Rose, a young Parisian woman with full academic training is on the eve of marrying. Suddenly her father fails; she loses her dowry, and her fiance disappears. She tries to get work, but soon finds out that her diplomas are more of a hindrance than a help. They inspire only diffidence in administrative circles. Officials always declare her too good for the position. Starvation threatens, and finally she sets to work deliberately trying to appear unintelligent and rude enough to be hired. Thus she succeeds in securing a position as "femme de service" in the "Maternelle" of the working-class quarter of Menilmontant. A "Maternelle" is a district school for children from two to six years, preparatory to the Primary school. To ease her transition to this new environment and ward off thoughts of despair she decides to keep a diary of her daily experiences. This diary shows her to be an extremely kind-hearted woman and at the same time a keen observer. Rose has the lowest tasks in the school: she dusts, sweeps the rooms, lights the fire early in the morning, and she takes care of the children physically, all day round. Although the directress and the two subordinate teachers are her superiors, Rose is the one that comes in closest contact with the children. Rose is the one to whom they go to naturally all the time, as they would to a mother; she washes them when their nose is bleeding, in her arms they find consolation when roughly handled by a schoolmate; in her skirt they hide to find protection against angry and threatening parents. The pupils belong to the working poor, and many of them are so neglected and so miserable in their homes that the school is a better place for them to be. And the school to them is Rose. The children include "mouse," the gentle five-year-old little mother with her brother, her "chickling;" Richard, who cannot imagine that there might exist anything like disinterested kindness and he conceives of every relation between two human beings as a bargain; Adam, the strong and noisy leader of the older boys and a great boaster, the girls who admire him because they are afraid of him. The cat Mistigris, who eats little birds and thereby stirs up the wrath of the children.

La Maternelle

The novel is set about 200 years before the birth of Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of much of the Vorkosigan series. It deals with the creation of the "Quaddies", genetically modified people who have four arms, the second pair appearing where unmodified humans would have legs. They were intended to be used as a space labor force, not only superbly adapted to zero-gravity but unable to function "downside" in any but the lightest gravitational field. From the point of view of the commercial interests responsible for their creation, they would be highly-profitable, requiring none of the special facilities or mandatory time off needed by other humans, whose bodies tend to deteriorate over the long term in weightlessness. They would also be completely beholden to the company for life support, and would have no rights as human beings. Legally, the Quaddies are not classed as human but as "post-fetal experimental tissue cultures". The company treats them as chattel slaves. Their access to information is tightly controlled. Even their children''s stories are about working in space. They can be ordered to reproduce or to have a pregnancy terminated. They are the subject of breeding programs, the company compelling them to mate only with one of the company''s choosing, regardless of existing partners. When a new artificial gravity technology renders them both obsolete and a potential political embarrassment to the executives, there are discussions about killing them or sterilizing them. Bipedal engineer Leo Graf, who had been assigned to help train them, instead helps them break free. They eventually settle in an initially remote system that gradually becomes a major part of the Nexus. Bujold has stated in the notes of her reprints that Falling Free was the first half of the intended story. The unwritten, second story was to tell how the Quaddies settled into what would be known as "Quaddiespace". Diplomatic Immunity, published in 2002, revisits the subject of the Quaddies, showing the state of their society some 240 years after its foundation. It takes place on Graf Station, named for Leo Graf, who is hero and patriarch to the Quaddies.

Falling Free

The novel is set in Moscow in the Yeltsin years, the early 1990s, a time of rampant chaos and corruption. Its protagonist, Babylen Tatarsky, graduate student and poet, has been tossed onto the streets after the fall of the Soviet Union where he soon learns his true calling: developing Russian versions of western advertisements. But the more he succeeds as a copywriter, the more he searches for meaning in a culture now defined by material possessions and self-indulgence. He attempts to discover the forces that determine individual desires and shape collective belief in this post-Soviet world. In this quest, Tatarsky sees coincidences that suggest patterns that in turn suggest a hidden meaning behind the chaos of life. He first senses this hidden purpose when reading about Mesopotamian religious practices. Tatarsky’s quest is enhanced by the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, and vodka. His quest is further aided by another form of spirits: through a Ouija board, Che Guevera writes a treatise on identity, consumerism, and television. Eventually, Tatarsky begins to learn some truths—for instance, that all of politics and the “real” events broadcast on television are digital creations. But he can never quite discover the ultimate force behind these fabrications. When at last he reaches the top of the corporate pyramid, Tatarsky learns that the members of his firm are servants of the goddess Ishtar, whose corporeal form consists of the totality of advertising images. The firm’s chief duty is to make sure that Ishtar’s enemy, the dog Phukkup, does not awaken, bringing with it chaos and destruction. After a ritual sacrifice, Tatarsky becomes the goddesses’ new regent and, in the form of a 3-D double, her bridegroom. In the novel’s last chapter, Tatarsky’s electronic double becomes a ubiquitous presence on Russian TV. Tatarsky, who had tried to look past the false images presented on TV to see a true umediated reality, has himself been transformed into an illusion.

Generation "П"

Cyril Annick and his wife Grace have been running Downs Park for many years. Both are universally respected and loved by staff and pupils alike. Unforeseen problems for the school arise when the idiosyncrasies and compulsions of individual members of the staff threaten to upset life at the school. There is Rupert Massinger, the second master, whose womanizing makes victims of both the school secretary and the headmaster''s grown-up daughter. Also, with money he has inherited Massinger is planning to take over the school and gently force the Annicks into early retirement. To everyone''s surprise, as a strategic move, Massinger and his wife, who also teaches at the school, decide to resign, to reculer pour mieux sauter. Elspeth Murray, the middle-aged French mistress, has been feeling extremely lonely since her husband''s death and has only taken up teaching recently to find some sort of distraction. At first, her irrational sexual attraction to Betty Cope, a pretty young lesbian who assists Grace Annick in her capacity as Matron, causes some eye-rolling. Later, when a series of petty thefts occurs everyone suspects a pupil to be stealing his schoolmates'' things. However, Murray turns out to be a kleptomaniac, and when she is caught in the act she thinks she cannot cope any longer and commits suicide in the school swimming pool. Leo Canning, the young science master whose humble social background and troubled childhood make it difficult for him to adapt to the thoroughly bourgeois atmosphere of the school, falls in love with Penelope Saxton, the headmaster''s young widowed daughter, and in the end they get married. However, it takes Penelope a long time until she makes up her mind to spend the rest of her life with Canning. In the meantime, she is courted by the father of the youngest staff member, a baronet called Sir James Pettifer whose aristocratic ways she finds quite alluring. More trouble appears with the arrival of Norman and Delia Poole, who have come to replace Massinger and his wife. It does not take the staff long to discover that Delia is a hopeless alcoholic whose pathetic attempts at rationalizing her addiction are embarrassing to everyone who happens to witness them. She has to give up her art classes quite soon again and over the following months mainly stays at their home on the school grounds. Finally, although he is a popular teacher, Norman Poole hands in his notice to be able to care for his wife full time. Cyril Annick has no intention to retire, let alone hand over to Massinger. However, when his wife suffers a mild stroke he sees it as the last straw and willy-nilly sells out to him. The Annicks move to a flat in nearby Eastbourne, where shortly afterwards Grace has another stroke and dies. Not yet 60, Cyril Annick moves to London to be near his daughter and son-in-law.

The Honours Board

The novel tells the story of Friedrich Löwenberg, a young Jewish Viennese intellectual, who, tired with European decadence, joins an Americanized Prussian aristocrat named Kingscourt as they retire to a remote Pacific island (it is specifically mentioned as being part of the Cook Islands, near Raratonga). Stopping in Jaffa on their way to the Pacific, they find Palestine a backward, destitute and sparsely populated land, as it appeared to Herzl on his visit in 1898. Löwenberg and Kingscourt spend the following twenty years on the island, cut off from civilization. As they pass through Palestine on their way back to Europe, they discover a land drastically transformed, showcasing a free, open and cosmopolitan modern society, and boasting a thriving cooperative industry based on state-of-the-art technology. In the two decades that have passed, European Jews have rediscovered and re-inhabited their Altneuland, reclaiming their own destiny in the Land of Israel. The basic plot device of a person finding himself transported to an utopian future and being given a "guided tour" of the society he finds there is similar to the plot of "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy, already considered a classic Utopian work at the time of writing and with which Herzl has been familiar.

The Old New Land

The book takes Luke''s style to its logical conclusion, as the entire book is made up of sections taken from other, fictional books. The preface to the book claims that it was written in Deya, Majorca, in 2326. According to the book, an entire industry has grown up publishing books about a Montauk named Wim - including The Gospel According to Luke (Luke Forth, not Luke Rhinehart) and the screenplay of a movie. The screenplay is possibly in there as a result of Luke Rhinehart''s continuing frustration in trying to get The Dice Man turned into a good movie. Adventures of Wim, then, is an effort to create a new interpretation of the story of Wim, drawing on the many previous efforts, and so providing a multi-faceted and whimsical account of ''one of the greatest figures in the 20th and 21st Century''. A boy is born of a virgin mother and is named "Wim" (in Adventures of Wim) or "Whim" (in The Book of the Die and Whim): Montauk for "Wave Rider". He is pronounced to be the saviour of the Montauk nation by his tribe''s navigator, and educated in their ways. Sadly, the humans steal him away and attempt to educate him in more useful skills, such as American Football. Wim, also known as "He of Many Chances", proves to be an inefficient saviour, as God sends him on a quest for Ultimate Truth. This does not seem to be something that will benefit his tribe terribly, but the navigator isn''t one to stare down the barrel of a lightning gun, and sends him on his way. After a long and arduous search, Wim finds ultimate truth (in a tomato), and with it the cure for the sickness of the human condition.

Adventures of Wim

The novel opens with a brief scene written in the third person: at a remote location in Tibet, a man in local costume, backed by a group of native people, confronts a woman at the head of an exploratory expedition. There is a sudden sense of realization as the man and woman recognize each other as siblings; the man collapses, overcome by shock. The story then switches to a first-person account, written by John Robertson after his meeting with his sister Ellen. Thirty years earlier, at the age of 25, Robertson had been traveling through rural Tibet; wandering away from his party, he had gotten lost and had fallen over a precipice. He was nursed back to health by local villagers, but his memory was deeply impaired. It was only when his sister found him that he regained his recollection. He returns to the United States with her, to face a society that is vastly different from the one he knew in his youth. Around 1920, while Robertson was living obscurely in Tibet, America had adopted a system of economics described as being "beyond Socialism", a strain of nationalism that answered all the questions posed by socialism without actually being socialist, renovating its society and culture; and from there it had continued to develop into a more efficient nation, through "social evolution" and a vague "new religion." Robertson is surprised to learn that his sister is the president of a college &mdash; and is astounded to realize that she is a married college president. He meets his brother-in-law and nephew and niece, and is repeatedly challenged in his traditional attitudes. He is not a feminist; on the ship homeward he meets an attractive and vivacious young woman, and thinks of her, "My sister must have been mistaken about her being a civil engineer. She might be a college girl &mdash; but nothing worse." Most of the book consists of John Robertson being instructed, by his family members and others, in the new, rational, well-organized social order. Gilman''s America of 1940 is a country with no poverty or prostitution, "no labor problem &mdash; no color problem &mdash; no sex problem &mdash; almost no disease &mdash; very little accident &mdash; practically no fires," a place in which "the only kind of prison left is called a quarantine," where problems of deforestation and soil erosion are being remedied, and in which "no one needs to work over two hours a day and most people work four...." The central chapters in the book deliver Gilman''s program for reforming society. She concentrates on measures of rationality and efficiency that could be instituted in her own time, largely with greater social cooperation &mdash; equal education and treatment for girls and boys, day-care centers for working women, and other issues still relevant a century later. Yet Gilman also allows for technological progress: electric power is the motive force in industry and urban society, power generated largely by the tides (a technology that is only being developed in the early twenty-first century in the real world), plus "wind-mills, water mills," and "solar engines." And the sky is full of "airships." People now practice a "new humanitarianism." Vegetarianism is in fashion, hunting is out, and zoos are no more. (Gilman''s concept of animal rights, however, provides for the elimination of predators, to save their prey.) Tobacco and alcohol are also out of fashion, because emancipated women condemn those habits. Robertson does not find it easy to accept the new social order; his sister gently mocks him as an example of "An Extinct Species of Mind," as exotic as a "Woolly Mammoth." He even longs for the noisy, dirty, crowded chaos of the cities of his youth, in preference to the clean, quiet, "beautiful" cities of 1940. In his discontent, Robertson travels to his home state of South Carolina to visit his Uncle Jake, an old farmer and a determined reactionary who rejects the radical improvements of the past thirty years. Uncle Jake still practices subsistence farming with his elderly wife and middle-aged spinster daughter Drusilla. Robertson remembers his cousin Drusilla, ten years his junior, as a darling child &mdash; and is shocked by the harsh and deprived life she lives. His "thirty years in Tibet," which had weighed heavily upon his thoughts, now seem like "a holiday compared to this thirty years on an upland farm in the Alleghanies of Carolina." He convinces Drusilla to marry him, to salve his own loneliness and to give her a better life &mdash; and in doing so Robertson comes to accept the superior modern world he had previously resisted.

Moving the Mountain

While at the theater for a Star Trek marathon with Anya, Xander recognizes a friend of his, from the arcade, enter the theater and begin threatening and beating humans in a very demonic way. Upon further inspection, Xander learns that his friend, Robby, was involved in total immersion VR video game beta testing. But the testing was a little too secretive, according to Robby''s girlfriend. Meanwhile, Buffy and Dawn are having issues with one another, and Buffy doesn''t know how to deal with being Dawn''s new "mom" after the recent death of their own mother. After much research concerning the bizarre video game tests, and the appearance of a man named Bobby Lee Tooker, the group discovers that the video game isn''t so much a video game, as much as it is another dimensional portal while the human bodies are being taken over by demons. Buffy needs to find a way to get these beta testers (including a very reluctant Xander) back into the real world and destroy the evil demon who''s using the testers to conjure a powerful being.

Crossings

The novel begins with a prologue called "Semley''s Necklace", which was first published as a stand-alone story titled "Dowry of the Angyar" in Amazing Stories (September 1964). A young woman named Semley takes a space voyage from her unnamed, technologically primitive planet to a museum to reclaim a family heirloom, not realizing that, while the trip will be of short duration for her, many years will elapse on her planet. She returns to find her daughter grown up and her husband dead. The story in effect combines the Rip Van Winkle-type fairy tale—where a person goes underground in the company of dwarves or elves, spending an apparently brief time but on emerging finding whole generations had elapsed—with modern science fiction having the same effect through relativity and the time dilation resulting from traveling at near-light velocities. In the story, the planet''s "dwarves" live underground and have an early industrial society that (unlike industrial societies in Earth''s history) doesn''t interfere with the less-developed societies on the surface. The interstellar society of the Ekumen has placed an automated spaceship at the dwarves'' disposal, with which Semley travels. Semley descends into the dwarves'' tunnels, like Rip van Winkle, from where she makes the flight - and returns after a generation (sixteen years) due to relativistic time dilation. The novel then follows Rocannon, an ethnologist who meets Semley at the museum. He later goes on an ethnological mission to her planet, Fomalhaut II. He places the planet under an ''exploration embargo'' in order to protect the native cultures. Unbeknown to him and his colleagues, there is a base on the planet of an enemy of the League of All Worlds - a young world named Faraday, which embarked on a career of interstellar war and conquest, and which chose this "primitive" world as the location of a secret base. After the enemy destroys his ship and his companions, Rocannon sets out to find their base so that he can alert the League of their presence with the enemy''s ansible. However, with his advanced means of transport destroyed, he must use other means of travel, such as on the back of "windsteeds," basically large flying cats, as well as by boat or walking. His long and dangerous quest, undertaken with loyal companions from the Angyar, a local feudal culture, takes him through many lands, encountering various other cultures and species and facing numerous threats having nothing to do with the one he intends to confront. He identifies five species of highly intelligent life forms (hilfs), the dwarfish Gdemiar, the elven Fiia, the rodent-like Kiemhrir, the nightmarish Winged Ones, and the most human species, the Liuar. Increasingly, as the plot progresses, his experiences impact his personality and make him more attuned to the planet''s culture and changes him from the interstellar sophisticate he had been. He encounters an entity in a mountainside cave and in exchange for "giving himself to the planet", he receives the gift of Mindspeech, a form of telepathy. Finally, after traveling halfway across the globe, and suffering much loss and bereavement, he reaches the enemy''s stronghold which had been set up in a heretofore unknown land occupied by far distant relatives of the Angyar in whose strongholds in the northern continent his journey had begun. Rocannon reverts from the effective role of a Bronze Age hero, into which he had been increasingly pushed during most of the book, back to being the resourceful operative of an interstellar civilization. He uses his mindspeech abilities to both plan and successfully infiltrate the enemy base where he uses an ansible in one of the parked ships to alert his people. A Faster-Than-Light (FTL) unmanned ship (as life cannot survive FTL travel in the Hainish universe) destroys the installation following Rocannon''s escape. Being telepathic, Rocannon feels the hundreds of deaths which he had caused at the moment when they happen - and while recognizing the need to have taken this action, he feels deeply guilty and is further traumatized, in effect burned out and incapable of ever initiating any further action. After the completion of his quest, Rocannon retires with the Angyar of the south continent, surrounded by sympathetic people and with a loving woman at his side. When rescuers from the League finally arrive 9 years later, restricted to relativistic travel below light speed, they find him dead, and slowly becoming a part of mythology. He would never know that the planet had been named Rokanan after him.

Rocannon''s World

At the beginning of the book, the city of Aramanth is greatly changed since events in The Wind Singer. The walls have been torn down, and the poorer districts abandoned. No longer is it run by the strict system of exams; in fact, everyone is pleasant and docile. The change occurred because the city had been released from the grip of an evil force known as the Morah. This new freedom, however, has also severely weakened the city. News of this reaches as far as a distant country known as the Mastery. The country sends an army of a thousand, commanded by young Marius Semeon Ortiz, to destroy the city and take its entire population as slaves. They do so, killing many of the city''s residents, enslaving yet more, and leaving no survivors, except for Kestrel Hath. She vows to have revenge on the unknown Mastery, and on Ortiz himself, and begins to follow the trail led by the returning army. The Manth people are brought to the Mastery, a beautiful country built up entirely on slave labor. They are branded and given jobs. Though some of the people begin to actually enjoy work, as they discover that every single person in the Mastery is a slave (except for the Master, ruler of the land, himself). Hanno Hath, father of Kestrel, signs up to be a librarian, while his son Bowman decides to become a night watchman, in order to listen for his approaching sister. Kestrel, meanwhile, faints with exhaustion on her journey. She is rescued by the beautiful Sirharasi (Sisi), Johdila of Gang. As one of the few people who has seen Sisi unveiled, Kestrel becomes her servant and mutual friend. She discovers that Sisi is also travelling to the Mastery to marry Ortiz, the man who led the attack on Aramanth. Kestrel decides to try to use the considerable might of Gang''s army, the Johjan Guards, to overthrow the Mastery, and she convinces Zohon, the Guards'' conceited leader, that Sisi loves him, and that she will give him a sign to show this. While on a night watch, Bowman is approached by an ancient, one-eyed hermit known as "Dogface", who tells Bowman that, as the son of the prophet (Bowman''s mother, Ira Hath, is descended from the ancient prophet, Ira Manth), he has great powers that belong to the Singer people. Bowman tests these new powers by speaking with a cow, moving a stick without touching it, and later speaking to a cat, Mist, that Dogface leaves behind. Mist''s ambition is to learn how to fly, but as Bowman''s powers are initially limited and untested, he doesn''t and can''t teach Mist. Meanwhile, Mumpo, another Manth slave, joins the Manaxa. The Manaxa is a fight where two competitors attempt to stab each other with spiked armor until either one dies or is driven out of the arena, and is considered a great honor to compete in in the Mastery. He shows considerable talent at this and at the wedding kills the reigning champion and heavy favorite. At the wedding Sisi and Ortiz both fall for people other than those intended, Sisi for Bowman and Ortiz for Kestrel, and chaos ensues. Zohan, believing he is rescuing Sisi from the Mastery, instigates a battle against Ortiz and his men; however the entire population of the Mastery, bound by the Master''s will, attacks and outnumbers Zohon''s army. Mumpo begins searching for Kestrel to try to save her in the chaos, killing anyone he encounters whether they be Mastery Citizens or in the Johjan Guards. Bowman, using his mind powers, engages in a mind duel with the Master. Kestrel and Ortiz come in. Bowman is temporarily distracted and the Master exploits this and commands Ortiz to kill Kestrel. Despite his love for her, he is unable to resist the Master''s will and obeys. With the sword centimeters from her heart, Bowman kills the Master and Ortiz is released from his will. Mumpo enters the room and sees Ortiz with his arms around Kestrel, and gets the wrong idea. Mumpo smashes Ortiz''s head and breaks his neck. Released from his power, the Master''s army dissipates and sets about destroying the city in a frenzy, and Zohon seizes control. Finally free to leave, Ira Hath asserts that they must seek out the homeland, as "the wind is rising". Though many of the Manth people choose to stay behind and make a life for themselves where they are, a small group resolve to trust in Ira''s prophecy, and together along with Sisi and her servant Lunki, they set out in search of the homeland.

The Slaves of the Mastery

Tom Crick, fifty-two years old, has been history master for some thirty years in a secondary school in Greenwich, in a sense the place where, in a world that sets its clocks according to Greenwich Mean Time, time begins. Tom has been married to Mary, for as long as he has been teaching but the couple have no children. The students in Tom’s school have grown increasingly scientifically oriented, and the headmaster, a physicist, has little sympathy for Tom’s subject. One of Tom’s students, Price questions the relevance of learning about historical events. The youth’s scepticism causes Tom to change his teaching approach to telling tales drawn from his own recollection. By doing so, he makes himself a part of the history he is teaching, relating his tales to local history and genealogy. The headmaster tries to entice Tom into taking an early retirement. Tom resists because his leaving would mean that the History Department would cease to exist and be combined with the broader area of General Studies. Tom’s wife is arrested for snatching a baby. The publicity that attends her arrest reflects badly on the school, and Tom is told that he now must retire. Tom uses his impending forced retirement as an excuse to unfold a story to his students. The bulk of Waterland is devoted to this story that, before it is done, covers some three hundred years of local history and relates it to the broader historical currents of those centuries. The primary plot of the story has to do with Tom’s relationship to Mary both before and after their marriage. She is reared on a farm close to where Tom’s father, a lock-keeper, lives with his two sons in the lock-keeper’s cottage, beside a tributary of the Great Ouse. Tom''s mother dies when he is eight years old. Mary is also reared by her father because her mother died giving birth to her. He sees that his daughter receives a strict religious upbringing. As Mary matures, her interest in men grows, and she and Tom slip into an affair and she discovers that she is pregnant. Tom’s brother Dick asks Mary if he is the father of the child. Mary lies to him, telling him that Freddie Parr is the father. Dick, distraught at this information, struggles with the drunken Freddie, who cannot swim, and pushes him into the river. It is Tom’s father who pulls Freddie from the sluice, not realising that his drowning is anything but accidental, as the coroner’s inquest finally finds. Mary tries to provoke a miscarriage but fails, so she and Tom, the father of the child, go to an old crone, who performs an abortion that leaves Mary sterile. Her father forces her into seclusion, and for three years she remains isolated. Finally the two fathers agree to bring their children together again; unknown to them, Tom, away fighting in World War II, has already written to Mary. When he comes home, the two marry, and Tom begins his teaching career while Mary takes a position in an old persons’ home. Finally, she steals a baby and explains the new arrival to Tom by saying that it is a gift from God. Obviously disturbed and suffering from a pain that has been festering since her teenage abortion, Mary is arrested. A secondary plot involves Tom’s mother’s family, the Atkinsons, who have run a brewery for several generations. This subplot is interwoven into the development and resolution of the primary plot.

Waterland

In the first book, a wealthy arms manufacturer, Dr Baines, comes to a black magician, Theron Ware. Initially Baines tests Ware''s credentials by asking for two people to be killed, first the Governor of California, Rogan (Reagan was governor at the time of writing) and then a rival physicist. When this accomplished to Baines'' satisfaction Baines reveals his real reason: he wishes to release all the demons from hell for one night to see what might happen. The book includes a lengthy description of the summoning ritual, and a detailed (and as accurate as possible, given the available literature) description of the grotesque figures of the demons as they appear. Tension between white magicians (who appear to have a line of communications with the unfallen host in heaven) and Ware is woven over the terms and conditions of a magical covenant that is designed to provide for observers and limitations. Black Easter ends with Baphomet announcing to the participants that the demons can not be compelled to return to hell: the War is over, and God is dead. The Day After Judgement, which follows in the series, develops and extends the characters from the first book. It suggests that God may not be dead, or that demons may not be inherently self-destructive, as something appears to be restraining the actions of the demons upon Earth. In a lengthy Miltonian speech at the end of the novel, Satan Mekratrig explains that, compared to humans, demons are good, and that if perhaps God has withdrawn Himself, then Satan beyond all others was qualified to take His place and, if anything, would be a more just god. However, the defeat of Satan is complete - He cannot take up this throne, and must hand the burning keys to Man, as this is the most fell of all his fell damnations - He never wanted to be God at all, and so having won all, all has He lost.

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La Maternelle

By Léon Frapié

Falling Free

By Lois McMaster Bujold

Generation "П"

By Victor Pelevin

The Honours Board

By Pamela Hansford Johnson

The Old New Land

By Theodor Herzl

Adventures of Wim

By George Cockcroft

Moving the Mountain

By Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Crossings

By Mel Odom

Rocannon's World

By Ursula K. Le Guin

The Slaves of the Mastery

By William Nicholson

Waterland

By Graham Swift

Black Easter

By James Blish