Sir Oliver Tressilian lives at the house of Penarrow together with his brother Lionel and his servant Nicholas. Sir Oliver is betrothed to Rosamund Godolphin, but her brother Peter, a young hothead, detests the Tressilians, as there had been a feud between their fathers, and therefore tries to drive a wedge between his sister and Sir Oliver. Peter and Rosamund''s guardian, Sir John Killigrew, also has little love for the Tressilians. One day, Peter''s actions lead to Sir Oliver dueling Sir John, whom he deems to be the source of the enmity. Sir John survives the duel, but is badly wounded, and this only serves to infuriate Peter. One day, he insults Sir Oliver in front of a few nobles. Sir Oliver sets in a furious pursuit, but then remembers a promise to Rosamund to refrain from engaging her brother, following which he returns home. Later that evening, however, his brother Lionel stumbles in, bleeding. He has been in a duel with Peter Godolphin over a woman they both loved. Lionel killed Peter in self-defense, but there were no witnesses. Circumstances make everyone believe Sir Oliver is the killer, and Lionel does nothing to quench that rumor. He even goes so far as to have his brother kidnapped for sale as a slave in Barbary to ensure that he never reveals the truth. The ship gets boarded by the Spanish, and Sir Oliver and his kidnapper, Captain Jasper Leigh, both become Spanish slaves. Sakr-el-Bahr After six months toiling as a slave at the oars of a Spanish galley and befriending a fellow slave, the Moor Yusuf-ben-Moktar, the galley gets boarded by Muslim corsairs. Oliver, Yusuf and the other slaves escape their shackles and join the fight with the corsairs. His fighting and the testimony of Yussuf, the nephew of Asad-ed-Din, Basha of Algiers, establishes Oliver as an honorary member of Muslim society, and he eventually makes himself a name as the corsair Sakr-el-Bahr, the Hawk of the Sea. Oliver does hold on to his old ties by making a habit of buying captured English slaves and returning them via Italy. One day he captures a Spanish vessel and thereon discovers his one-time kidnapper Jasper Leigh as a slave at the oars. He gives Jasper the opportunity to join the Faith and his corsairs, the sea-hawks. Since Jasper can navigate the seas, Sakr-el-Bahr sets sail for England to get even with Lionel. Lionel has inherited Sir Oliver''s possessions and even manages to befriend Sir John and become betrothed to Rosamund, who still believes Sir Oliver the murderer of her brother. Sakr-el-Bahr kidnaps them both and takes them back to Algiers where, to his dismay, the Basha enforces the law that all slaves have to be auctioned fairly. The Basha is also at the slave-market, takes a fancy to Rosamund, and orders his wazeer to buy her. But since all purchases have to be paid for immediately, Sakr-el-Bahr manages to buy her instead. The Basha is furious and threatens to take her by force, but Sakr-el-Bahr manages to thwart him by marrying Rosamund. He also manages to trick his brother, whom he also bought, to tell the truth about who killed Peter Godolphin in front of Rosamund. But the Basha wants to get rid of Sakr-el-Bahr in order to claim Rosamund for his own. Somehow Sakr-el-Bahr has to find a way to keep Rosamund from his clutches.

The Sea Hawk

Cara Landry, a new student in Mr. Larson''s 5th Grade classroom, publishes her own individual newspaper during her first year at Denton Elementary School titled "The Landry News". She writes an editorial about her teacher, Mr. Larson, who had once been a top-quality teacher but had over time become too apathetic to teach. Mr. Larson soon returns to his old teaching ways, when Cara''s merciless editorial opens his eyes to that it is true he has stopped teaching. Cara continues an old class newspaper with the novel''s title for as far as the teachers are concerned, a "class project". Cara then expands the newspaper with every edition, each even better than the first, with the help of her newly-found friends. One day when the newspaper is at its peak, her friend named Michael, a computer whiz who handles the newspaper layout, comes up to her and asks if she could read a story his "friend" wrote, titled "Lost and Found". When she reads it later that evening, tears form in her eyes, as she realizes it has no name, and it is about a divorce between the author''s parents and how he ran away from home, was found, and realized that his parent''s divorce had nothing to do with him, and that they love him for who he is. She loves the article mainly because that was exactly how she felt when her parents were divorced. When she shares the story with her mother later that evening, tears form in her eyes as well. At first she thought that Cara wrote it, but after she explains, she discovers the truth. The story is then printed in the paper, only to have a "fed-up Dr. Barnes", who is furious at Mr. Larson for allowing the children to do so. He is keeping an even sharper eye on Mr. Larson because he strongly disapproves of the way he teaches. He also makes a clear point to the media that "This article is too personally revealing for children, nor anyone else." The newspaper receives publicity because of the First Amendment and how the article had been banned, so Cara is interviewed for TV,and a hearing is planned in the auditorium. When the day of the hearing came, it certainly seems like Mr. Larson is going to be fired. The only thing that could possibly save his job is the fact that beforehand, Cara had asked Michael if he could read his story out loud in defense of Mr. Larson, as proof that Michael had written the story himself and wanted it to be published. During the hearing, Cara says that if kids are brave enough to say what they feel, then why is it so bad? Afterward, Cara hands out a special edition of the "Landry News", with one article with the headline "Larson is Vindicated!" and a story explaining what had happened at the hearing. The last article of the newspaper is an editorial written by Cara.

The Landry News

On Mars, Jim Marlowe and Frank Sutton travel to the Lowell Academy boarding school for the start of the academic year. Jim takes along his native, volleyball-sized pet, Willis the Bouncer, who is about as intelligent as a human child and has a photographic memory for sounds, which he can also reproduce perfectly. At a rest stop, Willis wanders off and encounters one of the adult sentient Martians. The three-legged alien takes the two boys and Willis to join a ritual called "growing together" with a group of its fellows. They also share water, making Jim and Frank "water friends" with the Martian, who is named Gekko. At school, Jim gets into trouble with the authoritarian headmaster, Mr. Howe, who confiscates Willis, claiming that it is against the new rules to have pets. When Jim and Frank sneak into Howe''s office and rescue Willis, the bouncer repeats two overheard conversations between Howe and Beecher, the unscrupulous colonial administrator of Mars, detailing Beecher''s plans for Willis and the colony. When Beecher learns Howe has a bouncer, he is ecstatic, since the London Zoo is willing to pay a hefty price for a specimen. Worse, Beecher is secretly planning to prevent the annual migration of the colonists (necessary to avoid 12 months of life threatening winter weather) in order to save money. The boys run away from school to warn their parents and the colony. The boys set out to skate the thousands of miles to their homes on the frozen Martian canals. During the trip, Frank gets sick. On the third night, they are forced to take shelter inside a giant Martian cabbage plant (nearly suffocating when it folds up at night). The next day, they meet some native Martians, who accept Jim because of his relationship to Willis and water-friendship with Gekko. The Martians treat Frank''s illness and send the two boys home by a swift "subway". Once warned, Jim''s father quickly organizes the migration, hoping to catch Beecher off guard. The colonists take over the boarding school, and they turn it into a temporary shelter. Howe locks himself in his office, while Beecher sets up automatic, photosensor-controlled weapons outside to stop the malcontents (as he calls them) from leaving. After two colonists are killed trying to surrender, and the power to the building is cut, the colonists decide they have no choice but to fight back. The colonists organize a raiding party, with the boys taking part, capture Beecher''s office and proclaim the colony''s independence from the Earth. Several Martians enter the school area, and one of them shows up in the door leading to Howe''s office, hiding him from sight. When the Martian turns away, Howe is nowhere to be found. The Martians then go to Beecher''s building, and when they leave, he has also vanished. The Martians had been content to allow humans to share their planet, but Beecher''s threat to Willis has made them reconsider. They present the colonists with an ultimatum: leave the planet or else. Dr. MacRae negotiates with the Martians, and is able to persuade them to let the colonists stay, mainly because of Jim''s strong friendship with Willis. Doctor MacRae theorizes that Martians start life as bouncers, metamorphose into adults, then continue to exist after their deaths as the "old ones." In the end, Jim resigns himself to giving Willis up so he can undergo the transformation to adulthood. As with Podkayne of Mars, there are two versions of the ending. As originally written (and published much later) it is made clear that Willis will not emerge as an adult for forty years. This was edited and changed by Heinlein''s publishers, as was a discussion early in the novel in which MacRae expresses strong support for adults and older children being free to carry handguns, and opposition to any government which would restrict that.

Red Planet

Pandora was born with the name Lydia in the Roman Republic in the year 15 BC to a Senatorial family. She is tall, with rippling brown hair and gold-brown eyes. Like many Patrician Roman females of the time Pandora was taught how to read and write and is well versed in epic poems, especially Ovid''s works. She meets Marius for the first time when he is twenty-five and she is ten. Marius asks for Lydia''s hand in marriage, but her father rejects Marius'' offer. Five years later, Lydia sees Marius at a festival and begs her father to allow her to marry Marius. Her father again refuses. Pandora''s father holds a high rank as a Senator. But when a new emperor takes power, her family is betrayed by her own brother and killed. Only Pandora and her traitorous brother survive the massacre, and she is taken to Antioch (after changing her name) by a man who was very close to her father. There she meets Marius again, twenty years after their last encounter. Unbeknownst to her, Marius is now a vampire. She eventually finds out what Marius has become, and also that he protects and hides the Queen and King of all Vampires. The vampire, Akabar, wants to steal the Queen''s powerful and ancient blood. Marius and Pandora try to prevent him from carrying out his plan. To gain access to the Queen, Akabar uses Marius''s love for Pandora against him and drains Pandora to the point of death. In order to save her, Marius is forced to make Pandora into a vampire and forced to let Akabar see the Queen, who then destroys Akabar. The pair stay together for the next two hundred years, taking care of the King and Queen of all vampires, before arguing and separating. Marius later characterized the breakup (of which he left her and she spent six months or more waiting for him to return) as being entirely his fault: He considers himself a teacher who longs to impart what he knows upon his pupils, but Pandora -being as free-spirited and highly educated as she was -had no patience to be his student. During their time together, against his objection, she did turn one of her beloved slaves into a vampire. As soon as he was turned he left the pair and was not seen again. The next time they meet again is in a Dresden ballroom in the early to late-17th century. Marius tries in vain to make Pandora leave her companion and fledgling, Arjun, and come back to him. Pandora''s relationship with Arjun is of great concern to Marius, who fears Pandora is being held against her will. While she outwardly denies this, Pandora overcomes her embarrassment and admits to David in her writing that she could not bring herself to leave Arjun, citing that his stronger will propelled them both through time. The next and last time that they meet is in 1985, when she is among thirteen vampires who survived Akasha''s killing spree and gathered at Maharet''s house in the Sonoma compound to battle against Akasha. Pandora remains quiet and withdrawn throughout the whole ordeal, staring out the windows and saying little, rousing herself only once to say that Akasha is trying to justify deplorable "reasons" for a holocaust. Like many vampires, Pandora is a morose, despairing immortal who initially wanted immortality but soon regretted her choice and turns into a dark, indifferent cynic. Lestat thinks that Pandora was troubled in some deep, fundamental way even before she became a vampire, because she''s the only vampire who doesn''t receive visions of Maharet and Mekare in her dreams. During the confrontation in Sonoma, when Akasha directly asks Pandora to join with her or die, Pandora merely responds in a quiet, indifferent voice that she can''t do what Akasha is asking of her, and stoically accepts the idea of being killed. Even after Akasha herself is destroyed and the thirteen vampires regroup in Armand''s Night Island in Florida, Pandora still acts withdrawn from her fellow vampire kin, watching music videos all day long and completely ignoring Marius, who dotes on her lovingly. There is no sense of recovery or security in her as there is with the other vampires, and she departs from Night Island alone, still just as morose as ever. David Talbot encounters her in Paris shortly after the events of Memnoch the Devil and before the story of The Vampire Armand. He asks her to write the story of her life, which she does in a cafe by writing in some notebooks he gave her. She recalls the details of her life before becoming a vampire and briefly discusses the period when she was with Marius. After she has finished, she writes that she plans to go to New Orleans to look for Marius and to look into the eyes of Lestat, and try to understand what it is he saw. She is last seen at the end of Blood and Gold, alongside Marius. es:Pandora (novela) fr:Pandora (roman) hr:Pandora (vampir) it:Pandora (romanzo) pl:Pandora (powieść) pt:Pandora (livro) ru:Пандора (роман)

Pandora

The novel begins when Sunny Randall is approached by Buddy Bolen to provide protection for his number one client, Erin Flint. Ms. Flint is the star of the Woman Warrior movie series and future star of Bolen’s major league baseball team. Ms. Flint initially hates the idea of Sunny following her around but begrudgingly agrees to the arrangement at Buddy’s behest. Bolen’s fears seem to have been well founded when Erin’s assistant, Misty, is murdered. Because of Misty’s striking resemblance to her, Erin is convinced the killer was after her. Sunny meets Paradise Police Chief Jesse Stone at the scene of the crime; however Buddy and Erin lack confidence in the Paradise police, and ask Sunny to solve the crime. Sunny travels to L.A. where she meets her friend Tony Gault, a Hollywood agent with whom she has a casual sexual relationship. He puts her in touch with a sports writer who is convinced that Erin Flint’s addition to Buddy Bolen’s baseball team is a publicity stunt. It is his opinion that the baseball team was a bad buy on Bolen’s part because they have no market or fan base. Neither does he believe that Erin will be able to compete with the male players in the major league. He does think, however, that the publicity will generate enough interest in the team to allow Bolen to dump his bad investment. He proves to be right later when Erin faces a major league pitcher and cannot hit one ball. Next, Sunny contacts Chief Stone back in Paradise who puts her in contact with his old boss, LAPD police Captain Cronjager. After some investigation with the LAPD, Sunny discovers that Erin Flint is actually Ethel Boverini, and Misty Tyler was her sister Edith. She also discovers that Erin is still married to L.A. pimp Gerard Basgall. Sunny and an LAPD detective go to question Basgall who admits to still being married to Erin and still loving her. He also admits to visiting her regularly, and that his last visit was around the time Misty was murdered. Sunny flies back to Paradise, where she reveals this information to Chief Stone. Stone then confronts Erin with the information who breaks down, but later calms down and admits that she was one of Basgall’s prostitutes, as well as his wife. She and her sister began working for him after their mother died. Further investigation, and another trip to L.A. with Chief Stone this time, reveals more information. It turns out that Buddy Bolen was looking for financing for his first Woman Warrior movie. Meanwhile, Boston mobster Moon Monaghan had a lot of cash that he was looking to invest quietly. L.A. film financier Arlo Delany puts the two together. He also sweetens the deal by getting Buddy Bolen a sister combo of prostitutes to be at his beck and call. The girls also occasionally have sex with Moon Monaghan although Moon denies it when questioned. The girls turn out to be Erin Flint and Misty Tyler. Later, Buddy decides to star Erin in his Woman Warrior movie. The movie turns out to be a big hit; however Buddy has Arlo cook the books to make it look like it made no money in order to stiff Moon Monaghan. Moon gets wind of this and has Arlo killed as a warning to Buddy of what will happen if he doesn’t get his money back. Misty gets scared and threatens to go to the police. Erin calls Gerard to come out and talk some sense into her. They get into an argument and during the struggle he accidentally breaks Misty’s neck and kills her. Chief Stone and Sunny confront Erin and Gerard about this. Gerard claims that he killed Misty, while Erin claims that she killed her. Touched by the fact that the two try to protect the each other by taking the blame, Chief Stone decides they have suffered enough and lets them go on the condition that they promise not to avenge her.

Blue Screen

The British Empire is falling apart. Many commoners are unhappy with the current government, though none of the commoners claim responsibility for the status quo. The magician''s demons are being assaulted by the children''s natural abilities to see and resist the demons. (All of the magicians in the government were originally commoners whose parents sold them to the government at a young age, so it is not hard to understand why they are such a heartless group of people, concerned only with power and wealth.) Some commoners advocate slow reform, while others advocate open revolt, while still others say the commoners should learn how to summon spirits of their own to combat those spirits belonging to the magicians. Ptolemy''s Gate concludes with a council of surviving magicians and important commoners trying to work out a government that is beneficial to everyone. Kitty Jones eventually unearths the reason why humans and spirits are locked into the endless cycle, that humans do not understand the nature of djinni and summon them only as powerful, but dangerous, slaves, not equals. This theory is confirmed by Bartimaeus who states that his greatest master, Ptolemy, was the only human who treated his servants as equals and tried to build a bridge between djinni and humans. However, Ptolemy misguidedly believed many others would follow in his footsteps; the only other person to ever successfully cross into the Other Place was Kitty. England''s domestic turmoil has taken its toll on John Mandrake. Mandrake is friendless and constantly watched by his numerous enemies. In the three years since The Golem''s Eye there have been several attempts on Mandrake''s life. His years as a high ranking government official have made Mandrake merciless, and he treats all of his servants cruelly, especially Bartimaeus. However, events in Ptolemy''s Gate shatter Mandrake''s confidence in what he has become. The transformation from Mandrake to Nathaniel is much more rapid than the one from Nathaniel to Mandrake. Nathaniel drops the name John Mandrake all together, as well as the fear of others knowing his true name, humbly telling it to Kitty, with whom he seems to have struck up a newfound friendship, and boldly proclaiming it to the spirit Nouda. With the end of Mandrake, Nathaniel becomes all that Ptolemy hoped to be. Nathaniel willingly allows Bartimaeus to share his body to combat Nouda and his army of hybrids, using Gladstone''s staff, a fusion that forever bridges the gap between humans and djinn. However, at the last moment, he dismisses Bartimaeus and then sacrifices himself to destroy the spirit Nouda. This incident was similar to what Ptolemy did in the moments before he died.

Ptolemy''s Gate

The novel follows the adventure of four bears, Kallik (a polar bear), Lusa (a black bear), Toklo (a brown bear) and Ujurak (a shapeshifter who is usually a brown bear). The novel first follows Kallik who lives with her mother and brother. However, they are separated on ice when a group of killer whales attacks them and Kallik must survive by herself. On her own, Kallik decides to go to a gathering place for polar bears that her mom told her about. At the gathering, Kallik asks other polar bears if they have seen her brother, but no one has. Alone, Kallik meets a female bear Nanuk who helps Kallik around the area. However, Nanuk is killed by a helicopter crash shipping her and Kallik back to the wild and Nanuk tells Kallik about a place where the ice never melts. Hearing this, Kallik sets off to this place. Somewhere is the Rocky Mountains in southern Canada, Toklo''s mom is bringing Toklo and his sickly brother to a river to teach them how to catch salmon. However, in insanity, Toklo''s mom abandons Toklo after a mental break because his brother died. Now Toklo must survive on his own, just like Kallik. Wandering randomly, Toklo meets an injured human who requests Toklo to retrieve certain herbs, which he does. The human introduces himself as a Shapeshifter named Ujurak and the two travel together. Lusa is a pampered black bear living in the Bear Bowl, a zoo in Canada. Despite knowing that the wilderness is harsh, Lusa has dreams about one day escaping and living outside. Her father, King, once lived in the wild and is strongly against Lusa''s idea. One day, Toklo''s mom is brought into the Bear Bowl. She talks with Lusa about how much she regretted abandoning her cubs, but that it was too late and that she couldn''t find them. Hearing this, Lusa decides to bring a message to Toklo about how sorry his mother is. Although Lusa succeeds in escaping, she realises the dangers of the wild. At the end of the story, Ujurak and Toklo meet up with Lusa.

The Quest Begins

At home in Oogaboo, a tiny principality in the northwestern corner of Oz, Queen Ann is restless for a new adventure; she decides to search for her lost parents, King Jol Jemkiph Soforth and Queen Dede Soforth. Her attempt to re-muster her army is a total failure; but four enterprising children are eager to join her search party. They are a girl and three boys, Jody Buttons, Jo Musket, Jo Fountainpen, and Jo Dragon (with his pet Moretomore). Ann also writes to the Shaggy Man, inviting him to meet them on their way. After receiving Ann''s letter via mailbird, the Shaggy Man investigates the situation, but with limited success. Glinda''s Great Book of Records is surprisingly unhelpful on the location of the missing royals. It follows their activities well enough, up to a point &mdash; then breaks off with a cryptic "forget it." Princess Ozma tries to find them in the Magic Picture, but it shows only a pink haze with the inscription "no data available." Shaggy meets Ann and her party; they travel to Sand City, ruled by King Lysander and Queen Cassandra. (Puns and word play on "sand" flow freely.) A patch of quicksand speeds them on their way. They encounter the overly eager practitioners of Barberville, and spend an idyllic interval at the Friendly Forest. Finally they reach a wall with a gate in it. The gate bears a strange warning: :::::::FORGETVILLE ::::::Beware the The wall surrounds a fog-shrouded village. When the members of the party enter, they lose their memories. Moretomore is immune from the spell, because he carries with him a fragment of his natal eggshell, which prevents him from ever forgetting anything. The little dragon is desperate to help his companions, but doesn''t know what to do. Ozma, however, has been monitoring the Shaggy Man''s progress, as she told him she would; and she sends Tik-Tok to help. The mechanical man brings the search party members out of Forgetville. The searchers learn to counter the memory spell with forget-me-nots, and they draw the inhabitants out too &mdash; including the lost King and Queen of Oogaboo. They also seek to end the spell on the town. They find and read the journal of Amnesia, the witch who cast the spell. They learn that they can bring the wall down with the "Ancient Traditional Wall Removal Method." Shaggy suspects that this is a reference to the story of Jericho. The searchers and townspeople re-enact the siege of Jericho; they march around the city seven times, Jo Musket plays his trumpet, and the multitude shouts at dawn. The wall falls and the spell is broken. Forgetville returns to being the town of Goldendale, as it was before. Ozma arrives with breakfast; together, the characters piece out the story of how Goldendale lost its memory, a tale that involves Jo Jemkiph, the witch Amnesia, and the Love Magnet (from The Road to Oz). Ozma uses the Magic Belt to bring the former Amnesia, now Amy, from Butterfield, Kansas, where the Shaggy Man knew her and stole the Love Magnet from her (closing a story loop with Baum''s original books). In the process, the Shaggy Man''s true name is revealed: he''s Shagrick Mann (but Ozma agrees to keep this knowledge secret). Ann''s reunion with her parents is a happy one. The people of Goldendale choose Jol Jemkiph and Dede Soforth as their rulers. Ann remains in power in Oogaboo.

Queen Ann in Oz

The story is set in rural Shropshire shortly after the Napoleonic Wars. It is narrated by the central character, Prue Sarn, whose life is blighted by having a harelip. Only the weaver, Kester Woodseaves, perceives the beauty of her character, but Prue cannot believe herself worthy of him. Her brother Gideon is overridingly ambitious to attain wealth and power, regardless of who suffers while he does so. Gideon is set to wed his sweetheart Jancis, but he incurs the wrath of her father, the cruel and scheming self-proclaimed wizard Beguildy. An act of vengeance by Beguildy makes Gideon reject Jancis and tragedy overwhelms them both. Prue is wrongly accused of murder and set upon by a mob, but Kester defies them and carries Prue away to the happiness she believed she could never possess because of her harelip. The title of the story is from John Milton''s Paradise Lost: :Let none admire :That riches grow in Hell; that Soyle may best :Deserve the precious bane. It refers to the love of money, which, as Prue records, blights love and destroys life.

Precious Bane

Set towards the end of WWI, in 1918, it tells the story of a shy young railway employee and amateur actor from Milwaukee, named Paul Peachy. Having realised that his wife no longer loves him, Paul enlists as a private in the U.S. Army and boards ship for the trenches of France. Peachy finds temporary solace in friendship amid horrors of war, but is soon captured by the enemy Germans in No Man''s Land. His only chance of survival is to impersonate one of the enemy''s most famous spies (as a child of immigrants, he is a fluent German speaker). As the urbane and accomplished spy Harry Stroller, Peachy is feted as a hero by the German top brass and gains access to a previously unimagined world of sumptuous living. But his new role also reveals inner reserves of courage and ingenuity he never knew he possessed, as the mounting suspicions of his German hosts force Peachy into ever more outrageous deceptions. In this atmosphere of smoke and mirrors, Paul Peachy falls in love with Annie, a beautiful French courtesan, who seems to see through his artful disguise. The ending is a surprise of twists and clever plotting.

My French Whore

The novel''s main character, Ishmael Lesuer, is named after the main character of Moby-Dick. He was given the name because just before he was born, his parents performed a scene from the novel. He is fourteen years old and the world''s only sufferer from the self-diagnosed Ishmael Leseur''s Syndrome – a chronic ailment capable of turning an otherwise normal person into a "walking disaster area registering nine point nine on the open-ended imbecile scale". Ishmael showed no symptoms of his apparent syndrome until his first day of secondary school. The school bully, Barry Bagsley, teases him about his name. He tries to avoid Barry and acts invisible but swears to stand up to Barry in Year Nine. His Year Nine teacher, Miss Tarango, tells the whole class about the name Ishmael coming from Moby-Dick, which gives Barry and his friends more names to tease Ishmael with. Ishmael later intervenes when he sees Barry and his friends tease a boy who joins Ishmael''s year level. A new boy called James Scobie becomes a target for bullying because of his appearance. However, James responds to the bully''s taunts with humour. He tells the class that he is fearless because he had a brain tumour that damaged the part of his brain that feels fear. Barry is the only person that does not believe James. About a week later Barry puts a lot of insects and spiders in James''s desk, but James is not frightened. During a rugby match James''s fearlessness changes the course of the game. Ishmael, Scobie, a hilarious, outgoing and independent boy called Orazio Zorzotto, an overweight, sci-fi geek called Bill Kingsley and a very smart nerd Ignatius Prindabel participate in debating. Barry and his friends mock Bill about his weight by destroying his debating certificate. Kelly Faulkner, a girl Ishmael starts to fall in love with, thanks Ishmael because she is the sister of the Year Four boy Ishmael saved from Barry. On the last day of school at the ''end-of-year extravaganza thingy'', Ishmael invents a prayer that will humiliate Barry. However, he eventually decides not to say his prayer, because he does not want to humiliate Barry''s innocent parents, ruin the ceremony for the people who worked to make it or become the person Barry was. Ishmael then receives a letter from Kelly. He runs out on to the school''s oval, completely ecstatic and bursting with happiness, and reads the letter, which says that she has invited him to her friend''s party. He finally realizes that his life is not as bad as he once have believed.

Don''t Call Me Ishmael

For ten years, Jamayah, a mysterious mystic from Argentina, has instructed Rickshaw Lubowski (formerly Bob Kramer in Jamayah: Adventures on the Path of Return), wisdom teachings oriented toward paranormal command and cosmic awareness. After completing three initiations along the Path of Return, Rickshaw feels as if he knows everything he needs to know. Collateral Karma opens after Rickshaw has ditched the Path of Return in search of more tangible things - like sex, drugs, occultism, and sorcery. He realizes his vulnerability after becoming the target of a curse cast by an evil leader of a ceremonial cult called The Alliance, a sorcery coterie of the Order of Aldabaoth, who practice ritual sex and black magick. Rickshaw’s descent into the world of sensation and desire has generated collateral karma that incurs freakish nightmares all too real, starting with the obsessively expected death of his new fiancé. Realizing his grave mistake for running around in the playground of the Devil and driven to desperation, Rickshaw attempts to reconnect with his teachings and powers to no avail. Spiritually lost and adrift in a world that spins him out of control, he can only hang on while everything around him begins to crumble. Seeking help wherever he can find it, he meets a blind fortuneteller who seems to know more about his destiny than anyone should and with whom he falls in love. Only when Rickshaw truly believes that he has lost touch with himself and reality does his mentor, Jamayah, appear. Together, they join forces to confront the evil intentions of Aleister, the leader of The Alliance. With the help of two Native American shamans, one a Navaho and the other a Chiricahua Apache, Jamayah and Rickshaw use all their powers to attempt to save not only Rickshaw’s life, but Jamayah’s as well. In the end, Jamayah requires Rickshaw to complete a fourth initiation. Now discovering that Raoul, Jamayah’s son, and Crystal Meadows, Carmela’s daughter, have been on the Path of Return and have already completed this initiation as well, in spite of his common sense, Rickshaw is compelled to undergo the initiation. Called cascading boulders in trance, this initiation is about completely trusting in the universe at the risk of physical death.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Sea Hawk

By Rafael Sabatini

The Landry News

By Andrew Clements

Red Planet

By Robert A. Heinlein

Pandora

By Anne Rice

Blue Screen

By Robert B. Parker

Ptolemy's Gate

By Jonathan Stroud

The Quest Begins

By Cherith Baldry

Queen Ann in Oz

No Author Listed

Precious Bane

No Author Listed

My French Whore

By Gene Wilder

Don't Call Me Ishmael

By Michael Gerard Bauer

Collateral Karma

By T.L. Orcutt