This is a book in two parts. The first, “The Enigma of Innocent Smith,” concerns the arrival of a new tenant at Beacon House, a London boarding establishment. Like Mary Poppins, this man (who is tentatively identified by lodger Arthur Inglewood as an ex-schoolmate named Innocent Smith) is accompanied by a great wind, and he breathes new life into the household with his games and antics. During his first day in residence the eccentric Smith creates the High Court of Beacon; arranges to elope with Mary Gray, paid companion to heiress Rosamund Hunt; inspires Inglewood to declare his love for Diana Duke, the landlady’s niece; and prompts a reconciliation between jaded journalist Michael Moon and Rosamund. However, when the household is at its happiest two doctors appear with awful news: Smith is wanted on charges of burglary, desertion of a spouse, polygamy, and attempted murder. The fact that Smith almost immediately fires several shots from a revolver at Inglewood’s friend Dr. Herbert Warner seems to confirm the worst. Before Smith can be taken to a jail or an asylum, Michael Moon declares that the case falls under the purview of the High Court of Beacon and suggests that the household investigate the matter before involving the authorities or the press. The second part, “The Explanations of Innocent Smith,” follows the trial. The prosecution consists of Moses Gould, a merrily cynical Jew who lives at Beacon House and considers Smith at best a fool and at worst a scoundrel, and Dr. Cyrus Pym, an American criminal specialist called in by Dr. Warner; Michael Moon and Arthur Inglewood act for the defense. The evidence consists of correspondence from people who witnessed or participated in the exploits that led to the charges against Smith. In every case, the defendant is revealed to be, as his first name states, innocent. He fires bullets near people to make them value life; the house he breaks into is his own; he travels around the world only to return with renewed appreciation for his house and family; and the women he absconded with are actually his wife Mary, posing as a spinster under different aliases so they may repeatedly re-enact their courtship. Smith is, needless to say, acquitted on all charges.

Manalive

Trisana (Tris) Chandler meets Kethlun (Keth) Warder, a glass mage with a dangerous power: lightning. During their first meeting, he was unconsciously using his ambient powers and accidentally created a living dragon out of glass. Tris saves the dragon from being smashed by Keth, and names it Chime. She later finds out that he had been struck by lightning less than a year ago, and this left him paralyzed and with a great fear of lightning. He learned to walk again, but his speech is a little slow, and he lost his ease at glass-blowing. A twenty-year-old man just as stubborn as Tris, Keth won''t accept Tris or any of her teachings. He argues with her constantly, and refuses to learn about his lightning abilities, fearing a relapse into paralysis. Tris is surprisingly patient with him as she guides him through meditation and control over his powers. Eventually, Keth learns to trust Tris'' instincts, and grudgingly accepts her as his teacher. Meanwhile, mysterious murders are taking place. All the murdered women are Yaskedasi, female entertainers who are looked down upon in the town for their immodesty. But when one of the murdered Yaskedasi turns up in the town''s central fountain, everyone starts to take notice. The town has a culture of thanatophobia, an irrational fear of death. Each time a person dies, the place must be cleansed by the town''s priests when they perform the traditional cleansing ceremony. This ceremony is not only religious, but magical as well, effectively erasing all traces of the murderer, making it impossible for the authorities to track the killer, nicknamed the ''Ghost'' by locals. Keth has been asked to attempt to find the Ghost by way of glass balls that only he can make. These balls hold scenes of past crimes in them, causing him to be a suspect at first. Keth and Tris struggle, first against the local authorities, then against each other in the creation of these globes. When Keth''s friend Yali is killed by the Ghost, the race takes on new meaning.

Shatterglass

A new vampire arrives in town who walks outside during the day and yet does not seem to be affected by the sun''s rays. The vampire, called Solitaire, is here to challenge the Slayer. He wants to reassure himself that he can beat a Slayer in physical combat. He is an old vampire and Giles struggles with his research. At the same time a band called Vyxn arrives at the Bronze and plays for four nights straight. Vyxn is made up of four girls who appear to be not quite human, especially when they seem to be turning all the males at the Bronze into slobbering idiots and bending them to their will. Xander is especially taken by them and would do anything to help them out. Buffy and the gang need to figure out what Vyxn is in town for, and why Solitaire can walk in the sun. It is later discovered that Vyxn are a group of ghouls that can seduce men (and it is hinted vampires) at will through their voice. Giles and the others rescue Xander from them just prior to Buffy''s final fight with Solitaire. Solitaire it is discovered is immune to sunlight because he is not actually a vampire, he is a full-blooded demon, that can shift forms between human and demon, and the halfway mark looks remarkably like a vampire. Buffy decapitates him with an axe.

Ghoul Trouble

A normal girl in Michigan, Zoe Elias has dreams of becoming a pianist just like Vladimir Horowitz. Zoe''s mom is obsessed with her work and her dad doesn''t have a job, and doesn''t like to interact with others. When her father brings home a Perfectone D60 Organ, Zoe is upset because she was hoping for a baby grand piano. The organ comes with free lessons and her teacher is Miss Person. After a lesson, Zoe disobeys Miss Person and instead of practicing with her tempo, she uses Ramba version. Miss Person realizes that Zoe has talent and decides that Zoe should enter the Perform-O-Rama. Zoe''s mom misses her birthday and Zoe is very upset. After things go wrong, and her mother can no longer drive her to the Perform-O-Rama on the following day, she thinks that she won''t make it to Perform-O-Rama. She takes out her anger on her dad, and Mr. Elias decides to take Zoe to the Perform-O-Rama, knowing she really wants to do it. Her first performance, at the Perform-O-Rama, doesn''t go as well as she''d wanted. But during her second, she looks up in the audience and sees her mom, by her dad. Zoe gets motivated and later comes home with a 4th place trophy.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect

"09/11 2001. And if anyone who has seen everything could, suddenly, wake up in time to prevent the tragedy?". This is a presupposition which, on the cover, this novel presents. At the core, this is a story of five persons, Thea, Mark Millard, Alice and Solomon, who jumped from the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. It is also the story of Ayda, who calls them cowards, and of her husband. Now "imagine that on September 13, the Universe resets the day 11 for some of them." * Interview about the book by the author to Ana Daniela Ferreira on "À Volta dos Livros" in [[Antena 1 (Portugal)|Antena 1], on 22 June 2011] (Portuguese) * Video presentation of the book in [[Diário de Notícias] of 28 May 2011] (Portuguese) * Reference to the book on the television show "Autores" in [[TVI24] of June 24, 2011. Minute 42.](Portuguese) * Interview about the book A Manhã do Mundo by the author to Ana Daniela Ferreira on "À Volta dos Livros", at [[Antena 1 (Portugal)|Antena 1], on 22 June 2011.] (in Portuguese) * Interview about the book A Manhã do Mundo by the author to TV show "Câmara Clara", at [[RTP2], on 9 September 2011. From 3 min 27 s.] (in Portuguese) * Interview about the book A Manhã do Mundo by the author to Ana Rita Clara, on TV show "Mais Mulher", at [[SIC Mulher], on September 2011.] (in Portuguese)

A Manhã do Mundo

"The Runaway Skyscraper" concerns Arthur Chamberlain, an engineer who works in a midtown Manhattan office building called the Metropolitan Tower. When the sun suddenly begins moving backwards in the sky, setting rapidly in the east, he is the only one to realize what is actually happening: a flaw in the rock beneath the building has caused it to subside, but instead of moving in space, the building is falling backwards into the past. When the subsidence finally ends, the building is located several thousand years in the past, and its 2000-odd inhabitants find themselves stranded in pre-Columbian Manhattan. Chamberlain also realizes that the same seismic forces that caused the building to drop back into the past can also be used to return it to the present, but that doing so will require several weeks of intensive work by the building''s inhabitants, and in the meantime they must concentrate on feeding themselves. Chamberlain convinces the president of a bank on the first floor that he can return them to the present, and together they are able to organize the other inhabitants into hunting and fishing parties. Two weeks later, Chamberlain is ready to implement his plan. He forces a jet of soapy water into an artesian well beneath the building, and this allows the pressure that has built up in the rock to be released. The building travels forward in time again, returning to the exact moment when it began to travel into the past.

The Runaway Skyscraper

The book begins with the details of how Berkman came to be imprisoned: as an anarchist activist, he had attempted to assassinate wealthy industrialist Henry Clay Frick, manager of the Carnegie steel works in Pennsylvania. Frick had been responsible for crushing the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers in the infamous Homestead strike, in which about 10 men were killed. However, although Berkman shot Frick three times and stabbed him several times in the leg with a poisoned knife, Frick survived, and Berkman was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Berkman had hoped to awaken the consciousness of the oppressed American people &mdash; an attentat &mdash; but, as the book goes on to detail, America lacked the political culture to interpret his actions. Even fellow prisoners from the union he was defending failed to see his political intent. The bulk of the book is set during Berkman''s years in prison. Written in first person, present tense, English (his second language), it reads like a diary, though it was in fact written after Berkman''s release. It is a coming-of-age story that tracks Berkman''s difficult loss of his youthful sentimental idealism as he struggles with the physical and psychological conditions of prison life, at times bringing him to the verge of suicide. As he gets to know the other prisoners, he has nothing but disdain and disgust for them as people, though he sees them as victims of an unjust system. "They are not of my world," he writes. "I would aid them," he says, being "duty bound to the victims of social injustice. But I cannot be friends with them... they touch no chord in my heart." Gradually, though, Berkman''s self-imposed distance and moral high ground begins to crumble as he comes to see the flawed humanity in everyone, including himself. The Prison Memoirs is also, in part, a tribute to his friendship with fellow activist Emma Goldman, to whom he refers repeatedly (though not by name; he refers to her as "the Girl") throughout the book. She is the only person to maintain correspondence with Berkman in prison, and defends him from criticism on the outside, helping him upon his release. The book tracks the development of Berkman''s ideas on political violence, and his ruminations often read like a dialog with Goldman, whom he knows intimately.

Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist

The book opens with the narrative of the espionage period. Adrian and his mentor, Professor Donald Trefusis, are at Mozart''s birthplace in Salzburg, where Adrian witnesses the (staged) murder of their contact. Adrian then enters the espionage game set up by his mentor, Trefusis, and his uncle, David. In the narrative of the school years, Adrian is at a public boys school (Harrow), portrayed as an intelligent and irreverent young man. Adrian has carefully groomed himself to convey the image of a witty, highly extroverted gay boy; however, despite his image, and, despite regarding sex as his "public pride", he finds himself unable to express his love for the beautiful Hugo Cartwright. Another student, Paul Trotter (known as "Pigs Trotter"[Sic.]), hangs himself, as he loves Adrian. Adrian is shown later in the novel to be touchy on the subject of suicide as a result. Prior to Trotter''s funeral, Adrian seduces Hugo while pretending to be asleep. Adrian is later expelled from Harrow for writing an article discussing the tradition of hidden behaviours at mixed sex public schools that could be considered homosexual; consequently, he does his "A" levels in a Gloucestershire state school. In the narrative, Adrian claims to have escaped from home due to unhappiness, subsequently becoming a "rent boy", but it is later revealed, in an overheard conversation, that this never occurred. Adrian attains the role of school master in the narrative of the school years and has his first sexual encounter with a woman, of which he speaks positively. The school years finish with Adrian''s cricket team defeating the team of Hugo Cartwright, to whom Adrian is no longer attracted. Just as Adrian and his victorious team is about to leave the school at which Hugo is a master he reveals to Hugo that he was, in fact, awake during the incident before Trotter''s funeral. In the narrative of the university years, Adrian is at the fictional St. Matthew''s College, Cambridge and is given a challenge to produce something original by his tutor Professor Donald Trefusis. As a result, with the aid of his his girlfriend — and later wife and acclaimed producer —, Jenny de Woolf, and his housemate Garry he writes and claims to have discovered a lost manuscript of Charles Dickens which dealt with child sex trade. The discovery brings Jenny and the college fame, but it also results in a dialogue between Adrian and Hugo, who has become an alcoholic. Hugo believes that Adrian in fact hates him, and outlines Adrian''s duplicity as proof. Adrian, however, corrects him and the two leave things on a friendly note. After graduation, Adrian is at a meeting where farcically he and other attendees have a discussion while sabotaging the footage of the onlooking BBC film crew. At the meeting they discuss the arrest of Trefusis, who was arrested for cottaging. It is later revealed in the book that it was actually a document exchange preceded by two kisses on the checks as is custom in several continental countries, such as Hungary. Adrian joins Trefusis in his forced sabbatical which nominally is spent studying the fricative shift in English, but in actuality is spent in a game of espionage where they are to acquire the parts for Mendax (Latin adjective meaning "lying, deceptive"), a lie inhibiting device from his Hungarian friend Szabó and his two nephews. Adrian is gradually introduced to spy game as during his university he had accompanied Trefusis in several trips, such as the one in Salzburg, where Trefusis gets one of three parts of Mendax. A showdown results with Adrian''s uncle David (Sir David Pearce of MI5) and Trefusis, which resolves as David''s aid was a double agent working for Trefusis and it is revealed that the murders witnessed by Adrian were staged so Adrian would report them to his uncle, who ordered the murders to scare Trefusis into giving Mendax to MI5, and that Mendax was fictional. Subsequently Adrian overhears a conversation between Trefusis and David where it is revealed that several parts of the story were not true and that the espionage adventure was just a game to counter boredom. Previously, a letter Jenny had written to Adrian, stated that while young girls grew up, young boys did not, making their erudite education irrelevant and just a game. The book ends with Adrian, now a Cambridge fellow, recruiting a new spy for a new game. In the espionage period, David Pearce and Dickon Lister refer to other characters by code names: * Adrian is "Telemachus", the name of the son of Odysseus in the Odyssea. * Professor Donald Trefusis is "Odysseus". * Istvan Moltaj is "Patrochlus" (Sic. In Greek Πάτροκλος, not Πάτροχλος) * Szabó is "Helen", the catalyst of the Trojan war. * His nephews are "Castor" and "Pollux" * Salzburg is the "walls of Illium"

The Liar

Snowglobe 7 is set in 2099 when the world''s global warming has become a great problem. Snowglobe 7 was one of the buildings set up to contain sheets of ice to preserve them against global warming. It is situated in Dubai. Due to Snowglobes being extremely expensive to maintain, many were sold off as visitor attractions. Snowglobe 7 was one of only three left that were purely scientific. The section of ice within it, unknown to the Humans, contained the last Gappa, bizarre, blood-thirsty aliens that look like a cross between a spider and a monkey with a massive, fleshy nose. While Martha tries to help with an unknown disease spreading through the dome, the Doctor investigates. The Gappa killed some humans on maintenance and used their bodies as hosts for future Gappa. Service robot Twelve collapsed several of the tunnels in the ice of Snowglobe 7 in an attempt to kill the Gappa, but failed. The Doctor detonated the engine of a ship that had crashed in the ice thousands of years ago, killing the Gappa but destroying the Snowglobe and melting the ice.

Snowglobe 7

The story begins with Dusty, the main character, receiving a mysterious phone call from an anonymous boy who claims to be dying. He soon reveals to her over the phone that he has taken an overdose with the intention of killing himself and that he rang her phone so he would have someone to talk to as he slipped away. At first he gives himself the false name Josh, which is the name of Dusty''s brother who went missing a few years previously, leading Dusty to believe that he knows something about his disappearance. Dusty leaves the house to find the dying boy and attempt to save him. She searches around the local park but cannot find him anywhere. Instead she gets chased down by three men with two dogs that eventually corner her and assault her. Dusty receives frequent phone calls from the strange boy. He constantly talks about how he is suffering and how he is unable to kill himself. People start to talk about seeing this odd boy around the town. He is described as having snow-white skin and wearing a duffel coat. Stories start to spread about the boy raping a girl in another town and keeping her prisoner and when Dusty asks the boy if this is true he replies by saying he does not know or remember. When the locals start to suspect that Dusty is harbouring the boy, angry mobs go to her house and vandalise her room. When a mob traps the boy and confronts him he takes off his clothes and reveals that he has no genitals, proving that he could not have possibly raped anyone. Eventually the boy drives into a lake and when it is searched the van he drove into the lake is found but his body is not. However, while they are searching the lake, they find the body of Dusty''s missing brother Josh. It is also revealed that Josh was the pale boy who raped the girl from another town. Dusty Is thrown into turmoil but an observation from Silas, an old miser, reveals that the boy is not in fact, dead.

Frozen Fire

A man collapses in a Manhattan street and is taken to a doctor; he has abdominal cramping, retching, confusion and an alarming bluish hue to the skin. The doctor is understandably confused, and at first diagnoses carbon monoxide poisoning, which is known to cause cyanosis (a blue colour to the extremities due to oxygen deprivation). The hospital prepares for a mass poisoning due to a gas leak or other possible cause; they are right. Another ten men turn up at the hospital with the same symptoms, making the eponymous eleven blue men. At this point, it becomes an epidemic and the Department of Health is called in to investigate. The two investigators recognise the case as similar as an extremely rare poisoning. Only ten recorded outbreaks have happened, and up until then the largest number of people affected in each one was four. This had become the worst incidence in history. By the time they reach the hospital, one man has already died. The others have begun to recover, but the Department of Health is determined to find the underlying cause. They quickly rule out gas poisoning – they don''t have one of the main symptoms, and it took too long to present. Instead, after questioning the men, they discover that the men all got sick soon after eating the same food in the same place: oatmeal in a cafeteria. This suggests food poisoning, but of an incredibly rare type that the doctors have never seen before. The men do not have the main symptoms of food poisoning: diarrhoea and vomiting. Also, the incubation period is too short for the most common bacterial poisonings. They also suspect recreational drugs, but the men deny this, saying that they drink quite heavily but nothing else. This brings them back to the oatmeal. Did it have something in it that could cause this reaction? The other possibilities are a chemical contaminant. The men are given a blood test and the doctors also visit the cafeteria where they had eaten shortly before becoming ill. They meet someone from the Bureau of Food and Drugs, who finds multiple violations of the health code in the cafeteria – it is infested with vermin and has open sewage lines, amongst other things. They ask the cook how he made the oatmeal that morning and he explains how he uses dry cereal, water and a handful of salt. The cereal is a generic brand and the water is municipal; these are ruled out as sources of the poison, as more people would be sick if this were the case. That leaves the salt. On the same shelf as the can of salt is another can full of white grains. The doctors ask the chef what this is; he responds that this is saltpetre, used to preserve meats. Its main component is sodium nitrate. The chef also mentions that once, he accidentally refilled the salt can with saltpetre, before realising his mistake and replacing the saltpetre with the real salt. After testing the saltpetre, they find that instead of sodium nitrate, the can contains sodium nitrite. This minor difference is almost unnoticeable, as they both look and taste just like table salt. Both are used to preserve meat, but the levels present in food are closely monitored. However, sodium nitrite is extremely toxic. The can of salt in the kitchen still contained some grains of the sodium nitrite when the chef refilled it with salt. This in itself was not enough to poison the men, otherwise many other men would have gotten sick that day. The men must have received a second dose from somewhere. The doctors realise that some people like to put salt on their oatmeal. The extra sodium nitrite in the salt in a table salt cellar could provide this. They test the salt cellars and find one that contains enough to poison the men. If all the men had used this salt cellar, this could be the cause of their poisoning. Unfortunately, the men have all left the hospital by the time the doctors get back to confirm their hypothesis. It is left uncertain how they got poisoned, but they also mention that they may all have used a lot of salt because heavy drinkers have a low blood salt concentration.

Eleven Blue Men

The protagonist is a survivalist named Chaos, who lives in an abandoned megaplex in Wyoming after an apparent nuclear strike. The residents of his town of Hatfork are reliant on a sinister messianic figure named Kellogg for food. Kellogg also has powerful dreams, which he transfers into the minds of others. Chaos''s mind is especially receptive, making him reluctant to sleep. Both Lethem and Chaos abandon this premise early on, and Chaos also goes by the name of "Everett Moon", depending on where he is. The novel plays with several other dystopian and post-apocalyptic setups. One area is covered in a thick green fog, save for an exclusive private school. Vacaville, California, has converted to a luck-based social system, taken to totalitarian extremes. Again, this is reminiscent of Dick''s Solar Lottery, where society is also based on chance. There are echoes of other works by Dick. For example, when Moon and his travelling companion, Melinda, reach San Francisco, hallucinogenic drugs play a role in altered perceptions that provide access to other characters in this world, as in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Elsewhere, it is argued that the depicted realities splintered away from each other to provide resistance to a hive-like alien invasion of Earth. Such solipsistic worlds are reminiscent of Dick''s early novel Eye in the Sky. The one constant throughout is the idea that reality is shaped by powerful and charismatic "dreamers". The reason for the break in realities, and Chaos/Moon''s place in this world, is a unifying mystery.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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Manalive

By G. K. Chesterton

Shatterglass

By Tamora Pierce

Ghoul Trouble

By John Passarella

A Crooked Kind of Perfect

No Author Listed

A Manhã do Mundo

By Pedro Guilherme-Moreira

The Runaway Skyscraper

By Murray Leinster

Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist

By Alexander Berkman

The Liar

By Stephen Fry

Snowglobe 7

By Mike Tucker

Frozen Fire

By Tim Bowler

Eleven Blue Men

No Author Listed

Amnesia Moon

By Jonathan Lethem