Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a secret service department in the British Government, and good friend of Modesty Blaise, is being driven by his chauffeur along a narrow road on the edge of the gorge of the Tarn River in S. France. His chauffeur stops to help two nuns change a tire on their car, and Sir Gerald is taken prisoner - by the nuns, no less. On the other side of the gorge lies Quinn, only semi-conscious after having stumbled and fallen while hiking. But he is sufficiently aware that he sees the two cars stopped on the road, and he tries to summon help by waving his handkerchief. Unknown to him, he is spotted by Mr. Sexton, who is the leader of the kidnapping operation. This starts a long chain of events. Modesty rescues Quinn the next morning, and then later Quinn provides the missing information that convinces Modesty that Sir Gerald has been kidnapped. (Until now everyone had believed that Sir Gerald had died together with his chauffeur when his car went tumbling down into the Tarn River.) Modesty and Willie Garvin have by chance already determined the probable location of Sir Gerald''s captivity: Chateau Lancieux in the foothills of the Pyrenees in S. France. A hasty rescue mission is set in action. Modesty and Willie gain access to the chateaux via a deep cave, but on entering into the basement they are captured by the formidable Mr. Sexton, who prides himself on being the world''s greatest unarmed combat man. Now Modesty and Willie are scheduled to die at Mr. Sexton''s hand, one at a time, to further the process of softening Sir Gerald up for interrogation.

The Silver Mistress

An aging BBC reporter approaching retirement in 1953, Matthew Braddock is on a farewell tour, visiting the old Paris bureau. Chancing upon a familiar name in the obituary notices, he decides to attend the funeral of an acquaintance he has not seen for many years. After the service, he is approached by a stranger who introduces himself as the deceased woman''s solicitor. He surprises Braddock with the information that the firm has been holding a package for many years, addressed to him, with instructions to deliver it only after this woman''s death. Later, on his trip back to London, Braddock reminisces about those days of his youth in 1909 when he met the beautiful and mysterious Elizabeth. Equally mysterious was the death (and life) of her husband, Baron Ravenscliff, born John William Stone. Later, Braddock opens the long-delayed package to find a pair of extraordinary manuscripts. These two documents, written accounts of events occurring in 1890 and 1867 respectively, follow Braddock''s recollections to form the three-part structure of the historical-mystery novel Stone''s Fall. Many historical-fiction novels place their fictional characters in a believable historical setting (e.g. Pears'' own The Portrait), but few attempt to include actual persons and events that can be researched and verified (or not) by the curious reader. As in Pears'' earlier novel An Instance of the Fingerpost, the reader is challenged to learn more about the history underlying the fiction. This is especially true in the middle (1890) section, where the fictional Henry Cort becomes involved with historical events that later came to be known as "The Panic of 1890". The next article section, Historical references, lists existing and/or historical persons, places and events mentioned in quotations from Stone''s Fall, with citations or internal links to other Wikipedia articles. Page numbers are from the hardcover edition. The final section, Historical liberties, includes a listing of inconsistencies found between historical facts and the same "facts" as presented in Stone''s Fall (liberties rather than errors: it is, after all, a novel).

Stone''s Fall

The Polypontian Empire has conquered much of the known world in recent years, much thanks to its fearsome general, Scipio Bellorum. Bellorum has finally decided to invade his small neighbor to the north, the Icemark. After King Redrought sacrifices his entire army to stop the invasion, Thirrin, his daughter, is left alone to save the nation. Thirrin, having just made an alliance with the werewolves by saving their king, must now seek out more allies, as the Icemark and the werewolves alone cannot defeat the Empire. Although they have the support of their vassal, the Hypolitan, more are needed. Thirrin, with the aid of a young warlock, Oskan Witch''s Son, must attempt to win over the Vampire King and Queen. They know this will be difficult because of the centuries of distrust and hatred between the two races. Because the Empire hates all that is unscientific and irrational, the Vampires know that if the Icemark falls, the Empire will wipe out the Vampires next. With this in mind, the Vampires reluctantly agree to send aid. On the advice of King Grishmak of the werewolves, Thirrin and Oskan travel to the Hub of the World, to try to ally themselves with the Snow Leopards, led by Tharaman-Thar, who live there. The leopards are as tall as warhorses at the shoulder, Tharaman-Thar even bigger, and are fearsome fighters. With the threat of the Empire again winning the argument, the Snow Leopards choose to fight with Thirrin. The combined forces of the Icemark, the Snow Leopards and the Hypolitan clash with Bellorum''s forces. The werewolves have not yet arrived, as a muster of their nation takes several months. The Vampires have also not arrived, as they are stubborn, and are not reliable. While the allies fight brilliantly, the Empire''s sheer numbers begin to turn the tide. As the final battle is being waged, which the allies believe will surely end in their destruction, the Werewolves, the Vampires, and many of the creatures from the Land-of-the-Ghosts finally arrive. When they arrive, Thirin is overjoyed. They find a new strength within them to fight the Polypontion Army and defeat them. They use everything in their power to defeat them, and they succeed. In addition, the forces of the Holly King and the Oak King of the nearby forest join the war, as they have made themselves allies with Thirrin. With their numbers, and the sheer terror they inflict, the battle turns into a rout. The vampires, And werewolves pursuit the enemy and kills most of the enemy''s army.

The Cry Of The Icemark

The plot of the novel has two distinct movements: the events at Microsoft and in Redmond, Washington, and the movement to Silicon Valley and the "Oop!" project. The novel begins in Redmond as the characters are working on different projects at Microsoft''s main campus. Life at the campus feels like a feudalistic society, with Bill Gates as the lord, and the employees the serfs. The majority of the main characters—Daniel (the narrator), Susan, Todd, Bug, Michael, and Abe—are living together in a "geek house", and their lives are dedicated to their projects and the company. Daniel''s foundations are shaken when his father, a longtime employee of IBM, is laid off. The lifespan of a Microsoft coder weighs heavily on Daniel''s mind. The second movement of the novel begins when the characters are offered jobs in Silicon Valley working on a project for Michael, who has by then left Redmond. All of the housemates—some immediately, some after thought—decide to move to the Valley. The characters'' lives change drastically once they leave the limited sphere of the Microsoft campus and enter the world of "One-Point-Oh". They begin to work on a project called "Oop!" (a reference to object-oriented programming). Oop! is a Lego-like design program, allowing dynamic creation of many objects, bearing a resemblance to 2009''s Minecraft. (Coupland appears on the rear cover of the novel''s hardcover versions photographed in Denmark''s Legoland Billund, holding a Lego 747.) One of the undercurrents of the plot is Daniel and his family''s relationship to Jed, Daniel''s younger brother who died in a boating accident while they were children.

Microserfs

After the TARDIS malfunctions and then explodes, the Doctor''s companions find themselves in two different time zones. Bernice is stranded in the East End of London of 1909, where a series of grisly murders is occurring blamed on Spring Heeled Jack, while Ace is trapped on the planet Ant''ykhon fighting alongside guerrilla fighters against alien oppressors. Ace discovers that Ant''ykhon is actually the planet Earth, 22,000 years in the future and devastated by rising temperatures. The Charrl, an insect-like race, now inhabit Earth. They have been using an unstable trans-dimensional link called the "Great Divide" to travel to Earth''s past in order to escape from the dying planet. Once there they implant humans with their eggs, but inadvertently kill them, causing the murders blamed on Spring-Heeled Jack. Since the Great Divide is unstable, any Charrl that travels to the past eventually crumbles into dust. Back in 1909, Benny is scratched by one of the time-travelling Charrls and is implanted with an egg. This has the effect of placing her under the control of the Charrl, causing her to replace the missing Time Vector Generator in the TARDIS and reunite it with its other half in the future. This also stabilizes the Great Divide and allows Jared Khan, a Charrel agent, to attempt to use the Great Divide to give him immortality. The TARDIS time rams its other half and sends it and Khan back to Siberia 1908, where it explodes, causing the Tunguska event. In the far future, Ace and Benny are aided by Muldwych, a mysterious hermit and former ally of the Charrl. He uses the TARDIS to entrap the Charrl inside one its interior dimensions, then sweeps the Great Divide over London, clearing it of Charrl and their eggs (and curing Benny). But when he tries to use the TARDIS to escape from his exile on Earth, the TARDIS expels him from the ship and returns him to Ant''ykhon. The Doctor emerges from the interior of the TARDIS, claiming to have been asleep in his room the entire time (but see Iceberg for details).

Birthright

Set in the early 18th century, architect Nicholas Dyer is progressing work on several churches in London''s East End. He is, however, involved in Satanic practices (something inculcated in him as an orphan), a fact which he must keep secret from all his associates, including his supervisor Sir Christopher Wren. This is all the more challenging since he indulges in human sacrifice as part of the construction of the buildings. Dyer''s simmering contempt for Wren is brought closest to the surface in discussions they have concerning rationalism versus Dyer''s own carefully disguised brand of mysticism. In the 20th century, DCS Nicholas Hawksmoor is called in to investigate a bizarre series of murders by strangulation that have occurred in and around the churches designed by Dyer. The murders are all the more mystifying since the murderer appeared to have left no identifying traces, not even fingerprints on the victims'' necks. However the area is stalked by mysterious shadows, and it becomes clear that not only the weight of the investigation, but unseen forces from the past come to bear on Hawksmoor in a powerful, destructive manner.

Hawksmoor

The year is 1937, and the Great Depression has hit the Dowdel family hard. 15-year-old Mary Alice is sent downstate to live with Grandma Dowdel while her Ma and Pa eke out a meager living in Chicago. Mary Alice is less than thrilled with the arrangement. Grandma''s Hicksville farming community couldn''t be more different from Chicago if it tried, and the grandmother Mary Alice remembers from childhood is a no-nonsense country gal. Having no choice in the matter, Mary Alice arrives by train in September with her beloved cat Bootsie and prized Philco radio. Day one in the new high school finds Mary Alice getting on the wrong side of the local bully, Mildred Burdick. Mildred brazenly follows Mary Alice home, demanding a dollar---but Grandma Dowdel turns the tables on the tyrant, slyly untying Mildred''s horse. Faced with a barefoot 5-mile-hike home, Mildred loses in interest in making trouble for Mary Alice. October brings plenty of other trouble, however, when another teen hooligan - August Fluke Jr. - gets in the habit of knocking down privies for pre-Halloween amusement. With the help of a strategically strung wire and a pan of glue, Grandma Dowdel trips up Augie''s trickery, with a hot coat of glue that sticks "till kingdom come." Luckily, Grandma''s treats prove far sweeter than her tricks: at the school Halloween party, Mrs. Dowdel dishes up home-baked pies made with borrowed pecans and pumpkins. In November, Armistice Day cracks dawn with a bang when Grandma rises to shine at the annual Turkey Shoot. The Legion Auxiliary ladies serve stew at noon for a dime-a-cup---but with Grandma Dowdel as cashier, this year''s price is pay-what-you-can-afford, publicly pressuring the banker, Mr. L.J. Weidenbach, for five dollars. The money Grandma raises is given to Mrs. Abernathy and her son, a war veteran gassed and injured in combat now using a wheelchair. As the Virgin Mother in the school Christmas pageant, Mary Alice is set to steal the spotlight from the local snob Carleen Lovejoy. The moonlit winter nights find Grandma and Mary Alice trapping foxes; with the extra money, Grandma buys Joey a train ticket and he arrives just in time for the pageant. But when Mildred Burdick''s illegitimate baby turns up in the manger, Christmas is anything but a silent night. Mary Alice stirs the town up by submitting an anonymous article to a community newspaper and a new boy---Royce McNabb---arrives just in time for Valentine''s Day. Carleen develops an instant crush on Royce. With the help of best friend Ina-Rae, Mary Alice fools Carleen into believing that Royce sent Ina-Ray a valentine. Meanwhile, Grandma hosts a tea for the Daughters of the American Revolution and country bumpkin Effie Wilcox learns that the hoity-toity Mrs. L.J. Weidenbach is her long-lost sister. In spring, Grandma takes in a New York artist, Arnold Green, as a boarder for a whopping $2.50 a day as Mary Alice invites Royce over for an ostensibly "study" focused-date. The snake Grandma keeps in the attic drops down on Maxine Patch, the postmistress, whom Green was painting naked, or nude, as he prefers, leaving Maxine shamed (as she ran through town au natural) and Arnold in shock. Grandma cameos as matchmaker, introducing Green to Mary Alice''s English teacher, Miss Butler. Mary Alice survives her first tornado, and the school-year wraps up with a hayride that finds Royce and Mary Alice promising to exchange letters. A year down yonder leaves Mary Alice with a more tenderhearted view of country-life and Grandma Dowdel, and she hesitates to head back to Chicago. Wedding bells ring when World War II ends, and Mary Alice returns to tie the knot with Royce McNabb on Grandma''s front porch.

A Year Down Yonder

E.D.''s father Randolph is directing the local production of The Sound of Music, but is disheartened by the lack of genuine talent in the town. However, he hears Jake singing, and asks him to audition. Ultimately, Randolph casts the play, with Jake in the role of Rolf. However, Randolph is so bossy and demanding that the entire stage crew quits, leaving his family of artists to pool their collective talents to keep the show running. E.D. feels left out because she isn''t creative, but her father makes her the stage manager because of her ability to organize. Resentful because her daughter wasn''t cast as one of the Von Trapp children, the head of the theater ultimately cancels the show because of a small incident. E.D. proposes to continue the show in the family barn, and soon everyone is helping out to convert it into a theater. The night of the show arrives, and everything is going well. E.D. begins to believe that the play will be a success, but in the middle of the performance, the sound of rain and thunder become very loud. The performers stall until the weather lets up. They begin to sing and encourage the audience to join them. Soon after, the rain had calmed down and they continue the play. Just before the final scene, as the actors are about to head onstage, there is a blue and white flash and the electricity goes out. E.D. thinks the play is over until she thinks of an idea to save it. She tells the actresses playing the roles of nuns to hold candles so the audience can see what the actors are doing. Thanks to E.D. the show is a complete success. The next morning the family sits in the living room and reads the reviews. They say the play was outstanding, unlike any other. Because of what a report has written about Jake, he is now determined to be back onstage singing and acting again.

Surviving the Applewhites

Sol Inglestein is the commander of a tank squadron of Israeli mercenaries fighting for the United States government, promised land for their efforts. Their tanks, Centurions, which Sol designed, are powered by nuclear reactors and armed with Gatling lasers. His squadron is ordered across the Red River into Texas to take part in an assault on the Dalworthington metro area; his mercenaries dance the horah as they wait to cross the river. Encountering only light resistance, they push towards Dallas. Sol leads the column in his tank, the Wrath of Jehovah. Master Sergeant William Brown, a Vietnam veteran commanding an armored car, is part of General Wilson''s Union army simultaneously advancing on Dallas from Texarkana. Separated from his column''s heavy armor when the Texans dynamite the dam holding back Lake Ray Hubbard, his contingent comes under heavy artillery fire as they near Dallas. With only his car remaining, Brown sights the source of the fire: a Texan heavy cruiser, the Judge Roy Bean, brought up a canal to Dallas. Meanwhile, Sol''s tank squadron, alerted by Brown, ambushes and sinks the ship. Sol is then given a new assignment: he will lead a push into the heart of Texas to rescue President Clairewood. Guided by Major Mistra, a Texas National Guard officer who defected to the Union, Sol will lead a column masquerading as Texan mercenary armor. Sol''s girlfriend, Myra Kalan, also a tank commander, will separately lead the remaining Centurions south. Splevins, the CIA agent conducting the briefing, warns them that President Mallow''s agents may try to sabotage the mission. Shortly thereafter, a squad of soldiers attempts to assassinate Sol and Myra. Sol''s brigade, along with Brown, departs for Fort Deaf Smith, a former prison near Crystal City where Clairewood is being held. En route they encounter a band of Indians with the Volkswagen logo painted on their chests. Mistra convinces the Texan units guarding Crystal City that they are Israeli mercenaries fighting on the Texan side, and they are ushered into the Fort to refuel and await new assignment. Myra''s tanks follow a parallel route to Sol''s. They are nearly struck by a tornado and are attacked by a Texan infantry patrol, who are dispatched by one of the tanks. They arrive in position in the hills above Fort Deaf Smith, but Myra is captured while scouting. Despite playing the innocent she is tortured by the Sons of the Alamo chief at the fort, Kiburn, but is rescued from this mistreatment by the Texan commanding officer, General Fowler. Meanwhile, General Wilson''s Union forces have been advancing south towards Houston to draw the Texans away from Crystal City. Increased pressure from Cuban amphibious landings at Galveston and on Padre Island cause the Texan armored brigades to begin hurried preparations to leave Fort Deaf Smith. At this point, Sol''s forces strike. Faking a chemical weapons alert, they destroy the few planes remaining to the Texan Air Force and break into the prison where Clairewood and Myra are being held. Kiburn is killed, and as they escape Fowler destroys one of their tanks but he is also killed. Mistra is shot during the escape. As they leave, the mercenaries destroy much of the remaining Texan armor. The column evades further Texan forces and makes its way to Albuquerque, from where Clairewood returns to Pittsburgh, the American capital, unannounced until Mallow encounters him in the President''s office. Clairewood celebrates with Sol, Myra, and Brown over bottles of Coca-Cola, no longer manufactured in the United States but now imported from Israel.

The Texas-Israeli War: 1999

After encountering and befriending Valthor, a warrior of the lost city of Athne (whom he rescues from a group of bandits known as shiftas), the City of Ivory and capital of the land of Thenar, Tarzan is captured by the insane yet beautiful queen Nemone of its hereditary enemy, Cathne, the City of Gold, capital of the land of Onthar. This novel is perhaps best known for two scenes; in the first, Tarzan is forced to fight Cathne''s strongest man Phobeg in its arena. While an ordinary man might have been in trouble, Tarzan easily overpowers Phobeg. The second scene, in which Tarzan is forced to fight a lion, starts with the ape man being forced to run away from a hunting lion, Belthar, which will hunt him down and kill him. Tarzan at first believes he can outrun the beast (lions tire after the first 100 yards at top speed). This lion, however, is of a breed specifically selected for endurance, and ultimately Tarzan must turn to face him, though aware that without a knife he can do little but delay the inevitable. Fortunately his own lion ally, Jad-bal-ja, whom he had raised from a cub, arrives and intervenes, killing Belthar and saving Tarzan. Nemone, who believes her life is linked to that of her pet, kills herself when it dies. Unusually for lost cities in the Tarzan series, which are typically visited but once, Cathne and Athne reappear in a later Tarzan adventure, Tarzan the Magnificent (the only other lost city Tarzan visits more than once is Opar).

Tarzan and the City of Gold

Berlin expands upon this idea to divide writers and thinkers into two categories: hedgehogs, who view the world through the lens of a single defining idea (examples given include Plato, Lucretius, Dante, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, and Proust) and foxes who draw on a wide variety of experiences and for whom the world cannot be boiled down to a single idea (examples given include Herodotus, Aristotle, Erasmus, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce, Anderson). Turning to Tolstoy, Berlin contends that at first glance, Tolstoy escapes definition into one of these two groups. He postulates, rather, that while Tolstoy''s talents are those of a fox, his beliefs are that one ought to be a hedgehog, and thus Tolstoy''s own voluminous assessments of his own work are misleading. Berlin goes on to use this idea of Tolstoy as a basis for an analysis of the theory of history that Tolstoy presents in his novel War and Peace. The essay has been published separately and as part of the collection Russian Thinkers, edited by Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly.

The Hedgehog and the Fox

Before Rákóczi''s war of liberty, during a hunting expedition, Pál Görgey, the arrogant but noble leader of the Hungarian county of Szepes, shoots Károly Kramler, Saxon magistrate of Lőcse, for having killed Görgey’s favourite dog. When their magistrate is fatally injured, his company, on the advice of one of their members, Nustkorb, takes the still-living body and marks with his blood the boundaries of a large field owned by Görgey. This was because during the conflict between king Róbert Károly and Máté Csák, the ruler gave a special and bizarre privilege for the magistrate of Lőcse for his service in combat - “Let the magistrate of Lőcse have land-claiming-blood.” Thus the field marked out by the magistrate''s blood became a possession of the town Thirsting for revenge the city embalms one of the dead magistrate''s hands, and orders all citizens to wear black clothes until Kramler''s death is revenged. To protect his daughter, Rozália Görgey, her father hides her in Lőcse in secret under the name of “Rozália Otrokócsy”, hoping that she will not be sought for, being so close to home. Rozália falls in love with Antal Fabricius, the youngest senator of Lőcse. The next magistrate is Nustkorb, who tries to catch Görgey but all his plans fail. He dies when the statue of the dead magistrate falls and kills him. The traumatized citizens now believe that Nustkorb was the true murderer, and that the murdered magistrate has made his own revenge. Antal Fabricius then becomes the magistrate. Fabricius makes a trap for Görgey, catches and executes him - but realises too late that he was Rozália’s father. He is shocked by this discovery; but on the streets all the folk of Lőcse are glad, singing, dancing and burning their black clothes now that the revenge has been completed.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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The Silver Mistress

By Peter O''Donnell

Stone's Fall

By Iain Pears

The Cry Of The Icemark

By Stuart Hill

Microserfs

By Douglas Coupland

Birthright

By Nigel Robinson

Hawksmoor

By Peter Ackroyd

A Year Down Yonder

By Richard Peck

Surviving the Applewhites

By Stephanie S. Tolan

The Texas-Israeli War: 1999

By Howard Waldrop

Tarzan and the City of Gold

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Hedgehog and the Fox

By Isaiah Berlin

A fekete város

By Kálmán Mikszáth