Twenty-seventh century Earth is united by a worldwide democratic government presided over by a constitutional monarch, though the former is veering toward totalitarianism and the latter is a megalomaniac. To neutralize the World Emperor the power-hungry prime minister has ceded to him control of Greece for use in a mysterious secret project. Now Greece is surrounded by a force field cutting it off from the rest of the world, and people of Greek descent everywhere have vanished, presumably spirited away to the isolated region by the Emperor''s agents. One such kidnapped citizen is Thalia, wife of classical scholar Wiyem Flin. Anxious to get her back, he recruits his friend, magazine editor Knut Bulnes, into a desperate attempt to penetrate the force barrier. Bulnes, hoping to obtain an exclusive story on the Emperor''s mysterious project, agrees. The two succeed, sailing a boat through the barrier when it is temporarily disrupted by a storm. Inside the force field, Flin and Bulnes are astounded to find themselves not in 27th century Greece at all, but to all appearances the Classical Greece of Pericles and the Peloponnesian War. Pretending to be foreign philosophers, they establish themselves in Athens as they attempt to unravel the mystery, and begin to discover that all is not as it seems; the wife of the playwright Euripides, for instance, is a dead ringer for Thalia, though if she is Thalia she has no memory of her life with Flin, nor does she recognize him. But the true shock is when Pericles, the leading citizen of Athens, turns out to be the Emperor! Somehow, the two outsiders must uncover what he has done to Greece and how, thwart his insane scheme, and unmask the conspiracy that threatens to turn Greece back three thousand years and the rest of the world into a police state. Not to mention their original object of recovering Thalia!

The Glory That Was

The novel''s plot has been called a plot of female socialization, in which the hero is taught by the heroine how to live peacefully in society. Mauprat resembles the fairy tale "Beauty and the beast". As this would suggest, the novel is a romance. However, Sand resists the immediate happy ending of marriage between the two main characters in favor of a more gradual story of education, including a reappraisal of the passive female role in courtship and marriage. Sand also calls into question Rousseau''s ideal version of the female education as described in his novel Émile, namely, training women for domesticity and the home. The novel, set before the French Revolution, depicts the coming of age of a nobleman named Bernard Mauprat. The story is narrated by the old Bernard in his country home many years later, as told to a nameless young male visitor. Bernard recounts how, raised by a violent gang of his feudal kinsmen after the death of his mother, he becomes a brutalized "enfant sauvage". When his cousin Edmée is held captive by Bernard''s "family", he helps her escape, but elicits a promise of marriage from her by threatening rape. Thus begins the long courtship of Bernard and Edmée. The novel ends with a trial similar to the one in Stendhal''s The Red and the Black. During the period Sand wrote the novel, she was gradually becoming more interested in the problem of political equality in society and in the views of socialist thinkers such as Pierre Leroux. Mauprat depicts a new type of literary figure, the peasant visionary Patience. Part of the novel takes place during the American Revolutionary War.

Mauprat

The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt. Young Teppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork for several years. The day after passing his final exam he somehow senses that his father has died and that he must return home. Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems, based on the fact that Dios, the high priest, is a stickler for tradition, and does not, in fact, allow the pharaohs to rule the country. After numerous adventures and misunderstandings, Teppic is forced to escape from the palace, along with a handmaiden named Ptraci. Meanwhile, the massive pyramid being built for Teppic''s father warps space-time so much that it "rotates" Djelebeybi out of alignment with the space/time of the rest of the disc by 90 degrees. Teppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom. Meanwhile, pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi, as the kingdom''s multifarious gods descend upon the populace, and all of Djelibeybi''s dead rulers come back to life. Eventually, Teppic re-enters the Kingdom and attempts to destroy the Great Pyramid, with the help of all of his newly resurrected ancestors. They are confronted by Dios, who, it turns out, is as old as the kingdom itself, and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom. Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same. Teppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid, returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time (where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom, thereby re-starting the cycle). Teppic then abdicates, allowing Ptraci (who turns out to be his half-sister) to rule. Ptraci immediately institutes much-needed changes.

Pyramids

Three years after the events of Romanitas, the Empire is on the brink of war with Nionia (Japan), and plagued by a sequence of mysterious wildfires. Marcus Novius, the young heir to the Roman throne is forced to take charge as Regent when the Emperor Faustus falls suddenly ill. Marcus attempts to recruit Varius as his advisor, but Varius, who is still haunted by the events of the first book (in which he lost his wife and was framed for murder and treason), refuses. While Marcus works to avoid a world war, his lover Una is intent on discovering the truth about his ambitious cousin Drusus''s involvement in a conspiracy that almost claimed Marcus''s life. Her brother Sulien finds himself caught up along with Varius in a disastrous attack on an arms factory at Veii, just outside Rome. After surviving this and saving Sulien''s life, Varius decides to return to political life after all, but Sulien is left with many questions about what happened. Una exposes Drusus''s involvement in the murders of Marcus''s parents and Varius''s wife, although not before he almost kills her. Varius urges Marcus to have Drusus killed but Marcus is reluctant to begin his reign with an ex-judiciary killing, and is content to have Drusus tried for Una''s attempted murder as there is no direct evidence for his other crimes. Drusus, however, has formed an alliance with a Roman general, Salvius, who releases Drusus from prison and urges the sickly Emperor Faustus to rethink his decision to allow Marcus so much power. Drusus, who has hitherto never felt much personal resentment of those who have stood in his way, has conceived a passionate hatred of Una, and tries to convince Faustus that she, Sulien, and Varius are a dangerous influence on Marcus. Sulien''s attempts to discover more about the explosion at Veii lead him to believe he was somehow targeted. Una accompanies Marcus to peace talks hosted by the Sinoan (Chinese) Empress in the Song capital of Bianjing (Kaifeng). Things go well at first although Una discovers the Nionians are developing a super-weapon. But someone seems intent on sabotaging the negotiations. One of the Nionian party is killed by a Roman assassin and Marcus is abruptly summoned home by Faustus, under effective arrest. This leaves the Nionian Prince Tadahito deeply suspicious about Rome''s intentions. Before he is forced to leave, Marcus hands over Una and Varius as hostages to the Nionians, partly as a sign of good faith, but primarily in the hope of keeping them away from Drusus, who would almost certainly have them tortured or killed. From within Nionian custody, and with the help of the Sinoan Empress and the Nionian Princess, Una and Varius attempt to influence the global action to stop Drusus causing a war, but their efforts come at a personal cost, especially for Una.

Rome Burning

The plot revolves around Bernard &ndash; a schoolfriend of Olivier''s who is preparing for his bac &ndash; discovering he is a bastard and taking this as a welcome pretext for running away from home. He spends a night in Olivier''s bed (where Olivier describes a recent visit to a prostitute and how he did not find the experience very enjoyable). After Bernard steals the suitcase belonging to Edouard, Olivier''s uncle, and the ensuing complications, he is made Edouard''s secretary. Olivier is jealous and ends up in the hands of the cynical and downright diabolical Comte de Passavant, who travels with him to the Mediterranean. Eventually, Bernard and Edouard decide they do not fit as well together as anticipated, and Bernard leaves to take a job at a school, then finally decides to return to his father''s home. Olivier is now made Edouard''s secretary, and after an eventful evening on which he embarrasses himself grossly, Olivier ends up in bed together with Edouard, finally fulfilling the attraction they have felt for each other all along but were unable to express. Other plotlines are woven around these elements, such as Olivier''s younger brother Georges and his involvement with a ring of counterfeiters, or his older brother Vincent and his relationship with Laura, a married woman, with whom he has a child. Perhaps the most suspenseful scene in the book revolves around Boris, another illegitimate child and the grandson of La Pérouse, who commits suicide in front of the assembled class when dared by Ghéridanisol, another of Passavant''s cohorts. In some regards, such as the way in which the adolescents act and speak in a way beyond their years and the incompetence of the adults (especially the fathers), as well as its motives of developing and confused adolescent sexuality, the novel has common ground with Frank Wedekind''s (at the time scandalous) 1891 drama Spring Awakening. The Counterfeiters also shares with that play the vision of homosexual relationships as under certain conditions being "better" than heterosexual ones, with the latter ones leading inevitably to destructive outcomes in both works.

The Counterfeiters

The book has three sections, titled “Strings”, “Drums”, and “Cymbals”. These three sections document Lyson’s journey to make Islay a Deaf state. He comes across many problems along the way, and is ridiculed by some. Others accuse him of being a peddler and he is misunderstood by many. His wife, in the beginning of the novel is embarrassed by his dream and keeps Lyson behind lock and key when he is working on his project. She does not want her friends to know about what he is doing and does everything in her power to keep it a secret. In the first section, “Strings”, the book’s protagonist Lyson Sulla is in the beginning stages of his plans for a state by and for Deaf people. He is learning about the state Islay, and how it could work for what he is envisioning. He receives financial support from his in-laws so that he can move to Islay. Once there, he spends a week’s time looking over the state, seeing how it will work for him, and meeting with public officials. He is pleased with what he sees in Islay and believes that it will work for what he plans. He moves his wife, Mary out to Islay with him. Once they are moved into a large home, they throw a big party. The second section, “Drums” documents Lyson’s travels to recruit other Deaf people to move to Islay. He meets many Deaf people along the way and is able to convince many well-established Deaf people to move to Islay. He also has a few misunderstandings along the way when people misunderstand what his intentions and meanings are. In the last section, “Cymbals”, many Deaf people move their families to Islay and open businesses. Lyson still has troubles, as he is accused of real estate fraud. However, he gets out of this predicament. Those who moved to Islay register to vote, so as to help Lyson become Governor. The election is a rough experience for Lyson, but in the end he wins, becoming Governor of Islay.

Islay

A tale of bonding sisterhood, this novel is set in Syai, an imaginary Chinese kingdom. Jin-shei is a pledge given by one woman to another, and once accepted can never be broken. This declaration of loyalty transcends social class and normal customs. Through jin-ashu, a unique language passed on from generation to generation of women (inspired by a real example of secret women''s writing, Nü Shu), the lives within the sisterhood continue to intertwine throughout time. The story begins with Tai, daughter of a court seamstress, who becomes jin shei bao of the Little Empress Antian. An earthquake claims the lives of the royal family, leaving an obstinate Liudan, Antian''s younger sister, as the unexpected new Empress. Antian, during her dying moments, binds Tai to look after her sister. Tai is comforted by Yuet, an apprentice healer. A new pledge is made, and Tai finds herself with a new jin shei bao who works tirelessly to bridge the gap between Tai and Liudan. The initial moves are tentative, for Liudan remains insecure throughout her lonely life in the imperial court. During her time of sorrow, Tai is also consoled by her childhood friend Nhia. A club-footed young girl, Nhia grew up in the vicinity of the great temple, and has learned much about the Way. She is a sage with a pure heart who later becomes Syai Chancellor. It is also at the temple that Nhia meets Khailin, to whom she pledges sisterhood. A restless soul, Khailin is actively seeking knowledge about the Way. However, her thirst for information leads her down the path of darker forces. Khailin secretly marries the Ninth Sage Lihui. Within Liudan’s court, an exceptional young Guard trainee named Xaforn is injured and Yuet is summoned to heal her. Xaforn is jin shei bao to Qiaan, binding their lives beyond adoptive sisterhood. Xaforn is protective by nature, while Qiaan is nurturing. Through a series of events, the circle of sisterhood between these young ladies will test their loyalty, determination, courage and bravery. Liudan, in her quest for absolute rule over her empire, declares herself to be Dragon Empress. However, when the existence of Tammary, the late Emperor’s illegitimate daughter with a Traveller, comes to light, Liudan becomes obsessed by her need to maintain her power. In order to protect Tammary, Tai pledges sisterhood and tries to act as the peacemaker. Qiaan is then discovered to be the daughter of Cai, the Ivory Emperor''s concubine, and becomes a pawn of Lihui, who wants to rule as Emperor and overthrow Liudan. An increasingly insecure Liudan resorts to extraction of duties of sisterhood despite mistrusting her sisters who try fervently to bring her back to their fold, to a life with some sense of calm and peace. They fail, and their failure comes with a huge price, as one sister after another dies. The story ends with Tai in her old age, looking back to her youth and reminiscing that her life was joyful yet marred by occasions of unhappiness, a life that was changed by a single promise - Jin-Shei.

The Secrets of Jin-Shei

The basic plot concerns a school teacher named Ushimatsu Segawa (family name written last) who struggles with a commandment given to him by his late father. He is never to reveal his burakumin background, which his father had tried so hard to conceal as well. Ushimatsu idolizes Rentarou Inoko, a burakumin rights'' activist and successful writer (particularly considering the social position given to those considered burakumin). Ushimatsu wishes to reveal his background to Rentarou, as his need to hide away part of himself in order to be accepted by society in general leads to his feeling constricted by this superficial identity, and to his desiring to form a more meaningful connection with Rentarou through their common experience. This novel also touches on the dangerous, destructive nature of gossip, and questions society''s inability to accept what is not understood. It attempts to build understanding and empathy for this group of people at a time (the novel''s publication''s) when a great deal of prejudice still existed towards this group.

The Broken Commandment

Story of the Eye consists of several vignettes, centered around the sexual passion existing between the unnamed late adolescent male narrator and Simone, his primary female partner. Within this episodic narrative two secondary figures emerge: Marcelle, a mentally ill sixteen-year-old girl who comes to a sad end, and Lord Edmund, a voyeuristic, English émigré aristocrat. Simone and the narrator first consummate their lust on a beach near their home, and involve Marcelle within their activity. The couple are exhibitionists, copulating within Simone''s house in full view of her mother. During this second episode, Simone derives pleasure from inserting hard and soft boiled eggs for her vaginal and anal stimulation; she also experiences considerable enjoyment from the viscosity of various liquids. The pair undertake an orgy with other adolescents, which involves some broken glass and involuntary bloodletting, and ends with Marcelle''s psychological breakdown. The narrator flees his own parents'' home taking a pistol from the office of his bedridden, senile, and violent father. They view Marcelle within a sanatorium, but fail to break her out. Naked, they flee during night back to Simone''s home, and more displays of exhibitionist sex ensue before Simone''s widowed mother. Later, they finally break Marcelle out of the institution, but unfortunately, Marcelle is totally insane. Deprived of her therapeutic environment, she hangs herself. The pair have sex next to her corpse. After Marcelle''s suicide, the two flee to Spain, where they meet Sir Edmund. They witness a Madrid bullfight, which involves the prowess of handsome twenty-year-old matador, El Granero. Initially, El Granero kills the first bull that he encounters and the animal is consequently castrated. Simone then pleasures herself by vaginally inserting these taurine testicles. Unfortunately, El Granero is killed by the next bull that he fights, and his face is mutilated. As the corpse of El Granero is removed from the stadium, his right eye has worked loose from its socket, and is hanging, bloody and distended. Simone, Sir Edmund, and the narrator visit the Catholic Church of San Seville after the day''s events. Simone aggressively seduces Don Aminado, a handsome, young, Catholic priest, fellating him while Simone and the narrator have sex. Sir Edmund undertakes a blasphemous parody of the Catholic Eucharist involving desecration of the bread and wine using Don Aminado''s urine and semen before Simone strangles Don Aminado to death during his final orgasm. Sir Edmund enucleates one of the dead priests'' eyes, and Simone inserts it within her vagina, while she and the narrator have sex. The trio successfully elude apprehension for the murder of Don Aminado, and make their way down Andalusia. Sir Edmund purchases an African-staffed yacht so that they can continue their debaucheries, whereupon the story ends. In a postscript, Bataille reveals that the character of Marcelle may have been partially inspired by his own mother, who suffered from bipolar disorder, while the narrator''s father is also a transcription of his own unhappy paternal relationship. In an English language edition, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag provide critical comment on the events.

Histoire de l''oeil

The novel’s opening is mostly the perspective of Nash, Martha, and Travis’ “father” mixed with the thoughts of the English slave trader James Hamilton, which are expressed in italics. The narrator explains that he had to sell his three children to slavery because his crops failed and he had no money. Nash’s story as an adult is first revealed through the perspective of his white master Edward Williams, who freed Nash so that he could go to Africa with the American Colonization Society to teach black natives. Edward, however, receives a letter saying that Nash had disappeared from the African village where he had been teaching. Edward immediately boards a ship to take him to Africa, and after many days of searching, a former slave of Edward’s informs him that Nash had died from fever. Edward is horribly upset, and his grief is further drawn out when he realizes that his beloved Nash was not the holy Christian he thought him to be. He finds plenty that points out Nash’s negative behavior, such as his large collection of native wives. The chapter ends with Edward gaping at the hovel that was once Nash’s residence while natives stare on, trying to understand the apparent momentary insanity of the shocked and aggrieved stranger. The story then switches to Martha, an old woman who, after losing her husband and daughter at a slave auction, decides to run away from her owners in Kansas and seek freedom in California. She only makes it to Colorado, however, where the group she is traveling with leaves her because she is slowing down the party. A white woman offers Martha a place to room for the night out of the bitter cold, but it is not enough. When the woman returns to Martha the next day, Martha is dead. The white woman decides that she is going to have to “choose a name for her if she was going to receive a Christian burial” (p.&nbsp;94), which is ironic since Martha hated receiving a new name each time she was passed to a different owner and because Martha didn’t believe in God. The final section is told through the eyes of Joyce, a white Englishwoman who falls in love with Travis, who is the “brother” of Nash and Martha. Since Travis’ story occurs during World War II (about a century after his supposed brother Nash''s), it can be assumed that Travis is a sort of reincarnation of Nash and Martha’s brother from more than a century before. In that case, it can be implied that the ancestor narrator is not the children’s true father; rather he is some sort of all-knowing ancestor who has “listened” to his “children” for the last “two hundred and fifty years” (p.&nbsp;1). Joyce meets Travis at her husband’s store. Joyce’s husband habitually beats her, and when her husband is taken to prison for selling items on the black market, Joyce and Travis have an affair. Joyce has Travis’ baby but has to give it up after Travis dies in the war because it would be unacceptable for her to raise a black baby on her own. The chapter ends with a visit from Greer when he is twenty years old, who meets his mother for the first time after being raised in an orphanage. The book ends with the ancestor narrator once more, who provides an optimistic view even after all his children have died, saying that though he “sold his beloved children … they arrived on the far bank of the river, loved” (p.&nbsp;237).

Crossing the River

Taiwanese politicians vote to declare independence from China in early June 1997 and the US immediately recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign state. However, Beijing does not take the declaration lightly and plans offensive operations to reimpose the one-China policy, with the initial swing led by the PLAN''s deployment of the aircraft carrier Mao Zedong. Meanwhile, the US government authorizes a covert deployment of two EB-52 Megafortresses to patrol over the Taiwan Strait and keep watch on the situation. Lt General Bradley Elliott successfully reorganizes the survivors of the original Old Dog crew for the operation as part of a plan to pitch the Megafortress as new aircraft for the USAF. A stand-off between a Taiwanese Navy frigate and the Mao Zedong taskforce escalates as the Old Dog crew is forced to intervene. The battle opens an opportunity for the Chinese to wage an international public-relations campaign to paint the US and Taiwan as the aggressors. Chinese Admiral Sun Ji Guoming uses Sun Tzu''s lessons on deception to give the campaign added leverage. His schemes include launching torpedoes against the Mao Zedong and frame the attack on the Taiwanese submarine Hai Hu shadowing it in Hong Kong harbor, disguising a ferry as a cruiser to provoke an attack by the Megafortress, and detonating a suitcase nuke on the USS Independence as it steams out of Japan for deployment to the Taiwan Strait. Sun uses the success of his deception operation to launch a massive air campaign against Taiwan, starting off with nuclear-tipped SAMs fired on Taiwanese F-16s attacking a naval base in Fujian province. The Chinese attacks on Taiwan - with nuclear weapons used on several of them - prompts the US to prepare its own strategic nuclear forces. The fallout from the events also affect the US leadership''s confidence in Elliott''s team while many countries in the Pacific Rim ban US warships from their waters. The US military tries to impound the Megafortress planes while in Guam, but Elliott''s crew hijack one Megafortress and fly to a secret underground airbase outside Hualien, where a surviving Taiwanese Air Force F-16 unit welcomes them as the "new Flying Tigers." As Sun gloats over the success of his plan and expects the Taiwanese government''s surrender, the joint US-Taiwan force starts attacking Chinese strategic assets deep in the mainland, which helps PLA commander Chin Po Zihong convince President Jiang Zemin to launch a ballistic missile at Andersen Air Force Base in the belief that it was the staging area for the attacks. Chin - who has been disgusted with Sun''s tactics that do not require an actual invasion of Taiwan - orders an attack on the secret airbase after a patrol plane follows a flight of F-16s returning from another strike before being shot down. Elliott''s team and the Taiwanese planes launch ahead of the Chinese assault. At the same time, the US Navy''s carrier planes and the Air Force - which finally called off its strategic forces alert - savage the Chinese planes to help the Megafortress attack the Second Artillery Corps'' missile silos. In the ensuing battle, the Megafortress suffers heavy damage while destroying many silos. Elliott orders McLanahan and the rest of the crew to eject while guiding the bomber for a kamikaze attack on the last DF-5 silo. The crew is captured by the Chinese, but are returned to the US after Sun surrenders to the Americans at Kadena Air Base and threatened to reveal the Chinese plan for recapturing Taiwan, causing Beijing to declare a ceasefire. The group - who expected jail time for going renegade - arrives at Dreamland, where President Martindale declares that it was reactivated and renamed in Elliott''s honor. He also designates Eighth Air Force chief Gen Terrill Samson as base commander and McLanahan drives off contemplating an offer to be the base''s operations director.

Fatal Terrain

Due to the detailed nature of the overall story within the novel, the plot has been divided into Backstory and Modern Day respectively in order to provide a more coherent timeline for the events depicted in the novel. In the 13th century, there once existed a circle of authors and playwrights known as the Order of Psion (a parody of the Knights Templar), most of whom were females writing under male pseudonyms, who once predicted the coming of "the ultimate book" that would render publishers obsolete. The formula for the making of the ultimate book - known as the Asti Spumante Code - is contained within the Mure de Paume (French: "The Blackberry of the Palm"), otherwise known as "the legendary keystone". Fearing the consequences of the ultimate book, a group of publishers named The English Book Guild was established in Stevenage, England to try to counteract the progresses made by the Order. The book itself focuses on American Prof. James Crack - a professor of "Paraliteral Metasymbolist studies" - and Belgian Emily Raquin, a "bibliotechnical cryptologist", as they discover a set of clues left by the deceased Grand Master of the Order of Psion that will ultimately lead to the discovery of the Asti Spumante Code. However, the two are hindered by the efforts of Uxbridge Road Group, a fanatical off-shoot of the English Book Guild situated in Brussels, whose members encourage Sadomasochism and segregate works of fiction by gender stereotyping (e.g.: men read only adventure fiction, women read only romance novels), who wish to destroy the Asti Spumante Code before it can be put to use by anyone.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Glory That Was

By L. Sprague de Camp

Mauprat

By George Sand

Pyramids

By Terry Pratchett

Rome Burning

By Sophia McDougall

The Counterfeiters

By André Gide

Islay

No Author Listed

The Secrets of Jin-Shei

By Alma Alexander

The Broken Commandment

By Vincent McDonnell

Histoire de l'oeil

No Author Listed

Crossing the River

By Caryl Phillips

Fatal Terrain

No Author Listed

The Asti Spumante Code

No Author Listed