Several years have passed since the demise of Hanish Mein. Corinn Akaran rules with an iron grip on the Known World''s many races. She hones her skills in sorcery by studying The Book of Elenet, and she dotes on her young son, Aaden – Hanish''s child – raising him to be her successor. Mena Akaran, still the warrior princess she became fighting the eagle god Maeben, has been battling the monsters released by the Santoth''s corrupted magic. In her hunt she discovers a creature wholly unexpected, one that awakens emotions in her she has long suppressed. And Dariel Akaran, once a brigand of the Outer Isles, has devoted his labors to rebuilding the ravaged empire brick by brick. Each of the Akaran royals is finding their way in the post-war world. But the queen''s peace is difficult to maintain, and things are about to change. When the League brings news of upheavals in the Other Lands, Corinn sends Dariel across the Grey Slopes as her emissary. From the moment he sets foot on that distant continent, he finds a chaotic swirl of treachery, ancient grudges, intrigue and exoticism. He comes face to face with the slaves his empire has long sold into bondage. His arrival ignites a firestorm that once more puts the Known World in threat of invasion. A massive invasion. One that dwarfs anything the Akarans have yet faced. <!--

The Other Lands

Captain Pausert, a well-intentioned, but inexperienced merchant traveler voyaging solo on the old pirate chaser Venture from the planet Nikkeldepain, is induced to purchase three young witches (Maleen, Goth, and the Leewit) who had been enslaved on the Imperial planet of Porlumma. The sisters were captured in a raid by Imperial slavers while visiting another planet on a jaunt of their own. In getting clear of Porlumma, the Venture escapes belated pursuit with the use of the witches'' klatha (psionic) Sheewash drive, which enables far faster transit of distance than is possible with primary or secondary space drives available either in or outside the Empire. This draws the unwelcome attention of both the Imperium and other governments to both Captain Pausert and the elderly Venture. After returning the witch sisters to their homeworld, Karres, Captain Pausert attempts to return to Nikkeldepain, but is arrested before he can obtain permission to land. The Captain is informed that he faces a barrage of criminal charges, many relating to his encounter with the witches and his brief stay on the prohibited planet of Karres. And they want the Sheewash drive. Avidly. Captain Pausert escapes the Nikkeldepain police and military with the help of the middle witch sister, Goth, who had stowed away on the ship. From that point, he and Goth find themselves becoming more and more embroiled in wild adventures involving interdimensional alien invaders, space pirates, many more of the Karres witches, and assorted other characters.

The Witches of Karres

The story begins when a 14th-century English army is abducted by aliens of the Galactic Federation to serve as mercenaries on planets where only low-tech weaponry is legal. The aliens are bound by a Galactic Federation law that states that advanced weapons can not be used on primitive worlds. Another Guild had previously abducted a legion from the Roman Empire and used it to obtain victory in many confrontations and therefore increase its commercial empire. Therefore other aliens were inspired to try the same tactics and came to Earth to find their own army to fight for them. As the plot progresses, the English army continues to fight for the aliens, until the Baron in charge of the English is approached by a dragon-like alien under the heel of the Guild Aliens. The dragon-like creature tells the Baron the story of the Federation. The Galactic Federation was originally started over one hundred fifty thousand years ago by 3 races, with membership of the council requiring development of a form of faster-than-light (FTL) drive. Over the course of their long history, the Federation strayed from its values. It now has 22 races on the council (of which only 1 is an original founder) and when it discovers new races it invades them so it can freeze their technological development and force them to become a protectorate. The dragon-like creature is from one of these worlds, saying that the Federation came during his world''s nuclear age. The creature says that all the other races are different than humanity because of the rate at which it develops. This is shown when the Guild Alien makes a comment about how humanity would have developed gunpowder in 1000 years from the time he took the English from the 14th century, instead of the 200 years it actually took. The dragon-creature and the Baron eventually succeed in a mutiny and take over the ship, but they decide that they can not go back to Earth because the Federation would find them too fast. The story then moves forward to the 22nd century, on Earth, now under the single Solar government, where humanity has become capable of building vast ships in space and has developed an FTL drive. However the Federation considers their fast development a threat to its stability and has dispatched a fleet to wipe humanity from the universe. As the massive Federation battleships are about to destroy the comparably tiny human ships, even bigger spaceships appear and destroy the Federation ships easily. The rescuers of Earth are the Avalon Empire, the civilisation founded by the English who have grown in numbers and, using the technology found on the captured Guild ship, have advanced far beyond the Federation. For centuries they have prepared and lay in hiding so could return at the moment of Earth''s greatest need (just like the sword Excalibur in the legend of King Arthur, which gives rise to the title of the book). The English reveal themselves to Earth and offer an alliance to take on the Federation, but the fight will be far from easy. The Federation has over fifteen hundred worlds, with an average population of 11 billion on each world, while humanity only has the Avalon empire, who has grown to live across 20 some worlds, and Earth. But with the technical superiority of the Avalon empire and a carefully planned series of rebellions on ''protected'' worlds in the Federation humanity at least stands a chance.

The Excalibur Alternative

70 years after the events of Rendezvous with Rama, a second Raman vessel enters our solar system. Its arrival is expected and an expedition is sent to unlock more of Rama''s mysteries, but the crew are unprepared both for what they find and for the conflicts that arise between them. Rama II brings new characters into a new story and is mostly unrelated to the original and largely serves to set up its own sequels. It ends with three of the twelve astronauts stranded inside Rama as it travels out of the solar system, Nicole des Jardins Wakefield, Richard Wakefield and Michael O''Toole. Unlike Rendezvous with Rama, which depicted a utopian future and focused almost entirely on the hard science fiction elements regarding the scientific wonders of the alien spacecraft, Rama II and its sequels deconstruct Clarke''s vision of human colonies throughout the solar system through a global economic crisis that forced their almost total deactivation. Then follows a very different storytelling that brings forward contemporary issues like abortion, racism, drug abuse and organized crime.

Rama II

The book examines the history of scientific knowledge about the universe. It starts with the Ionian Greeks, who claimed that nature works by laws, and not by the will of the gods. It later presents the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, who advocated the concept that the Earth is not located in the center of the universe. The authors then describe the theory of quantum mechanics using, as an example, the probable movement of an electron around a room. The presentation has been described as easy to understand by some reviewers, but also as sometimes "impenetrable," by others. The central claim of the book is that the theory of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity together help us understand how universes could have formed out of nothing. The author writes: The authors explain, in a manner consistent with M-theory, that as the Earth is only one of several planets in our solar system, and as our Milky Way galaxy is only one of many galaxies, the same may apply to our universe itself: that is, our universe may be one of a huge number of universes. The book concludes with the statement that only some universes of the multiple universes (or multiverse) support life forms. We, of course, are located in one of those universes. The laws of nature that are required for life forms to exist appear in some universes by pure chance, Hawking and Mlodinow explain (see Anthropic Principle).

The Grand Design

The play opens with the introduction of Beatrice, a woman who has traveled to Venice disguised as her dead brother in search of the man who killed him: her lover, Florindo. Her brother forbade her to marry Florindo, and died defending his sister''s honor. Beatrice disguises herself as Federigo, (her dead brother), so that he can collect dowry money from Pantalone, the father of Clarice, her brother''s betrothed. She wants to use this money to help her lover escape, and to allow them to finally wed. But thinking that Beatrice''s brother was dead, Clarice has fallen in love with another man, Silvio, and the two have become engaged. Interested in keeping up appearances, Pantalone tries to conceal the existence of each from the other. Beatrice''s servant, the exceptionally quirky and comical Truffaldino, is the central figure of this play. He is always complaining of an empty stomach, and always trying to satisfy his hunger by eating everything and anything in sight. In one famous scene, it is implied that he eats Beatrice''s beloved cat. When the opportunity presents itself to be servant to another master (Florindo, as it happens) he sees the opportunity for an extra dinner. As Truffaldino runs around Venice trying to fill the orders of two masters, he is almost uncovered several times, especially because other characters repeatedly hand him letters, money, etc. and say simply "this is for your master" without specifying which one. To make matters worse, the stress causes him to develop a temporary stutter, which only arouses more problems and suspicion among his masters. To further complicate matters, Beatrice and Florindo are staying in the same hotel, and are searching for each other. In the end, with the help of Clarice and Smeraldina (Pantalone''s feisty servant, who is smitten with Truffaldino) Beatrice and Florindo finally find each other, and with Beatrice exposed as a woman, Clarice is allowed to marry Silvio. The last matter up for discussion is whether Truffaldino and Smeraldina can get married, which at last exposes Truffaldino''s having played both sides all along. However, as everyone has just decided to get married, Truffaldino is forgiven. Truffaldino asks Smeraldina to marry him. The most famous set-piece of the play is the scene in which the starving Truffaldino tries to serve a banquet to the entourages of both his masters without either group becoming aware of the other, while desperately trying to satisfy his own hunger at the same time.

Servant of Two Masters

The book opens with Captain Jack Aubrey and his lieutenants Pullings and Mowett aboard , waiting for Jack''s friend, and the ship''s surgeon, Stephen Maturin to embark. Stephen is late because his wife, Diana, had thrown a party. He drives to the coast to meet his ship, but the carriage, driven by his friend Jagiello, has an accident. Finally Stephen arrives in time and they set sail for the Mediterranean. Worcester joins the blockade off Toulon under the command of Admiral Thornton. The ship soon settles into the blockade routine, with some of the crew improvising a choir and the midshipmen''s berth acting out Hamlet. Jack''s relationship with his aristocratic third lieutenant Somers deteriorates during the long blockade, culminating in a confrontation when a drunken Somers causes the ship to miss stays. Somers is transferred to another ship. In the meantime Stephen befriends Mr Martin, an impoverished parson and fellow bird lover, before he joins . Stephen, after consulting with Admiral Thornton, is set ashore in Spain and spends his time there setting up a meeting with French royalists. While Admiral Thornton is in Malta, Admiral Harte, Thornton''s second-in-command, sends Jack and William Babbington, the latter commanding the brig HMS Dryad, to take presents to the Pasha of Barka and deliver a new envoy, Mr Consul Hamilton. Upon discovering two French ships in Medina (now part of the city of Tunis), Jack and Babbington both enter the port, hoping to fight the French. However, as the port is a neutral location, the French are required to fire first and this they refuse to do. Despite tempting the French several times, the British have to leave and Jack''s reputation as a fighting captain is dented. Upon returning to the fleet Jack is summoned by Admiral Thornton and severely reprimanded, stating it was the British intention to have Dryad captured so that the British could have sent a squadron to oppose the Bey. Admiral Harte claims that he had explained this, but Jack had asked him write his orders which stated that ''scrupulous respect will be paid to the laws of neutrality'' so is in the clear. Worcester is ordered to Mahon to pick up Stephen. At Mahon Jack runs into his old lover Mercedes at the Crown, but before he can do anything Stephen enters and tells him he must set sail immediately. The crew, thinking that Jack is after a prize, are excited but eventually realize it is not to be: their mission is a more covert one in which they will land Stephen in France. Stephen is to meet with the royalists in a duck blind in an uninhabited coastal marsh. But the plan goes awry as another British agent has set up a meeting in the same area. The two groups stumble into each other and, in the confusion, exchange sporadic fire. While Stephen is hiding in the sand dunes waiting for Worcesters launch, he captures the other British agent, the same Professor Graham that Worcester brought to Mahon earlier in the book. Upon returning to the fleet Stephen hands him over to the Captain of the Fleet to act as his Turkish translator. During a strong storm the French fleet leaves port, hoping to evade the British and enter the Atlantic. The British fleet gives chase, and although they catch them, the wind changes direction and the French men-of-war return to Toulon. The fastest British ships attempt to cut off their rear and Worcester exchanges a few shots with the slowest ship - the 80-gun Robuste - before giving up the chase. Admiral Thornton is too worn down by disappointment to continue and leaves the station. Admiral Harte, overcome by the political complexity of his temporary position as Commander-in-Chief, appoints Jack and his officers to command - Worcester having been sent to Gibraltar for repairs and Captain Lambert, Surprises former commander, and his first lieutenant having been killed by the same cannon ball. Also, in a show of false goodwill, he allows Jack to hand-pick his crew. Harte then sends Surprise and Babbington’s Dryad on a mission to the Ionian Sea to put one of three Turkish Beys in control of Kutali and remove the French from Marga. After talking to all three claimants to the city Jack promises British support to Sciahan Bey, the present occupier of the island. The crew spends several days rigging out their cables to bring the expected cannons up to the city''s citadel. However, Mustapha, one of the claimants that Jack didn’t back, rebels against the Ottomans and captures the British transport ships. Professor Graham returns from a mission into Turkey and hastily informs Jack about what has happened. Aubrey immediately sets sail and overtakes Mustapha’s two ships - the 32-gun Torgud with two thirty-six pounders on board, and the 20-gun Kitabi. After a long engagement Surprises crew board and take the Kitabi and Torgud, leaving the Torgud sinking and the Kitabi a prisoner. Lieutenant Pullings is injured but Mowett informs Jack that he has survived.

The Ionian Mission

The novel begins with the phrase, "In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child''s soul with poetry every day." The novel is purely poetical, and its protagonist in time aspires to become a poet who invests the lives of men with reality in its most beautiful of forms. Peter Camenzind easily reminds one of Hesse''s other protagonists, i.e. Siddhartha, Goldmund, and Harry Haller. Like them, he suffers deeply and undergoes many intellectual, physical, and spiritual journeys. In the course of his many journeys, he will come to experience the diverse landscapes of Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland, as well as the wide range of emotions that humans exhibit at different stages in their lives. In a later stage of his life, he will embody the ideal of St. Francis as he cares for a cripple. Peter Camenzind, as a youth, leaves his mountain village with a great ambition to experience the world and to become one of its denizens. Having experienced the loss of his mother at an early age, and with a desire to leave behind a callous father, he heads to university. As he progresses through his studies, he meets and falls in love with the painter, Erminia Aglietti and becomes a close friend to a young pianist named Richard. Greatly saddened because of the latter''s death, he takes up wandering to soak up the diverse experiences of life. Ever faced with the vicissitudes of life, he continually takes up alcohol as a means to confront the harshness and inexplicable strangeness of life. He also meets and falls in love with Elizabeth, even though she will later marry another man. However, his journey through Italy changes him in many respects and enhances his ability to love life and see beauty within all things. It is only when he becomes friends with Boppi, an invalid, does he truly experience what it means to love other human beings. In time, he comes to see a wonderful reflection of humanity in its most noble of forms in Boppi, and the two forge an indelible friendship. After Boppi dies, Peter Camenzind returns to his village and takes care of his aging father, even as he plans out the completion of his life''s great work.

Peter Camenzind

In 1993, mountaineer Greg Mortenson attempted to climb K2, the world''s second highest mountain and located in the Karakoram range of northern Pakistan-administered Kashmir, as a way of honoring the memory of his deceased sister, Christa. As a memorial, he had planned to lay her amber necklace on the summit of K2. After more than 70 days on the mountain, Mortenson and three other climbers had their ascent interrupted by the need to complete a 75-hour life-saving rescue of a fifth climber. After getting lost during his descent, alone, he became weak and exhausted. Instead of arriving in Askole, where his porters awaited, he came across Korphe, a small village built on a shelf jutting out from a canyon. He was greeted and taken in by the chief elder, Haji Ali of Korphe. To repay the remote community for their hospitality, Mortenson recounted in the book that he promised to build a school for the village. After difficulties in raising capital, Mortenson was introduced to Jean Hoerni, a Silicon Valley pioneer who donated the money that Mortenson needed for his school. In the last months of his life, Hoerni co-founded the Central Asia Institute, endowing the CAI to build schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to the book, Mortenson faced many daunting challenges in his quest to raise funds for the building of more than 55 schools in Taliban territory. Some of these challenges included death threats from Islamic mullahs, long periods of separation from his family, and being kidnapped by Taliban sympathizers. Reflecting on the state of a post-9/11 world, Mortenson advocates in his books and during his speaking engagements that extremism in the region can be deterred through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Formerly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, schooling focused on boys. Because educated boys tend to move to the cities to find jobs, they seldom return. By contrast, educated girls tend to remain in the community and pass their enhanced knowledge to the next generation, thus, Mortenson suggests, educating girls has more of a lasting benefit for their community.

Three Cups of Tea

Philo Vance receives an anonymous letter alerting him to the possibility that violence will soon be done within a well-known family, and the letter also suggests that something of interest will take place that night at the casino. Vance attends and witnesses the collapse of the son and heir to the family fortune, a heavy gambler, due to his having been poisoned—immediately after he drinks a glass of water from the casino manager''s private decanter. At approximately the same time, across town, the son''s wife, a former Broadway musical star, dies from poison. The curious factor is that the medical examiner cannot identify the way in which the poison was administered to the wife, except to say that no traces were found in the stomach (and no marks of a hypodermic are found). Vance attends the son''s home and investigates the wife''s death—later that evening, the sister of the son and heir is also poisoned. When he recovers, the son suggests that his mother may have been responsible for the poisoning, but Vance also finds a note that suggests that the wife committed suicide. There are other characters connected with the family upon whom suspicion falls, including the sister''s two suitors, one of whom is the family physician and the other the chief croupier at the family casino, and the children''s uncle, who manages the casino. Vance must determine the method by which the poison was administered and at the same time follows a trail that leads to one of the character''s research into the production of deuterium, or "heavy water", which had just been discovered in 1934. Having worked out the murderer''s plot and identity, Vance puts himself at the mercy of the murderer, who is holding Vance at gunpoint, in order to hear a confession—then the murderer is killed in an exciting climax.

The Casino Murder Case

Story is about the lives of a few people living in a small town north of Kingston, Ontario. Carl McKelvey, a "white trash male" as he describes himself, returns to the town after a three-year absence in the hope that he can live with his daughter again, and maybe even renew his relationship with his ex-wife, Chrissy. He carries deep in his heart his guilt of having driven his car into a tree, killing his mother, Elizabeth, many years ago. Elizabeth''s sudden death ended not only an unhappy marriage she had with William McKelvey, a failed farmer, but also a secret relationship she had with Adam Goldsmith, Carl''s real father. Elizabeth might have felt that the uncultured McKelvey ruined her life, or she might be too frightened to ruin her life herself by leaving him. In any case, her life has affected McKelvey, Adam and Carl so deeply that her influence is still felt eleven years later. When Carl is attacked by Fred (Chrissy''s boyfriend), Adam, even though reserved and gentle-natured, decides to do something for his son. Adam takes Fred in his car and drives him into the same tree that Elizabeth''s car crashed into eleven years earlier. Both Adam and Fred are killed instantly. Carl learns about his relationship with Adam in a letter Adam left for him.

Elizabeth and After

Living in New York, Gus Bailey, a writer for Park Avenue, a monthly magazine, takes a last look as an insider into the affairs of the rich and famous. As a popular guest at parties people talk to him, but with his writings he has made enemies. Thus he is sued by former congressman Kyle Cramden for slander for falsely linking him to the murder of a female intern, he is facing the potential vengeance of Elias Renthal, a finacier about to be released from prison, and he is being investigated by Perla Zacharias, the third richest woman in the world, who has been unhappy about Gus'' interest in the circumstances of the death of her banker-husband in a mysterious fire at his penthouse. Gus interacts with members of New York high society, among them Lil Altemus who at the age of 76 starts working as a real estate agent to improve her financial situation, Ruby Renthal, Elias'' wife who prepares for her husband''s return into society, and Addison Kent, the kleptomane "walker" of Perla Zacharias, and attends the funeral of its Grand Old Dame, the 105 year-old Adele Harcourt. Gus''s life is coming to an end, too; he learns that he has cancer. Perla is aware that Gus is about to write a novel based on her life and determined to stop it. She links up with his enemies, seems to employ Mossad agents, places a rumor that he is a pedophile, and pressures his publisher to back out of the project. Through philanthropic lavishness she is trying to "buy" herself into the high strata of society. Refuting the ugly rumor Gus "comes out" about his former bisexuality, and claims to have been celibate for two decades. He settles the law suit, amends with the Renthals, and finds a new backer for his book to proceed with his final project.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Other Lands

By David Anthony Durham

The Witches of Karres

By James H. Schmitz

The Excalibur Alternative

By David Weber

Rama II

By Gentry Lee

The Grand Design

By Leonard Mlodinow

Servant of Two Masters

By Carlo Goldoni

The Ionian Mission

By Patrick O''Brian

Peter Camenzind

By Hermann Hesse

Three Cups of Tea

By Greg Mortenson

The Casino Murder Case

By S. S. Van Dine

Elizabeth and After

By Matt Cohen

Too Much Money

By Dominick Dunne