In The Forests of Silence, the topaz had been retrieved by Lief, Barda, and Jasmine. They continue on their way to the Lake of Tears, to retrieve the ruby. They learn that the land surrounding the Lake of Tears is controlled by the evil sorceress Thaegan, who has 13 monster children. As the companions travel through the countryside they rescue a man named Manus from the Shadow Lord''s servants, Grey Guards. Manus is from the city of Raladin. 100 years ago, Thaegan put a spell on Raladin that caused them and all of their offspring to never be able to speak. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine also learn that Thaegan put a spell on the city of D''Or and turned it into the Lake of Tears. The companions, with Manus, escape from the Grey Guards only to be captured by Jin and Jod, two of Thaegan''s children. They eventually defeat Jin and Jod and journey to the city of Raladin, where Manus hopes to find his people. Upon arrival, they find the city empty. Only when the Ralad people hear the companions, they come out of hiding. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine tell the Ralads that they must journey to the Lake of Tears, despite the Ralads pleas, but they do not tell them they are going in quest of one of the gems of the Belt of Deltora. Manus agrees to be their guide. When they get to the Lake of Tears, the monster Soldeen attacks them. Soldeen is a giant fish-like creature who is very deadly and has the ability to speak. Using the power of the topaz, Lief persuades Soldeen to give them the ruby. As Soldeen agrees, Thaegan appears and threatens to kill them all. The ruby flies out of Lief''s hand and into the depths of the Lake as Thaegan uses her magic to harm them. Just as Thaegan is about to kill them all, Jasmine''s bird Kree comes and kills Thaegan by drawing blood. All of Thaegan''s spells are broken: the Ralads can now speak and the Lake of Tears turns back into the city of D''Or. Soldeen is a man named Nanion and gives the three companions the gem and wishes them well on their quest. The Belt now holds the topaz and ruby and now they journey towards the City of the Rats.

The Lake of Tears

In Odd We Trust serves as a prequel to the first Odd Thomas novel. The ghost of a young boy appears to Odd, and he embarks on a quest to bring justice to the boy''s killer so that his ghost can move on. Odd''s friend, the Chief of Police Wyatt Porter, shares some details of the case, and informs him that the boy''s babysitter is the one that discovered the body. The babysitter turns out to be Sherry Sheldon, a childhood friend of Odd''s girlfriend and soulmate, Stormy Llewellyn. Sherry relates that a stalker has been leaving her disturbing notes for several months, and believes this stalker may be the murderer. Odd and Stormy resolve to catch the stalker before he kills again. Odd asks the ghost of the little boy to help him find his killer, and Joey leads him to a street corner, where he sees a suspicious man. The man flees when Odd tries to address him. Odd gives chase, but loses his quarry when he trips over a lawn gnome. Four neighborhood children are believed to be targets, as they have each received a note from the killer. Chief Porter assigns police escorts to each of the houses, and Odd and Stormy decide to spend the night with Sherry at the house where she is babysitting a girl named Angelica. The policeman on stakeout at the house finds an empty car containing a mutilated mannequin, and from this Odd deduces that the killer is nearby, taunting them. He throws open the doors of a nearby van, and discovers the man he chased earlier. He and Odd trade veiled threats, but when Stormy shows up with a gun, the man drives off. Chief Porter traces the van''s license plates to a man named Kyle Bernshaw, and gives Odd the resulting address. Odd and Stormy break into Bernshaw''s house, to find giant piles of magazines (from which his mysterious notes have been cut and glued together), and a note to Odd, revealing that this was a trap. Odd turns to find himself cornered by a vicious dog, from which he is saved at the last minute by Joey''s ghost. Odd and Stormy race back to the house where they left Sherry, only to find out that Angelica''s parents have fired her and she has left. Odd realizes that Sherry, not one of the four children under police protection, was the target all along. The two borrow a car and, using Odd''s psychic magnetism (an ability that draws him to a person if he concentrates on them while traveling), they locate Bernshaw in an abandoned slaughterhouse. Odd fights him, with limited success, until Stormy shoots him in the leg, and Odd is able to subdue him. They free Sherry from the trunk of Bernshaw''s car. The killer is taken into custody, but refuses to confess, insisting that he will be given a chance to escape, as he has made a deal with the devil and everything he wants always comes to him. He threatens to reveal Odd''s identity and abilities to the world, bringing a storm of media attention, one of the very things Odd fears most. Odd lies and pretends that he, too, has sold his soul to the devil for his powers, but just as he begins to make headway with taking Bernshaw into his confidence, a guard collapses and the killer is able to grab the guard''s gun. He fires, but the bullet ricochets off a chair Odd is holding. The bullet kills Bernshaw. Angelica''s parents re-hire Sherry, and the story ends with Odd and Stormy musing on the happy ending they have managed.

In Odd We Trust

The book tells the story of Ted Mundy, a Pakistani-born Briton who as a student becomes proficient in the German language. He joins a 1960s-era student protest group in West Berlin and becomes a lifelong friend of a West German student anarchist named Sasha. Having been brutally beaten by West Berlin police and ejected from Germany, Mundy fails at several careers, as a teacher at an English prep school, as a newspaper reporter, a radio interviewer and a novelist. Eventually Mundy obtains a position with the British Council. Meanwhile, Sasha has defected to East Germany to become a member of the notorious Stasi secret police. On a trip to East Germany with a youth theatre group, Mundy and Sasha meet again. By this time Sasha has become totally disillusioned with the Communist Bloc and enlists the naive Mundy to become a double agent. Sasha has access to state secrets and he recruits Mundy to help him smuggle them out of East Germany and deliver them to MI6, the British Secret Service. Their efforts contribute to the collapse of the GDR and eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall. Later, Sasha and Mundy once again conspire in grandiose schemes to combat American military and industrial globalization. The two ideologues become pawns of the group they thought they were combating. After they are killed, they are portrayed as terrorists "with connections to Al-Qaeda", in efforts to convince European governments to support the United States in its "war on terror". After Mundy''s death, Amory, his controller from the British intelligence service during his espionage years, tries to publicize the truth, but slander by the British government results in his story being totally discredited. The novel is a chilling reminder of the ability of governments and groups to manipulate public thinking to achieve their private ends, and underlines the need for people to not simply believe what they are told/sold without question.

Absolute Friends

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

The dejected Surgeon-Captain Lioren is disappointed that his Court-martial has rejected the death penalty for him, and instead has assigned him to O''Mara at Sector General. He is plagued with guilt, because he is responsible for the genocide of an entire race. At moments during his new tasks, he ponders the individual events that led up to the alien deaths. First contact with the Cromsag planet was quickly followed by the discovery that their entire population was wasting away from some unidentified disease. They were starving, and their birth rate was absymal. Additionally, they were continually in hand-to-hand combat with each other, presumably competing for food. The Sector General ships hurriedly provided food to malnourished people everywhere, along with medical aid for combat injuries, and tried to determine the cause of the mysterious disease. Despite their best efforts, deaths from the plague continued to increase. Lioren grew frustrated with the slow process of sending samples back to Sector General and awaiting diagnostics and full tests to ensure the effectiveness of potential cures. In his arrogance, he administered a treatment to the entire population ... and they rose up and slaughtered each other, wiping out their own race. Interspersed with recalling these events, he shares some of his story with people at Sector General. Lioren speaks to the terminally ill Dr. Mannen, eventually reviving Mannen''s interest in life. Lioren also offers encouragement to the isolated alien Khone (see Star Healer.) Next he is asked to speak to a gigantic Groalterri, whose race is so advanced they have until now refused all contact with the federated planets. The humans are desperate to make any sort of progress with this race, but the Groalterri patient won''t communicate with anyone. Bit by bit, Lioren shares his own guilty history and talks the suicidal alien into lowering its emotional barriers. From its story he manages to figure out the Groalterri''s hitherto unknown injury and arrange surgery that will change its life. Finally, at the end, Lioren meets with the handful of Cromsag survivors.

The Genocidal Healer

TunFaire is in a state of unrest; with the sudden end of the war in the Cantard, returning former soldiers are at odds with the half-breeds and immigrants who have taken their places in society. Garrett, however, has his own problems to worry about - he gets knocked out, brought before a group of small-time gods known as the Godoroth, and forced into working for them. The goal: find the "key" to the one remaining temple up for grabs in TunFaire, and do so before the Shayir, the Godoroth''s rivals. The Shayir find out about the Godoroth''s plans. The Shayir capture Garrett and give him their side of the story. Only with the help of a renegade Shayir called Cat does Garrett manage to escape. As the civil unrest escalates into full-fledged street warfare, the Godoroth and Shayir elevate their search for Garrett, and Cat, who has her own agenda, is apparently the only one Garrett can trust. When the battle between the Godoroth and Shayir spills over into the world of the living, causing madness in the streets of TunFaire, the more powerful gods of the city decide it is time to intervene. After an epic battle between gods, Garrett hopes the trouble is over, but the Dead Man thinks there is still a missing piece or two to the puzzle. Eventually, the Dead Man deduces that there was yet another party behind the struggle between the Godoroth and Shayir. When everything settles down and is sorted out, the remaining gods go back to their own business, leaving Garrett to go back to his beer.

Petty Pewter Gods

The book is a series of diary entries by each of the four main characters: Zebadiah John Carter, programmer Dejah Thoris "Deety" Burroughs Carter, her mathematics professor father Jacob Burroughs, and an off-campus socialite Hilda Corners. The names "Dejah Thoris", "Burroughs", and "Carter" are overt references to John Carter and Dejah Thoris, the main protagonists of the Barsoom (Mars) novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The four travel in Zebadiah''s spaceship Gay Deceiver, which is equipped with the professor''s "continua" device and armed by the Australian Defence Force. The continua device was built by Professor Burroughs while he was formulating his theories on n-dimensional non-euclidean geometry. The geometry of the novel''s universe contains six dimensions; the three spatial dimensions known to the real world, and three time dimensions - t, the real world''s temporal dimension, τ (tau), and т (teh). The continua device can travel on all six axes. The continua device allows travel into various fictional universes, such as the Land of Oz, as well as through time. An attempt to visit Barsoom takes them to an apparently different version of Mars seemingly under the colonial rule of the British Empire; but near the end of the novel, Heinlein''s recurring character Lazarus Long hints that they had traveled to Barsoom, and that its "colonial" status was an illusion imposed on them by the telepathically adept Barsoomians: In the novel, the Biblical number of the beast turns out to be, not 666, but (6^6)^6, or 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056, which is the number of parallel universes accessible through the continua device.

The Number of the Beast

Halli loves to hear stories from the days when the valley was a wild and dangerous place, besieged by the bloodthirsty Trow. Now farming has taken over from fighting Trows, and to Halli''s disappointment heroics seem a thing of the past. But when a practical joke rekindles an old blood feud, he sees a chance for a daring quest of his own. The Story starts with the Battle of the Rock being told to a child. This is where twelve heroes of the valley join together to fight the ruthless Trows (man eating monsters) that devastate the land. They form a battle plan and wait for the Trows to come. They take up positions on a large rock and are finally attacked by the Trows, which they fend off all night. In the morning, when the people check to see what happened all are dead, Trows and Heroes, including the main hero Svien. The heroes are buried under cairns along the borders of the valley with their swords, so that, even in death, they can guard the boundaries from the Trows. As long as no one crosses the cairn border, the legends say, no Trows can enter the Valley. Many years later Halli is born. He is a very short, stout, young, and headstrong boy who longs for the days of the Heroes, when a man could fight for what he wanted and take what he could win. He longs to leave the valley, which is now ruled by a Council of women who demand peace and equality in the land. They have outlawed swords and other weapons to discourage wars. Halli looks very much like his uncle, Brodir, whom he adores. He is the third and last child in his family. His family are Arnkel, his father and Arbiter of Svien''s House, Astrid, his mother and Law-Giver of Svien''s House, Lief, his older brother who is immediately in line for the Arbiter after Arnkel, Gudny, his sister and Brodir his uncle, who is the only member of his family that seems to get along with him. When his uncle is murdered by a rival house, the house of Hakon, Halli sets off to avenge his uncle. Finally, he thinks that he will have a hero''s quest of his own. Along his journey, Halli realizes that he isn''t the guiltless avenging murderer that he thought he could be. His interference and thirst for revenge leads two men to their deaths, and he becomes sick with guilt. He returns home to his relieved yet angry family, and his distrusting and fearful fellow villagers. His actions eventually lead to an attack on his house by the House of Hakon, and he alone can accept responsibility and take charge of his defenseless village. He proves that he is a great leader. When the enemy arrives, they have an obvious advantage... swords. Halli realizes that his people''s only hope is if he leads the enemies obliviously past the cairn boundaries. He does so with the help of his friend and crush, Aud, and to his relief, it works. The Hakonssons are eaten by monsters in the moorlands. However, Halli and Aud come under attack from the unknown enemy. Much like the heroes of old, they take their last stand on a large rock and wait to discover the identity of the monsters. When the nature of the attackers becomes clear, Halli and Aud face something far worse than the Trows of legend... and they will be lucky to survive the night.

Heroes of the Valley

A War of Gifts begins in North Carolina where Zechariah ''Zeck'' Morgan, a boy with nearly perfect memory, lives with his family. Though Zeck’s father is the minister of his own church and has raised Zeck to be a pacifist, he beats the boy regularly. When the International Fleet shows up to take Zeck to Battle School, Zeck’s mother sees this as the perfect opportunity to get the boy away from his abusive father. At Battle School, the other students barely tolerate Zeck because of his strong religious beliefs and his refusal to fight in the Battle Room. On December fifth Zeck sees a Dutch boy put a Sinterklaas Day gift in another Dutch boy’s shoe. Because religious activities including prayer and holidays are forbidden at Battle School and Zeck has been taught by his father that Santa Claus is evil, he decides to report the two boys to Colonel Graff. After the Colonel calls the boys in and reprimands them, they decide to rebel by getting everyone to celebrate not Christmas, but Santa Claus, as he is not a religious symbol in the book, but a secular one. When Zeck complains to the authorities, they refuse to do anything. Zeck goes to the Muslim students and points out that the Christians are being allowed to celebrate their holidays. Some of the Muslim students begin daily prayers. When the administration forcibly stops the Muslims from praying, the other students stop giving each other Christmas presents. They also refuse to speak to Zeck. When he begins to have a nervous breakdown because of the isolation, Ender Wiggin decides to have a talk with him. In doing so, Ender discovers that Zeck was desperately trying to get sent back home so that he could protect his mother from his father. After he convinces Zeck that his mother doesn''t need to be protected, Ender gives him a small "Santa Claus" present. When the other students learn that Zeck accepted the gift, they stop ignoring him and go back to tolerating him.

A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

In the beginning, Jayni''s mum, Nikki Fenton, wins £10,000 on a scratchcard. They decide to not tell Jayni''s father, Jay, who she fears will spend it on his friends on drinks at the pub or losing it by going to a betting shop. However, Nikki decides to tell Jay anyway because he reveals he has left his job and is joining a mini-cab firm but needs to provide the car. Jay, Nikki, Jayni and her brother, Kenny, go out to T.G.I Fridays spending around £50 on the meal. Jayni fears for herself because as Nikki and Jay ''drank lots'' it would almost always ''end in a fight''. Jay gets angry at Nikki for becoming drunk and when they return home, he starts shouting at her. As Jay goes to hit Nikki, she tells Jay to let her put the kids to bed first. However Jayni refuses to go to bed and as a result, Jay gets angry and hit both Jayni and Nikki, he then leaves the house. This was the last straw for Nikki. She had previously put up with the violent nature from her husband, but now he had turned to violence against Jayni, Nikki felt they had to leave. One night, Nikki goes to the pub to buy a packet of cigarettes from the machine, and does not return home until after midnight, but consolingly she has found a new job (bar work), which means working set afternoons, and evenings if she is needed. The next thing to do is to get the children into school. Once achieved,Nikki starts to fall in love with an art student named Jake. Lola Rose doesn''t like him. She is also jealous because Kendall prefers Jake to her.One day, Jake reveals "Mum''s got a lump," which had been growing in her breast for several months while she hoped it would clear up on its own. Meanwhile, Jake moves out because Nikki has run out of money. She has to go to hospital, but believing she will be back the next day, she leaves only a day''s food and a little money. The children soon run out of money and food. Jayni finds out where her mother''s obese sister Barbara lives, and telephones her. She comes to stay and provides the children with food. Meanwhile Nikki is becoming worse because of an infection following the surgery. Nikki has stupidly telephoned Jay, thinking he will be shocked to discover she has been so ill and never touch her again. Jay comes to their flat and is nice at first though he doesn''t want Lola Rose anymore because she is too old to be his little girl . He finds a pair of Jake''s boxer shorts, then, calling Nikki a slag, balls up a fist to punch her. Barbara raises her fists as if to punch him, then slyly kicks him in the crotch. He proceeds to attack her with a broken mug, so she smacks him on the shoulder taking out the tendon, so that he drops the mug. She then shoos him out, threatening to kill him if he comes back again (though she later admits she didn''t mean it). Jayni, Nikki and Kenny feel safe with the protection of Barbara and the book ends on a positive note. Barbara asks the children and finally Nikki whether they would like to come to her pub to live, while they redecorated it (as Barbara likes the job they have done on the house) and did a karaoke act by her and Nikki. Jayni remembers children''s stories in which the hero has to perform a terrifying but menial task. She envisions that to get her mother better she has to stand by the shark tank and count sixty seconds, sixty times. This she does. An aquarium worker sees this and says she must be a shark enthusiast. They chat about sharks for a few minutes and he gives her a shark''s tooth, which is meant to bring good luck. She goes to the hospital and presses it into her mother''s hand. Eventually she gets better and returns home. Jayni knows it has nothing to do with the tooth but it is comforting.

Lola Rose

* Chapter One: Close Reading Prose discusses the question of whether writing can be taught. She answers the question by suggesting that although writing workshops can be helpful, the best way to learn to write is to read. Closely reading books, Prose studied word choice and sentence construction. Close reading helped her solve difficult obstacles in her own writing. * Chapter Two: Words Prose encourages the reader to slow down and read every word. She reminds the reader that words are the "raw material out of which literature is crafted." Challenging the reader to stop at every word, she suggest the following question be asked: "What is the writer trying to convey with this word?" * Chapter Three: Sentences Prose discusses how "the well made sentence transcends time and genre." She believes the writer who is concerned about what constitutes a well-constructed sentence is on the right path. Prose mentions the importance of mastering grammar and how it can improve the quality of a writer''s sentence. In this chapter, she also discusses the use of long sentences, short sentences, and rhythm in prose. * Chapter Four: Paragraphs Prose discusses that, just as with sentence construction, the writer who is concerned about paragraph construction is stepping in the right direction. She states that the writer who reads widely will discover there are no general rules for building a well-constructed paragraph, but "only individual examples to help point [the writer] in a direction in which [the writer] might want to go." * Chapter Five: Narration When determining point-of-view, Prose says audience is an important factor. She gives examples from literature of point-of-view variations. First-person and third person are discussed, and even an example of writing fiction in second person is given. * Chapter Six: Character Using examples from the works of Heinrich von Kleist and Jane Austen, Prose discusses how writers can develop characterization. She mentions that Kleist, in his "The Marquise of O—" ignores physical description of the characters, but instead "tells us just as much as we need to know about his characters, then releases them into the narrative that doesn''t stop spinning until the last sentence . . ." Excerpts from other pieces of literature are used to show how action, dialogue and even physical description can help develop characterization. * Chapter Seven: Dialogue Prose begins this chapter by dispelling the advice that writers should improve and clean up dialogue so it sounds less caustic than actual speech. She believes this idea on dialogue can be taken too far and that dialogue can be used to reveal not only the words on the surface, but the many motivations and emotions of the characters underneath the words. * Chapter Eight: Details Using examples from literature, Prose explains how one or two important details can leave a more memorable impression on the reader than a barrage of description. * Chapter Nine: Gestures Prose argues that gestures performed by fictional characters should not be "physical clichés" but illuminations that move the narrative. * Chapter Ten: Learning from Chekhov Prose gives examples of what she has learned from reading Anton Chekhov. As a creative writing teacher, she would disseminate advice to her students after reading their stories. As a fan of Chekhov, she would read his short stories and find examples of how he would successfully break the "rules" of fiction writing, contradicting something she recently told her students to do in their writing projects. Prose also discusses how Chekhov teaches the writer to write without judgement; she tells how Chekhov practiced not being the "judge of one''s characters and their conversations but rather the unbiased observer." * Chapter Eleven: Reading for Courage Prose discusses the fears writers may have: revealing too much of themselves in their writing; resisting the pressures that writers must write a certain way; determining whether or not the act of writing is worth it when one considers the state of the world. She concludes her book by stating that the writer may fear creating "weeds" instead of "roses." Continuing the metaphor, she says reading is a way for the writer to see how other gardeners grow their roses. * Books to Be Read Immediately Prose includes a list of book recommendations, many of which have selections from those that are used as examples for the concepts she discusses.

Reading Like a Writer

Eva Nine has reached the age of 12 living her whole life in an underground Sanctuary. She has been raised by a robot named "Muthr" (Multi-Utility Task Helper Robot 06), and knows only of the outside world through holograms and a small piece of cardboard inscribed with the fragmented words "Wond" and "La." When the facility is attacked by a large creature named Besteel, she is forced to leave Muthr behind and flee her home. Upon seeing the outside world for the first time she remarks that it is nothing like the holographic simulations she''d been brought up on, encountering many dangerous and alien species of plants and animals that her Omnipod device fails to identify. After another encounter with Besteel and meeting an alien named Rovender Kitt and a large behemoth Otto (identified as a giant water bear by the Omnipod), Eva reunites with Muthr in her (now demolished) home and convinces the Sanctuary computer to allow the robot to escort her to the next underground Sanctuary. When they find it abandoned they convince Rovender to lead them to the royal city of Solas. The group has several more encounters with Besteel and other aliens, in which Eva is nearly embalmed for display at the royal museum. While in the museum she learns that the life forms of this planet (called "Orbona" by its natives) arrived long ago on a dead world that they "reawakened" for their own use. She also discovers many ancient human artifacts and learns of a ruined human civilization beyond a dangerous desert. Eva, Muthr, Rovender, and Otto cross the desert to discover the remains of an ancient human city buried under the sands. Besteel soon arrives and attacks, severely damaging Muthr. Eva then uses her Omnipod to attract several deadly Sand Snipers that kill Besteel and drag him beneath the sand. Muthr, unable to be repaired, dies shortly afterwards, and when the remaining characters tunnel into one of the buried buildings they discover that it was once the New York Public Library, meaning Orbona was once Earth. The still-functioning library computer identifies the cardboard "WondLa" as the cover of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," by L. Frank Baum, and that her own planet died, and was awakened. This is how it became Orbona. In the epilogue, a human boy named Hailey swoops down from the sky in an airship named the Bijou and informs Eva that he is there to take her home.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Lake of Tears

By Jennifer Rowe

In Odd We Trust

By Dean Koontz

Absolute Friends

By John le Carré

Fatal Terrain

No Author Listed

The Genocidal Healer

By James White

Petty Pewter Gods

By Glen Cook

The Number of the Beast

By Robert A. Heinlein

Heroes of the Valley

By Jonathan Stroud

A War of Gifts: An Ender Story

By Orson Scott Card

Lola Rose

By Jacqueline Wilson

Reading Like a Writer

By Francine Prose

The Search for WondLa

By Tony DiTerlizzi