarillo little Lázaro on as his apprentice . Lázaro develops his cunning while serving the blind beggar and several other masters . Table of contents Prologue Chapter or treatise 1 childhood and apprenticeship to a blind man . Chapter 2 serving a priest . Chapter 3 serving a squire . Chapter 4 serving a friar . Chapter 5 serving a pardoner . Chapter 6 serving a chaplain . Chapter 7 serving a bailiff and an archbishop .

<|novel|>The book follows a young man named Tod Hackett who thinks of himself as a painter and artist , but who works in Hollywood as a costume designer and background painter . He falls in love with Faye Greener , an aspiring starlet who lives nearby . Between his work in the studio and his introduction to Faye s friends , he is soon interacting with numerous Hollywood hangers on , including a cowboy who lives in the hills above the studios and works as an extra in cowboy movies , his Mexican friend who keeps fighting cocks , and Homer Simpson , a hapless businessman whom Faye is taking advantage of . The book ends with a riot at a movie premiere .

<|fantasy|>The story is set in 2010 , mostly in the United States . A number of plots and many vignettes are played out in this future world , based on Brunner s extrapolation of social , economic , and technological trends . The key main trends are based on the enormous population and its impact social stresses , eugenic legislation , widening social divisions , future shock , and extremism . Certain of Brunner s guesses are fairly close , others not , and some ideas clearly show their 1960s mind set . Many futuristic concepts , products and services , and slang are presented . A supercomputer named Shalmaneser is an important plot element . The Hipcrime Vocab and other works by the fictional sociologist Chad C . Mulligan are frequent sources of quotations . Some examples of slang include codder man , shiggy woman , whereinole where in hell ? , prowlie an armored police car , offyourass possessing an attitude , bivving bisexuality , from ambivalent and mucker a person running amok . A new technology introduced is eptification education for particular tasks , a form of mental programming . Another is a kind of interactive television that shows the viewer as part of the program Mr . Mrs . Everywhere . Genetically modified microorganisms are used as terrorist weapons . The book centres on two New York men , Donald Hogan and Norman Niblock House , who share an apartment . House is a rising executive at General Technics , one of the all powerful corporations . Using his Afram African American heritage to advance his position , he has risen to vice president at age twenty six . Hogan is introduced with a single paragraph rising out of nowhere Donald Hogan is a spy . Donald shares an apartment with House and is undercover as a student . Hogan s real work is as a synthesist , although he is a commissioned officer and can be called up for duty . The two main plots concern the fictional African state of Beninia a name reminiscent of the real life Benin , though that nation in the Bight of Benin was known as the Republic of Dahomey when the book was written making a deal with General Technics to take over the management of their country , in a bid to speed up development from third world to first world status . A second major plot is a break through in genetic engineering in the fictional Australasian nation of Yatakang which seems to be a disguised Indonesia , to which Hogan is soon sent by the U . S . government State to investigate . The two plots eventually cross , bringing potential implications for the entire world .

<|novel|>The novel focuses on Molly Bolt , the adopted daughter of a poor family , who possesses remarkable beauty and who is aware of her lesbianism from early childhood . Her relationship with her mother is rocky , and at a young age her mother , referred to as Carrie , informs Molly that she is not her own biological child but a bastard . Molly has her first same sex sexual relationship in the sixth grade with her friend Leota B . Bisland , and then again in a Florida high school , where she has another sexual relationship with another friend , Carolyn Simpson , the school lead cheerleader , who willingly has sex with Molly but rejects the lesbian label . Molly also engages in sex with males , including her cousin Leroy when the two were younger . Her father , Carl , dies when she is in her junior year of high school . In a combination of her strong willed nature and disdain for Carrie , Molly pushes herself to excel in high school , winning a full scholarship to the University of Florida . Unlike Carrie , Carl has always supported Molly s goals and education . However , when Molly s homosexual relationship with her alcoholic roommate is discovered , she is denied a renewal of her scholarship . Possessing little money , she moves to New York to pursue an education in filmmaking . Upon reaching New York , she realizes that the rubyfruit is maybe not as delicious and varied as she had dreamed within the concrete jungle .

<|fantasy|>Taking place eight years after the events of Count Zero and fifteen years after Neuromancer , the story is formed from several interconnecting plot threads , and also features characters from Gibson s previous works such as Molly Millions , the razor fingered mercenary from Neuromancer . One of the plot threads concerns Mona , an innocent young prostitute who has a more than passing resemblance to famed Simstim superstar Angie Mitchell . Mona is hired by shady individuals for a gig which later turns out to be part of a plot to abduct Angie . The second story focuses on a young Japanese girl named Kumiko , daughter of a Yakuza boss sent to London to keep her safe while her father engages in a gang war with other top Yakuza leaders . In London she is cared for by one of her father s retainers , who is also a powerful member of the London Mob . She meets Molly Millions having altered her appearance and now calling herself Sally Shears , in order to conceal her identity from hostile parties who are implied to be pursuing her , who takes the girl under her wing . The third story thread follows a reclusive artist named Slick Henry , who lives in a place named Factory in the Dog Solitude a large , poisoned expanse of deserted factories and dumps , perhaps in New Jersey . Slick Henry is a convicted and punished car thief . As a result of the repetitive brainwashing nature of his punishment , he spends his days creating large robotic sculptures and periodically suffers episodes of time loss , returning to consciousness afterward with no memory of what he did during the blackout . He is hired by an acquaintance to look after the comatose Count Bobby Newmark from the second novel , Count Zero , who has hooked himself into a super capacity cyber harddrive called an Aleph . A theoretical Aleph would have the RAM capacity to literally contain all of reality , enough that a memory construct of a person would contain the complete personality of the individual and allow it to learn , grow and act independently . The final plot line follows Angela Mitchell , famous simstim star and the girl from the second Sprawl novel Count Zero . Angie , thanks to brain manipulations by her father when she was a child , has always had the ability to access cyberspace directly without a cyberspace deck , but drugs provided by her production company Sense Net have severely impeded this ability . The story of the reclusive artist that makes cybernetic sculptures is a reference to Mark Pauline of Survival Research Labs .

<|fantasy|>This book tells of the escape of two dogs , Rowf and Snitter , from a government research station in the Lake District in England , where they had been horribly mistreated . They live on their own with help from a red fox , or tod , who speaks to them in a Geordie dialect . After the starving dogs attack some sheep on the fells , they are reported as ferocious man eating monsters by a journalist . A great dog hunt follows , which is later intensified with the fear that the dogs could be carriers of a dangerous bioweapon , such as the bubonic plague .

<|childrens|>A boy , Michael and his family have moved into a new house that is very old and falling apart . He and his parents are anxious as his new baby sister was born prematurely and may not live due to a heart condition . When Michael goes into the garage , amid all the boxes , debris and dead insects he finds a strange emaciated man . Michael assumes that he is a homeless person , but decides to look after him and gives him food , though he is crotchety and arthritic , demanding aspirin , Chinese food menu order numbers 27 and 53 and brown ale . Michael hears a story that human shoulder blades are a vestige of angel wings . Meanwhile his friends from school become more and more distant as Michael stops attending school and so spends less time with them . He meets a girl named Mina from across the road and over the course of the story they become very close friends . Mina is home schooled and is interested in nature , birds , drawing and poems by William Blake to which her Mother introduced her . She takes care of some baby birds who live in her garden and teaches Michael to hear their tiny sounds . Michael decides to introduce her to the strange old man . Michael asks about arthritis and how to cure it , talking to doctors and patients in the hospital where his baby sister is being treated . The man whom Michael had moved from the garage introduces himself as Skellig to Michael and Mina . Michael s baby sister comes dangerously close to death and must undergo heart surgery . His mother goes to hospital to stay with the baby and , that night , dreams or sees Skellig come in , pick the baby up and hold it high in the air , saving Michael s little sister .

<|novel|>From the age of thirteen , on the eve of the Great War , Millicent King keeps her journals in a series of exercise books . The diary records the dramas of everyday life in an ordinary English family touched by war , tragedy , and money troubles in the early decades of the century . She struggles to become a teacher , but wants more out of life . From bohemian literary London to Rome in the twenties , her story moves on to social work and the build up to another war , in which she drives ambulances through the bombed streets of London . She has proposals of marriage and secret lovers , ambition and optimism . but then her life is turned upside down once more by wartime deaths .

<|fantasy|>The book begins with a single human narrator from England who is , via unexplained means , transported out of his body and finds himself able to explore space and other planets . After exploring a civilization on another planet in our galaxy at a level of development similar to our own that existed millions of years ago thousands of light years from Earth the Other Earth in some detail , his mind merges with that of one of its inhabitants , and as they travel together , they are joined by still more minds or group minds . This snowballing process is paralleled by the expansion of the book s scale , describing more and more planets in less and less detail . The disembodied travellers encounter many ideas that are interesting from both science fictional and philosophical points of view . These include the first known instance of what is now called the Dyson sphere , reference to a scenario closely predicting the later zoo hypothesis or Star Trek s Prime Directive , many imaginative descriptions of species , civilizations and methods of warfare , and the idea that the stars and even the pre galactic nebulae are intelligent beings , operating on vast time scales . A key idea is the formation of collective minds from many telepathically linked individuals , on the level of planets , galaxies , and eventually the cosmos itself . The climax of the book is the supreme moment of the cosmos , when the cosmical mind which includes the narrator attains momentary contact with the Star Maker of the title . The Star Maker is the creator of the universe , but stands in the same relation to it as an artist to his work , and calmly assesses its quality without any feeling for the suffering of its inhabitants . This element makes the novel one of Stapledon s efforts to write an essay in myth making . After meeting the Star Maker , the traveller then explores earlier drafts of the universe , which he refers to as toy cosmos , including a universe composed entirely of music with no spatial dimensions , and a triune universe which closely resembles Christian orthodoxy the three universes respectively being hell , heaven , and reality with presence of a savior . The novel ends with the traveller returning to Earth .

<|fantasy|>Central to the story is an Artificial Intelligence named H . A . R . L . I . E . , also referred to by the proper name HARLIE an acronym for Human Analog Replication , Lethetic Intelligence Engine originally Human Analog Robot Life Input Equivalents . HARLIE s story revolves around his relationship with David Auberson , the psychologist who is responsible for guiding HARLIE from childhood into adulthood . It is also the story of HARLIE s fight against being turned off , and the philosophical question whether or not HARLIE is human for that matter , what it means to be human . When HARLIE Was One contains the first fictional representation of a computer virus . It also is the first use of the term virus to describe a program that infects another computer .

<|fantasy|>The main plot appears in linear prose in chapter VII , The Mayan Caper . This chapter portrays a secret agent who has the ability to change bodies or metamorphose his own body using U . T . undifferentiated tissue . As such an agent he makes a time travel machine and takes on a gang of Mayan priests who use the Mayan calendar to control the minds of slave laborers used for planting maize . The calendar images are written in books and placed on a magnetic tape and transmitted as sounds to control the slaves . The agent manages to infiltrate the slaves and replace the magnetic tape with a totally different message burn the books , kill the priests which cause the downfall of their regime .

<|childrens|>Set in the 1860s , Caddie Woodlawn is about a lively eleven year old tomboy named Caroline Augusta Woodlawn , nicknamed Caddie , living in the area of Dunnville , Wisconsin , and her experiences with the nearby Indians . She is troublesome and the despair of her ladylike mother and sister . The sequel to the book , Magical Melons 1939 , continues the story of Caddie and her family .

<|childrens|>The protagonist of The Sun Also Rises is Jake Barnes , an expatriate American journalist living in Paris . Jake suffered a war wound that has caused him to be impotent the nature of his injury is not explicitly described in the novel . He is in love with Lady Brett Ashley , a twice divorced Englishwoman . Brett , with her bobbed hair , embodies the new sexual freedom of the 1920s , having had numerous love affairs . Book One is set in the Café society of Paris . In the opening scenes , Jake plays tennis with his college friend Robert Cohn , picks up a prostitute Georgette , and runs into Brett and Count Mippipopolous in a nightclub . Brett and Jake leave together in a taxi she tells him she loves him , but they know they have no chance at a lasting relationship . In Book Two Jake is joined by Bill Gorton , recently arrived from New York , and Brett s fiancé Mike Campbell , who arrives from Scotland . Jake and Bill travel to Spain , where they meet Robert Cohn north of Pamplona for a fishing trip . Cohn , however , leaves for Pamplona to wait for Brett and Mike . Cohn had an affair with Brett a few weeks earlier and still feels possessive of her despite her engagement to Mike . Jake and Bill enjoy five days of tranquility , fishing the streams near Burguete , after which they rejoin the group in Pamplona , where they begin to drink heavily . Cohn s presence is increasingly resented by the others , who taunt him with anti semitic remarks . During the fiesta the characters drink , eat , watch the running of the bulls , attend bullfights , and bicker with each other . Jake introduces Brett to Romero at Montoya s hotel she is smitten with the 19 year old matador and seduces him . The jealous tension among the men builds Jake , Campbell , Cohn , and Romero each love Brett . Cohn , who had been a champion boxer in college , has fistfights with Jake , Mike , and Romero , whom he injures . Despite the tension , Romero continues to perform brilliantly in the bullring . Book Three shows the characters in the aftermath of the fiesta . Sober again , they leave Pamplona . Bill returns to Paris , Mike stays in Bayonne , and Jake goes to San Sebastián in northeastern Spain . As Jake is about to return to Paris , he receives a telegram from Brett asking for help she had left with Romero for Madrid . He finds her in a cheap hotel , without money , and without Romero . She announces she has decided to go back to Mike . The novel ends with Jake and Brett in a taxi speaking of the things that might have been .

<|novel|>The Vicomte de Valmont is determined to seduce the virtuous and married Madame de Tourvel , who is living with Valmont s aunt while Monsieur de Tourvel , a magistrate , is away on a court case . At the same time , the Marquise de Merteuil is determined to corrupt the young Cécile de Volanges , whose mother has only recently brought her out of a convent to be married to Merteuil s recent lover , who has become bored with her and discarded her . Cécile falls in love with the Chevalier Danceny her music tutor and Merteuil and Valmont pretend to want to help the secret lovers in order to gain their trust , so that they can use them later in their own schemes . Merteuil suggests that the Vicomte seduce Cécile in order to exact her revenge on Cécile s future husband . Valmont refuses , finding the task too easy , and preferring to devote himself to seducing Madame de Tourvel . Merteuil promises Valmont that if he seduces Madame de Tourvel and provides her with written proof , she will spend the night with him . He expects rapid success , but does not find it as easy as his many other conquests . During the course of his pursuit , he discovers that Cécile s mother has written to Madame de Tourvel about his bad reputation . He avenges himself in seducing Cécile as Merteuil had suggested . In the meantime , Merteuil takes Danceny as a lover . By the time Valmont has succeeded in seducing Madame de Tourvel , it is suggested that he might have fallen in love with her . Jealous , Merteuil tricks him into deserting Madame de Tourvel and reneges on her promise of spending the night with him . In response Valmont reveals that he prompted Danceny to reunite with Cécile , leaving Merteuil abandoned yet again . Merteuil declares war on Valmont , and in revenge she reveals to Danceny that Valmont has seduced Cécile . Danceny and Valmont duel , and Valmont is fatally wounded . Before he dies he is reconciled with Danceny , giving him the letters proving Merteuil s own involvement . These letters are sufficient to ruin her reputation and she flees to the countryside , where she contracts smallpox . Her face is left permanently scarred and she is rendered blind in one eye , so she loses her greatest asset her beauty . But the innocent also suffer from the protagonist s schemes hearing of Valmont s death , Madame de Tourvel succumbs to a fever and dies , while Cécile returns to the convent .

<|novel|>Innokentii Volodin , a diplomat , makes a telephone call he feels obligated to his conscience to make , even though he knows he risks arrest . His call was taped and the NKVD seek to identify who made the call . The sharashka prisoners work on technical projects to assist state security agencies and generally pander to Stalin s increasing paranoia . While most are aware of how much better off they are than regular Gulag prisoners , some are also conscious of the overwhelming moral dilemma of working to aid a system that is the cause of so much suffering . Lev Rubin is tasked with identifying the voice in the recorded phone call , he examines printed spectrographs of the voice and compares them with recordings of Volodin and five other suspects . He narrows it down to Volodin and one other suspect , both of whom are arrested . By the end of the book , several zeks , including Gleb Nerzhin , the autobiographical hero , choose to stop cooperating , even though their choice means being sent to much deadlier camps . Volodin , initially crushed by the ordeal of his arrest , begins to find encouragement at the end of his first night in prison . The book also briefly depicts several Soviet leaders of the period , including Stalin himself , who is depicted as vain and vengeful , remembering with pleasure the torture of a rival , dreaming of one day becoming emperor of the world , or listening to his subordinate Viktor Abakumov and wondering . . . has the day come to shoot him yet ? The novel addresses numerous philosophical themes , and through multiple narratives is a powerful argument both for a stoic integrity and humanism . Like other Solzhenitsyn works , the book illustrates the difficulty in maintaining dignity within a system designed to strip its inhabitants of it .

<|fantasy|>The author s first novel , it revolves around the protagonist Phaethon full name Phaethon Prime Rhadamanth Humodified augment Uncomposed , Indepconciousness , Base Neuroformed , Silver Gray Manorial Schola , Era 7043 . The novel concerns Phaethon s discovery that parts of his past have been edited out of his mind apparently by himself .

<|comedy|>The story begins in Prague with news of the assassination in Sarajevo that precipitates World War I . Švejk displays such enthusiasm about faithfully serving the Austrian Emperor in battle that no one can decide whether he is merely an imbecile or is craftily undermining the war effort . However , he is arrested by a member of the secret police , Bretschneider , after making some politically sensitive remarks , and is sent to prison . After being certified insane he is transferred to a madhouse , before being ejected . Švejk gets his charwoman to wheel him he claims to be suffering from rheumatism to the recruitment offices in Prague , where his apparent zeal causes a minor sensation . Unfortunately , he is transferred to a hospital for malingerers because of his rheumatism . He finally joins the army as batman to army chaplain Otto Katz Katz loses him at cards to Lieutenant Lukáš , whose batman he then becomes . Lukáš is posted with his march battalion to barracks in České Budějovice , in Southern Bohemia , preparatory to being sent to the front . After missing the train to Budějovice , Švejk embarks on a long anabasis on foot around Southern Bohemia in a vain attempt to find Budějovice , before being arrested as a possible spy and deserter a charge he strenuously denies and escorted to his regiment . He is then promoted to company orderly . The unit embarks on a long train journey towards Galicia and the Eastern Front . Stopping in a town on the border between Austria and Hungary , in which relations between the two nationalities are somewhat sensitive , Švejk is again arrested , this time for causing an affray involving a respectable Hungarian citizen and engaging in a street fight . After a further long journey and close to the front line , Švejk is taken prisoner by his own side as a suspected Russian deserter , after arriving at a lake and trying on an abandoned Russian uniform . Narrowly avoiding execution , he manages to rejoin his unit . The unfinished novel breaks off abruptly before Švejk has a chance to be involved in any combat or enter the trenches , though it appears Hašek may have conceived that the characters would have continued the war in a POW camp , much as he had done . The book also includes a very large number of anecdotes told by Švejk usually either to deflect the attentions of an authority figure , or to insult them in a concealed manner which are not directly related to the plot .

<|fantasy|>The book weaves around the story of a Kesh woman called Stone Telling , who lived for years with her father s people mdash the Dayao or Condor people , whose society is rigid , patriarchal , hierarchical and militarily expansionist . The story fills less than a third of the book , with the rest being a mixture of Kesh cultural lore including poetry , prose of various kinds , mythos , rituals , and recipes , essays on Kesh culture , and the musings of the narrator , Pandora . Some editions of the book were accompanied by a tape of Kesh music and poetry . Pandora describes the book as a protest against contemporary civilization , which the Kesh call the Sickness of Man . Pandora muses that one key difference is that the Kesh have solved the problem of overpopulation there are many fewer of them than there are of us . They use such inventions of civilization as writing , steel , guns , electricity , trains , and a computer network see below . However , unlike most neighboring societies , they reject government , a non laboring caste , expansion of population or territory , disbelief in what we consider supernatural , and human domination of the natural environment . They blend millennia of human economic culture by combining aspects of hunter gatherer , agriculture , and industry , but reject cities indeed , what they call towns would count as villages now .

<|fantasy|>In Forward the Foundation , Isaac Asimov continues the chronicles of the life of Hari Seldon , first begun in Prelude to Foundation . The story takes place on Trantor , and begins eight years after the events of Prelude to Foundation . It depicts how Seldon developed his theory of psychohistory from hypothetical concept to practical application in galactic events . Beginning during the latter years of the reign of Emperor Cleon I , Seldon s work brings him into the world of galactic politics , and takes him to the height of Imperial power as Cleon s First Minister , after the mysterious disappearance of his previous First Minister , Eto Demerzel whom Seldon knows as R . Daneel Olivaw . Seldon becomes First Minister to the Emperor , but loses the position ten years later after the Emperor is assassinated . Gradually , Seldon loses all those who are close to him . Seldon s wife Dors is killed saving his life from an assassin . His adopted son Raych is killed in the Rebellion in Santanni his daughter in law and second granddaughter are missing and never found . Yugo Amaryl dies early , brought on by the strain of his work . Except for his granddaughter Wanda , Seldon is alone . He eventually sends her off to start the Second Foundation . The Galactic Empire s decline accelerates during the later chapters , as does the decline of Seldon s physical health . At the same time , Seldon finally begins to unravel the secrets of psychohistory he initiates a grand plan that will come to be known as the Seldon Plan , the road map for mankind s post Imperial survival .

<|romance|>The story begins in 1951 . John Rivers is speaking to a friend about his encounter with the Maartens family . In 1921 , Rivers , who was extremely sheltered by his widowed mother , is employed as a lab assistant to Henry Maartens , after receiving his PhD . Dr . Maartens is a Nobel Prize winning , socially awkward physicist . Rivers is invited to live in Henry s home until he finds his own place , but the Maartens family soon develops a fondness for Rivers , and insists that he stay with them . Rivers develops respect and fondness for the family , regarding Henry as a genius and his wife Katy as a goddess . As his attraction towards Katy grows , Rivers is simultaneously victimized by her 15 year old daughter Ruth . After being rejected by a 17 year old football player and scholarship winner , Ruth tries to be a dramatic poetess . She fantasizes that she is in love with Rivers to find solace and an outlet for her emotions . Rivers experience with the Maartens family takes an important turn when Katy has to leave for a time to care for her dying mother . The unstable , asthmatic Henry becomes an emotional wreck without his much younger wife to care for him . The children , the household , and Henry himself are cared for only by the housekeeper Beluah and Rivers . Ruth takes advantage of her mother s absence to entertain her cosmetic interests and act out her imaginary love for Rivers , who just laughs at Ruth s poems . Katy returns sooner than planned because of Henry s declining health . She herself has so much vitality that she cannot minister Henry any longer . Learning of her mother s death , Katy turns to Rivers for comfort . Their relationship becomes sexual . Having lost his virginity , Rivers feels guilt for betraying his mother and pious background , and also for betraying his sick master Henry Maartens . As Henry recovers , Katy and Rivers continue their affair secretly . Ruth suspects Rivers of being in love with her mother , and presents him with a poem that subtly describes his affair with her mother . Rivers laughs off the poem , says that it reminds him of his father s sermons , and hides his true emotions . Katy and Rivers agree that he must leave . Rivers prepares to leave , saying that his mother is ill , but Katy and Ruth die in a car accident . Rivers is dejected and only recovers because he meets Helen , his future wife , at a party . Henry lives on and marries Katy s sister , who dies due to her obesity . After her death , Henry Maartens has a last and fourth marriage to a young redhead named Alicia . Henry dies at the age of 87 . The story ends with Rivers , having Henry s biography and the memories of his life at the Maartens .

<|fantasy|>On the planet Duro , a new galactic refugee settlement close to the Core , Jacen Solo has a horrifying vision through the Force about the fate of the galaxy . Amidst the invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong , anger and darkness will become the ultimate enemy of one pivotal individual in the war . And if Jacen embraces such evil , then the galaxy will fall . In order to avoid such catastrophe , Jacen decides to turn his back on the Force forever . However , even in the terror of the Vong s continued invasion of the galaxy , a ray of hope shines in the conceiving of Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker s child . Duro eventually becomes the next target of the Yuuzhan Vong . Though the conquest of the world is successful , Jacen , in a bid to save his mother , Leia , from certain doom , confronts the Vong Warmaster Tsavong Lah in combat , embraces the Force once more , and defeats him . The Skywalkers , the Solos , and several of their friends and allies flee Duro in its loss . And to make things worse , in the aftermath of his humiliation by Jacen , Tsavong Lah makes an ultimatum to the rest of the galaxy If every single member of the Jedi are brought to the Yuuzhan Vong , especially Jacen , then the invaders will settle with Duro and conclude their invasion with what worlds they already have .

<|novel|>Chieko Sada is the daughter of Takichiro and Shige , who operate a kimono wholesale business in Kyoto . Now twenty , Chieko has known since she was in middle school that she was a foundling adopted by Takichiro and Shige . However , as told by Shige , they snatched Chieko when she was a baby Under the cherry blossoms at night at Gion Shrine . The discrepancy on whether Chieko was a foundling or stolen is part of the plot and is revealed later in the story . Soon after a chance encounter at Yasaka Shrine , Chieko learns of a twin sister Naeko , who had remained in her home village in Kitayama working in the mountain forests north of the city . The identical looks of Chieko and Naeko confuse Hideo , a traditional weaver , who is a potential suitor of Chieko . The novel , one of the last that Kawabata completed before his death , examines themes common to much of his literature the gulf between the sexes and the anxiety its recognition brings . The story is set in Kyoto , and incorporates various festivals celebrated there . One of these is the Gion festival which occurs in the book during July . As part of the Gion festival , there is a parade of floats constructed by various neighborhoods in Kyoto and one of Chieko fond memories is of Shin ichi , who is interested in Chieko , participating as a festival boy . The Festival of the Ages is another important festival and this is where Hideo takes Chieko s twin , Naeko , to view the parade .

<|novel|>Vonnegut uses the premise of a timequake or repetition of actions in which there is no free will . The idea of determinism is explored as it is in many of his previous works to assert that people really have no free will . Kilgore Trout serves again as the main character , who the author declares as having died in 2001 , at Xanadu retreat in Rhode Island . Vonnegut explains in the beginning of the book that he was not satisfied with the original version of Timequake he wrote or Timequake One . Taking parts of Timequake One and combining it with personal thoughts and anecdotes produced the finished product , so called Timequake Two . Many of the anecdotes deal with Vonnegut s family , the death of loved ones , and people s last words . The plot , while centered on Trout , is also a sort of ramble in which Vonnegut goes off on complete tangents to the plot and comes back dozens of pages later the Timequake has thrust citizens of the year 2001 back in time to 1991 to repeat every action they undertook during that time . Most of the small stories in the book expound on the depression and sadness wrought by watching oneself make bad choices people watch their parents die again , drive drunk or cause accidents that severely injure others . At the end of the timequake , when people resume control , they are depressed and gripped by ennui . Kilgore Trout is the only one not affected by the apathy , and thus helps revive others by telling them , You were sick , but now you re well , and there s work to do . In the conclusion of this book , Vonnegut who has inserted himself into the text , something he also did in Breakfast of Champions and , to a lesser degree , in Slaughterhouse Five meets other authors for a celebration of Trout . The celebration , described as a clambake , is heavily foreshadowed throughout the novel s previous chapters .

<|mystery|>Against the background of a student rebellion , two murders are committed on the Tisquanto State College campus . The first victim is one of the conservative deans , who is stabbed after his life size effigy has been burned on a stake specially erected by a group of students . The second victim is a female student whose body is found dangling from a rope in the campus bell tower . The missing student is found near a river , severely beaten up and in a coma . In the end it turns out that one of the rebellious students is the killer . However , the murders are nothing to do with radical student politics In a drug induced frenzy , the killer has murdered the people who stood in his way to personal success or who were threatening to expose his criminal schemes .

<|novel|>Arrowsmith tells the story of bright and scientifically minded Martin Arrowsmith as he makes his way from a small town in the Midwest to the upper echelons of the scientific community . He is born in Elk Mills , Winnemac , the same fictional state in which several of Lewis s other novels are set . Along the way he experiences medical school , private practice as the only doctor in tiny Wheatsylvania , North Dakota , various stints as regional health official , and the lure of high paying hospital jobs . Finally , Arrowsmith is recognized by his former medical school mentor , Max Gottlieb , for a scientific paper he has written and is invited to take a post with a prestigious research institute in New York . The book s climax deals with Dr . Arrowsmith s discovery of a phage that destroys bacteria and his experiences as he faces an outbreak of bubonic plague on a fictional Caribbean island . Martin s wife , Leora , is the steadying , sensible , self abnegating anchor of his life . When Leora dies of the plague that Martin is sent to study and exterminate , he seems to lose all sense of himself and of his principles . The novel comes full circle at the end as Arrowsmith deserts his wealthy second wife and the high powered directorship of a research institute to pursue his dream of an independent scientific career in backwoods Vermont .

<|fantasy|>The book follows the evolution of mankind as it shapes surviving Purgatorius into tree dwellers , remoulds a group that drifts from Africa to a then much closer New World on a raft formed out of debris , and confronting others with a terrible dead end as ice clamps down on Antarctica . The stream of DNA runs on elsewhere , where ape like creatures in North Africa are forced out of their diminishing forests to come across grasslands where their distant descendants will later run joyously . At one point , hominids become sapient , and go on to develop technology , including an evolving universal constructor machine that goes to Mars and multiplies , and in an act of global ecophagy consumes Mars by converting the planet into a mass of machinery that leaves the Solar system in search of new planets to assimilate . Human extinction or the extinction of human culture also occurs in the book , as well as the end of planet Earth and the rebirth of life on another planet . The extinction level event that causes the human extinction is , indirectly , an eruption of the Rabaul caldera , coupled with various actions of humans themselves , some of which are only vaguely referred to , but implied to be a form of genetic engineering which removed the ability to reproduce with non engineered humans . Also to be found in Evolution are ponderous Romans , sapient dinosaurs , the last of the wild Neanderthals , a primate who witnesses the extinction of the dinosaurs , symbiotic primate tree relationships , mole people , and primates who live on a Mars like Earth . In the book s epilogue , it is implied that the replicator machines sent by humans to Mars have developed sentience and high technology , unknowingly advancing the late mankind s legacy in the Universe .

<|childrens|>The story is narrated in the first person as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse named Black Beauty beginning with his carefree days as a colt on an English farm with his mother , to his difficult life pulling cabs in London , to his happy retirement in the country . Along the way , he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness . Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty s life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness , sympathy , and understanding treatment of horses , with Sewell s detailed observations and extensive descriptions of horse behaviour lending the novel a good deal of verisimilitude . The book describes conditions among London horse drawn taxicab drivers , including the financial hardship caused to them by high licence fees and low , legally fixed fares . A page footnote in some editions says that soon after the book was published , the difference between 6 day taxicab licences not allowed to trade on Sundays and 7 day taxicab licences allowed to trade on Sundays was abolished and the taxicab licence fee was much reduced .

<|childrens|>On Christmas Eve night , while his wife and children sleep , a man awakens to noises outside his house . Looking out the window , he sees St . Nicholas in an air borne sleigh pulled by eight reindeer . After landing his sleigh on the roof , the saint enters the house through the chimney , carrying a sack of toys with him . The man watches Nicholas filling the children s stockings hanging by the fire , and laughs to himself . They share a conspiratorial moment before the saint bounds up the chimney again . As he flies away , Saint Nicholas wishes everyone a Happy Christmas to all , and to all a good night .

<|fantasy|>The alchemists of the Discworld have invented moving pictures . Many hopefuls are drawn by the siren call of Holy Wood , home of the fledgling clicks industry among them Victor Tugelbend Can t sing . Can t dance . Can handle a sword a little . , a dropout from Ankh Morpork s Unseen University and Theda Ginger Withel , a girl from a little town you never ever heard of , who become stars , and the Discworld s most infamous salesman , Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler , who introduces commerce to the equation and becomes a successful producer . Meanwhile , it gradually becomes clear that the production of movies is having a deleterious effect on the structure of reality . Ginger is possessed by an unspecified entity and she and Victor find an ancient , hidden cinema , complete with portal to the Dungeon Dimensions . Back in Ankh Morpork , a creature from the Dungeon Dimensions breaks through , and Victor fights it , having found out that with a camera pointing at him in real life works out the way it does in the movies .

<|fantasy|>Princess Ozma and Dorothy travel to an obscure corner of the Land of Oz , in order to prevent a war between two local powers , the Skeezers and the Flatheads . The leaders of the two tribes prove obstinate . Unable to prevent the war , Dorothy and Ozma find themselves imprisoned on the Skeezers glass covered island , which has been magically submerged to the bottom of its lake . Their situation worsens when the warlike queen Coo ee oh , who is holding them captive and who alone knows how to raise the island back to the surface of the lake , loses her battle and gets transformed into a swan , forgetting all her magic in the process . Ozma and Dorothy summon Glinda , who , with help from several magicians and magical assistants , must find a way to raise the island and liberate its trapped inhabitants .

<|childrens|>The novel is narrated by a 13 year old girl , Salamanca Tree Hiddle Sal . Sal s mother , Sugar , has recently left Sal and her father for reasons that are initially unclear . Sal , an only child , has had a very close relationship with her mother and is devastated by her departure . After Sal s father realizes that Sugar will never return , he and Sal move from their beloved farm in Bybanks , Kentucky to Euclid , Ohio , where a woman with whom he has recently become involved , Mrs . Magaret Cadaver , helps him find a job . Sal s beloved Gram and Gramps take her on a cross country car trip to Lewiston , Idaho to reach her mother in time for her birthday Sal hopes to bring Sugar home with her . On the trip , Sal entertains her grandparents by telling them about a friend in Euclid , Phoebe Winterbottom , whose mother , after many manifestations of discontent with her life , has also left her family . Intertwined with Sal s narrative is the story of her growing friendship with several classmates and her tentative romance with one of these classmates , Ben Finney . Over the course of the book , as Sal and her grandparents travel west , and Sal continues telling Phoebe s story , parallels and differences between Sal s and Phoebe s lives become clear . Sal s grandmother dies of a stroke just after she has achieved one of her lifelong wishes , seeing Old Faithful in Yellowstone , and right before they are due to arrive in Lewiston . Sal s grandfather , who has previously taught Sal how to drive , encourages Sal to complete the journey to Lewiston . There , she visits the site of a bus crash . We learn that Sal s mother has died in a horrific bus crash whose only survivor was Mrs . Cadaver . At this point the novel s denouement the reader realizes that Sal has already been told of the accident and her mother s death however , she has not been able to believe that her mother is truly dead until she sees the site of the crash and her mother s grave . Sal now accepts her loss . She and her grandfather return home , and Sal and her father return to rebuild their life on their farm in Bybanks , where Sal can once again gather strength from the nature that she loves . She maintains her friendships with Phoebe , Ben , and Mrs . Cadaver , who make plans to visit her on her farm .

<|fantasy|>As the opening of the book explains , this is a story where the leading character is Money . The Rosewater Foundation was founded by United States senator Lister Ames Rosewater of Indiana to help Rosewater descendants avoid paying taxes on the family estate in Rosewater County , Indiana . It is operated by a large legal firm in New York and provides an annual pension of 3 . 5 million to Eliot , the senator s son . Restless , Eliot goes through the list of things philanthropists do to help the poor , and eventually sets out across America , going from small town to small town , before landing in Rosewater and setting up shop . He calls Rosewater home after becoming a volunteer firefighter in numerous cities across the U . S . This , along with his drunkenness , his generous relationship with the poor in Rosewater , and his odd relationship with his French wife , make him appear a bit crazy . Norman Mushari , a conniving lawyer , is determined to prove him insane so he can reroute a portion of the Rosewater fortune to himself , while transferring it to unwitting distant Rosewater cousins in Rhode Island .

<|novel|>The novel has no single central character it both begins and ends with an ironic play on the narrator s omniscience , and its focus is on different responses to the experience of war . It tells the story of a machinegun company in the war from mobilisation to armistice . A picture of the whole nation in microcosm , the men come from all over the country a result of Linna s unusual patchwork regiment units were normally made up of men from the same region . The men have widely varying social backgrounds and political attitudes , and they all have their own ways of coping , but the general picture is one of a quite relaxedly businesslike attitude , and the men s disrespect for formalities and discipline is a source of frustration for some of the officers . They are all there just to get the job done , and official propaganda , both their own and that of the enemy , is to them a source of amusement or outright offensive . Linna s own description of the men in the novel s final sentence is aika velikultia something like good old boys . The main officer characters are three lieutenants who embody different attitudes one strict and aloof , one relaxed and fraternal , one idealistic and later disillusioned but brave and loyal to his men . Linna excels in describing the psychology of his characters . He paints realistic yet deeply sympathetic portraits of a score of very different men cowards and heroes , the initially naive , eventually brave upper class idealist Kariluoto , the down to earth Koskela , the hardened and cynical working class grunt Lehto , the platoon comedian Vanhala and the preternaturally strong nerved Rokka , the politically indifferent Hietanen and the communist Lahtinen . It is only for the sternest officers of the Prussian school for whom he has little love . Many of his characters have come to be seen as archetypes of Finnish men , household names to whom reference can be made without explanation .

<|childrens|>Carol Milford is a liberal , free spirited young woman , reared in the metropolis of Saint Paul , Minnesota . She marries Will Kennicott , a doctor , who is a small town boy at heart . When they marry , Will convinces her to live in his home town of Gopher Prairie , Minnesota a town modeled on Sauk Centre , Minnesota , the author s birthplace . Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie . But her disdain for the town s physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it . She speaks with its members about progressive changes , joins women s clubs , distributes literature , and holds parties to liven up Gopher Prairie s inhabitants . Despite her friendly , but ineffective efforts , she is constantly derided by the leading cliques . She finds comfort and companionship outside her social class . These companions are taken from her one by one . In her unhappiness , Carol leaves her husband and moves for a time to Washington , D . C . , but she eventually returns . Nevertheless , Carol does not feel defeated I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be ! I do not admit that dish washing is enough to satisfy all women !