In its tale of a chemist who creates an army of bloodthirsty plant-based humanoids out of a desire to abolish war once and for all (the rationale being that no country would attack England if it were known she possessed such a defense), the book foreshadowed the rise of nuclear weapons and Cold War politics. Continental Europe forms an alliance and invades Britain. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part of this novel we meet the inventors of the artificial life. We follow their story from their first meeting through the time when they relocate their lab to the Congo for its more conducive weather conditions. The first we hear of the matured Death Guard (nicknamed Pugs) is via a radio broadcast that is ended prematurely by the hideous death of the announcer. The next part is a tour of the process of making and growing the "pugs", as the protagonist "enlists" in one of factories and gets a firsthand look at what his uncle and grandfather had wrought. The third section recounts the war with continental Europe and the breakdown of infrastructure. Involving poisonous electric gas, "humanite" bombs (atomic bombs), and the unfeeling march of the Death Guard across the very land they were designed to protect. Later the Death Guard continues to wander unchecked across the broken landscape even after all the enemy has been killed. The resulting carnage reduces whole cities and towns in Britain to smoking rubble.

The Death Guard

The plot revolves around the character of Augusto, a wealthy, intellectual and introverted young man. He falls in love with a young woman named Eugenia as she walks past him on the street, and he sets about trying to court her. He is aided in his efforts by the other members of Eugenia''s household. Her aunt is particularly keen for a relationship to evolve, so that Augusto might help with her niece''s financial troubles. Nevertheless, Eugenia rejects his advances, since she is already in a relationship with the down-and-out Mauricio. Augusto pays off Eugenia''s mortgage as a goodwill gesture without her knowing, but this only serves to insult Eugenia, rather than endear her to him. In the meantime, Augusto becomes involved with another girl, Rosario, and he begins to question if he is really in love with Eugenia at all. After talking with various friends and acquaintances, Augusto decides he will propose to Eugenia in any case. To his surprise, Eugenia accepts the engagement. A few days before the marriage is to occur, Augusto receives a letter from Eugenia. The letter explained that she was leaving him for Mauricio. Augusto, heartbroken, decides to kill himself. However, because everything he does involves a lengthy thought process, he decides that he needs to consult Unamuno himself (the author of the novel), who had written an article on suicide which Augusto had read. When Augusto speaks with Unamuno, the truth is revealed that Augusto is actually a fictional character whom Unamuno has created. Augusto is not real, Unamuno explains, and for that reason cannot kill himself. Augusto asserts that he exists, even though he acknowledges internally that he doesn''t, and threatens Unamuno by telling him that he is not the ultimate author. Augusto reminds Unamuno that he might be just a character in one of God''s dreams. Augusto returns to his home and dies (although whether or not he is killed by Unamuno or commits suicide is a subject of debate and is mostly down to the reader''s opinion). The book ends with the author himself debating himself about bringing back the character of Augusto. He establishes, however, that this would not be feasible. The title, Spanish for ''fog'', is a reference to how Augusto sees his life. In one of his philosophical ponderings, he describes his world as full of small and almost imperceptible occurrences, some of them good some of them bad, and all of them serve to obscure his vision. (chapter 7)

Niebla

The theme can be summarized by a quote from the book: "If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless." (p.&nbsp;199) Edward Tulane is a china rabbit given to a ten-year-old girl named Abilene by her grandmother. He enjoys a pleasant but vain life with his young mistress, who treats him with the utmost love and respect, until an unfortunate incident finds him falling overboard while vacationing on an ocean liner. Edward spends 297 days in the ocean''s depths, until a passing fisherman and his buddy pulls him free. The man takes him home to his wife where he is renamed and forced to wear dresses. Edward is passed from hand to hand of a succession of life-altering characters, such as a hobo and his dog and a girl with pneumonia and her brother. Edward''s journeys not only take him far from home, but even farther from the selfish rabbit he once was. Edward is eventually cruelly broken against a counter top edge and then repaired and offered for sale in a doll store for several years, and is finally bought by the same mistress he once knew, but now older and more mature, with a daughter of her own.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

The story starts out on April 18, 1800, in Port Mahon, Minorca, a base of the Royal Navy at that time. A shipless lieutenant wasting away in port, Jack Aubrey, meets Stephen Maturin, a poor half-Irish and half-Catalan physician and natural philosopher, at an evening concert at the Governor’s Mansion. The two of them do not quite get along during this first encounter. A duel almost occurs when Jack Aubrey gets elbowed by Maturin to stop beating the time while the string quartet is playing. Later that evening, on his way back to his living quarters, Jack Aubrey finds out that he has been promoted to the rank of Commander and has been given command of the brig Sophie. His joy overcomes his animosity towards Stephen Maturin and they quickly become good friends in part due to their shared love of music. The ship''s surgeon having left with the previous captain, Maturin is asked by Aubrey to sign on in that post. Although Maturin is a physician, not just a mere surgeon, he agrees, since he is currently unemployed. Also introduced into the story are Master''s Mates Thomas Pullings, William Mowett, midshipman William Babbington, and James Dillon, the Sophies first lieutenant. Dillon and Stephen both have secret backgrounds as members of the United Irishmen. Aubrey improves Sophies sailing qualities by adding a longer yard which allows him to spread a larger mainsail. She then is sent to accompany a small convoy of merchant ships. During their journey east, the new captain, Aubrey, takes the opportunity to get to know his sailors and work them into a fighting unit. As he does this, he and the crew explain many naval matters to Maturin (and to the reader) since the doctor has never served aboard a man-of-war. After the convoy duties, Lord Keith allows Aubrey to cruise independently, looking for French merchants. After a number of prizes are taken, they meet and defeat the Cacafuego, a Spanish frigate, losing a number of crew, including Dillon, in the bloody action and gaining the respect of other naval officers. However, Captain Harte, the commandant at Mahon, has a grudge against Aubrey, who has been having an affair with his wife. Harte''s malevolence ensures that the victory brings Aubrey and his crew no official recognition, promotion, or significant prize money, although Aubrey gains a reputation among members of the British Navy as one of its great, young fighting captains. On her following escort duty, Sophie is captured by a squadron of four large French warships after a pursuit and a brave but hopeless resistance. The Battle of Algeciras begins, and after a short period as prisoners of war, they are exchanged, missing the fighting. Back at Gibraltar, Aubrey must undergo a court-martial over the loss of his ship, but he is cleared of the charges.

Master and Commander

Passage is the immediate sequel to Legacy in The Sharing Knife series. It takes farmer''s daughter Fawn and Lakewalker maverick Dag back to her home farm as a first step on their ''honeymoon trip'' to the Southern Sea, which is analogous to the Gulf of Mexico in The Sharing Knife series'' alternate-world setting. At the farm they add the first of a considerable list of fellow-travelers: Fawn''s older brother Whit. Once on their way again another odd companion is added by accident, quite literally, as Hod the charity-case helper of the teamster taking them to find flatboat passage on the Grace River (the Ohio River) gets his kneecap shattered by Dag''s ill-tempered horse. This begins a series of events in each of which Dag''s ground-working abilities are stretched past old limits, ground being the series setting''s term for what might well be read as chi. Hod happens to owe much of his sloth and sly theft of edibles to a well-grown tapeworm, not suspected by his employer and only noticed in passing by Dag. But by his good curing works Dag has, as he feared, left himself open to an avalanche of farmer folk with ailments. He has, also, unwittingly beguiled Hod—Hod follows him, and wants more of Dag''s ministrations. So there are dangers to the farmers he tries to cure, too. Much of the novel follows out his attempts to present what Lakewalkers do, how, and with what limitations, in ways that farmers should understand. This action violates long-standing Lakewalker secrecy about just these matters. Dag, in his effort to reduce a culture gap that has already led to violent misunderstandings, sees no choice but to risk apostasy. After he, with help from two other Lakewalkers, and many of the so-called farmers (in this book, the non-Lakewalkers mostly work with boats, not farms) defeats a renegade Lakewalker, who has been leading a group of murderers and robbers, Dag even demonstrates, for a group of farmers, the ceremony that turns a knife made from a bone from a deceased Lakewalker into a sharing knife. He also discovers how to remove a beguilement. The core of the novel is set on a flatboat, patterned on craft used in the middle 19th century to move goods downstream on America''s navigable rivers, and large enough to need a crew of around eight (and with space for cargo, chickens, a goat, and Dag''s horse). For the details of this pre-steamboat era Ms. Bujold has drawn from a number of histories and biographies, listed and annotated in an Author''s Note page at the very end of the text. Like the rest of the series this is a romance, but one that rides on deeper questions of personal and social relationship, including those of leadership, honesty, caste relations and power. It also presents some clear moral choices, for those who were recruited to join the renegade Lakewalker. It ends with the motley crew, Lakewalkers and farmers, that has made its way to the mouth of the Gray River (the Mississippi River) having a picnic on the sands of the River''s delta and considering the whens and hows of their return journey up-river. A fourth volume, The Sharing Knife: Horizon, published in January, 2009, completes the tetralogy.

Passage

The book concerns the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver after their escape from slavery. Their home, I24 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, is haunted by a revenant, whom they believe to be the ghost of Sethe''s daughter. Because of the haunting —- which often involves objects being thrown around the room —- Sethe''s youngest daughter, Denver, is shy, friendless, and housebound, and her sons, Howard and Buglar, have run away from home by the time they are thirteen years old. Soon afterward, Baby Suggs, the mother of Sethe''s husband Halle, dies in her bed. Paul D, one of the slaves from Sweet Home, the plantation where Baby Suggs, Sethe, her spouse Halle, and several other slaves once worked, arrives at 124. He tries to bring a sense of reality into the house. He also tries to make the family forget the past. In doing so, he forces out the spirit. At first, he seems to be successful, even bringing the family, including the housebound Denver, out of the house for the first time in years. However, on their way back, they encounter a young woman sitting in front of the house. She calls herself Beloved. Paul D, suspicious, warns Sethe, but charmed by the young woman, Sethe ignores him. Paul D is gradually forced out of Sethe''s home by a supernatural presence. When made to sleep outside in a shed, he is cornered by Beloved. While Paul D has sex with her, his mind is filled with horrific memories from his past. Overwhelmed with guilt, Paul D tries to tell Sethe about it but cannot and instead says he wants her pregnant. Sethe is elated, and Paul D resists Beloved and her influence over him. But, when he tells friends at work about his plans to start a new family, they react fearfully. Stamp Paid reveals the reason for the community''s rejection of Sethe. When Paul D asks Sethe about it, she tells him what happened. After escaping from Sweet Home and making it to her mother-in-law''s home where her children were waiting, Sethe was found by her master, who attempted to reclaim Sethe and her children. Sethe grabbed her children, ran into the tool shed and tried to kill them all, succeeding only with her oldest daughter. Sethe explains to Paul D, saying she was "trying to put my babies where they would be safe." The revelation is too much for him, and he leaves. Without Paul D, the sense of reality and time moving forward disappears. Sethe comes to believe that the girl, Beloved, is the daughter she murdered when the girl was only two years old; her tombstone reads only "Beloved". Sethe begins to spend carelessly and spoil Beloved out of guilt. Beloved becomes angry and more demanding, throwing tantrums when she doesn''t get her way. Beloved''s presence consumes Sethe''s life to the point where she becomes depleted and sacrifices her own need for eating, while Beloved grows bigger and bigger. In the climax of the novel, Denver, the youngest daughter, reaches out and searches for help from the black community. Some of the village women arrive at 124 to exorcise Beloved. At the same time, the white man who helped Sethe and Halle in their escape comes to pick up Denver who is beginning work with him that day. Sethe attacks the white man with an ice pick and is brought down by the village women; in the meantime Beloved disappears from I24While Sethe is confused and has a "rememory" of her master coming again, Beloved disappears. The novel resolves with Denver becoming a working member of the community and Paul D returning to Sethe and pledging his love. At the outset, the reader is caused to assume that Beloved is a supernatural, incarnate form of Sethe''s murdered daughter. Later, Stamp Paid reveals the story of "a girl locked up by a white man over by Deer Creek. Found him dead last summer and the girl gone. Maybe that''s her". Both are possible by the text. Beloved sings a song Sethe believes to be known only to her and her children; elsewhere, she speaks of a pair of earrings and asks Sethe what happened to them. The second section of the novel, however, contains memories of Beloved''s that seem to corroborate the possibility that she is the escaped girl from Deer Creek.

Beloved

John Rolfe VI is an infantry captain who comes back from World War II with a war wound and few prospects, but in 1946 a radio he is rewiring malfunctions and creates a gateway to a parallel universe. This universe is one in which Alexander the Great lived a full lifespan, creating an empire that stretched from Spain to India. In this world, the Macedonian Empire proved so strong and durable that it redirected the barbarian migrations of the Goths, Vandals, and others eastward towards China and the rest of the Far East. As a result, what remains of China is a hodgepodge of Indo-European dominated states, the Americas remain undiscovered by the Old World, and technology has barely progressed to a medieval level. Deciding to take advantage of the untapped resources that await in this different California, Rolfe gathers members of his infantry company to help him explore and develop this new world. Over the next 60 years, he builds a new nation, which he calls the Commonwealth of New Virginia. In 2009, two California fish and game officers (Tom Christiansen and Roy Tully) are trying to solve the mystery of how large numbers of pelts from endangered species are showing up. They finally deduce the secret of the gate to the parallel world, but before they can make the secret known to their superiors, they are kidnapped and permanently transported to New Virginia by Rolfe''s granddaughter, Gate Security Agent Adrienne Rolfe (with whom Christiansen had been falling in love). Once the two rangers get over their resentment of being forcibly and permanently removed from their lives and world, and being brought to this new world, Adrienne enlists them to help sabotage a coming coup in New Virginia. Giovanni Colletta, head of the second most powerful family, and son of a sleazy and amoral war buddy of Rolfe''s, has resented the elder Rolfe''s control, and he and some allies are planning to take over by force and violence, with the intention of imposing an authoritarian regime. The rangers decide that Rolfe and his allies are the lesser of two evils, and decide to help Adrienne in her effort to prevent the coup. The group discovers that Colletta is arming post-Aztec and post-Mayan Indians to build a couple of battalions of soldiers (something very illegal under Commonwealth law) in an attempt to capture the Gate, holding the Commonwealth hostage. Colletta duly strikes, giving the other families the grounds to oppose him militarily. The revolt is put down, but at a price: the radio device and the Gateway are destroyed, and with it, the connection to our world. What little talent the Commonwealth has in physics works feverishly to re-establish the Gate. They are successful, but when they look through the new gate, they do not see FirstSide (New Virginia slang for Rolfe''s home Earth) Oakland, but instead a snarling saber-toothed cat and a dead giant sloth.

Conquistador

Bukowski uses his own life as the plot of his series and leaves nothing out. The different stories range from hooking up with a stranger''s wife who invited him over for dinner to admire his work, to debating with other authors of the underground newspaper. Bukowski goes through life and each event without caring about what might be the consequence of his actions. He is almost always alone aside from the occasional prostitute that he invites over. A few times, generous people who admire his writings will allow him to stay with them rent free. He does not understand why people enjoy his writings so much. As soon as he starts to get too close to these families or hosts he will leave without notice and go on to find a new place to stay. Bukowski does whatever he wants when he wants without wondering what people might think of him. However he does mention that he does not want readers to feel sorry for him which is why he includes crude comedy along with each story. Every step of his journey he always has some type of alcohol with him that allows him to be as carefree as he is. Whether he is drinking while writing his stories and poetry, or showing up to work and meetings already drunk, every story incorporates his vigorous drinking habits because it is such a large part of his life.

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Prague opens on the afternoon of May 25, 1990 with five North American expatriates living in the city of Budapest. The expatriates are, for the most part, optimistic about their prospects in the Central European city. John Price seeks a reconciliation with his older brother, Scott, who has come to Budapest to separate himself from his earlier life in the United States. Emily Oliver, an idealistic worker at the American Embassy, hopes to begin a distinguished diplomatic career. Mark Payton, a Canadian researching a history of nostalgia, relishes the chance to be immersed in a place with interesting history. Only Charles Gábor, a Hungarian-American venture capitalist who resents his co-workers and has contempt for his fellow Magyars, displays any pessimism at the story''s outset. The five young expatriates enjoy the nightlife and new opportunities in the historic city. John is instantly attracted to Emily, and plots to win her love, but she ignores him. He finds a job as a columnist for an English-language newspaper, BudapesToday. Still a virgin at the age of 24, he is initiated by his co-worker Karen, but finds the experience to be quite anticlimactic. He later commits "fradultery" with his brother''s future wife, Mária. Part II presents the complex history of the Horváth Kiadó (Horvath Press), a family-run publishing company – which also serves as a history of Budapest from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Presently, the head of the publishing house is Imre Horváth, who until recently had been exiled in Vienna. During the Communist regime, the Horváth Kiadó was a state-owned business; after the fall of communism, it is due to be privatized. Imre seeks an investment from Charles'' venture capital firm in order to buy the press''s assets and restart it in Budapest. John frequently fraternizes with an elderly jazz bar pianist named Nádja. He is entranced by the romantic stories she tells of her past, but his friends are less than convinced of their veracity. In particular, John is dismayed by Emily''s dismissal of Nádja as an "amazing liar". He is also dismayed that Emily pulls away when he tries to kiss her. John becomes involved with Nicky, a photographer and artist who wants a physical, but not an emotional, relationship. Charles'' firm rejects his proposal to fund the Horváth Kiadó. With the help of John, who writes supportive newspaper columns and serves as Charles'' aide, Charles secures independent funding for this venture. He resigns from his firm and becomes a partner in the new Horváth Kiadó. Mark Payton''s research into nostalgia becomes a personal obsession. He takes an inordinate interest in gramophone music and riding in a funicular carriage. He later becomes preoccupied with the contemporary Gulf War and its continuous coverage on CNN. In September 1990, Mark leaves Budapest suddenly, due to his declining mental health. In autumn 1990, Scott marries Mária and moves to Romania with her, telling John that he never wants to see him again. John continues to desire Emily and be jealous of other men she talks to. Charles and John learn that other parties may want to bid for the Horváth Kiadó assets. In January 1991, Imre Horváth suffers a stroke and goes into a coma. Charles Gábor effectively becomes sole head of the publishing company. He accepts a takeover bid by a multinational media corporation, headed by the Australian billionaire Hubert Melchior (a parody of Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation). Horváth recovers, but not in time to prevent his historic publishing firm from being absorbed into the multinational publishing empire. In March, John says that he loves Emily, even though he knows she is a "spy." The next day, John is fired from his job for having accused an embassy employee of being a spy. Emily, who was having a lesbian relationship with Nicky, leaves the city to escape the accusation. Charles returns to America. Finally, John leaves Budapest as well, traveling by train to the more promising city of Prague.

Prague: A Novel

The play begins with three pages disputing over the black cloak usually worn by the actor who delivers the prologue. They draw lots for the cloak, and one of the losers, Anaides, starts telling the audience what happens in the play to come; the others try to suppress him, interrupting him and putting their hands over his mouth. Soon they are fighting over the cloak and criticizing the author and the spectators as well. In the play proper, the goddess Diana, or Cynthia, has ordained a "solemn revels" in the valley of Gargaphie in Greece. The gods Cupid and Mercury appear, and they too start to argue. Mercury has awakened Echo, who weeps for Narcissus, and states that a drink from Narcissus''s spring causes the drinkers to "Grow dotingly enamored of themselves." The courtiers and ladies assembled for the Cynthia''s revels all drink from the spring. Asotus, a foolish spendthrift who longs to become a courtier and a master of fashion and manners, also drinks from the spring; emboldened by vanity and self-love, he challenges all comers to a competition of "court compliment." The competition is held, in four phases, and the courtiers are beaten. Two symbolic masques are performed within the play for the assembled revelers. At their conclusion, Cynthia (representing Queen Elizabeth) has the dancers unmask and shows that vices have masqueraded as virtues. She sentences them to make reparation and to purify themselves by bathing in the spring at Mount Helicon. The figure of Actaeon in the play may represent Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, while Cynthia''s lady in waiting Arete may be Lucy, Countess of Bedford, one of Elizabeth''s ladies in waiting as well as Jonson''s patroness. The play is notably rich in music, as is typical for the theatre of the boys'' companies, which originated as church choirs.

Cynthia''s Revels

FitzChivalry Farseer is raised from the dead using his despised Wit magic, but he is now more wolf than human. Only Burrich and Chade know he survived his tortures in Regal''s dungeons; all others, even the Fool and the Queen, believe Fitz dead. After regaining his humanity, he departs on a personal quest to kill Regal- but not before being attacked by Forged people. One of whom, unknown to him, steals his shirt with King Shrewd''s pin, a fact which Fitz only realizes after moving a long distance away. Burrich, having found the rotted remains of the Forged one who stole Fitz''s shirt believes it is actually Fitz''s body, and that Fitz is now really dead. He therefore determines to guard the one Fitz holds most dear, his lover and almost wife, Molly. Fitz fails spectacularly at his assassination attempt and is almost killed. Verity aids his escape and, in the process, imprints the command "Come To Me" into Fitz''s mind. Unable to disobey, Fitz immediately begins to make his way to the Mountain Kingdom, following the path Verity took on his quest. During this journey, his bond with Nighteyes, his Wit companion, continues to deepen and change as each finds themselves becoming more like one another. The wolf begins to have the ability to think abstractly and plan events while Fitz starts to gain the more noble wolf qualities of living in the present and a fierce loyalty to friends ''in his pack''. Along the way Fitz and Nighteyes meet a minstrel named Starling. Starling recognizes Fitz and insists upon traveling with them, claiming a desire to witness and record great events. They meet an old woman named Kettle, who is travelling to the Mountain Kingdom to see the White Prophet, and Fitz is later attacked during his journey by warriors under the command of King Regal. He reaches the Mountain Kingdom barely alive, but is tended back to health by the Fool &mdash; the White Prophet whom Kettle had been seeking. The Fool rejoices that Fitz is alive beyond all hope and thinks they may yet be able to avoid the dark future he has foreseen. Fitz, Kettricken, the Fool and Starling set off to follow Verity, followed by Kettle. On their journey they encounter a garden full of stone dragons which Fitz can sense with his Wit, leading him to believe they are alive, despite appearing to be mere statues. Eventually the truth is revealed: the dragons were carved out of black memory stone and given the memories and emotions of those who carved them. Verity has spent a long time carving his dragon, only to find that even if he gives the dragon everything he has, including the bare minimum he needs to keep his heart beating, it will not be enough to bring it to life to fight the Red Ship Raiders. Kettle reveals that she is the last remaining member of a former royal coterie. She makes peace with her past and decides to help Verity complete his dragon. They give the dragon all their emotions and finally their lives, bringing it to life in turn. The Fool carves another dragon to life, and Fitz discovers how to wake the other sleeping dragons, which are led against the Raiders by Verity-as-Dragon. The Raiders are successfully driven away. Kettricken is left pregnant with Prince Dutiful and Fitz finally retires as royal assassin. Through a series of Skill visions during the span of the book Fitz discovers that Burrich thinks him dead and has found Molly and is taking care of her. She is pregnant with Fitz''s daughter and eventually gives birth, naming the girl Nettle. Fitz wants to go to them but is not able to overcome the Skill Command that Verity placed in his mind to come to him. Burrich and Molly get married and are happy together, so by the end of the book Fitz can not bring himself to intrude on their lives and lets them continue to believe he is dead. After the battle to save Buckkeep castle, his beloved friend the Fool - the White Prophet for that era - flies far away on the back of a stone dragon. So in the end FitzChivalry Farseer loses everyone and everything but Nighteyes, his wolf. The narrative of FitzChivalry Farseer continues in Fool''s Errand (novel). The adventures of the Fool continue, in a different guise, in Hobb''s books in the Liveship Traders Trilogy. That trilogy is set in the time period between the ending of the Farseer trilogy and the beginning of the Tawny Man trilogy. (The tawny man referred to is the Fool, who comes more and more to be seen as a central figure of the entire series.)

Assassin''s Quest

At the end of the 11th century, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople was threatened by Turkic nomads from the east, and by the Franks from the west. Unable to rely on his Greek subjects to repel their incursions, the emperor was obliged to maintain a body-guard of Varangians, or mercenaries from other nations, of whom the citizens and native soldiers were very jealous. One of these, the Anglo-Saxon Hereward, had just been attacked by Sebastes, when a Varangian officer, Tatius, intervened and led him to the palace. Here he was introduced to the imperial family, surrounded by their attendants; and the Princess Anna was reading a roll of history she had written, when her husband Brennius entered to announce the approach of the armies composing the first Crusade. Convinced that he was powerless to prevent their advance, the emperor offered them hospitality on their way; and, the leaders having agreed to acknowledge his sovereignty, the various hosts marched in procession before his assembled army. As Emperor Comnenus, however, moved forward to receive the homage of Count Bohemond, his vacant throne was insolently occupied by Count Robert of Paris, who was with difficulty compelled to vacate it, and make his submission. The defiant knight, accompanied by his wife Brenhilda, afterwards met the sage Agelastes, who related the story of an enchanted princess, and decoyed them to his hermitage overlooking the Bosphorus. Here they were introduced to the empress and her daughter, who, attended by Brennius, came to visit the sage, and were invited to return with them to the palace to be presented to the emperor. At the State banquet which followed, the guests, including Sir Bohemond, were pledged by their royal host, and urged to accept the golden cups they had used. On waking next morning, Count Robert found himself in a dungeon with a tiger, and that Ursel was confined in an adjoining one. Presently an aggressive orangutan descended through a trap-door, soon followed by the armed Sebastes. Both were overpowered by the Count, when Hereward made his appearance, and undertook to release his Norman adversary. A treasonable conference was meanwhile taking place between Tatius and Agelastes, who had failed in endeavouring to tamper with the Anglo-Saxon; and the countess had been unwillingly transported by the slave Diogenes to a garden-house for a secret interview with Brennius, whom she challenged to knightly combat in the hearing of her husband. Having hidden the count, Hereward encountered his sweetheart Bertha, who had followed Brenhilda as her attendant, and then obtained an audience of the imperial family, who were discussing recent events, including a plot in which Brennius was concerned for seizing the throne, and received permission to communicate with the Duke de Bouillon. Bertha volunteered to be his messenger, and, at an interview with the council of Crusaders at Scutari, she induced them to promise that fifty knights, each with ten followers, should attend the combat to support their champion. Having made his confession to the Patriarch, while Agelastes was killed by the orangutan as he argued with Brenhilda respecting the existence of the devil, the emperor led his daughter to the cell in which Ursel was confined, with the intention of making him her husband, instead of Brennius. She had, however, been persuaded by her mother to intercede for the traitor, and Ursel was merely placed under the care of the slave doctor Douban to be restored to health after his long imprisonment. The emperor had decided that Brennius should fight the Count of Paris, instead of the countess, and all the preparations for the combat had been made, when the ships conveying the Crusaders hove in sight; and, after defeating the Greek fleet, they landed in sight of the lists. Brennius, in the meantime, was pardoned, and, in answer to shouts of discontent from the assembled crowd, Ursel was led forth to announce his restoration to liberty and the imperial favour, and the conspiracy was crushed. Hereward then appeared to do battle with Count Robert, and, saved from the knight''s axe by Bertha, he joined the Crusaders, obtaining on his return the hand of his betrothed, and, ultimately, a grant of land from William Rufus, adjacent to the New Forest in Hampshire, where he had screened her when a girl from the tusk of a wild boar.

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The Death Guard

No Author Listed

Niebla

By Miguel de Unamuno

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

By Kate DiCamillo

Master and Commander

By Patrick O''Brian

Passage

By Lois McMaster Bujold

Beloved

By Toni Morrison

Conquistador

By S. M. Stirling

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

No Author Listed

Prague: A Novel

By Arthur Phillips

Cynthia's Revels

By Ben Johnson

Assassin's Quest

By Robin Hobb

Count Robert of Paris

By Walter Scott