Chief Inspector Masters receives a note that reads "There will be ten teacups at number 4, Berwick Terrace, W. 8, on Wednesday, July 31, at 5 p.m. precisely. The presence of the Metropolitan Police Is respectfully requested." The note troubles Masters because, two years earlier, he received a similar note that was ignored requesting that the police go to a different location. On the previous occasion a man named William Dartley was found shot dead, in a room with ten very expensive teacups (patterned with a peacock feather motif). The house where Dartley was found had no furnishings in any room, except for the room where his body was found. Masters takes the note to Sir Henry Merrivale, who assumes that Dartley was murdered over the teacups but realizes that that doesn''t make sense, because the murderer brought the cups. H.M. then focuses on the second note, finding out that 4 Berwick Terrace is also an empty house. Inspector Masters reports that the day before some furniture was delivered to the house, and he responds by having the house guarded and having a police officer posted outside the newly-furnished room at all times. Masters discovers that a room in the house, a strongroom on the top floor, is going to be a meeting place for a man named Vance Keating and an unknown man or organization. Although Keating doesn''t want police protection, Detective-Sergant Pollard guards the door. At 5 p.m., two gunshots are heard. Pollard rushes into the room where he finds Keating shot dead, with a gun lying beside him. There is a thick layer of dust on the carpet that reveals only Pollard''s and Keating''s footprints. Pollard notices the window is open, and runs to it, noting that Sergeant Hollis stands directly under the window. Pollard suggests that the killer jumped out the window, to which Hollis''s reply is "No one came out this window."

The Ten Teacups

Jacen Solo increases in popularity with each victory over the Corellian rebels. He attempts to advance his goal of galactic peace in the midst of war. Most of his family opposes Jacen''s new attempts, as they fear that the war is being exploited by a mysterious power for personal gain. Luke Skywalker experiences Force visions leading him to believe the entity in question is Lumiya, Dark Lady of the Sith, but Jacen himself shows ever-increasing signs of trouble. The Corellians set a trap for the Alliance, by sending out a false trail by claiming that they are hosting a secret election to choose a leader. The Alliance falls for it by planning an attack at the election and their fleet gets trapped in a mine field. Jacen Solo also gets trapped on the gas planet the fake election was being held and his family and Lumiya help him to escape. Luke and Lumiya shake hands without attacking each other. All of the main characters survive. Another conspiracy leads Luke''s son Ben to Ziost, a Sith homeworld. It is filled with many dangers, the largest being the sheer amount of dark side power that would rattle even the strongest Jedi. His journey on Ziost leads Ben to find a Sith Meditation Sphere, which he uses to escape the planet.

Exile

While attending a conference in Moscow, an historian named Christopher "Fluke" Kelso is met by an old man named Papu Rapava, who claims to have been present at the death of Joseph Stalin. Immediately after Stalin''s death, Lavrenty Beria supposedly took measures to secure a black notebook, believed to be Stalin''s secret diary. Rapava spent years in Kolyma after the authorities tried to extract the book''s location from him, but he never revealed it—and still has not, though he knows that shadowy agents are still watching him in case he should go near the mysterious thing. Kelso eventually locates the notebook, which Rapava had left to his daughter just before being recaptured and tortured to death. It proves to be the memoirs of a young girl chosen by Stalin to be the mother of his secret heir. Following the trail to the remote northern city of Arkhangelsk, Kelso comes face to face with Stalin''s son. Raised in a log cabin filled with Stalin''s personal effects, writings and recorded speeches, the son is a physical and ideological copy of his father—we learn that he had murdered the husband-and-wife KGB agents who had raised him from infancy when he decided they were untrustworthy. Young Stalin has been told that he would be sent for when it was time for him to assume control of his country, and he believes that Kelso is the promised messenger. Stalin overcomes a special-forces unit sent to eliminate him (alarming Kelso by his ruthless and dispassionate use of violence) and boards a train headed for Moscow. At each station, ever-larger crowds gather to witness the apparent resurrection of the famous dictator, and it appears that he might be able to simply stride through the doors of the Kremlin and assume command. As he steps off the train in Moscow, Rapava''s daughter, who has made her way into the crowd at the train station, takes out her father''s pistol. The novel ends there.

Archangel

The play is one of several works of English Renaissance drama that present a lighthearted, romanticized, Robin-Hood-like view of the world of beggars, thieves, and gypsies; in this respect it can be classed with plays of its own era like The Spanish Gypsy, Massinger''s The Guardian, Suckling''s The Goblins, and Brome''s A Jovial Crew, as well as a group of earlier works, like the Robin Hood plays of Anthony Munday. Although the timeframe is inconsistent, Beggars'' Bush is set seven years after a fictional war between Flanders and Brabant. The victorious Flemish general Woolfort has usurped the throne of Flanders. The rightful royal family, including Gerrard and his daughter Jaculin, have fled, their current whereabouts unknown. Gerrard has adopted a masquerade as Claus, who is elected king of the beggars. Other characters also maintain disguises and have hidden identities, including the missing daughter of the Duke of Brabant. The play''s plot shows the working-out of these complexities and the restoration of the rightful rulers; true lovers are also re-united. Yet the play also contains serious aspects that have caused it to be classified as a tragicomedy by some commentators; "Through mixed modes Beggars Bush exhibits serious sociopolitical concerns to earn a classification that at first seems incongruous &mdash; a political tragicomedy." (The character of Clause, the King of the Beggars, also appears as a character in later works, such as the memoirs of Bampfylde Moore Carew, the self-proclaimed King of the Beggars.)

Beggars'' Bush

In the previous book "A Clan in Need", Ravenpaw and Barley go and ask Firestar, leader of ThunderClan for help to drive out the rogues that drove Ravenpaw and Barley away from the farm. After gathering up a patrol of cats willing to help, they attack and succeed in driving the rogues away. Firestar then promises to help Barley and Ravenpaw back to their home. The Heart of a Warrior will follow Firestar, Ravenpaw and Barley in their adventure back. The story continues where Ravenpaw and Barley are still in ThunderClan. They prepare to go back to the barn and with the help of Firestar and a warrior patrol; they are ready to reclaim the barn back. Ravenpaw and Barley wanted to leave quietly without anyone noticing, but Squirrelkit makes enough noise to get attention of the whole Clan; thus making everyone knowing that Ravenpaw and Barley are leaving. They do their farewells and depart from ThunderClan with a warrior patrol. They go in the barn finding the place all wrecked. Firestar then makes a plan to ambush the rogues in their sleep. When they carry out their plan, they are given away when the chickens are startled and make a lot of racket and noise. During the battle in the barn, the farmer goes in and makes everyone retreat. It turns out that some of the "rogues" were part of BloodClan. Firestar later then comes up with another plan, claiming that it will work. Most of the plan works out so far when they drive out the rogues out of the barn, but as the battle continues outside, it transpires that the rogues had reinforcements. They were about to lose against the rogues until the dogs got loose and attack the rogues. They finally drive out the rogues with the help of the dogs (whom Ravenpaw and Barley once saved from the fire), leaving only Barley''s brothers left; Hoot and Jumper. They were about to be killed, but Barley says not to. Firestar and the warrior patrol then depart with Ravenpaw and Barley and they return to ThunderClan. Ravenpaw and Barley let Hoot and Jumper stay in the barn. While Barley goes out on a walk, Ravenpaw shows Hoot and Jumper around the farm. Ravenpaw notices that Hoot and Jumper don''t even care and they don''t do anything. As the three return to the barn, Ravenpaw takes a nap. when he wakes up by Barley, he finds the barn wrecked. Hoot and Jumper claim that they were trying to hunt for mice. One night Barley and his brothers go out for a walk. When they return, Hoot and Jumper order Ravenpaw to do everything for them. The next day, they still are ordering Ravenpaw around. Ravenpaw wonders why Barley isn''t doing anything about it. Later in the day, Barley gets angry at Hoot and Jumper saying that he doesn''t like how they are treating his friend and claims that loyalty is everything, not blood. Ravenpaw sees this but doesn''t help Barley, knowing that he can handle it on his own. Hoot and Jumper later leave the barn for good. Ravenpaw and Barley finally have their home, together, and as their own.

The Heart of a Warrior

When communications with the Venkatsen Research Group were lost, the U.S.S. Enterprise was sent to investigate. In a system with 47 planets, the transporter is not usable, so Kirk and crew take a shuttle to Hohweyn VII. En route, a gravitic mine damages the shuttle. Communications and navigation are not responsive, and Kirk and Sulu are injured in the blast. McCoy, in an attempt to pass time, convinces Kirk to tell his story about the "unwinnable scenario". The training scenario itself involves a crippled fuel freighter in the Neutral Zone between the Federation and Klingon space. The starship receives a garbled distress call, which, if responded to, results in an attack by three Klingon cruisers. The opening volley causes heavy damage to the ship, and, despite any actions on the part of the cadet, the ship is destroyed. The purpose of the no-win outcome is to test the cadets'' response to losing. Kirk proceeds to tell how he reprogrammed the simulation so that the Klingon commanders recognize his name and assists Kirk in saving the freighter. Chekov tells his story about the Kobayashi Maru and a secondary training exercise on an empty space station. Chekov completed the scenario by evacuating his crew and physically ramming the ship into the Klingon attackers. In the second exercise, Chekov commits group "suicide" by "killing" the others who had captured him. The secondary exercise involves pitting all the cadets against each other to see who lasts a pre-determined time period. Chekov creates a different plan. He learns that when Kirk went through the same scenario he organized the cadets in such a way there was no need to fight each other. Sulu tells his story about his great-grandfather Tetsuo, and about going to Command School for the first time. The first exercise is a type of Model U.N., where Sulu is a tech level 3 planet, Menak III, and trying to gain entrance into the Federation. When Sulu finds out Tetsuo is discontinuing treatments for a life-ending illness, he refuses to speak to him. Sulu finds out about Tetsuo''s death after returning from a field exercise. When he finally takes the Kobayashi Maru test, he decides that the freighter''s distress call is probably a trap and chooses not to help it. Scotty tells about his early years at Command School, and how his love of engineering made it difficult for him to pay attention to non-engineering subjects. Upon taking the scenario, Scotty used engineering solutions to destroy ever increasing waves of Klingon cruisers. Review of his performance shows that he used the Perera Field Theory to destroy the final wave, which was proven to be mathematically possible (thus acceptable to the computer), but physically impossible (as proven by Scotty). The resulting decision had Scotty moved out of Command School and sent to study engineering. The shuttle is rescued by the Enterprise after a plan to turn the shuttle into an electromagnetic black hole works. This lets the Enterprise know where to find them.

The Kobayashi Maru

The story begins with Andrews fleeing his fellow smugglers after a battle with the customs officials that ended with one of the customs officials dead. He stumbles upon an isolated cottage which is the home of Elizabeth. The man whom she lived with has recently died. Andrews helps protect Elizabeth from the neighbors who consider her to be a woman of loose moral character (the novel is silent about whether their view is justified or not). After encountering Carlyon, the head of the smugglers, in the fog, Andrews returns to the cottage where Elizabeth persuades him that he should testify at the trial of the smugglers at the Assizes in Lewes. Andrews travels to Lewes and gives his testimony in court despite being scorned by the other witnesses for the prosecution as a Judas figure. The trial ends with the smugglers being acquitted and their pledging to revenge themselves on Andrews by hurting Elizabeth. Andrews returns to Elizabeth''s cottage, tells her of the danger. She sends him to the well to fetch water, and while he is gone, he discovers that one of the smugglers has come to the cottage. He runs to get help, but when he returns, he discovers that Elizabeth has been killed by one of his fellow smugglers and Carlyon is sitting waiting for him. After realizing that the only way to betray his father is to hurt himself, Andrews tells Carlyon to leave and that he will take the blame for Elizabeth''s death.

The Man Within

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

A Good School

The Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) is assigned to diplomatic duty to host the wedding between two houses of the Tizarin, a race that lives only in space and engages in commerce. One of the guests is Lwaxana Troi, to represent Betazed. The time setting places it after the events of "Deja Q" (third season) and before "Q-Pid" (fourth season). Kerin, heir to the house of Nistral, will marry Sehra, the daughter of the house of Graziunas. Q puts in an appearance. Although he toys with Picard while asking to be allowed to attend the wedding festivities, he promises to behave himself. Q attracts Lwaxana''s notice, and she is fascinated by Q. To Picard''s horror, Q fans the flames of love. Later, Q also begins to fan the animosity between the two Tizarin houses, mainly by feeding on the occasional blowups between the bride and groom, who are themselves irritated: Sehra by her future father-in-law Nistral''s comments and Kerin by his future mother-in-law Mrs. Graziunas'' comments. The two families come to battle, and a despairing Lwaxana wishes she could do something. Q gives her power, and Lwaxana stops the battle, and Kerin and Serah determine they will marry, no matter what. Meanwhile, Q has revealed his true colors: another way of annoying lower life forms. He scorns Lwaxana, who gives Q a serious thrashing, thanks to Q2 helping her hold onto the power. Meanwhile, a gift of gratitude by Sehra to Wesley Crusher turns out to be anything but a joy, as Sehra gives Wesley a clumsy slave girl. After much pain and a broken rib, Wesley returns the slave girl to Sehra, who had been trying to get rid of her but is now happy to have her back.

Q-in-Law

Julius Caesar has invaded Britain and succeeded in his conquest, mainly because the British soldiers under Cassivelaunos stop fighting every day to drink hot water (with a drop of milk) and they refuse to fight over the weekend. Caesar, using his military genius, decides only to fight when they stop to drink hot water and at weekends. As with Gaul, a single village remains independent, defying the Romans. One member of the village, Anticlimax, is dispatched to Gaul to enlist the help of Getafix the druid in providing magic potion for the British rebels. It is decided that Asterix (Anticlimax''s second cousin twice removed) and Obelix should accompany him back to his village to help transport a barrel of the potion. However, while beating up a Roman galley in the British channel, Obelix mentions the mission, which is reported to the Roman high command in Britain. In Britain, the barrel of potion is confiscated from a pub cellar, along with all the "warm beer" (bitter) throughout Londinium, by the Romans, who set about tasting the barrels to find the right one. Soon the whole unit assigned to the testing is hopelessly drunk. Asterix and Obelix steal all the barrels labelled with Dipsomaniax but Obelix gets drunk and starts a fight with some passing Roman soldiers. During the fracas, a thief steals the cart with the barrels. In the meantime, Anticlimax and Asterix leave Obelix at Dipsomaniax''s pub to sleep off his hangover. While Anticlimax and Asterix go in search of the thief, the Romans capture the sleeping Obelix and Dipsomaniax, and raze the pub. After a stay in the Tower of Londinium, Obelix wakes up and breaks them out of the jail, and they reunite. The three heroes hunt down the potion, which is being used as a pick-me-up for a Rugby team, which ends up mauling their opponents in the match. Eventually the potion is lost in the Thames after an attack from a Roman catapult, though it gives some fish, and a fisherman who is pulled in, superstrength. Finally reaching the independent village, Asterix eases the Britons'' disappointment by claiming that he carries herbs to remake the potion, as working for Getafix has given him that knowledge. These are later revealed to be tea. With a psychological boost, the village prevails against the Romans. Asterix and Obelix return home to the inevitable feast. The Britons like the tea so much, they proclaim it shall be their national drink. An audiobook of Asterix in Britain adapted by Anthea Bell and narrated by Willie Rushton was released on EMI Records Listen for Pleasure label in 1987.

Asterix in Britain

Set in the late 17th century, the story follows the life of Krabat, a 14-year-old Wendish (i.e. Sorbian) beggar boy living in the eastern part of Saxony. For three consecutive nights, he is called to a watermill near the village Schwarzkollm through a dream. Upon heeding the call and arriving at the mill, he begins his apprenticeship as a miller''s man. He soon joins the secret brotherhood, composed of journeymen and apprentices, and discovers that the skill he is meant to learn through this apprenticeship is Black Magic. The first magic powers Krabat acquires are rather harmless, such as the ability to turn himself into a raven. Other peculiarities of this watermill include the lack of any outside visitors, including farmers who would have brought grain. The only visitor to the mill is one Goodman, who may be the devil, although this is never made explicit. The senior apprentice Tonda, Krabat''s best friend and older brother figure, dies, ostensibly of an accident, on New Year''s Eve in Krabat''s first year at the mill. Tonda offers strangely little resistance to his own death. Krabat''s suspicions of foul play are further reinforced when another journeyman and friend, Michal, dies the following New Year''s Eve. He soon realizes that the master is bound in a pact to the Goodman: the master must sacrifice one journeyman every year on New Year''s Eve, or perish himself. Wishing to take revenge for his friends'' death, Krabat secretly trains to increase his magical strength so he can fight the master. His quest is aided by a girl from the nearby village, a church singer, “Kantorka”, whose name is never mentioned (“Kantorka” meaning just ‘little chorister’). Krabat learns that to end the spell, his lover must challenge the master for him; then whoever loses the challenge, the master or the two lovers, will die. The master offers Krabat another solution: He will retire and let Krabat inherit the mill, along with the pact to the Goodman; but Krabat refuses to perpetuate the evil pact. So the challenge goes ahead, and the girl''s task is to distinguish Krabat from the rest of the journeymen, all dressed identically and standing motionless in a lineup, while she is blindfolded. She manages to pick him out by the fact that he fears mainly for her life, while the others fear mainly for their own. Ultimately, she rescues Krabat from death, and they and the journeymen escape the mill. The master is left to die in the burning mill on New Year''s Eve, while the survivors lose all their magic powers and are now simple millers who have to provide for themselves through normal hard work.

The Satanic Mill

On a future Earth (c.2080 CE) overwhelmed with severe difficulties related to overpopulation, a portal is discovered that leads to a parallel world. Jim Briskin, campaigning to be the first Negro president of the United States, believes that the new "alter-Earth" could be colonized and become a home for the seventy million people that are being kept in cryopreservation. Known as bibs, these are people - mostly non-caucasians - who decided to be "put to sleep" until a time when the overpopulation problem is solved. Briskin is a social conservative, who does not support the Golden Doors of Bliss orbital brothel, and opposes widespread abortion access. There are two dominant US political parties, the "Republican Liberals" and the "States Rights Conservative Democrats" who run CLEAN, a racist frontgroup that opposes Briskin''s candidacy, although higher-income white American voters support him. Terraforming becomes a pivotal election issue, until a warp drive malfunction in a "''scuttler" tube results in the discovery of an apparently uninhabited alternate world, an ''alter-Earth'' where homo sapiens either never evolved or lost in competition with other early hominids. In this case, the point of divergence appears to have occurred between one to two million years ago, as homo erectus, also known as sinanthropus/pithecanthropus or Peking Man, is the dominant species. In reference to the latter designation, the explorers refer to the indigenous hominids of this world as "Pekes." There is a hasty initial colonization attempt. The minimum time period necessary for all of the tens of millions of "bibs" to emigrate is estimated to be twenty years. In order to cut this down to 5 years the rift is temporarily closed so a new power supply can be installed which will theoretically quadruple the width of the rift. When this action is completed, however, it is discovered that one hundred years has elapsed in the parallel world. During this time the conjoined twin businessman George Walt, who had run the Golden Doors of Bliss satellite brothel, had emigrated into the parallel world during initial colonization and set himself up as a "wind god". He spent those hundred years teaching and filling in technological gaps in the Peke''s world as well as learning many new ideas from them. He also apparently assisted in sabotaging the colonization effort, as it would not exactly be in his own best interest were word to leak out that he was merely a mutated homo sapiens. After all the decades-consuming preparations have been completed, however, George Walt eventually sets a trap so that whenever the rift eventually re-opens, the "Pekes" can power it from their side and keep it from closing. This procedure allows the Pekes to begin an invasion of Earth, but they abruptly depart en masse when it is finally revealed, as George Walt originally feared, that their wind god is actually just a wind bag; that is to say, he''s just another lying, deceiving, untrustworthy member of the species homo sapiens. The colonization attempt from Earth is thereby aborted, and Briskin, being newly elected, is left at the story''s end to deal with the consequences during his next two presidential terms.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Ten Teacups

By John Dickson Carr

Exile

By Aaron Allston

Archangel

By Robert Harris

Beggars' Bush

By John Fletcher

The Heart of a Warrior

By Erin Hunter

The Kobayashi Maru

By Julia Ecklar

The Man Within

By Graham Greene

A Good School

By Richard Yates

Q-in-Law

By Peter David

Asterix in Britain

No Author Listed

The Satanic Mill

No Author Listed

The Crack in Space

By Philip K. Dick