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<|fantasy|>The main character in the story is a nameless whisky priest , who combines a great power for self destruction with pitiful cravenness , an almost painful penitence and a desperate quest for dignity . By the end , though , the priest acquires a real holiness . The other main character is a lieutenant of the police who is given the task of hunting down this priest . This Lieutenant mdash also nameless but thought to be based upon Tomás Garrido Canabal mdash is a committed socialist who despises everything that the church stands for . The story starts with the arrival of the priest in a country town in an area where Catholicism is outlawed , and then follows him on his trip through Mexico , where he is trying to minister to the people as best as he can . He is also haunted by his personal demons , especially by the fact that he had fathered a child in his parish some years before . He meets the child , but is unable to feel repentant about what happened . Rather , he feels a deep love for the evil looking and awkward little girl and decides to do everything in his power to save her from damnation . The priest s opposite player among the clericals is Padre José , a priest who has been forced to renounce his faith and marry a woman by order of the government and lives as a state pensioner . During his journey the priest also encounters a mestizo who later reveals himself to be a Judas figure . The lieutenant , on the other hand , is morally irreproachable , yet he is cold and inhumane . While he is supposedly living for the people , he puts into practice a diabolic plan of taking hostages from villages and shooting them , if it proves that the priest has sojourned in a village but is not denounced . The lieutenant has also had bad experiences with the church in his youth , and as a result there is a personal element in his search for the whisky priest . The lieutenant thinks that all members of the clergy are fundamentally evil , and believes that the church is corrupt , and does nothing but provide delusion to the people . In his flight from the lieutenant and his posse , the priest escapes into a neighbouring province , only to re connect with the mestizo , who persuades the priest to return in order to hear the confession of a dying man . Though the priest suspects that it is a trap , he feels compelled to fulfil his priestly duty . Although he finds the dying man , it is a trap and the lieutenant captures the priest . The lieutenant admits he has nothing against the priest as a man , but he must be shot as a danger . On the eve of the execution , the lieutenant shows mercy and attempts to enlist Padre José to hear the condemned man s confession . The lieutenant is convinced that he has cleared the province of priests . In the final scene , however , another priest arrives in the town which , among other possible readings , suggests that the Catholic Church cannot be destroyed .

<|fantasy|>The novel focuses on Maurice Bendrix , a rising writer during World War II in London , and Sarah Miles , the wife of an impotent civil servant . Bendrix is loosely based on Greene himself , and he reflects often on the act of writing a novel . Sarah is based loosely on Greene s mistress at the time , Catherine Walston , to whom the book is dedicated . Bendrix and Sarah fall in love quickly , but he soon realizes that the affair will end as quickly as it began . The relationship suffers from his overt and admitted jealousy . He is frustrated by her refusal to divorce Henry , her amiable but boring husband . When a bomb blasts Bendrix s flat as he is with Sarah , he is nearly killed . After this , Sarah breaks off the affair with no apparent explanation . Later , Bendrix is still wracked with jealousy when he sees Henry crossing the Common that separates their flats . Henry has finally started to suspect something , and Bendrix decides to go to a private detective to discover Sarah s new lover . Through her diary , he learns that , when she thought he was dead after the bombing , she made a promise to God not to see Bendrix again if He allowed him to live again . Greene describes Sarah s struggles . After her sudden death from a lung infection brought to a climax by walking on the Common in the rain , several miraculous events occur , advocating for some kind of meaningfulness to Sarah s faith . By the last page of the novel , Bendrix may have come to believe in a God as well , though not to love Him . The End of the Affair is the fourth and last of Greene s explicitly Catholic novels .

<|fantasy|>The novel s protagonist , Isham Stone , is on a mission to kill the man allegedly responsible for the destruction of civilization a scientist named Wendell Carlson , currently living alone at the former Columbia University in what used to be New York City . Isham has been told by his father , scientist Jacob Stone , that Carlson is a madman who brought the world to its current state by releasing a hyperosmic plague a virus that increases the sensitivity of the human sense of smell by many hundred times . With their senses of smell thus heightened , humans were unable to tolerate the odors produced by their own pollution producing technology the result was mass insanity and widespread rioting . Another result was the discovery of a species of Muskys mdash intelligent plasmoids mdash that live in the Earth s upper atmosphere and feed on human pollutants . The curtailment of technological activity has caused them to approach the planet s surface and attack human beings , on whose fear they are apparently able to feed . Isham sets out for New York and succeeds in locating Carlson . He learns from Carlson , however , that the man actually responsible for developing and releasing the plague is Isham s father Jacob . Isham returns to his home colony and sets a trap to kill his father , then returns to New York . The original novella By Any Other Name ends at this point . The novel continues as Isham s old teacher , Collaci , sets out to bring him back from New York to face a murder charge . Isham is successfully captured , but before he can be tried , his colony is attacked by Agros anti technology worshippers of Pan and he is taken prisoner . Eventually Isham manages to bring about a measure of peace between the scientists and the neo Luddites mdash and also learns that his father is not dead . The newly reconciled factions of humanity set out to rebuild civilization .

<|action|>The protagonist of the story is Robert Bellamy , a man hired by the NSA to locate the several bus passengers in Switzerland who had accidentally seen a weather balloon with some top secret equipment later on identified as a UFO collapsing in the woods . As Robert locates the passengers one by one , they are mysteriously killed . Each murder has been meticulously staged to appear as an accident . Robert s marriage also dissolves , as his wife , starved for attention by Robert , marries a rich business tycoon Monte Banks . As Commander Robert Bellamy of US Navy is in the verge of completion of his mission , he learns that he is being hunted by an unknown lethal force . Robert runs escaping from the attackers from Washington to Zurich , Rome and Paris . As the story unfolds to reveal Bellamy s past why the woman he loves cannot return his love , why his most beloved friends become his deadly enemies . Bellamy finally learns that the investigation ends in the place where he had started it .

<|childrens|>A 5 year old girl named Dot is lost in the outback after chasing a hare into the wood and losing sight of her home . She is approached by a red kangaroo who gives her some berries to eat . Upon eating the berries , Dot is able to understand the language of all animals , and she tells the kangaroo her plight . The kangaroo , who has lost her own joey , decides to help little Dot despite her own fear of humans . The book is filled with criticism on negative human interference in the wild in 1884 .

<|mystery|>An introduction states that two canonical Holmes adventures were fabrications . These are The Final Problem , in which Holmes apparently died along with Prof . James Moriarty , and The Empty House , wherein Holmes reappeared after a three year absence and revealed that he had not been killed after all . The Seven Per Cent Solutions Watson explains that they were published to conceal the truth concerning Holmes Great Hiatus . The novel begins in 1891 , when Holmes first informs Watson of his belief that Professor James Moriarty is a Napoleon of Crime . The novel presents this view as nothing more than the fevered imagining of Holmes cocaine sodden mind it further states that Moriarty was the childhood mathematics tutor of Sherlock and his brother Mycroft . Moriarty meets Watson , denies that he is a criminal and reluctantly threatens to pursue legal action unless the latter s accusations cease . The heart of the novel consists of an account of Holmes recovery from his addiction . Watson and Holmes brother Mycroft induce Holmes to travel to Vienna , where Watson introduces him to Dr . Freud . Using a treatment consisting largely of hypnosis , Freud helps Holmes shake off his addiction and his delusions about Moriarty , but neither he nor Watson can revive Holmes dejected spirit . What finally does the job is a whiff of mystery one of the doctor s patients is kidnapped and Holmes curiosity is sufficiently aroused . The case takes the three men on a breakneck train ride across Austria in pursuit of a foe who is about to launch a war involving all of Europe . Holmes remarks during the denouement that they have succeeded only in postponing such a conflict , not preventing it Holmes would later become involved in a European War in 1914 . One final hypnosis session reveals a key traumatic event in Holmes childhood his father murdered his mother for adultery and committed suicide afterwards . It was Moriarty who informed Holmes and his brother of their deaths , and his tutor then became a dark and malignant figure in his subconscious . Freud and Watson conclude that Holmes , consciously unable to face the emotional ramifications of this event , has pushed them deep into his unconscious while finding outlets in fighting evil , pursuing justice , and many of his famous eccentricities , including his cocaine habit . However , they decide not to discuss these subjects with Holmes , believing that he would not accept them , and that it would needlessly complicate his recovery . Watson returns to London , but Holmes decides to travel alone for a while , advising Watson to claim that he had been killed , and thus the famed Great Hiatus is more or less preserved . It is during these travels that the events of Meyer s sequel The Canary Trainer occur .

<|novel|>Jimmy Corrigan is a meek , lonely middle aged man who meets his father for the first time in a Michigan town over Thanksgiving weekend . Jimmy is an awkward and cheerless character with an overbearing mother and a very limited social life . Jimmy attempts to escape his unhappiness via an active imagination that gets him into awkward situations . A parallel story set in the Chicago World s Columbian Exposition of 1893 shows Jimmy s grandfather as a lonely little boy and his difficult relationship with an abusive father , Jimmy s great grandfather . Another storyline shows Jimmy as a lonesome child of divorce , suggesting that this was Jimmy s real childhood , while his Smartest Kid on Earth adventures are probably his fantasies .

<|novel|>The book takes place over a two month period in late 1991 early 1992 , with occasional flashbacks to the expulsion of the Arabs , the beginning of the Intifada , the Gulf War and other events in the more immediate past . Sacco spent this time meeting with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the narrative focuses on the minute details of everyday life in the occupied territories , presenting the daily struggles , humiliations and frustrations of the Palestinians . Sacco s visit to Israel and the occupied territories is presented chronologically , from his arrival to his departure , through dramatic scenes with only a handful of diversions to present the historical and personal background . Most of the scenes in the book are conversations between Sacco and Palestinians , and though the events they talk about are presented visually the dialogue is always present as a form of narration for the events . Sacco devotes whole pages to drawings of the destitution and squalor prevalent in the occupied territories . Though Sacco is the principal narrator at times he steps aside and allows other characters to present their stories uninterrupted and without interpretation . In his drawings , though most of the panels are presented as a side view of Sacco , other characters and their surroundings , there are several panels which present the scene as it looks from Sacco s point of view . There are also panels which present a bird s eye view of places like the refugee camps or Jerusalem . In Palestine Sacco positions himself knowingly as the westerner going to the Middle East to confront a reality unfamiliar to his American audience . Sacco does not delude himself that as a neutral observer he can remain invisible and have no effect on the events around him , instead accepting his role and concentrating on his personal experience of the situation . Though his goal is to document events and interview Palestinians he is affected by the reality of the occupied territories and cannot help but participate in , and comment on , demonstrations , funerals , roadblocks and encounters with soldiers . Towards the end he becomes even more active as he shares food and lodgings with the Palestinians he interviews and even breaks curfew with them while in the Gaza Strip . In the book Sacco references Joseph Conrad s Under Western Eyes , Heart of Darkness , and Edward Said s Orientalism to draw links between the situation he is witnessing and colonialism . Towards the end of the book Sacco acknowledges that he has not reflected Israel enough , that it would take a whole other trip to present that side of things .

<|fantasy|>Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron is about a man named Clay Loudermilk and his attempts to locate his estranged wife , Barbara Allen . The song the Ballad of Barbara Allen forms a commentary on the story with its elements of unrequited love , loss , and death . For reasons unknown , Clay is in the audience at a porno theatre when he sees a bizarre BDSM feature also titled Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron , the star dominatrix of which is revealed to be his wife . Clay sets out to locate her and becomes embroiled in a series of misadventures involving an incredibly bizarre and varied cast of supporting characters . Clay is victimized by two crazed policemen , meets a religious cult led by a mass murderer who intend to overthrow the American government , conspiracy theorists who believe that the reins of the world s political power somehow revolve around a series of dime store novelty figures , an inhumanly malformed , potato like young woman and her nymphomaniacal mother , and various other freaks and weirdos . During one dream sequence , the infamous Foot Foot , from the song by The Shaggs , gnaws on Clay s leg . The happy face icon of Mr . Jones also appears in various places through the story , tattooed into people , carved on to Clay s foot , as a ghost like character , in Hitler s birthmark , and on the sign for Value Ape shops . It signifies the way in which logos pervade our societies , and links to the conspiracy elements of the story . The true nature of the potato woman s father is never learned by Mr . loudermilk , but the reader will see suggestions of the Cthulhu Mythos . The phrase What s the Frequency , Kenneth ? , referencing the bizarre Dan Rather incident some years before the R . E . M . song did the same thing , is used as part of the Mr . Jones conspiracy sub plot . There are , in addition , references to child porn and . The story is for adults only , and has a violent , ugly climax .

<|novel|>The story centers on Quoyle , a newspaper pressroom worker from upstate New York whose father emigrated from Newfoundland . Shortly after his parents suicide , Quoyle s unfaithful and abusive wife Petal leaves town and attempts to sell their two daughters to sex traffickers . Soon thereafter , Petal and her lover are killed in a car accident the young girls are located by police and returned to Quoyle . Despite his daughters safe return , Quoyle s life is collapsing , and his paternal aunt , Agnis Hamm , convinces him to return to Newfoundland for a new beginning . They return to their ancestral home on Quoyle s Point . He obtains work as a traffic accident reporter for the Gammy Bird , the local newspaper in Killick Claw , a small town . The Gammy Bird s editor also asks him to document the shipping news , arrivals and departures from the local port , which soon grows into Quoyle s signature articles on boats of interest in the harbour . Quoyle gradually makes friends within the community , learns about his own troubled family background , and begins a relationship with a local woman , Wavey . Quoyle s growth in confidence and emotional strength , as well as his ability to be comfortable in a loving relationship , become the book s main focus . Quoyle learns deep and disturbing secrets about his ancestors that emerge in strange ways .

<|novel|>The title refers to the friendship between the scribe , Philo , and Judas Iscariot , the disciple who betrayed Jesus . The premise is that Judas was actually Jesus most trusted disciple , and chose him for the important job of betraying him to the authorities . In other words , Judas was following Jesus instructions . He tells his story to Philo , who writes it all down on papyrus , seals it up in a Greek jar , and hides it until it is discovered in the 20th century . The story goes that Judas hanged himself , not because he was ashamed of betraying Jesus , but because he had not kept the secret as Jesus had made him promise to do .

<|fantasy|>The story of the original draft begins at the Monastery of Shu , whose abbot abuses Li Kao until he saves the abbot s life . The abbot then gives him a beggar s bowl and robe and tells him one day he will be called and it is his duty to follow that call . Li Kao departs on a quest to become rich and stay young in China . Li Kao begins his journey in the city of Peking where he steals five hundred gold coins in order to start his life of wealth . While fleeing , he falls off a cliff and finds the legendary skull of Cheng Hang , who charges him to find three trinkets , a crystal ball , a bronze bell , and a small flute , in order to fix a terrible event that happened in heaven which has separated two gods in love who are unable to see each other due to the laws of heaven and can only be reunited by forming the Bridge of Birds . Li Kao is given only the knowledge of what to look for and the hint that Cheng Hang will somehow provide Li Kao with a dragon that will help guide him on his quest . His quest takes him to have multiple quarrels with the savage Duke of Ch in who will do anything in his power to stop Li Kao from succeeding from finding a secret truth hidden inside the quest for the trinkets . In the end , he completes the quest , the Bridge of Birds is formed , and all in heaven is set right again .

<|childrens|>The book is written as a memoir which covers physical and emotional abuse between Dave Pelzer and his biological mother .

<|childrens|>The main conflict in the novel comes from Margaret s need to settle her mixed religious heritage . She deals with her issues of belief in God , as the story is frequently interlaced with her praying by beginning with the title s words Are You there , God ? it s me , Margaret . In school , she is assigned a year long independent study project she chooses a study on people s beliefs , which proves to be more than she can handle as she is finding out a lot about herself as well . She also is dealing with conflict between her grandparents on both sides of her family , as her maternal grandparents are trying to guarantee that she is indeed Christian as she was born with a Christian mother . Margaret enjoys spending time with her paternal grandmother , who seems to accept her for who she is and is more accepting of her son s interfaith marriage , although she has referred to Margaret as my Jewish girl and introduced her to synagogue services , supposedly for the purpose of showing her granddaughter what the Jewish faith entails , but in reality when Margaret asks she immediately claims that she always knew she was a Jewish girl . Her grandmother s arrogance is again shown when her Christian grandparents come , claiming her as a Christian , she tells Margaret to remember that she s a Jewish girl . Margaret denies this and claims not to believe in God , which angers her grandmother . The ambiguities of her interfaith identity are particularly highlighted in a scene mdash following a heated argument with another girl mdash in which Margaret visits a church , finding her way to the confessional booth there the unseen priest inquires as to her problems , but mdash believing at first that the priest is God himself speaking to her and not comprehending the concept of Christian confession or its confidential nature mdash she simply responds I am sorry , before running out of the church in tears . Margaret eventually stops talking to God after being in the middle of a confrontation between her parents and maternal grandparents . She is angry at him for putting her in such a conflict . In the end of the book , she goes to the bathroom and finds spots of blood in her underwear . She calls her mom , who was prepared for this and has bought pads . She puts the pad on , and makes one final prayer to God before the book ends Besides religion though , Margaret moves from New York to the New Jersey suburbs , where she encounters Nancy , who leads her into a club where they talk about boys , bras , and periods . She becomes attracted to Phillip Leory , a boy at school , and kisses him at a party while playing Spin the Bottle . She does get a bra and is excited but also confused about growing up .

<|action|>Mary Ashley , a professor at Kansas State University , is offered an ambassadorship by Paul Ellison , the US president . She rejects the offer because her husband , Dr . Edward Ashley , does not want to leave his medical practice , and she is not willing to be separated from him . She also feels that it is harder to find a good doctor for a small Kansas town than an ambassador to a foreign country . When her husband suddenly dies in a suspicious traffic accident , Ashley accepts the President s offer in order to fill the void in her life . She is sent to Romania , behind the Iron Curtain , where she finds that everyone is conspiring against her . She s on the glinting edge of East West confrontation , a beautiful and accomplished scholar who has suddenly become the new US ambassador to an Iron Curtain country , a woman who is about to dramatically change the course of world events if she lives . For Mary Ashley has been marked for death by the world s most proficient and mysterious assassin , and plunged into a nightmare of espionage , kidnapping and terror .

<|childrens|>Stanley Lambchop and his younger brother Arthur are given a big bulletin board by their father to display pictures and posters . He hangs it on the wall over Stanley s bed . During the night the board falls from the wall , flattening Stanley in his sleep . He survives and makes the best of his altered state , and soon he is entering locked rooms by sliding under the door , and playing with his younger brother by being used as a kite . One special advantage is that Flat Stanley can now visit his friends by being mailed in an envelope . Stanley even helps catch some art museum thieves by posing as a painting on the wall . Eventually Arthur changes Stanley back to his proper shape with a bicycle pump .

<|fantasy|>The Castle of Otranto tells the story of Manfred , lord of the castle , and his family . The book begins on the wedding day of his sickly son Conrad and princess Isabella . Shortly before the wedding , however , Conrad is crushed to death by a gigantic helmet that falls on him from above . This inexplicable event is particularly ominous in light of an ancient prophecy T hat the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present family , whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it . Manfred , terrified that Conrad s death signals the beginning of the end for his line , resolves to avert destruction by marrying Isabella himself while divorcing his current wife Hippolita , whom he feels has failed to bear him a proper heir . However , as Manfred attempts to marry Isabella , she escapes to a church with the aid of a peasant named Theodore . Manfred orders Theodore s death while talking to the friar Jerome , who ensured Isabella s safety in the church . When Theodore removes his shirt to be killed , Jerome recognizes a marking below his shoulder and identifies Theodore as his own son . Jerome begs for his son s life , but Manfred says Jerome must either give up the princess or his son s life . They are interrupted by a trumpet and the entrance of knights from another kingdom who want to deliver Isabella . This leads the knights and Manfred to race to find Isabella . Theodore , having been locked in a tower by Manfred , is freed by Manfred s daughter Matilda . He races to the underground church and finds Isabella . He hides her in a cave and blocks it to protect her from Manfred and ends up fighting one of the mysterious knights . Theodore badly wounds the knight , who turns out to be Isabella s father , Frederic . With that , they all go up to the castle to work things out . Frederic falls in love with Matilda and he and Manfred begin to make a deal about marrying each other s daughters . Manfred , suspecting that Isabella is meeting Theodore in a tryst in the church , takes a knife into the church , where Matilda is meeting Theodore . Thinking his own daughter is Isabella , he stabs her . Theodore is then revealed to be the true prince of Otranto and Matilda dies , leaving Manfred to repent . Theodore becomes king and eventually marries Isabella because she is the only one who can understand his true sorrow .

<|fantasy|>Bill is a farmboy on a small backward agricultural planet who is drugged , hypnotised , then shanghaied into the Space Troopers and sent to recruit training under a fanged instructor named Deathwish Drang . After surviving boot camp , he is transferred to active duty as a fuse tender on the flagship of the space fleet in battle with the Chingers , a small reptilian race . Injured and with the fleet almost destroyed , he fires off a shot witnessed by the admiralty and is proclaimed a hero . As a reward he is sent to the city planet Helior to receive a medal from the emperor . However , Bill s city plan is stolen on a sightseeing tour as it takes him days to get back to his transit centre , he arrives to find himself AWOL and considered a deserter after missing his transport . He escapes and flees into the depths of the city , where he first falls in with a gang of similarly deplanned outlaws , then finds employment with Helior s garbage disposal service . But his unwilling recruitment as a spy to infiltrate an ineptly run anarchist plot leads to his arrest . He is sent to a prison unit working on the planet where the Human Chinger war continues . Escaping during an attack , he rescues some prisoners and meets a dying Deathwish Drang . He then shoots off his own foot to get off planet . The book ends with the story coming full circle as Bill , with an artificial foot and Deathwish Drang s fangs , returns to his home planet and recruits his younger brother into the Troopers .

<|comedy|>The novel tells the story of Paul Pennyfeather , student at the fictional Scone College , Oxford , who is sent down for running through the college grounds without his trousers , having become , inadvertently , immersed in the activities of the Bollinger Club . Having defaulted on the conditions of his inheritance , he is forced to take a job teaching at an obscure public school in Wales called Llanabba , run by Dr Fagan . Attracted to the wealthy mother of one of his pupils , Pennyfeather becomes private tutor to her boy , Peter , and then engaged to be married to her the Honourable Mrs Margot Beste Chetwynde who later becomes Lady Metroland , and appears in Waugh s other novels . Pennyfeather , however , is unaware that the source of her income is a number of high class brothels in South America . Arrested on the morning of the wedding , after running an errand for Margot related to her business , Pennyfeather takes the fall to protect his fiancée s honour and is sentenced to seven years in prison for traffic in prostitution . Margot marries another man with government ties and he arranges for Paul to fake his own death and escape . In the end he returns to where he started at Scone . He studies under his own name , having convinced the college that he is the distant cousin of the Paul Pennyfeather who was sent down previously . The novel ends as it started , with Paul sitting in his room listening to the distant shouts of the Bollinger Club . The novel was dramatized as the 1969 film , Decline and Fall . . . of a Birdwatcher starring Robin Phillips and also for BBC Radio 4 in 2008 by Jeremy Front and starred Alistair McGowan as Pennyfeather , Jim Broadbent as Grimes , Andrew Sachs as Prendergast , Edward Hardwicke as Dr . Fagan , Jonathan Kidd as Philbrick , Joanna David as Margot Beste Chetwynde , Emma Fielding as Flossie and Richard Pearce as Peter .

<|fantasy|>Lanark comprises four books , arranged in the order Three , One , Two , Four there is also a Prologue before Book One , and an Epilogue four chapters before the end of the book . In the Epilogue , the author explains this by saying that I want Lanark to be read in one order but eventually thought of in another , and that the epilogue itself is too important to go at the end p . nbsp 483 . In Book Three , a young man awakes alone in a train carriage . He has no memory of his past and picks his name from a strangely familiar photograph on the wall . He soon arrives in Unthank , a strange Glasgow like fantasy city in which there is no daylight and whose disappearing residents suffer from strange symbolic diseases . Lanark begins to associate with a group of twenty somethings to whom he cannot fully relate and whose mores he cannot understand , and soon begins to suffer from Dragonhide , a disease which turns his skin into scales as an external manifestation of his emotional repression . Lanark is eventually swallowed by the earth , and awakes in The Institute , a sort of hospital which cures patients of their diseases but uses the hopeless cases for power and food . Upon learning this , Lanark is horrified and determines to leave . Books One and Two constitute a realist Bildungsroman beginning in pre War Glasgow , and tell the story of Duncan Thaw based on myself , he was tougher and more honest , a difficult and precocious child born to impecunious and frustrated parents in the East End of Glasgow . The book follows Thaw s wartime evacuation , difficult secondary education and his scholarship to the Glasgow School of Art , where his inability to form relationships with women and his obsessive artistic vision lead to his descent into madness and eventual suicide by drowning . Book Four sees Lanark begin a bizarre , dreamlike journey back to Unthank , which he finds on the point of total disintegration , wracked by political strife , avarice , paranoia and economic meltdown , all of which he is unable to prevent . During various stages of the journey , during which he meets his author , he rapidly ages . He finally finds himself old , sitting in a hilltop cemetery as Unthank breaks down in an apocalypse of fire and flood , and , his time of death having been revealed to him , he ends the book calmly awaiting it .

<|comedy|>The novel is written in the first person , continuing the aesthetic of Ellis earlier Less Than Zero , and is told from the points of view of multiple characters . The main narrators are three students Paul , Sean , and Lauren . A number of other characters also provide first hand accounts throughout the story , which takes place at the fictional Camden College , a liberal arts school on the East Coast of the United States . The three main characters who rarely attend class end up in a love triangle within a sequence of drug runs , Dress to Get Screwed , and End of the World parties . The story begins midway through a sentence the first word being and in order to give the effect that it begins somewhere closer to the middle , rather than at a true beginning in medias res . Another interpretation is that the story has neither a beginning nor an ending , signifying the endless cycle of debauchery in which the characters of the novel engage . This is sometimes mistaken by readers as a typographical error or the result of a missing page , but was purposely done by Ellis . The novel ends in a similar fashion , with the last sentence cut off before it ends .

<|novel|>Isabel Archer , originally from Albany , New York , is invited by her maternal aunt , Lydia Touchett , to visit Lydia s rich husband Daniel at his estate near London , following the death of Isabel s father . There , she meets her cousin Ralph Touchett , her friendly invalid uncle , and the Touchetts robust neighbor , Lord Warburton . Isabel later declines Warburton s sudden proposal of marriage . She also rejects the hand of Caspar Goodwood , the charismatic son and heir of a wealthy Boston mill owner . Although Isabel is drawn to Caspar , her commitment to her independence precludes such a marriage , which she feels would demand the sacrifice of her freedom . The elder Touchett grows ill and , at the request of his son , leaves much of his estate to Isabel upon his death . With her large legacy , Isabel travels the Continent and meets an American expatriate , Gilbert Osmond , in Florence . Although Isabel had previously rejected both Warburton and Goodwood , she accepts Osmond s proposal of marriage . She is unaware that this marriage has been actively promoted by the accomplished but untrustworthy Madame Merle , another American expatriate , whom Isabel had met at the Touchetts estate . Isabel and Osmond settle in Rome , but their marriage rapidly sours due to Osmond s overwhelming egotism and his lack of genuine affection for his wife . Isabel grows fond of Pansy , Osmond s presumed daughter by his first marriage , and wants to grant her wish to marry Edward Rosier , a young art collector . The snobbish Osmond would rather that Pansy accept the proposal of Warburton , who had previously proposed to Isabel . Isabel suspects , however , that Warburton may just be feigning interest in Pansy to get close to Isabel again . The conflict creates even more strain within the unhappy marriage . Isabel then learns that Ralph is dying at his estate in England and prepares to go to him for his final hours , but Osmond selfishly opposes this plan . Meanwhile , Isabel learns from her sister in law that Pansy is actually the daughter of Madame Merle , who had an adulterous relationship with Osmond for several years . Isabel pays a final visit to Pansy , who desperately begs her to return some day , something Isabel reluctantly promises . She then leaves , without telling her spiteful husband , to comfort the dying Ralph in England , where she remains until his death . Goodwood encounters her at Ralph s estate and begs her to leave Osmond and come away with him . He passionately embraces and kisses her , but Isabel flees . Goodwood seeks her out the next day , but is told she has set off again for Rome . The ending is ambiguous , and the reader is left to imagine whether Isabel returned to Osmond to suffer out her marriage in noble tragedy perhaps for Pansy s sake or whether she is going to rescue Pansy and leave Osmond .

<|childrens|>Maxwell Kane helps Rachel , nicknamed Worm because of her love of reading , run from her overly religious and abusive stepfather . Nicknamed The Undertaker , he drives a hearse and wears pitch black clothing . The Undertaker accuses Max of kidnapping Rachel , so Max and Worm run safaway with Dippy Hippie on his bus , the Prairie Schooner . Along the way , they meet two con artists , Frank and Joanie , who read about Max and Worm and a money reward for finding them . Frank then turns them in , and Max and Worm have to leave the Prairie Schooner . To take them the rest of the way they hop a train with Hobo Joe and arrive in Chivalry , Montana . They go into a mining tunnel and Max discovers that Worm s birth father has already died in a mining accident . The Undertaker arrives there with the police and Max and Worm run away in the tunnels . They meet Dip , and Max s grandfather , Grim . The police catch them , and Worm runs back into the tunnel . She thinks about committing suicide to be with her father , but Max talks her out of it . The book ends with Worm and her mother coming to live with Max and his grandparents . Max frequently mentions his old friend Kevin , also nicknamed Freak , throughout the book .

<|novel|>Devdas is a young man from a wealthy Bengali Brahmin family in India in the early 1900s . Paro Parvati is a young woman from a middle class Bengali family belonging to the merchant caste . The two families lived in a village in Bengal , and Devdas and Paro were childhood friends . Devdas goes away for thirteen years to live and study in a boarding school in the city of Calcutta now Kolkata . When , after finishing school , he returns to his village , Paro looks forward to their childhood love blossoming into their lifelong journey together in marriage . Of course , according to the prevailing social custom , Paro s parents would have to approach Devdas parents and propose marriage of Paro to Devdas as Paro longed for . When Paro s mother makes the proposal to Devdas mother , the latter insults her , plainly saying that the marriage is not possible in view of her own higher caste and financial status . To demonstrate her own social status , Paro s mother then finds an even richer husband for Paro . When Paro learns of her planned marriage , she stealthily meets Devdas at night , desperately believing that Devdas will quickly accept her hand in marriage . Devdas meekly seeks his parents permission to marry Paro , but Devdas father agrees with his wife . In a weak minded state , Devdas then flees to Calcutta , and from there , he writes a letter to Paro , saying that they were only friends . Within days , however , he realizes that he should have been bolder . He goes back to his village and tells Paro that he is ready to do anything needed to save their love . By now , Paro s marriage plans are in an advanced stage , and she declines going back to Devdas and chides him for his cowardice and vacillation . She makes , however , one request to Devdas that he would return to her before he dies . Devdas vows to do so . Devdas goes back to Calcutta and Paro is married off to the betrothed widower with children , who is still in love with his previous wife and is therefore not interested in an amatory relationship with Paro . In Calcutta , Devdas carousing friend , Chunnilal , introduces him to a courtesan named Chandramukhi . Devdas takes to heavy drinking at Chandramukhi s place , but the courtesan falls in love with him , and looks after him . His health deteriorates because of a combination of excessive drinking and despair of life a drawn out form of suicide . Within him , he frequently compares Paro and Chandramukhi , remaining ambivalent as to whom he really loves . Sensing his fast approaching death , Devdas returns to meet Paro to fulfill his vow . He dies at her doorstep on a dark , cold night . On hearing of the death of Devdas , Paro runs towards the door , but her family members prevent her from stepping out of the door . The novella powerfully depicts the prevailing societal customs in Bengal in the early 1900s , which are largely responsible for preventing the happy ending of a genuine love story .

<|fantasy|>The novel focuses around several stories that eventually intertwine in the climax . The first story focuses on Han Solo and his new friend and copilot Droma seeking the latter s displaced family throughout the war torn galaxy . They eventually come across the planet Ruan , which is planning to destroy all of its servant droids in order to appease the Yuuzhan Vong . Han and Droma foil this plan , and one of the droids tells Han what the Vong s next target planet is . Meanwhile , the Yuuzhan Vong have allied with the Hutt Empire for more convenient invasions . However , the Hutts are secretly double crossing the Vong to the New Republic , and are subtly providing the latter government the former s plans . The Yuuzhan Vong know of the Hutts betrayal and are intentionally misleading their supposed allies in order to dupe the New Republic itself as to the truth of their next target world . Two supposed targets are Corellia and Bothawui . The latter is heavily fortified in defense of an invasion while the former is set to appear nearly defenseless , but has a secret weapon at its side Centerpoint Station . The station can only be activated through Anakin Solo s DNA since he shut Centerpoint down years earlier . In order to counter the Yuuzhan Vong s relentless invasion of the galaxy , Ambassador Leia Organa Solo bids the Hapes Consortium to join the war against the Vong . Queen Mother Tenenial Djo and her husband Prince Isolder agree to this despite the reluctance of other influential parties within the Consortium , and they arm their military to fight the Vong . Ultimately , the Yuuzhan Vong s next target planet isn t either Corellia or Bothawui , but the shipyards of Fondor . The Hutts openly betray the Vong as a result and fully side with the combined forces of the New Republic and Hapes Consortium . However , Cetnerpoint Station is already activated , and even though Anakin Solo refuses to use it , his ambitious first cousin , Thrackan Sal Solo , uses it to fire right into the Fondor system . Though it decimates two thirds of the Vong forces , it s also a tragedy for the New Republic and Hapes forces alike . Nevertheless , the Battle of Fondor is considered a victory for the New Republic , and Droma reunites with his family . But the Hapes Consortium backs out of the war and Tenenial Djo miscarries her next child due to the disturbance she felt through the Force as a result of all the lives suddenly lost thanks to Centerpoint . The surviving refugees in the aftermath of Fondor , including Droma and his family , are transported to Duro as a safe haven from the Vong . . . for now .

<|novel|>Nostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana a fictional nation , though its geography as described in the book closely matches real life Colombia . Costaguana has a long history of tyranny , revolution and warfare , but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera . Charles Gould is a native Costaguanero of English descent who owns an important silver mining concession near the key port of Sulaco . He is tired of the political instability in Costaguana and its concomitant corruption , and uses his wealth to support Ribiera s government , which he believes will finally bring stability to the country after years of misrule and tyranny by self serving dictators . Instead , Gould s refurbished silver mine and the wealth it has generated inspires a new round of revolutions and self proclaimed warlords , plunging Costaguana into chaos . Among others , the revolutionary Montero invades Sulaco Gould , adamant that his silver should not become spoil for his enemies , orders Nostromo , the trusted capataz de los cargadores head longshoreman of Sulaco , to take it offshore so it can be sold into international markets . Nostromo is an Italian expatriate who has risen to his position through his daring exploits . Nostromo is Italian for shipmate or boatswain , but the name could also be considered a corruption of the Italian phrase nostro uomo , meaning our man . Nostromo s real name is Giovanni Battista Fidanza Fidanza meaning trust in archaic Italian . Nostromo is a commanding figure in Sulaco , respected by the wealthy Europeans and seemingly limitless in his abilities to command power among the local population . He is , however , never admitted to become a part of upper class society , but is instead viewed by the rich as their useful tool . He is believed by Charles Gould and his own employers to be incorruptible , and it is for this reason that Nostromo is entrusted with removing the silver from Sulaco to keep it from the revolutionaries . Nostromo s power and fame continues to grow , as he daringly rides over the mountains to summon the army which saves Sulaco s powerful leaders from the revolutionaries . In Conrad s universe , however , almost no one is incorruptible . The exploit does not bring Nostromo the fame he had hoped for , and he feels slighted and used . Feeling that he has risked his life for nothing , he is consumed by resentment , which leads to his corruption and ultimate destruction , for he has kept secret the true fate of the silver after all others believed it lost at sea . In recovering the silver for himself , he is shot and killed , mistaken for a trespasser , by the father of his fiancée , the keeper of the lighthouse on the island of Great Isabel .

<|fantasy|>Following the savage Yuuzhan Vong conquest of Duro , Leia Organa Solo barely clings to life , having endured the vicious torture of the alien invaders . Her husband , Han Solo , rushes her to safety , but in a galaxy ready to blame the Jedi for the alien scourge , finding a refuge is nearly impossible . With bounty hunters in close pursuit , Solo has little choice but to head to Coruscant , but even the New Republic capital is no haven from anti Jedi sentiment and treachery .

<|childrens|>Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother Arliss while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s . When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family , Travis reluctantly adopts the dog . Though Travis initially loathes the rascal and at first tries to get rid of it , Old Yeller eventually proves his worth , saving the family on several occasions . Travis grows to love this dog named Old Yeller . And they become great friends . The rightful owner of Yeller shows up looking for his dog . The owner recognizes that the family has become attached to Yeller , and trades the dog to Arliss for a home cooked meal prepared by Travis s mother , who is an exceptional cook . Old Yeller becomes exposed to rabies while defending the family from an infected wolf . They try to nurse Yeller back to health , but in the end Travis is forced to shoot the dog . Old Yeller s had puppies with one of Travis s friend s dogs , and the puppy helps Travis get over Old Yeller s death .

<|childrens|>Tom Brown is energetic , stubborn , kind hearted , and athletic more than intellectual . He acts according to his feelings and the unwritten rules of the boys around him more than adults rules . The early chapters of the novel deal with his childhood at his home in the Vale of White Horse including a nostalgic picture of a village feast . Much of the scene setting in the first chapter is deeply revealing of Victorian England s attitudes towards society and class , and contains a comparison of so called Saxon and Norman influences on England . This part of the book , when young Tom wanders the valleys freely on his pony , serves as a sort of Eden with which to contrast the later hellish experiences in his first years at school . His first school year is at a local school . His second year starts at a private school , but due to an epidemic of fever in the area , all the school s boys are sent home , and Tom is transferred mid term to Rugby School , where he makes acquaintance with the adults and boys who live at the school and in its environs . On his arrival , the eleven year old Tom Brown is looked after by a more experienced classmate , Harry Scud East . Soon after , Tom and East become the targets of a bully named Flashman . The intensity of the bullying increases , and , after refusing to hand over a sweepstake ticket for the favourite in a horse race , Tom is deliberately burned in front of a fire . Tom and East eventually defeat Flashman with the help of a kind though comical older boy , Diggs . In their triumph they become unruly . In the second half of the book , Dr . Thomas Arnold , the historical headmaster of the school at the time , gives Tom the care of George Arthur , a frail , pious , academically brilliant , gauche , and sensitive new boy . A fight that Tom gets into to protect Arthur , and Arthur s nearly dying of fever , are described in loving detail . Tom and Arthur help each other and their friends develop into young gentlemen who say their nightly prayers , do not cheat on homework , and play in a cricket match . An epilogue shows Tom s return to Rugby and its chapel when he hears of Arnold s death .

<|fantasy|>In this novel , Li Kao and Number Ten Ox are attending the execution of a notorious criminal about whose capture the less said the better , according to the chronicler when into the public square bounds a vampire ghoul who soon meets a fiery demise . Master Li is given the case by the Celestial Master who soon becomes a main suspect . The plot involves everything from a conspiracy involving fake tea to dog brides , puppeteers to magic birdcages , assorted pre Chinese demons and gods , and the hooded and ancient Eight Skilled Gentlemen . The plot also involves a subject rarely mentioned in fiction , the pre Chinese aborigines and their gods .

<|fantasy|>Five centuries after the conclusion of Earthfall , there is only one original colonist from Harmony Shedemei , who now wears the Cloak of the Starmaster a device that links her to the Oversoul . After hundreds of years , the descendants of Nafai and Elemak have built cities and towns yet never forgetting the enmity between the two brothers . After hundreds of years , the Oversoul still has not achieved its original purpose to find the Keeper of Earth , the central intelligence that alone can repair the Oversoul s damaged counterpart at Harmony . But now , the Keeper has once again begun to spread its influence . Heeding the dreams below , Shedemei has decided to return to Earth . The last book in the Homecoming saga marks a departure from the style and storyline of the previous four . All of the characters from the previous novels except Shedemei are long dead . The central conflict between Nafai and Elemak is represented in their descendants , but takes a back seat in this book . The focus is on the struggles within the descendants of those who followed Nafai . The king of Darakemba an empire founded by the Nafaris , his children , and his advisers , along with the high priest of Darakemba , his children , and his converts , provide the main actions in the story .

<|novel|>Jonathan Gates is a student at UCLA in the early 1960s , where he begins his love affair with film at The Classic , a rundown independent movie theatre . He begins an affair with the theatre s owner Clarissa Clare Swann , who tutors him extensively in the study of film history over the course of their relationship . It is through Clare s pursuit of classic films to show at the theatre that Gates stumbles upon the work of Max Castle , a B Movie director of German origin whose work uses subliminal imagery and unorthodox symbolism to achieve a powerful effect over the viewer . Gradually , Gates rises through the academic ranks to achieve a professorial chair , becoming most respected as the rediscoverer and champion of Castle s work . Through Gates extensive research , the reader learns of Castle s considerable influence over the great films of his time , culminating in a collaboration with Orson Welles to make the acclaimed movie Citizen Kane , followed by a failed attempt to adapt Conrad s Heart of Darkness to the silver screen . Also revealed , however , are his shadowy connections with a religious group known as the Orphans of the Storm , as well as his disappearance in 1941 . Clare , meanwhile , has become a respected New York film critic , entrusting the Classic theatre to her one time projectionist Don Sharkey , who stops showing artful films in favour of shallow entertainment for a new generation of moviegoers . Among the up and coming directors Sharkey showcases is one Simon Dunkle , whom Gates learns belongs to the same religious sect as Max Castle . Gates begins to investigate the Orphans , despite their own attempts to stifle his research and the adverse effect that the constant viewing of Orphan made films is having on his personality . He learns that they are Gnostic dualists , living in secrecy since the Catholic persecutions of Catharism in the Middle Ages . Gates begins to suspect that the Orphans are using an extensive influence in the film industry to subliminally promote their religion while they enact their plans to bring about the Apocalypse in the year 2014 . Eventually , Gates turns to his former lover Clare for help . She introduces him to a Father Angelotti , a Cathar in disguise as a Catholic priest . Angelotti persuades him to infiltrate the Orphans church , so as to obtain the conclusive evidence that will allow Gates to publish what he has discovered . The Orphans put him on a private plane , ostensibly to meet the elders of their faith . En route , they drug his coffee and he awakes , imprisoned on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean . Living in a nearby hut is none other than Max Castle himself , more than 30 years after his disappearance . Gates and the film director he once idolised use scraps and castoffs from a waste heap of old celluloid to splice together one final film , while they wait for Armageddon to come .

<|fantasy|>The time is somewhere in the near future from the 1970s , and Bob Shairp is a government worker for a project in which a human being s individual qualities can be stored as computer data mdash on Müller Fokker tapes . These reel to reel tapes , flesh pink in color , can store an entire person s identity in four tapes . The people recorded on the tapes can be reconstructed by encoding the tapes data into a virus and infecting someone with that virus see mind uploading . Of course , that person would have to be backed up too , and a game of musical chairs is set in motion . Bob Shairp is being recorded for test purposes on the tapes when there is an accident and the chair he is sitting in explodes , destroying his body . Only from the tapes can he be resurrected . This somewhat conventional science fiction premise is something of a MacGuffin , as the novel s other major characters struggle to possess the Müller Fokker tape in numerous subplots that satirize various prominent forces in 1970s America , including the military , evangelism , men s magazines , and radical anticommunist groups such as the John Birch Society . The novel also focuses heavily on parallels between the right wing politics of Sladek s time and Nazism one main character is closely based on Adolf Hitler , recast as a semi literate American racist obsessed with African Americans .

<|fantasy|>The children of Wetchik are ready to board the starship Basilica and embark on their journey from the planet Harmony back to the origin of humanity Earth . However , the rivalry between Nafai and Elemak promises the journey will be anything but peaceful . Each faction already has hidden plans to prematurely awaken from the long hibernation , to have the upper hand when the landing occurs . The children become pawns in their parents power struggle valuable potential adults that can strengthen each faction . But the Oversoul is ultimately in control , having uploaded a copy of itself into Basilica s central computer , so that it can monitor the ship at all times . After landing on Earth , the fragile peace wrought onboard is merely a mask for the turmoils of passions that boil beneath . Not only do the colonists have to deal with the split , there are also the mysteriously symbiotic alien races that have evolved on Earth since humanity s departure . The quest to understand the Angels giant bats and the Diggers giant rats that were foreshadowed in the dreams is not an easy one . The focus throughout the course of this novel begins to drift away from the original generation of characters in order to delineate the passage of time . The factions that developed among the original generation have now spread to their children , through no fault of the children themselves . Nafai finds himself and his Nafari living and working primarily amongst the angel people , whereas the Elemaki associate much more closely with the diggers . It is this dissociation that eventually breaks nearly all the bonds literally , for Hushidh and Cheveya between Nafai and his older brother , Elemak . As Elemak s rage and hatred for Nafai grow , he ingrains such feelings into his family and the digger people , laying the foundation for war . After the death of Volemak the Nafari migrate northwards away from the landing site to found a new nation .

<|fantasy|>The premise of the collection is that Vonnegut employs Dr . Jack Kevorkian to give him near death experiences , allowing Vonnegut access to heaven and those in it for a limited time . While in the afterlife Vonnegut interviews a range of people including Adolf Hitler , William Shakespeare , Isaac Asimov , and the ever present Kilgore Trout a fictional character created by Vonnegut in his earlier works . it Dio la benedica dott . Kevorkian hu Áldja meg az Isten , Dr . Kevorkian ru ,

<|fantasy|>Elidor originated as a short radio play . The story concerns the adventures of young teenagers as they struggle to hold back a terrible darkness by fulfilling a prophecy from another world . The plot moves to and from the world of Elidor , and the city of Manchester and parts of northern Cheshire in the real world . Like many of Garner s books , the emphasis of the narrative is on the hardships , cost and practicalities of the choices and responsibilities that the protagonists face .

<|novel|>In A Handful of Dust Waugh satirises the British landed gentry and mercantile class . The novel is set in the 1930s , and focuses on the breakdown of the marriage of Tony and Brenda Last . The aristocratic Tony is preoccupied with the maintenance of his family home , Hetton Abbey , an example of unfashionable Victorian Gothic architecture . John Beaver , a self interested and impoverished social climber , invites himself to Hetton for the weekend , and soon after begins an affair with Brenda , who yearns for urban excitement . After the Lasts son , also called John , dies in a riding accident , Brenda decides that she wants a divorce . In order to avoid any scandal for his wife , Tony agrees to go through the sham of creating appropriate grounds for divorce . Their agreement on the divorce falls apart when Brenda s brother reveals that Brenda s family at Beaver s urging will insist on a monetary settlement so large as to require Tony to sell Hetton Tony refuses to grant or file for a divorce . Instead , he participates in an expedition to Brazil . Stranded in the jungle , Tony falls ill , and his expedition companion , Dr . Messinger , dies while attempting to retrieve help . Tony wanders , delirious , until he stumbles into an isolated tribal village . Once there , he is nursed back to health , and then held captive by a Mr . Todd , who insists that Tony remain forever , reading the works of Charles Dickens to him . Meanwhile , Brenda s relationship with John Beaver has fallen apart , after it became apparent that she would not become a rich divorcée . Shortly after Tony is declared dead , Brenda marries the couple s mutual friend , Jock Grant Menzies . The novel ends with obscure relatives of Tony taking over Hetton . Waugh used as the final chapter for the novel a slightly adapted version of a pre existing short story , The Man Who Liked Dickens . When the novel was serialized in the American magazine Harper s Bazaar , Waugh had to supply a new ending because the short story , which had been published in the US earlier , could not for copyright reasons appear in the magazine . In the alternative ending , included as an appendix in some editions of the book , Tony returns from Brazil and to his relationship with Brenda . Waugh wrote of the novel s development I had just written a short story The Man Who Liked Dickens about a man trapped in the jungle , ending his days reading Dickens aloud . The idea came quite naturally from the experience of visiting a lonely settler of that kind and reflecting how easily he could hold me prisoner . . . eventually the thing grew into a study of other sorts of savages at home and the civilized man s helpless plight among them . Gallagher , 303 .

<|childrens|>In 1948 1949 , the Canadian Wildlife Service assigns the author to investigate the cause of declining caribou populations and determine whether wolves are to blame for the shortage . Upon finding his quarry near Nueltin Lake , Mowat discovers that rather than being wanton killers of caribou , the wolves subsist quite heavily on small mammals such as rodents and hares , even choosing them over caribou when available . He concludes that We have doomed the wolf not for what it is , but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be the mythological epitome of a savage , ruthless killer which is , in reality , no more than the reflected image of ourself . Mowat comes to fear an onslaught of wolfers and government exterminators out to erase the wolves from the Arctic . Mowat s book established that Arctic Wolves usually prey upon Arctic Ox , Caribous , smaller mammals , and rodents but since they rely on stamina instead of speed , it would be logical for the wolves to choose a smaller prey than a large animal like caribou , which is much faster and stronger , and therefore a more formidable target . A lone arctic wolf has a better chance of killing large prey by running alongside it and attacking its neck . The wolf would be at a disadvantage if it attacked large prey from behind , because the animal s powerful hind legs could kick the wolf , possibly causing injury . However , a group of wolves may be successful in attacking large prey from a number of positions . Since arctic wolves often travel in a group , the wolves best strategy is not to kill any surplus , since the whole group could sate themselves on just one or two large animals . There are , however , exceptions to this .

<|novel|>The story offers a feminist perspective on the person of Christ and on the beginnings of the Christian Church . Since it presents Jesus as merely a human being and deviates from the orthodox biblical portrayal of the Son of Man , the novel was severely criticised by mainstream Christians . sv Enligt Maria Magdalena

<|fantasy|>Ralph Roberts , a retired widower , begins to suffer from insomnia . As his condition worsens , Ralph begins to see things that are invisible and intangible to others colorful manifestations of life force surrounding people auras , and diminutive white coated beings he calls little bald doctors , based on their appearance . Roberts perceives other planes of reality and their influence upon the real world . He finds that his sweetheart , Lois Chasse , is also a sufferer . They eventually discover that their insomnia has been induced by the two little bald doctors to help them defeat agents of the Crimson King . Ralph and Lois name the two good doctors Clotho and Lachesis , while the third bad doctor is called Atropos they are all named after the Moirai of mythology . Ralph overcomes Atropos and forces him to promise to stay out of their business , the doctors all being bound by their word . However , Atropos has his revenge by showing Ralph a glimpse of the not too distant future in which he claims the life of the innocent Natalie Deepneau . Ralph is able to counterbalance this however , by striking a deal with Clotho and Lachesis whereby he trades his own life for Natalie s . Meanwhile , Ed Deepneau , Natalie s father and Ralph s neighbor , falls under the control of the Crimson King . Deepneau attempts to crash a light plane containing explosives into the Derry Civic Center during a heavily attended rally . Ralph and Lois realize that the Crimson King is using Deepneau to kill a small boy named Patrick Danville , the focus of a prophecy concerning the salvation of The Dark Tower . Danville cannot , for undisclosed reasons , be killed directly by anyone born under either the Random or the Purpose . However , from time to time a being is born who is undesignated . An undesignated person is described as being like a blank card , and is up for grabs by either side . Deepneau is one such person , in fact the only person on earth at that time of undesignated status . Ralph defeats the King and forces the light plane to crash into the parking lot killing Deepneau and sparing Danville s life , allowing him to fulfill his destiny and setting the path for the Dark Tower series . The story ends on a tragic note as Ralph , to uphold his bargain with Clotho and Lachesis , is hit and killed by a car to prevent Natalie Deepneau from being killed in his place . The story closes on the remark that Ralph is finally able to rest .

<|crime|>Juliette is raised in a convent . However , at age 13 she is seduced by a woman who immediately explains that morality , religion and other such concepts are meaningless . There are plenty of similar philosophical musings during the book , all attacking the ideas of God , morals , remorse , love , etc . , the overall conclusion being that the only aim in life is to enjoy oneself at no matter whose expense . Juliette takes this to the extreme and manages to murder her way through numerous people , including various family members and friends . During Juliette s life from age 13 to about 30 , the wanton anti heroine engages in virtually every form of depravity and encounters a series of like minded libertines . She meets the ferocious Clairwil , whose main passion is in murdering young men . She meets Saint Fond , a 50 year old multi millionaire who commits incest with his daughter , murders his father , tortures young girls to death on a daily basis and even plots an ambitious scheme to provoke a famine that will wipe out half the population of France . A long audience with Pope Pius VI is one of the most extensive scenes in Juliette . The heroine shows off her learning to the pope whom she most often addresses by his secular name Braschi with a verbal catalogue of alleged immoralities committed by his predecessors . The audience ends , like almost every other scene in the narrative , with an orgy . Soon after this , the male character Brisatesta narrates two scandalous encounters . The first is with Princess Sophia , niece of the King of Prussia , who has just married the Stadtholder at the Hague . This is presumably intended for Wilhelmina of Prussia , Princess of Orange , who married William V of Orange , the last Dutch Stadtholder , in 1767 , and was still alive when Juliette was published . The second encounter is with Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia .

<|fantasy|>After Johnny Maxwell , a boy in his early teens , finds Mrs . Tachyon , an old bag lady , by a cinema he discovers that her trolley is in fact a time machine . He goes back to his town , Blackbury , during the time of The Blitz with his friends Walter , aka Wobbler , Bigmac , Kirsty and Yo less possibly because Johnny has been obsessing about the destruction of Paradise Street in a German raid . Wobbler gets left behind in 1941 , and when they return for him , Johnny tries to prevent the deaths caused in the raid .

<|crime|>The novel follows the adventures of Conrad Metcalf , a tough guy private detective and a wiseass , through a futuristic version of San Francisco and Oakland , California . Metcalf is hired by a man who claims that he s being framed for the murder of a prominent urologist . Metcalf quickly discovers that nobody wants the case solved not the victim s ex wife , not the police , and certainly not the gun toting kangaroo who works for the local mafia boss .

<|fantasy|>Seventy eight year old Jeff Baker has revolutionized the world by inventing the ultimate method of information storage and allowing free use of it with no profits going into his own pocket . Because of this generous act , he is chosen by the European Union to be the first recipient for rejuvenation technology , which will leave him with the body of a young man . As part of the deal , he will support the re election of the EU president . Jeff s son Tim has a fairly typical frustrated life as a rich teenager , living with his famous father and distant mother . Tim is extremely happy when he starts going out with gorgeous Annabelle . She likes him , but she has a troubled home life and Tim s drink problem reminds her of her father . Jeff comes home from the rejuvenation in his 20 year old body . Energized by his new youthfulness , he has a series of affairs . Reconnecting with his son , Jeff reveals to Tim that the reason he gave away the information storage technology was so his hated ex wife could not get any royalties . The amazing act of charity he is famous for was motivated by spite , not goodwill . But Jeff find himself attracted to Annabelle , and while giving her a ride home after Tim got too drunk at a school dance , they start a tawdry affair behind Tim s back and fall in love . Their passionate relationship is only a secret for a short time before Tim finds them in bed together . His life falling apart , Tim runs away to live with his Aunt Jeff s sister , stops drinking and doing drugs , and makes friends with his mother . Eventually he finds a new romantic interest in Vanessa , one of his classmates . Jeff and Annabelle are happy together , traveling around the world , meeting celebrities , even experimenting with a ménage à trois . However , they are sad that they have hurt Tim , who gets seriously injured in a jet ski accident , providing a catalyst for Jeff to re enter Tim s life . Jeff and Annabelle both attend a controversial EU conference in London so Jeff can speak supporting the EU . Tim and his friends join a massive and violent protest in the streets below the conference . As the riots begin , concerned for Tim s safety , Jeff changes his mind about supporting the EU and leaves the conference to charge through the riots to find his son . Impressed by this act , Tim finds it in him to forgive his father and Annabelle . In the end , Jeff is dying because the rejuvenation treatment is not yet a properly functional technology , and it is failing him . After impregnating Annabelle with a second genetically improved child , a girl this time , he begins a live broadcast , where he reveals the lies of the EU government and rescinds his support for the presidential campaign . He dies surrounded by his family and loved ones .

<|fantasy|>The novel primarily focuses on the life story of Randall Peterson Pete Armstrong , a child prodigy with total recall memory , whose entire life s outlook has been defined the tragic murder of his younger brother , Leonard , by an ex convict who was believed to be capable of committing violent crimes again , but could not be imprisoned any longer under the current law structure . Pete is committed to making a difference for humanity that will atone for his brother s death and help millions of others , too . In his first year at Harvard at the age 13 , Pete is recruited to enroll in a small , but exclusive , class of the brightest and most agile students on campus . In that class , he meets people and establishes friendships that will further his identity . It is there that the idea of a truth machine is conceived and Pete realizes that its existence is possible and that he could do it . The truth machine would be a mechanism that would be 100 accurate in determining if a person was lying or telling the truth . It could help eliminate crime and dishonesty in general . As long as it is employed universally and not just by government officials , the truth machine could revolutionize humanity and take it to that next evolutionary step which would help it avert its coming self destruction .

<|novel|>Each part of Walking on Glass , apart from the last , is divided into three sections , which appear at first sight to be independent stories . Graham Park is a young man in love with a girl he met at a party , Sara ffitch . Richard Slater is his friend . Bob Stock , a macho black leathered never properly seen image of Nemesis seems all that stands in the way of Graham s happiness . Steven Grout is a paranoid roadmender who believes himself to be an admiral from a galactic war imprisoned in the body of an Earthman . He believes he is under constant threat from the Microwave Gun , and reads lots of science fiction , since he had long ago realised that if he was going to find any clues to the whereabouts of the Way Out , the location or identity of the Key , there was a good chance he might get some ideas from that type of writing . Quiss is one of a pair of war criminals the other is Ajayi from opposing sides in a galactic war , who are imprisoned in the Castle of Bequest also Castle Doors and forced to play impossible games until they can solve the riddle What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object ? Eventually , links between the three storylines become apparent , and the ending has a flavour of incest .

<|fantasy|>Perrin Aybara continues trying to rescue his wife Faile Bashere , kidnapped by the Shaido Aiel , even resorting to torturing prisoners for information . In addition , Perrin is approached with the suggestion of alliance with the Seanchan , at least on a temporary basis , to defeat the Shaido . Mat Cauthon continues trying to escape Seanchan controlled territory while courting Tuon , the Daughter of the Nine Moons , the woman whom he has kidnapped and who , it has been prophesied , will become his wife . Mat discovers that Tuon is a sul dam and can be taught to channel the One Power . Elayne Trakand continues trying to solidify her hold on the Lion Throne of Andor . Also it is revealed that she is expecting twins , but the identity of the father Rand is kept secret from others . Rand al Thor , the Dragon Reborn , rests after the ordeal of cleansing the One Power . He sends Davram Bashere , Logain Ablar , and Loial to negotiate a truce with the Seanchan . They return at the end of the book to tell him that the Seanchan have accepted the truce , but demand the presence of the Dragon Reborn to meet with the Daughter of the Nine Moons who , it is known , is not with the Seanchan , foreshadowing a trap . Egwene leads the rebel Aes Sedai in maintaining the siege of Tar Valon . At the end of the book , she is kidnapped by agents of the White Tower after successfully blocking the River Port at the White Tower .

<|fantasy|>It is set in a dystopian society in the very near future . Although it is not obvious at first , this is also an alternate history story . The central character is Haldane IV , a mathematician , in a caste based society . He forms a forbidden relationship with Helix , a poet . He also becomes interested in investigating Fairweather , a famous mathematician who lived shortly before his time , and his son Fairweather II , who he discovers led a rebellion , which was defeated . Eventually he is given a show trial and deported to another planet , where he meets Fairweather II . In this world , Jesus Christ became a revolutionary agitator and was never subjected to crucifixion . He assembled an army to overthrow the Roman Empire , and established a theocracy that has lasted until the twentieth century . He was killed by a crossbow while entering Rome , so the crossbow becomes a religious symbol similar to the cross in our society .

<|childrens|>In the ruins of an amphitheatre just outside an unnamed city lives Momo , a little girl of mysterious origin . She came to the ruin , parentless and wearing a long , used coat . She is illiterate and can t count , and she doesn t know how old she is . When asked , she replies , As far as I remember , I ve always been there . She is remarkable in the neighbourhood because she has the extraordinary ability to listen mdash really listen . By simply being with people and listening to them , she can help them find answers to their problems , make up with each other , and think of fun games . The advice given to people go and see Momo ! has become a household phrase and Momo makes many friends , especially an honest , silent street cleaner , Beppo , and a poetic , extroverted tour guide , Guido . This pleasant atmosphere is spoiled by the arrival of the Men in Grey , eventually revealed as a race of paranormal parasites stealing the time of humans . Appearing in the form of grey clad , grey skinned , bald men , these strange individuals present themselves as representing the Timesavings Bank and promote the idea of timesaving among the population Supposedly , time can be deposited to the Bank and returned to the client later with interest . After encountering the Men in Grey , people are made to forget all about them but not about the resolution to save as much time as possible for later use . Gradually , the sinister influence of the Men in Grey affects the whole city life becomes sterile , devoid of all things considered time wasting , like social activities , recreation , art , imagination , or sleeping . Buildings and clothing are made exactly the same for everyone and the rhythms of life become hectic . In reality the more time people save the less they have the time they save is actually lost to them . Instead , it is consumed by the Men in Grey in the form of cigars made from the dried petals of the hour lilies that represent time . Without these cigars the Men in Grey cannot exist . Momo , however , is a wrench in the plans of the Timesaving Bank thanks to her special personality . The Men in Grey try various plans to take care of her , derailing her from stopping their scheme , but they all fail . When even her closest friends fall under the influence of the Men in Grey in one way or another , Momo s only hope to save the time of mankind is the personification of Time Professor Secundus Minutus Hora Second Minute Hour and Cassiopeia , a tortoise which can communicate through writing on her shell and can see thirty minutes into the future . Momo s adventure will take her from the depths of her heart , where her own time flows from in the form of lovely hour lilies , to the lair of the Men in Grey themselves , where the time people believe they save is hoarded .

<|action|>Bill Cary is a bush pilot living in Lapland in northern Finland , making a precarious living flying aerial survey flights looking for nickel deposits , and occasional charter cargo flights of dubious legitimacy in his beat up old de Havilland Beaver . Towards the end of the flying season , a wealthy American hunter hires him to fly into a prohibited part of Finland near the Soviet border in order to hunt bear . Subsequently , he is assaulted by thugs when he refuses a charter contract to search for a lost Tsarist treasure , comes under suspicion from the Finnish police for smuggling when Tsarist era gold sovereigns start turning up , and from the Finnish secret police for espionage . However , things get more serious when the wealthy American s hunter s beautiful sister turns up to search for her brother , and his fellow bush pilots start getting killed off in a series of suspicious accidents . Cary suspects that the events he is increasingly involved in may stem from an incident in his wartime past .

<|fantasy|>In the middle of a New England winter , the boys accidentally disturb an experiment in their parents lab . A sonic boom a blast of heat and the boys find they have been transported to a vast , trackless desert which is shaken by periodic earthquakes . Providentially , they encounter a water prospector named Japheth who offers to help them find refuge at the nearest oasis . Sandy and Dennys are intrigued by the creatures which accompany them on their trip through this as they initially assume alien world , which include a two foot tall mammoth a pair of unicorns which appear simultaneously to be , and not to be and humans much shorter than the brothers are . After a long ride through the desert during which they develop a severe case of heat stroke , the boys are separated when the unicorn Dennys is riding disappears . Sandy remains with Japheth and his elderly grandfather Lamech and is tended to by a variety of improbable beings , including a pelican . Dennys reappears in another tent , only to be bodily thrown into a refuse heap . Now seriously ill , he comes under the care of a friendly family with a large tent in the center of the oasis , headed by a gruff but kindly patriarch . As he recovers from his sun sickness , Dennys learns that his benefactor is in fact Japheth s father and Lamech s son and his name is Noah . It soon becomes apparent that the boys have been transported back to Biblical times , just before the Great Flood . The pelican , scarab beetle and lion turn out to be the animal hosts of seraphim , who are surprisingly knowledgeable about quantum physics and twentieth century Earth . The nephilim , who also transform into animals , distrust the twins . They use their human wives to try to discover why Sandy and Dennys have come to the oasis , and whether they represent a threat . Separated for much of the book , the twins become more independent of each other , and learn that neither they nor reality itself is as ordinary as they previously supposed . Both gain maturity over the course of about a year in the desert with Noah and his family . They each fall in love with Noah s daughter Yalith , but do not act on their desires . Dennys convinces Noah to reconcile with Lamech , and both twins eventually care for the old man s gardens as they wait to discover a way home . After Lamech s death , Sandy is kidnapped . He refuses to use violence to escape , and is eventually found by Japheth . Both twins worry that Yalith is not to be on the Ark , and neither are they . Nevertheless , they help build the Ark before returning home via flying unicorn .

<|novel|>Colin is a wealthy young man with a resourceful and stylish man servant , Nicolas , as well as a fantastic olfactory musical invention the pianocktail . With dizzying speed , Colin meets and weds Chloé in a grand ceremony . Generously , Colin bequeaths a quarter of his fortune to his friends Chick and Alise so they too may marry . Happiness should await both couples but Chloé falls ill upon her honeymoon with a water lily in the lung , a painful and rare condition that can only be treated by surrounding her with flowers . The expense is prohibitive and Colin soon exhausts his funds . Meanwhile , Chick s obsession with the philosopher , Jean Sol Partre , causes him to spend all his money , effort and attention upon collecting Partre s literature . Alise hopes to save Chick financially and renew his interest in her by persuading Partre to stop publishing books . She kills him when he refuses and seeks revenge upon the booksellers . Colin struggles to provide flowers for Chloé to no avail and his grief at her death is so strong his pet mouse commits suicide to escape the gloom .

<|fantasy|>When World War II breaks out , Phillip Enright and his mother board the S . S . Hato to Virginia because the mother feels it s unsafe to stay in Curaçao . The ship is torpedoed , and Phillip is blinded by a blow on the head and is stranded on an island with Timothy , an old black man and a black cat . They build a hut , and keep track of the days by throwing pebbles in a can . They live alone together for two months . In the opening chapters of the book , the pair display significant difficulty in being able to tolerate and work with each other , partly because of young white Phillip s racial prejudice against the elderly black Timothy . The two characters learn to overcome their disdain for one another , and develop strong bonds of friendship by the end of the novel . Their relationship changes rapidly throughout the novel starting with complete hate and them showing signs of teamwork to a point where Phillip doesn t need Timothy anymore but Timothy needs Philip .

<|novel|>This book is written in three parts . Book One The Romantic Egotist the novel centers on Amory Blaine , a young Midwesterner who , convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future , attends boarding school and later Princeton University . He leaves behind his eccentric mother Beatrice and befriends a close friend of hers , Monsignor Darcy . While at Princeton he goes back to Minneapolis where he re encounters Isabelle Borgé , a young lady whom he met as a little boy and starts a romantic relationship with her , but after a few days he becomes disillusioned by her and returns to Princeton . Interlude Following their break up , Amory is shipped overseas , to serve in the army in World War I . Fitzgerald had been in the army himself , but the war ended while he was still stationed on Long Island . Amory s experiences in the war are not described , other than to say later in the book that he was a bayonet instructor . Book Two The Education of a Personage After the war , Amory Blaine falls in love with a New York debutante named Rosalind Connage . Because he is poor , however , this relationship collapses as well Rosalind decides to marry a wealthy man instead . A devastated Amory is further crushed to learn that his mentor Monsignor Darcy has died . The book ends with Amory s iconic lament , I know myself , but that is all .

<|fantasy|>1722 A second Dark Age looms . An asteroid has devastated the Earth , called down by dire creatures who plot against the world of men . The brilliant some say mad Isaac Newton has taken refuge in ancient Prague . There , with his young apprentice Ben Franklin , he plumbs the secrets of the aetheric beings who have so nearly destroyed humanity . But their safety is tenuous . Peter the Great marches his unstoppable forces across Europe . And half a world away , Cotton Mather and Blackbeard the pirate assemble a party of colonial luminaries to cross the Atlantic and discover what has befallen the Old World . With them sails Red Shoes , a Choctaw shaman whose mysterious connections to the invisible world warn him that they are all moving toward a confrontation as violent as it is decisive . . .

<|fantasy|>A dazzling quest whose outcome will raise humanity to unparalleled heights of glory or ring down a curtain of endless night . . . 1681 When Sir Isaac Newton turns his restless mind to the ancient art of alchemy , he unleashes Philosopher s Mercury , a primal source of matter and a key to manipulating the four elements of Earth , Air , Fire , and Water . Now , as France and England battle for its control , Louis XIV calls for a new weapon a mysterious device known only as Newton s Cannon . Half a world away , a young apprentice named Benjamin Franklin stumbles across a dangerous secret . Pursued by a deadly enemy half scientist , half sorcerer Ben makes his fugitive way to England . Only Newton himself can help him now . But who will help Sir Isaac ? For he was not the first to unleash the Philosopher s Mercury . Others were there before him . Creatures as scornful of science as they are of mankind . And burning to be rid of both . . .

<|fantasy|>Elayne Trakand , Nynaeve al Meara , Aviendha , and their coalition of channelers use the ter angreal called the Bowl of the Winds to reverse the unnatural heat brought on by the Dark One s manipulation of the climate and then escape a Seanchan invasion by Traveling to Andor , where Elayne claims the Lion Throne . Perrin Aybara moves into Ghealdan in an attempt to stop Masema Dagar , the self proclaimed Prophet of the Dragon . He unknowingly rescues Deposed Queen Morgase of Andor who now goes by the name of Maighdin and becomes Faile s servant , from the Prophet s men . He then secures the oath of fealty from Alliandre , Queen of Ghealdan . At the end of the book , Faile Bashere is kidnapped by the Shaido Aiel . Egwene al Vere , Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai , finally manipulates her unruly followers into giving her more control , and they prepare to Travel to Tar Valon to lay siege to the White Tower . Rand al Thor , with Asha man and Illianers , attempts to repel the Seanchan invasion in Altara . Though successful in early skirmishes , things go awry later , when Rand uses Callandor on the Seanchan army . Since he was fatigued from wounds and channeling , and both halves of the One Power are behaving erratically in the area following the use of the Bowl of the Winds , as well as an inherent instability in Callandor , Rand loses control while wielding Callandor , causing much destruction to both armies and forcing a stalemate . Returning to Cairhien , Rand is attacked by traitorous Asha man led by Dashiva , who attempt and fail to kill him . Mat Cauthon is absent from the book , due to injuries sustained at the end of the previous book , A Crown of Swords . Robert Jordan had earlier done the same for Perrin Aybara , who had been absent from Book 5 , The Fires of Heaven .

<|novel|>This section concerns Franny s weekend date with her collegiate boyfriend , Lane Coutell . He takes her to a fashionable lunch room , where he is described as monopolizing the conversation and trying to impress Franny with his news of receiving a suggestion to publish his latest paper on Flaubert . Franny appears upset , questioning the importance of college education and the worth of Lane s friends . She eats nothing , and is smoking , sweating , and feeling faint , and must excuse herself to visit the restroom , where , after a crying spell , she regains her composure . She returns to the table , where Lane questions her on the small book she has been carrying . She responds nonchalantly that the book is titled The Way of a Pilgrim and tells the story of how a Russian wanderer learns the power of praying without ceasing . The Jesus Prayer involves internalizing the prayer Lord Jesus Christ , Son of God , have mercy on me , a sinner , to a point where , in a manner similar to a Zen koan , it becomes unconscious , almost like a heartbeat . Lane is less interested in the story than in keeping their timetable for the party and football game , though when Franny faints , he tends to her and postpones the weekend s activities . After she wakes , he goes to get a taxi , and leaves Franny alone practicing the act of praying without ceasing . Zooey , smoking and soaking in a tub , is reading a four year old letter from his brother , Buddy . His mother , Bessie , enters the bathroom , and the two have a long discussion , centering upon Bessie s worries about his sister , Franny , who is in a state of emotional collapse . During the conversation , Zooey verbally spars and banters with his mother and repeatedly requests that she leave . Bessie tolerates Zooey s behavior , and simply states that he s becoming more and more like his brother Buddy and wonders what has happened to her children that were once so sweet and loving . After Bessie leaves , Zooey gets dressed and goes to the living room , where he finds Franny on the sofa with her cat Bloomberg , and begins speaking with her . After upsetting Franny by questioning her motives for reciting the Jesus Prayer , Zooey retreats into the former bedroom of his two older brothers , Seymour and Buddy , and reads the back of their door , covered in philosophical quotations . After contemplation , Zooey telephones Franny , pretending to be Buddy . Franny eventually discovers the ruse , but she and Zooey continue to talk . Knowing that Franny reveres their eldest brother , Seymour the psychologist , spiritual leader , and confidante of the family , who committed suicide years earlier Zooey shares with her some words of wisdom that Seymour once gave him . By the end of the call , as the fundamental secret of Seymour s advice is revealed , Franny seems to find illumination in what Zooey has told her there isn t anyone out there who isn t Seymour s fat lady and that the Fat Lady is Christ himself .

<|fantasy|>One Hundred Years of Solitude 1967 is the story of seven generations of the Buendía Family in the town of Macondo . The founding patriarch of Macondo , José Arcadio Buendía , and Úrsula , his wife and first cousin , leave Riohacha , Colombia , to find a better life and a new home . One night of their emigration journey , whilst camping on a riverbank , José Arcadio Buendía dreams of Macondo , a city of mirrors that reflected the world in and about it . Upon awakening , he decides to found Macondo at the river side after days of wandering the jungle , José Arcadio Buendía s founding of Macondo is utopic . Founding patriarch José Arcadio Buendía believes Macondo to be surrounded by water , and from that island , he invents the world according to his perceptions . Soon after its foundation , Macondo becomes a town frequented by unusual and extraordinary events that involve the generations of the Buendía family , who are unable or unwilling to escape their periodic mostly self inflicted misfortunes . Ultimately , a hurricane destroys Macondo , the city of mirrors just the cyclical turmoil inherent to Macondo . At the end of the story , a Buendía man deciphers an encrypted cipher that generations of Buendía family men had failed to decipher . The secret message informed the recipient of every fortune and misfortune lived by the Buendía Family generations .

<|fantasy|>The plot concerns four college students who discover a manuscript , The Book of Skulls , dealing with an order of monks living in a monastery in the Arizona desert , whose members have the power to bestow immortality on those who complete their bizarre initiation rite . The boys travel to the monastery , where they are accepted as a Receptacle , and told that for each group of four who agree to undergo the ritual , two must die in order for the others to succeed one must sacrifice himself , and the other must be sacrificed . The narrative switches back and forth between the viewpoints of the four students as each confronts his personal demons on the way to completing the ritual . Ned , who is openly homosexual , must face his guilt over the tragic aftermath of one of his affairs Eli , the gifted but socially inept young man who discovered the manuscript , makes a confession that could destroy his academic career Timothy , star athlete and prodigal son of a wealthy family , confronts a terrible sin from his past involving his younger sister and Oliver , the farm kid from the wrong side of the tracks , comes face to face with his own true innermost nature . The Book of Skulls has been republished as part of the series SF Masterworks .

<|novel|>The book s plot details three narratives which take place between November 1907 and late May 1908 in John Harvey Kellogg s Battle Creek , Michigan sanitarium . The first thread concerns Will and Eleanor Lightbody . Eleanor , a fan of Dr . Kellogg , drags Will to Kellogg s sanitarium . Will has recently suffered stomach pains and is still recovering from bouts of alcohol and drug addiction the latter at the hands of his wife . Eleanor suffered a brutal miscarriage , which has left her physically weak . Hoping to improve his marriage , Will goes along but is constantly filled with doubts about Kellogg s health methods . While he takes part in the therapy , he gags at health food , does not enjoy the laughing therapy , and watches as his friend Homer Praetz is electrocuted during a sinusoidal bath . Meanwhile , his wife Eleanor finds too much enjoyment at the sanitarium , especially at the hands of Dr . Spitzvogel , a doctor who practices Die Handhabung Therapeutik or in common parlance , erotic massage . Charlie Ossining , a peripatetic merchant attempts to market a new type of cereal , Per Fo , with a partner Bender , whose slick and untrustworthy behavior disarms him . They join forces with George Kellogg , adopted son of John Harvey Kellogg , who has had a falling out with his father and seeks revenge . George agrees to use his name on Per Fo in the hopes the cereal will be bought out by the Kellogg s Company . John Harvey Kellogg , a doctor fond of health food and what would now be called alternative medicine , inserts himself into the life of each character , whether as health guru to Eleanor , competitor to Charlie and Bender , or torturer of Will . His attempts at untested health cures , such as radium treatments , are comically tragic . As the sanitarium unravels , and son George becomes increasingly angry , father and master of all John must assert his control and keep his institution afloat .

<|fantasy|>Many critics found fault with the plot . In 1865 , The New York Times disapproved of Dickens s complicated conduct of his story , describing it as an involved plot combined with an entire absence of the skill to manage and unfold it . and he also found that the final explanation is a disappointment .

<|fantasy|>Set in the year 2038 , the book is a cautionary tale of the harm humans can cause their planet via disregard for the environment and reckless scientific experiments . The book has a large cast of characters and Brin uses them to address a number of environmental issues , including endangered species , global warming , refugees from ecological disasters , ecoterrorism , and the social effects of overpopulation . The plot of the book involves an artificially created black hole which has been lost in the Earth s interior and the attempts to recover it before it destroys the planet . The events and revelations which follow reshape humanity and its future in the universe . It also includes a war pitting most of the Earth against Switzerland , fueled by outrage over the Swiss allowing generations of kleptocrats to hide their stolen wealth in the country s banks . The scope of the story expands vastly as the plot gradually reveals itself , bringing into question the future course and even the survival of humanity .

<|novel|>In Dubious Battle deals with a fruit workers strike in a California valley and the attempts of communists to organize , lead , and provide for the striking pickers .

<|comedy|>In the Soviet Union in 1927 , a former member of the nobility , Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov , works as a desk clerk . His mother in law reveals on her deathbed that her family jewelry had been hidden from the Bolsheviks in one of the twelve chairs from the family s dining room set . Those chairs , along with all other personal property , had been expropriated by the government after the Russian Revolution . He becomes a treasure hunter , and after the smooth operator and con man Ostap Bender forces Kisa Pussy , Vorobyaninov s funny childhood nickname , which Bender prefers to partner with him , they set off to track down the chairs . This ultimately helps Kisa , who doesn t possess Bender s charm and is not as street smart . The two comrades find the chair set which is put up for auction , but fail to buy it and afterwards find out that the set has been split up and sold individually . They are not alone in their quest . Father Fyodor took advantage of the deathbed confession , and has also set off to recover the fortune . In this search for Mme Petukhova s treasure , he becomes Vorobyaninov s main rival . While in this enterprise Ostap is in his element , Vorobyaninov is not so happy . He s steadily abandoning his principles and losing self esteem . Through the process of elimination , the two finally discover the location of the 12th and last chair , the one hopefully containing the treasure . To avoid splitting the loot , Vorobyaninov murders Ostap . He then discovers that the jewels have already been found and that they have been spent on erecting a new public building , and as a result goes insane . Basic idea of this novel searching treasure inside of many similar items is based on The Adventure of the Six Napoleons , however there s no other similarities between this novel and short story by Arthur Conan Doyle . The Twelve Chairs satirizes not only its central characters , but also the people and institutions they encounter the operations of a Moscow newspaper , student housing , a provincial chess club , and so on . Bender represents values of the old order , egoism and individualism . He knows four hundred comparatively honest ways of taking money away from the population , and he has no future in the post revolutionary Soviet Union . Ilf and Petrov s observations on aspects of everyday life are comic , but shrewd .

<|comedy|>Ostap Bender is still alive , after somehow surviving the assassination in the previous book . This time he hears a story about an underground millionaire named Alexandr Koreiko . Koreiko has made millions , a truly enormous sum , by living on 46 rubles a month , through various illegal enterprises , taking full advantage of the widespread corruption in the New Economic Policy NEP period . Living in Chernomorsk literally Black Sea city , referring to the city of Odessa , and working as an accountant for a government office in charge of economic management , Koreiko keeps his large stash of ill gotten money in a suitcase , waiting for the fall of the Soviet government , so that he can make use of it . Together with two associates , both petty criminals , and an extremely naive and innocent car driver , Bender finds out about him and starts to collect all the information he can get on Koreiko s business activities . Koreiko tries to flee , but Bender eventually tracks him down in Turkestan , on the newly constructed Turkestan Siberia Railway . He then blackmails him into giving him a million rubles . Suddenly rich , Bender faces the problem of how to spend his money in a country where there are no legal millionaires . Nothing of the life of the rich that Bender dreamt of seems possible in the Soviet Union . Frustrated , Bender even decides to anonymously donate the money to the Ministry of Finance , but changes his mind . He turns the money into jewels and gold , and tries to cross the Romanian border , only to be robbed by the Romanian border guards , leaving him only with a medal , the Order of the Golden Fleece . Koreiko finds another job as an accountant . He hides the rest of his cash , and continues to wait for the fall of the Soviets .

<|novel|>Taken by surprise , a small coastal town is overrun by an invading army with little resistance . The town is important because it is a port that serves a large coal mine . Colonel Lanser , the head of the invading battalion , along with his staff establishes his HQ in the house of the democratically elected and popular Mayor Orden . As the reality of occupation sinks in and the weather turns bleak , with the snows beginning earlier than usual , the simple , peaceful people of the town are angry and confused . Colonel Lanser , a veteran of many wars , tries to operate under a veil of civility and law , but in his heart he knows that there are no peaceful people amongst those whose freedom has been taken away by force . The veil is soon torn apart when Alexander Morden , an erstwhile alderman and a free man , is ordered to work in the mine . He strikes out at Captain Loft with a pick axe , but Captain Bentick steps into its path and dies of it . After a summary trial , Morden is executed by a firing squad . This incident catalyzes the people of the town and they settle into a slow , silent , waiting revenge . Sections of the railroad linking the port with the mine get damaged regularly , the machinery breaks down often , and the dynamo of the electricity generators gets short circuited . Whenever a soldier relaxes his guard , drinks or goes out with a woman , he gets killed . Mayor Orden stands by his people , and tries to explain to Col . Lanser that his goal to break man s spirit permanently is impossible . The cold weather and the constant fear weighs heavy on the occupying force , many of whom wish the war to end so that they can return home . They realize the futility of the war and that the flies have conquered the flypaper . Some members of the resistance escape to England and ask the English for explosives so that the townspeople can intensify their efforts . English planes parachute drop small packages containing dynamite sticks and chocolates all around the town . In a state of panic , the army takes the Mayor and his friend Dr . Winter , the town doctor and historian , hostage and lets it be known that any action from resistance will lead to their execution . Mayor Orden knows that nothing can stop his people and that his death is imminent . He tells his wife that while he can be killed , the idea of Mayor and freedom and democracy is beyond the reach of any army . Before his execution , Mayor Orden reminds Dr . Winter of the dialogues of Socrates in the Apology , a part he played in the high school play , and tells him to make sure that the debt is repaid to the army , i . e . , that the resistance is continued .

<|novel|>The school , modeled on Yates own experiences as an adolescent at Avon Old Farms School , is called Dorset Academy , a small private institution dependent on its now senile founder , a wealthy older woman named Abigail Church Hooper , a thinly veiled reference to Avon Old Farms founder Theodate Pope Riddle . Dorset Academy is at best a second rate institution , having the reputation of an unusual sort of prep school , where many of the students are on scholarship , and Dr . Stone , the English master , is the only Harvard man . However , throughout the book , parents , teachers , even students insist that it is a good school . In the Foreword , the first person narrator , 15 year old William Grove , a stand in for Yates , relates what makes his divorcée mother , decide on Dorset Academy for her son . The main body of the novel is told in the third person , with Grove retreating into a group of schoolmates only to re emerge at the end of the book , in the Afterword , which is told from a distance of more than 30 years . There , William Grove , now a writer , looks back nostalgically on Dorset Academy where , as the editor of the school paper , he learned the rudiments of his trade . As one of the masters puts it , the school harbors a tremendous amount of sheer sexual energy . This is certainly true of the boys , who make a game of selecting one of the weaker boys , pinning him down on his bed and masturbating him to the point of ejaculation . On the other hand , they try hard to hide their erections from adults and girls , whether it is Dr . Stone s beautiful daughter Edith or the girls arriving for the annual Spring Dance . The teachers also suffer under too much sexual energy , especially Jack Draper , the chemistry master , crippled from polio , who becomes the witness of his wife s crude attempts to hide a year and a half long affair with the French master , Jean Paul La Prade . When , toward the end of the novel , it is announced that Dorset Academy will have to close due to mounting debt , Draper decides to hang himself in his chemistry lab in humiliation . He is too weak , however , to push the chair away from under his feet and proceeds home where he reconciles with his estranged wife . The Foreword and the Afterword create the impression of Yates , the author , directly addressing his audience and could be seen as false documents .

<|fantasy|>The Yuuzhan Vong have claimed Coruscant as their new capital , and the survivors of the battle of the planet , including the Skywalkers and the Solos , escape to rendezvous with other survivors within the Hapes Consortium . Meanwhile , in the Myrkr system , Jaina Solo and the survivors of the mission to exterminate the voxyn escape aboard a captured Yuuzhan Vong frigate named the Ksstar in order to meet up with Jaina s family on Hapes . On the Ksstars heels is the likes of Khalee Lah , the fanatical warrior son of Vong Warmaster Tsavong Lah , and his charge , Priest Harrar . Their pursuit of Jaina and her comrades convinces Jaina to rename the captured Vong ship the Trickster in order to play mind games on the invaders as one of their goddesses , Yun Harla , is a trickster , Jaina s audacity is looked upon as blasphemy . As this happens , the Skywalkers and Solos Jedi friends sense Jacen Solo s death , although , strangely enough , Jacen s family members themselves don t sense this . On Hapes , Jaina s dead brother , Anakin , is given a proper funeral via cremation . Meanwhile , former Hapan Queen Mother Ta a Chume sees how weak the current Queen Mother , and her daughter in law , Tenenial Djo is . Since the Hapans had suffered a grievous loss against the Yuuzhan Vong at Fondor about a year earlier , that loss sent waves of loss and pain into the Force sensitive Tenenial that caused her to miscarry her unborn child . As a result , Tenenial became weak , both physically and emotionally from the trauma of the experience . So Ta a Chume looks to find a replacement for the weak Queen Mother . Tenenial s own daughter , Tenel Ka , is unlikely due to her owing to her Jedi and warrior heritage . Jaina , on the other hand , in the midst of her brothers losses and her anger and hatred for the Yuuzhan Vong , displays a commanding air about her that makes her a potential candidate to replace Tenenial Djo . Meanwhile , Jaina , with the help of Kyp Durron and Jagged Fel , fights back against the combined forces of the Yuuzhan Vong and their supporters . However , these experiences begin to pull Jaina closer to the dark side of the Force , just like her grandfather , Anakin Skywalker , considering how she practically embraced it at Myrkr in the previous novel . In the end , however , with the help of her friends and family , Jaina is able to overcome the temptations of the dark side , remembers her place as a Jedi , and rejects Ta a Chume s offer to become the next Hapan Queen Mother . Instead , in the wake of Tenenial Djo s mysterious death by poison , which was no doubt plotted by Ta a Chume herself , Tenel Ka assumes the throne in time to combat the incoming Vong fleet prepared to invade Hapes . As for Khalee Lah and Harrar , the former s experience in combating Jaina has driven him to feel such shame and self loathing that Harrar assists in his suicide . The priest himself wonders whether or not Jaina herself is the human avatar of Yun Harla herself .

<|fantasy|>Following the Yuuzhan Vong s capture of Coruscant , General Wedge Antilles , leading New Republic Fleet Group Two , successfully capture and intend to hold the Vong held world of Borleias . This becomes convenient for the New Republic Senators , under unofficial leadership from Councilor Pwoe , to gather up their resources in order to find a new capital for the Republic . Later , after the actions they took within the Hapes Consortium , Jaina Solo , Kyp Durron , and Jagged Fel become part of the occupation force of Borleias , and Jaina and Jag begin to develop a romantic relationship as a result of their time together fighting the Vong in the solar system . As the fighting in the Borleias system increases , it attracts the expertise of Supreme Commander Czulkang Lah , father of Warmaster Tsavong Lah , who soon becomes Wedge Antilles s enemy in the occupation of Borleias . Meanwhile , Luke Skywalker senses a dark presence on Yuuzhan Vong held Coruscant that has nothing to do with the Vong themselves . So he organizes a strike team consisting of himself , his wife Mara , Tahiri Veila , and Wraith Squadron in order to infiltrate Coruscant and then find and eliminate the dark presence there . With help from Lando Calrissian , they successfully arrive on Coruscant to begin their mission . At Coruscant , treacherous New Republic Senator Viqi Shesh is scheduled to be executed , since her usefulness in helping the Vong in their invasion is gone . However , Shesh makes up a lie that allows her to live when she says that the shapers that grafted Tsavong Lah s artificial arm had intentionally set it to rot the purpose of this is to force him to secretly do their bidding , or he would become a Shamed One . Lah looks into this with the help of Master Shaper Nen Yim , and finds strong evidence that there is indeed such a conspiracy forming against him . Meanwhile , Viqi Shesh herself is controlling an innocent holocam operator named Tam Elgrin , working as a civilian assistant on Borleias , via a Yuuzhan Vong implant . At the end of the novel , Tam is able to overcome his conditioning , even when it nearly costs him his life , just before the New Republic launch into another engagement against the Vong . This engagement incorporates a tactic from the once great Galactic Empire that forces the Vong to go into a temporary tactical retreat .

<|fantasy|>The story centers on the invention of a reactor that can annihilate matter to produce cheap and abundant energy . Unfortunately , it produces something else as a by product , the absolute . The absolute is a spiritual essence that according to some religious philosophies allegedly permeates all matter . It is associated with human religious experience , as the unsuspecting humanity is to find out all too soon in the story . The widespread adoption of the reactors cause an enormous outpouring of pure absolute into the world . This leads to an outburst of religious and nationalist fervor , causing the greatest , most global war in history . Čapek describes this war in a self consciously absurd manner . Characteristic of the war are distant military marches , hence for example battles of the Chinese with the Senegalese riflemen on the shores of the Finnish lakes . Some of the more prominent political changes the war causes include expulsion of the Russian army to Africa via Europe by the Chinese invasion , the conquest of East Asia by Japan that cuts the Chinese conquests in Russia and Europe down to the limits of the former Austro Hungarian empire , and the Japanese conquest of North America . The later happened because the United States were exhausted by a bloody civil war between the supporters and opponents of the Prohibition . Absolute does more than affect minds . It also does physical work . During the war , it causes catastrophes against the enemy various parts of absolute support any given side in the conflict . At some point , it also becomes interested in production of material goods and produces them , in a supernatural manner , in enormous quantities . This leads to economic collapse and , absurdly enough , deficit of all manufactured items because , allegedly , once the price of goods has dropped to zero because of absolute , nobody cares to produce or distribute them any more . Starvation is averted because absolute does not produce food , and the peasants who do not let the price drop to zero . In fact , they force every last penny from urban population in return for food , hence saving humanity . This is a satirical reference to the very real phenomenon of bag people who bring food to the cities from the countryside in times of economic and political collapse .

<|novel|>This is the story of the four Mirabal sisters during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic . The sisters make a political commitment to overthrow the Trujillo regime . They are harassed , persecuted , and imprisoned , all while their family suffers retaliation from the Military Intelligence Service . They are eventually awarded for their leadership . The book presents the perspective of the surviving sister , Dedé . Throughout the book the events leading up to each sister s political awakening are discussed . Dedé Mirabal , as the last sister , became a national hero and was obligated to tell and retell the tragic story of her sisters . Although Dedé at first refuses , she eventually tells her sisters tale . She explains how Minerva had a dream of going to a school , which was unusual for farmers daughters . When she eventually convinced her father to allow her go , Minerva meets a girl , Sinita , who later became one of her best friends . Sinita eventually confided in Minerva the truth about Trujillo that their glorious leader was a killer . During the time Minerva was in school , other events help bring the dictator s secrets to light . One of Minerva s friends was taken by Trujillo to carry his child , and was then exiled from the Dominican Republic to escape the wrath of Trujillo s wife . Years later , Minerva was invited to a party held by Trujillo in Santo Domingo . When he repeatedly tried to court her , she slapped him , putting her family in jeopardy . The Mirabal sisters and their husbands were participants in the June 14 political group , which operated through illegal gatherings in Patria Mirabal s house , where they discussed their plot against Trujillo . The members of the group used false names , with the Mirabal sisters all referred to as Butterfly , followed by a number to indicate the individual sister . As vengeance for their political activities , Trujillo orders three of the sisters be killed on Puerto Plata Road , with their driver Rufino , while returning from visiting their husbands in jail . The women and driver are beaten to death and later their vehicle and bodies are dumped off a cliff in order to make their deaths look like an accident .

<|fantasy|>The fictional planet Lagash Kalgash in the novel adaptation is located in a stellar system containing six suns Alpha , Beta , Gamma , Delta are the only ones named in the short story Onos , Dovim , Trey , Patru , Tano , and Sitha in the novel , which keep the whole planet continuously illuminated total darkness is unknown , and as a result so are stars outside the stellar system . A group of scientists from Saro University begins to make a series of related discoveries Sheerin nbsp 501 , a psychologist , researches the effects of prolonged exposure to darkness , Siferra nbsp 89 , an archaeologist , finds evidence of multiple cyclical collapses of civilization regularly occurring approximately every two thousand years , and Beenay nbsp 25 is an astronomer who discovered irregularities in the orbit of Lagash around its primary sun Onos . Beenay takes his findings to his superior at the university , Aton , who formulated the Theory of Universal Gravitation the in story discussion of same making light of an article once written about Einstein s Theory of Relativity , referencing the false notion that only twelve men could understand it . This forces the astronomers at Saro University to attempt to find an answer to what is causing this anomaly . Eventually it is discovered that the only thing that could be causing the deviation is an astronomical body that orbits Lagash . Beenay , through his friend Theremon nbsp 762 a reporter , has learned some of the beliefs of the group known as the Cult Apostles of Flame in the novel . They believe the world would be destroyed in a darkness with the appearance of stars that unleash a torrent of fire . Beenay combines what he has learned about the repetitive collapses at the digsite , and the new theory with the potential of eclipses and concludes that once every 2049 years the one sun visible is eclipsed , resulting in a brief night . Since the current population of Lagash has never experienced universal darkness , the scientists conclude that the darkness itself would traumatize the people and that the inhabitants of the planet would need to prepare accordingly . When nightfall occurs , however , the scientists who have prepared themselves for darkness and the rest of the planet are most surprised by the sight of hitherto invisible stars outside the six star system filling the sky . The short story does not dramatize events after darkness arrives , but in the novel and X nbsp Minus One program , civil disorder breaks out cities are destroyed in massive fires and civilization collapses , with the ashes of the fallen civilization and the competing groups trying to seize control .

<|childrens|>Since childhood , Bryon Douglas and Mark Jennings have been like brothers , but now times are changing . Bryon is growing up and thinking about who he wants to be , but Mark is still living for the thrill of the moment . The book starts out with their mom being in the hospital . She is Bryon s birth mother , and Mark s adoptive mother . Mark s parents died in an argument with each other when they were both drunk and ended up shooting each other . So Mark and Bryon have to make money to help support the family while their mom is in the hospital getting surgery . Bryon gets a job at the local supermarket while Mark starts bringing in lots of cash . Bryon doesn t ask where its from . Towards the end of the book , Byron discovers that Mark has been getting his money by selling drugs to hippies . Bryon is horrified since a 13 year old kid they know , named M M , went missing and lost his mind because of someone selling him drugs . Bryon is shocked about Mark s new job and calls the police . He waits for Mark to come home . He tells Mark he found the drugs and Mark says that he will stop if it makes Bryon upset . Bryon says it it is too late , that he already called the police . Mark is surprised , he does not believe that it is true . The police come and take Mark away to a reformatory school . Later , he acts up frequently and is sent to prison for a long time . A couple months after Bryon calls the police , he goes to visit Mark in the reformatory school . Mark says that he wanted to see Bryon because he needed to make sure he hated him .

<|fantasy|>Galápagos is the story of a small band of mismatched humans who are shipwrecked on the fictional island of Santa Rosalia in the Galápagos Islands after a global financial crisis cripples the world s economy . Shortly thereafter , a disease renders all humans on Earth infertile , with the exception of the people on Santa Rosalia , making them the last specimens of humankind . Over the next million years , their descendants , the only fertile humans left on the planet , eventually evolve into a furry species resembling seals though possibly still able to walk upright it is not explicitly mentioned , but it is stated that they occasionally catch land animals , they have a snout with teeth adapted for catching fish , a streamlined skull and flipper like hands with rudimentary fingers described as nubbins . The story s narrator is a spirit who has been watching over humans for the last million years . This particular ghost is the immortal spirit of Leon Trotsky Trout , son of Vonnegut s recurring character Kilgore Trout . Leon , a Vietnam War veteran who is affected by the massacres in Vietnam , . He goes AWOL and settles in Sweden , where he works as a shipbuilder and dies during the construction of the ship , the Bahía de Darwin . This ship is used for the Nature Cruise of the Century . Planned as a celebrity cruise , it was in limbo due to the economic downturn , and due to a chain of unconnected events the ship ended up in allowing humans to reach and survive in the Galápagos . Kilgore Trout deceased makes four appearances in the novel , urging his son to enter the blue tunnel that leads to the afterlife . When Leon refuses for the fourth time , Kilgore pledges that he , and the blue tunnel , will not return for one million years , which leaves Leon to observe the slow process of evolution that transforms the humans into aquatic mammals . The process begins when a Japanese woman on the island , the granddaughter of a Hiroshima survivor , gives birth to a fur covered daughter . Trout maintains that all the sorrows of humankind were caused by the only true villain in my story the oversized human brain . Fortunately , natural selection eliminates this problem , since the humans best fitted to Santa Rosalia were those who could swim best , which required a streamlined head , which in turn required a smaller brain .

<|fantasy|>In paranoid delusion , a moribund U . S . Air Force USAF general , thinking to make the world a better place , unilaterally launches an airborne , preemptive , nuclear attack upon the USSR , from his command at the Sonora , Texas , Strategic Air Command SAC bomber base , by ordering the 843rd bomber wing to attack , per war plan Wing Attack Plan R which would authorize a lower echelon SAC commander to retaliate after an enemy first strike has decapitated the U . S . Government . He attacks with the entire B 52 bomber wing of new airplanes each armed with two nuclear weapons and protected with electronic countermeasures to prevent the Soviets from shooting them down . When the U . S . President and Cabinet become aware the attack is underway , they assist the Soviet defense interception of the USAF bombers to little effect , because the Soviets destroy only two bombers and damage one , the Alabama Angel , that remains airborne and en route to target . The U . S . Government re establishes the SAC airbase chain of command , but the suicidal general who launched the attack the only man knowing the recall code kills himself before capture and interrogation however , his executive officer correctly deduces the recall code from among the general s desk pad doodles . The code is transmitted to and received by the surviving bomber airplanes and are successfully recalled , minutes before bombing their targets in the Soviet Union save for the Alabama Angel whose earlier damaged radio prevents its recalling , and it progresses to its target . In a last effort to avert a Soviet American nuclear war , the U . S . President offers the Soviet Premier the compensatory right to destroy a U . S . city , offering Atlantic City , New Jersey , however , at the final moment , the Alabama Angel fails to destroy its target and nuclear catastrophe is averted .

<|novel|>The title character is a poor and fatherless teenager growing up in The Bronx . Billy and his friends are in awe of the flashy mobsters in the neighborhood . Dutch Schultz and Otto Berman , based on the real life mobsters , hire Billy as a gofer and become mentors to him . The gangsters take Billy up to their upstate hideaway , where they are awaiting a trial . Schultz becomes a community leader and converts to Catholicism . Billy works his way up but begins to question his actions when he falls in love with Dutch s moll Drew , whom Dutch plans to have killed . Billy is sent to Saratoga Springs with Drew to keep an eye on her . They act as a couple in Saratoga . He realizes that she is to be killed and calls her husband in New York City to come and rescue her . After Schultz is acquitted , Attorney General Thomas Dewey brings up more charges and the gang goes into hiding . This time they are in Union City , New Jersey . While Billy is visiting the gang to give them updates on Dewey s routine , unnamed gangsters come in and kill everyone except Billy and the bartender . Billy goes back to Schultz s hotel room and takes all the money from his safe .

<|fantasy|>In 1994 , the Marines are testing a new missile , but after the launch it mysteriously disappears and it s clear that if the rocket reaches civilian areas they will be in big trouble . Carol Dawson , a journalist , is alerted by an unusual sight of whales in the Miami area , and decides to go and write about it . Armed with special equipment provided by her friend , Dr . Dale Michaels from MOI Miami Oceanographic Institute , goes to investigate the rumors of a missing missile belonging to the Marines and that could be behind the mysterious whale behavior lately . She hires the services of Nick Williams and Jefferson Troy , owners of a little boat so she can get to the Gulf of Mexico and investigate closer if a missile has something to do with all of the above . They end up finding an unknown artifact , bringing a lot of doubts about its nature , and even if it s part of a lost treasure that could be worth millions . Old friends of Williams and Troy noticed the finding and just like the old times , they want to steal it from them . In the background of the story , the author talks about a submarine snake civilization on a planet called Canthor , and how they were struggling to stay alive due to new threats into their ecosystem . It s revealed later in the story that the artifact found in the sea is actually a cradle that contains seeds with altered superhumans , which were extracted from earth millions of years ago and were altered so they could live with other species including the submarine snakes on earth . The spaceship that carries the cradle is manned by robots cyborgs and has hidden itself on Earth s ocean floor to make repairs . Dawson , Williams and Troy found the damaged ship in the bottom of the sea while looking for the missile , and were asked to gather materials so the ship can be repaired and it could go back to its mission . Before leaving earth , the ship asked the humans to keep the cradle because it would enormously help the human race to have such superhuman seeds to develop faster and better through time , but in the end the humans refuse in order to avoid future wars between the human and superhumans .

<|fantasy|>The story is a polemic about NASA . The thesis is that NASA , far from helping space exploration , actually prevents it from going forth . The narrative follows disparate engineering efforts , ranging from New York University engineering students working out of a warehouse in the Bronx to full fledged commercial rocket operations , to create a single stage to orbit reusable launch vehicle . All of the science and equipment used in the story was based on technology that existed at the time of writing , like the space activity suit .

<|childrens|>The book tells about a group of children having a Halloween sleepover party at school Kindergarten . The children prepare for it by making decorations and costumes . As night draws near , so do the children s fears . One student , Mary , shares a trick her father taught her with the other students . He gave her a special bright star whenever she feels afraid to go to bed , she has only to think about her star . This sends the darkness and the evil ghosts from her heart . Jonas does not believe in that , but he also thinks he is not afraid of ghosts . In the end , all the children need another , older trick keeping the hallway light on all night .

<|novel|>The novel deals with the significance of two connected events that happened on the same day , long before the opening of the novel . The first was the excavation of an ancient and valuable archaeological idol , a phallic figure unearthed from the tomb of an Anglo Saxon bishop Eorpwald , known as the Melpham excavation . Gerald has long been haunted by a drunken revelation by his friend Gilbert , who was involved with this excavation , that the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated to embarrass Gilbert s father . Gilbert told Gerald that he put the idol there . Gerald while feeling that his friend was telling the truth , pushed the matter to the back of his mind and tried to forget about it . He now feels ashamed that he , a history professor , has never had the courage to try to resolve the matter one way or another . The second is that Gerald Middleton fell in love with Dollie , Gilbert s fiancée and had an affair with her when his friend went off to fight in WWI . When Gilbert was killed at the front , Dollie refused to marry Gerald . He ended up marrying a Scandinavian woman named Inge but continued his affair with Dollie , who became an alcoholic . Gerald and Inge later separated . Anglo Saxon Attitudes is full of side plots and coincidences and contains a host of eccentric characters . Some of these characters are Gerald s family . Robin his eldest son , is a womaniser who cannot decide whether to leave his wife or his mistress . Kay , has an unhappy marriage and a deeply embittered view of her father , whom she appears to blame for everything that has gone wrong in her life , including her withered hand which was actually caused by her mother . Gerald s estranged wife , Inge is a grotesquely deluded woman who cannot bring herself to acknowledge her younger son John s homosexuality or her daughter s physical disability . Gerald feels responsible for Dollie s plight and for those of his children . He feels that the knowledge of his complicity over the Melpham affair has drained his morale and made him withdrawn and indecisive . The novel begins with him resolving to make good the bloody shameful waste of his life , by investigating the Melpham affair and making peace with Dollie . He also attempts to develop better relationships with his grown up children and with Inge . By the novel s end , Gerald achieves a measure of peace with his past . He persuades Dollie to come forward with a letter from Gilbert s father s colleague , Canon Portway , proving that the Melpham incident was a hoax then he and Dollie begin a platonic friendship . He gives up on achieving good relations with his family .

<|fantasy|>The novel follows the adventures of John Paul Ziller and his wife Amanda lovable prophetess and promiscuous earth mother , inarguably the central protagonist who open Captain Kendrick s Memorial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve , a combination hot dog stand and zoo along a highway in Skagit County , Washington . Other characters in this rather oddball novel include Mon Cul the baboon Marx Marvelous , an educated man from the east coast and L . Westminster Plucky Purcell , a former college football star and sometime dope dealer who accidentally infiltrates a group of Catholic monks working as assassins for the Vatican . In so doing Plucky discovers a secret of monumental proportions dating to the very beginning of Christianity .

<|fantasy|>Beyond the end of the universe exists The City of the Saved , an urban sprawl the size of a galaxy . Within it every human being that ever lived , from the first australopithecine to the last posthuman , has been inexplicably resurrected . For three hundred years , the uncountable inhabitants have enjoyed their unaging and invulnerable second lives . But now , the unthinkable has happened . Someone has been murdered .

<|fantasy|>The Visitors describes the hijacking of a cruise liner , similar to the 1985 incident of the Achille Lauro . The Wars of Religion reports a trial against the woodworms in a church , as they have caused the building to become unstable . The Survivor is set in a world in which the Chernobyl disaster was the first big accident . Journalists report that the world is on the brink of nuclear war . The protagonist escapes by boat to avoid a nuclear holocaust . The chapter Shipwreck is an analysis of Géricault s painting , The Raft of the Medusa . The first half narrates the historical events of the shipwreck and the survival of the crew members . The second half of the chapter analyses the painting itself . It describes Géricault s softening the impact of reality in order to preserve the aestheticism of the work , or to make the story of what happened more palatable . The chapter The Mountain describes the journey of a religious woman to a monastery where she wants to intercede for her dead father . The Three Simple Stories portray a survivor from the RMS Titanic , the Biblical story of Jonah and the whale , and the Jewish refugees on board the MS St . Louis in 1939 , who were prevented from landing in the United States and other countries . Upsteam ! consists of letters from an actor who travels to a remote jungle for a film project , described as similar to The Mission 1986 . His colleague is drowned in an accident with a raft . Entitled Parenthesis , the half chapter is inserted between chapters 8 and 9 . It is different in style to the other chapters , which are short stories here a narrator addresses his readers and offers a philosophical discussion on love . The narrator is called Julian Barnes , but , as he states , the reader cannot be sure that the narrator s opinions are those of the author . A parallel is drawn with El Greco s painting Burial of the Count of Orgaz , in which the artist confronts the viewer . The piece includes a discussion of lines from Philip Larkin s poem An Arundel Tomb What will survive of us is love and from W . H . Auden s September 1 , 1939 We must love one another or die . The chapter Project Ararat tells the story of a fictional astronaut Spike Tiggler , based on the astronaut James Irwin . The final chapter The Dream portrays New Heaven .

<|fantasy|>Continuing the adventures started in Rebel Dream , Wedge Antilles continues to defend the planet Borleias from the Yuuzhan Vong . After rooting out a spy in the Vong controlled Tam Elgrin , he begins creating a superlaser , identical to the Death Star s except in one regard it doesn t work . Using both the laser and Commander Czulkang Lah s obsession with the capture of Jaina Solo , Antilles draws the Yuuzhan Vong fleet away from Lah s flagship . While the fleet is elsewhere , the Super Star Destroyer Lusankya is fitted with a spear and flown directly into the worldship . The worldship is destroyed , and Czulkang Lah perishes . Meanwhile , on Coruscant , Luke Skywalker , Mara Jade Skywalker , Tahiri Veila and Wraith Squadron continue their scouting mission . There , they encounter a Dark Jedi similar to the mythical Lord Nyax , but who is really the genetically modified Dark Jedi Irek Ismaren . Nyax is more powerful than Luke , but , with the combined efforts of the Jedi and the Yuuzhan Vong , Nyax is defeated . Meanwhile , Viqi Shesh s plans to escape Coruscant are foiled by Wraith Squadron , and she commits suicide as a result . Han and Leia Organa Solo , along with their droids C 3PO and R2 D2 , set off on adventures to root out and overthrow any planetary government that plans to acquiesce to the Yuuzhan Vong . One of their most dangerous missions is set on Aphran IV , though they are able to escape death with their mission a success .

<|fantasy|>Luke Skywalker leads a Jedi mission to find the lost , living world of Zonama Sekot , and on his way helps repel a Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the Imperial Remnant , formerly the Empire . Peace is declared between the Remnant and the reorganizing Galactic Alliance , but this is marred by the ruin of Barab I and the destruction of N zoth by the Yuuzhan Vong . Meanwhile , the Solos minus Jacen , since he is with Luke trying to find Zonama Sekot and their allies discover an alliance between the Vong and the Fians , the inhabitants of Galantos , which is thwarted after the Vong try to invade the planet . Elsewhere , on Yuuzhan tar , Nom Anor takes on the identity of Yu shaa , prophet of the heretical Jeedai cult .

<|fantasy|>Luke Skywalker s mission to find the living world of Zonama Sekot takes him and his team to the Chiss capital world of Csilla . There , they look into the planet s library for any information on the living planet , and amidst this , they foil a Chiss conspiracy against the Fel family . As a result of this , Luke and his team are given more time , and Jacen Solo manages to figure out that Zonama Sekot is probably hiding in the Unknown Regions disguised as a moon . The team finds evidence of this as they look into information on a solar system that inhabits the gas giant of Mobus . Meanwhile , the Solos and their allies foil two conspiracies on the world of Bakura just in time to repel the second Ssi ruu Imperium s invasion of the planet . However , as a consequence , Tahiri Veila falls victim to her Yuuzhan Vong personality , which had previously been implanted in her by the late Vong shaper Mezhan Kwaad , and which has taken on potency to Tahiri s psyche following her boyfriend Anakin s death . Tahiri falls into a coma as a result , and her normal half and her Yuuzhan Vong half fight over control of her body within Tahiri s mind . Beneath Yuuzhan tar , Nom Anor , posing as Yu shaa , the Prophet of the Shamed Ones , manages to find a turncoat Yuuzhan Vong priestess by the name of Ngaaluh . Ngaaluh agrees to help Nom Anor and the Shamed Ones topple Supreme Overlord Shimrra from the polyp throne , as there are those within the Vong elite who doubt Shimrra s ability to lead the species to salvation .

<|fantasy|>Han Solo and his wife Leia fight to keep a critical communications center out of Yuuzhan Vong hands as Tahiri masters her half Jedi , half Vong nature . Luke Skywalker and his team of Jedi Knights rediscover the living world of Zonama Sekot first seen in Greg Bear s novel Rogue Planet and plead for that world s interference in the ongoing war . It goes well the world agrees to follow them . Meanwhile , Nom Anor s heresy among the Shamed Ones is hindered when his elite spy , Ngaaluh , is discovered by Supreme Overlord Shimrra , and she is forced to kill herself . However , before she did so , Ngaaluh revealed to Nom Anor rumors from Shimrra s court of a living world that , according to Yuuzhan Vong legends , will be the downfall of the species .

<|romance|>Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are two sisters living in the Midlands of England in the 1910s . Ursula is a teacher , Gudrun an artist . They meet two men who live nearby , school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal mine heir Gerald Crich . The four become friends . Ursula and Birkin become involved , and Gudrun eventually begins a love affair with Gerald . All four are deeply concerned with questions of society , politics , and the relationship between men and women . At a party at Gerald s estate , Gerald s sister Diana drowns . Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of his youngest sister . Soon Gerald s coal mine owning father dies as well , after a long illness . After the funeral , Gerald goes to Gudrun s house and spends the night with her , while her parents are asleep in another room . Birkin asks Ursula to marry him , and she agrees . Gerald and Gudrun s relationship , however , becomes stormy . The four vacation in the Alps . Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke , a physically puny but emotionally commanding artist from Dresden . Gerald , enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun s verbal abuse and rejection of his manhood , and driven by the internal violence of his own self , tries to strangle Gudrun . Before he has killed her , however , he realizes that this is not what he wants he leaves Gudrun and Loerke and on his skis climbs ever upward on the mountains , eventually slipping into a snow valley where he falls asleep , a frozen sleep from which he never awakens . The impact on Birkin of Gerald s death is profound the novel ends a few weeks after Gerald s death , with Birkin trying to explain to Ursula that he needs Gerald as he needs her her for the perfect relationship with a woman , and Gerald for the perfect relationship with a man .

<|childrens|>Julia and her brother , Paul , are spending a day by the beach when they discover a midden heap . They climb to the top , where Julia discovers a rag doll in a ball of feathers hidden in a nest . It turns out to be a powerful and evil witch , and it possesses Julia and spirits her away through a pyramid of fire . Paul manages to follow them and he finds himself in a strange country desperately unprepared for the return of the Ragwitch . At first , he meets the May Dancers , who after questioning him , lead him to the edge of the forest and set him free . The people of the land aid him as he searches for a way to free his sister , action following at every turn , as both Paul and Julia battle the Ragwitch Julia from within Her , and Paul from outside . Paul collects several mystical objects from the powerful Elementals , before meeting with the Patchwork King , who forges for him a needle spear in order to kill the Ragwitch . There are no strong fighters to help Paul , no saviors for him and he must find his own way . Because Paul is no hero , his war is one of bravery and brains , not brawn . Julia tells her own story from the mind of the Ragwitch . Although she is much more courageous than Paul , her war is one of the mind , resisting the power of the Ragwitch from within the witch s body .

<|childrens|>A young boy , Omri , receives a cupboard from his brother , Gillon , for his birthday . He uses a magical key , which belonged to his great grandmother , to bring a plastic Native American figurine to life with the cupboard . The now living Indian reveals his name as Little Bear in some editions he is called Little Bull , and he is an Iroquois who lived in the 18th century . Omri s best friend , Patrick , finds out about the magic cupboard and brings a cowboy , Boone , into the present . Despite the fights and rivalries between the two tiny men , Patrick refuses to send them back until it is too late Little Bear wounds Boone with an arrow while they are watching an old western movie on the television . Although Omri has a World War I medic figure , who could treat the injured Boone , he cannot be brought to life as the key is missing . After a brief adventure with Gillon s pet rat , who had escaped , the key is found and Boone is treated . However Little Bear is a demanding character , and ultimately Omri must provide him with a bride , Bright Stars in some editions she is called Twin Stars . Omri thinks it best to send Little Bear , Bright Stars and with Patrick s agreement Boone back to their time , and Omri gives his mother the key so he is not tempted to bring them back .

<|fantasy|>The bar is run by Mike Callahan . The regulars are welcoming and willing to listen to any visitor s problems , no matter how strange , but do not snoop if a visitor is unwilling to share . Strange and unusual events and visitors turn up with frequency in the stories . Regulars at Callahan s include a talking dog , several extraterrestrials and time travelers , an ethical vampire , a couple of Irish mythological beings , and an obscenity spewing parrot . The stories make heavy use of puns . Irish whiskeys are the preferred beverage , with Tullamore Dew and Bushmills mentioned in nearly every collection of shorts or novel that references the saloon . The stories make an obvious homage to Fletcher Pratt and L . Sprague de Camp s Tales from Gavagan s Bar and Arthur C . Clarke s Tales from the White Hart . Lady Sally McGee , the madam of a house of excellent repute and Mike Callahan s wife , stars in Robinson s Callahan s Lady and Lady Slings the Booze . The regulars at Lady Sally s brothel where the employees are artists and the patrons are clients insist on the same empathy and humor as those at Callahan s , and they are just as likely to have fantastic backgrounds . Relatedly , nobody in Lady Sally s is forced into anything they are unwilling to do . This is the source of Callahan s Law also known as the Law of Conservation of Pain and Joy Shared pain is lessened shared joy , increased thus do we refute entropy . Stated another way Just as there are Laws of Conservation of Matter and Energy , so there are in fact Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy . Neither can ever be created or destroyed . But one can be converted into the other .

<|fantasy|>The story , set in the fictional Rhode Island town of Eastwick in the late 1960s , follows the witches Alexandra Spofford , Jane Smart , and Sukie Rougemont , who acquired their powers after leaving or being left by their husbands . Their coven is upset by the arrival of a devil like character , Darryl Van Horne . The mysterious Darryl seduces each of the women , encouraging them to play with their powers and creating a scandal in the town . The three women share Darryl in relative peace until he unexpectedly marries their young , innocent friend , Jenny , on whom they resolve to have revenge by giving her cancer through their magic . The witches doubt their judgement after Jenny s death when Darryl flees town with her younger brother , Chris , apparently his lover . In his wake he leaves their relationships strained and their sense of self in doubt . Eventually they each summon their ideal men and leave town . The Widows of Eastwick , John Updike s sequel to The Witches of Eastwick , was published by Alfred A . Knopf in October 2008 .

<|comedy|>Set in present day , a young marketing graduate named Scat comes up with an idea for a new product for Coca Cola called Fukk . This causes him to go to Coca Cola to sell his idea for 3 million , but he finds that Sneaky Pete has already claimed the copyright in a backstabbing move . This then leads him to leave his apartment with Sneaky Pete and move in with Cindy . Cindy eventually throws him out and he goes to live with 6 and Tina while managing the summer marketing campaign for Coca Cola . He eventually succeeds with the campaign . After that Scat tries to undermine Sneaky Pete s effort to run a new secret project for Coca Cola , the first feature length advertising movie .

<|novel|>On the way from Thebes with his father , the scribe Amunhoben points out the ruins of Akhetaten , the city that the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten built for his One and Only God . Seeking a balanced perspective on the events of that time , which split Egypt politically and religiously , Meriamun gets a letter of introduction from his father to many members of Akhenaten s court , among them the High Priest of Amun , his chief of security Haremhab , and his queen Nefertiti . Each tale adds a new dimension to the enigma that is Akhenaten and the thoughts of those that were close to him allow Meriamun ndash and the reader ndash to judge for themselves whether Akhenaten was a power politician or a true believer .

<|fantasy|>Phil Hastings and his family have just moved back to his hometown for some much needed peace and quiet from the Hollywood scene . As Phil s twins , Sean and Patrick , soon discover , there is more to their new home than was expected . Gloria , their mother , senses something , but simply dismisses her concern as stress from their recent move . Gabbie , their older half sister , meets the man of her dreams , but also is tempted by other men . Deep in the woods , The Bad Thing and his Master are ready to break free of the centuries old compact made to keep the Faerie world and the Human world at peace . Only through believing the insane and impossible can they save both worlds from colliding again .

<|novel|>Bertie returns to London from several weeks in Cannes spent in the company of his Aunt Dahlia Travers and her daughter Angela . In Bertie s absence , Jeeves has been advising Bertie s old school friend , Gussie Fink Nottle , who is in love with Madeline Bassett . Gussie is too timid to speak to her . Madeline , a friend of Bertie s cousin Angela , is staying at Brinkley Court country seat of Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom . Bertie himself is expected at Brinkley Court to deliver the school prizes at the local grammar school , which he considers a fearful task . Bertie sends Gussie to Brinkley Court so that he will have the chance to woo Madeline , but also so that Gussie will be forced to take on the job of distributing the prizes . When Angela breaks her engagement to Tuppy Glossop , Bertie feels obliged to go down to Brinkley Court to comfort Aunt Dahlia . In addition to her worry about Angela s broken engagement , Aunt Dahlia is anxious about the 500 pounds she lost gambling at Cannes , as she has to ask her miserly husband Tom for the money . Bertie advises Aunt Dahlia to pretend to have lost her appetite through worry , advice he also offers to Tuppy to win back Angela and largely redundantly to Gussie , to win Madeline . All take his advice . The resulting plates of untasted food upset Aunt Dahlia s prized chef Anatole , who gives notice . Bertie s attempt to plead Gussie s case is misinterpreted by Madeline as a marriage proposal , but she tells Bertie she cannot marry him , as she has fallen in love with someone else , and her description of the man makes Bertie realize that she is talking about Gussie . When Gussie is too timid to speak to Madeline even with this substantial encouragement , Bertie decides to embolden Gussie by making the teetotal Gussie drink alcohol without his knowledge . Gussie ends up imbibing more gin than Bertie had intended . Gussie successfully proposes to Madeline , then in a scene that is the highlight of the novel delivers an inebriated speech to the grammar school , to the delight of a few but to the horror of many . Madeline breaks the engagement . Gussie , still drunk , proposes to Angela , who accepts him solely to anger Tuppy . In the face of this chaos , Bertie admits his inability to act as a counselor , and removes a restriction he had placed on Jeeves to offer advice . Jeeves ensures Bertie s absence for a few hours , and during that time swiftly ensures that Angela and Tuppy are reconciled , that Gussie and Madeline are engaged , that Anatole withdraws his resignation , and that Uncle Tom writes Aunt Dahlia a check for 500 pounds . Sections of the story were adapted into episodes of the ITV series Jeeves and Wooster .

<|fantasy|>In the 1960s , young Celia Marsdon is a rich American heiress who , upon her marriage to English aristocrat Richard Marsdon , goes to live at an ancestral manor in Sussex , England . Shortly afterward , strange things begin to occur mdash Richard begins acting out of character , and Celia starts to have strange fits and visions . Celia s mother , Lily Taylor , has befriended a Hindu guru , Dr . Akananda , and it is he who discovers what s wrong with the young couple . The troubles of the present time can only be solved by revisiting a tragedy from the past . The book then moves back in time to the reign of Edward VI , as lovely young Celia de Bohun and her guardian aunt take up residence with the noble , Catholic family of Anthony Browne as poor relations . Celia is a fascinating and believable character , full of contradictions and human failings . She is headstrong and impulsive innocent but coquettish and can easily attract male attention . She creates a scandal when she becomes infatuated with the family chaplain , Stephen Marsdon , who in turn desires Celia but does not want to break his vow of chastity . They are forced to part , but never forget each other . Time passes King Edward dies and his persecution of Catholics ends , only to follow by his successor , Queen Mary I s persecution of Protestants the Browne family fortunes prosper under the Marian reign and sympathetic characters harden into detestable ones . When Celia and Stephen finally meet again , nothing can stop the passion between them . It ends tragically . The Tudor story and the narrative returns to the 1960s to find resolution in the present and lay to rest the tormented souls of Stephen and Celia so that Richard and his wife can live together happily without visions of their past lives coming between them .

<|fantasy|>Stig is a caveman . He lives at the bottom of the old chalk pit close to Barney s grandparents house . Since the chalk pit is no longer used , people throw all their old junk away down there . So it is rather an interesting place to build a den . Barney falls over the edge of the quarry and tumbles down through the roof of Stig s den . When he looks round , there s Stig , with his shaggy black hair and bright black eyes . Barney and Stig get on rather well together . They have to manage without language , of course , but that doesn t seem to stop them . Stig s den is a brilliant place built out of discarded rubbish . Stig is Barney s secret friend , not because Barney doesn t tell anyone , but because no one really believes that Stig is real . They have a great time , improving Stig s den , collecting firewood , going hunting , and even catching some burglars who break into Barney s grandparents house . It s really a collection of short story adventures . We know that Stig is a caveman , and really Barney hardly seems to give any thought to where Stig has come from until the end of the book . Then , during a very hot , sultry mid summer s night , when Barney and his sister Lou can t sleep , they find themselves transported back in time and out onto the downs . To their surprise , they meet Stig , back with his own people , engaged in the construction of four gigantic standing stones . They spend a magical night camping out with the people of Stig s tribe , and helping to shift the final stone into position before sunrise . Has Stig found a way to travel backwards and forwards in time , or is it as much a mystery to Stig as it is to Barney and Lou ?

<|novel|>Emil Sinclair is a young boy raised in a bourgeois home , amidst what is described as a Scheinwelt , a play on words that means world of light as well as world of illusion . Emil s entire existence can be summarized as a struggle between two worlds the show world of illusion related to the Hindu concept of maya and the real world , the world of spiritual truth . In the course of the novel , accompanied and prompted by his mysterious classmate Max Demian , he detaches from and revolts against the superficial ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into a realization of self .