Young Ralph Pendrel of New York has written a fine essay on the reading of history. The essay so impresses a distant English relative that he bequeaths an 18th century London house to Ralph. Pendrel goes to London and explores the house thoroughly. He feels himself going back in time as soon as he crosses the threshold. He finds a portrait of a remote ancestor, also named Ralph Pendrel. The portrait comes alive and the two men meet. Later, the modern-day Pendrel goes to the U.S. ambassador in London and tries to tell him of these strange occurrences. He then returns to the mysterious house, steps across the threshold, and finds himself back in the early 19th century. At this dramatic juncture, the part of the novel that James wrote in 1900 breaks off. James resumed the novel in 1914 with scenes of Ralph meeting the relatives of his ancestor, whose place he has now taken. Ralph is engaged to one of those relatives, Molly Midmore, but finds himself attracted to her sister Nan. He also meets Molly''s mother and unpleasant brother, and Sir Cantopher Bland, a suitor of Nan''s. The novel breaks off completely here. James left extensive notes on how the novel would continue. The notes indicate Nan would eventually realize that Ralph is actually a time-traveller from the future. She would then sacrifice her own happiness and help him return to his own time and to Aurora Coyne, a woman who had previously rejected Ralph but would now accept him.

The Sense of the Past

The novel begins with a prologue called "Semley''s Necklace", which was first published as a stand-alone story titled "Dowry of the Angyar" in Amazing Stories (September 1964). A young woman named Semley takes a space voyage from her unnamed, technologically primitive planet to a museum to reclaim a family heirloom, not realizing that, while the trip will be of short duration for her, many years will elapse on her planet. She returns to find her daughter grown up and her husband dead. The story in effect combines the Rip Van Winkle-type fairy tale—where a person goes underground in the company of dwarves or elves, spending an apparently brief time but on emerging finding whole generations had elapsed—with modern science fiction having the same effect through relativity and the time dilation resulting from traveling at near-light velocities. In the story, the planet''s "dwarves" live underground and have an early industrial society that (unlike industrial societies in Earth''s history) doesn''t interfere with the less-developed societies on the surface. The interstellar society of the Ekumen has placed an automated spaceship at the dwarves'' disposal, with which Semley travels. Semley descends into the dwarves'' tunnels, like Rip van Winkle, from where she makes the flight - and returns after a generation (sixteen years) due to relativistic time dilation. The novel then follows Rocannon, an ethnologist who meets Semley at the museum. He later goes on an ethnological mission to her planet, Fomalhaut II. He places the planet under an ''exploration embargo'' in order to protect the native cultures. Unbeknown to him and his colleagues, there is a base on the planet of an enemy of the League of All Worlds - a young world named Faraday, which embarked on a career of interstellar war and conquest, and which chose this "primitive" world as the location of a secret base. After the enemy destroys his ship and his companions, Rocannon sets out to find their base so that he can alert the League of their presence with the enemy''s ansible. However, with his advanced means of transport destroyed, he must use other means of travel, such as on the back of "windsteeds," basically large flying cats, as well as by boat or walking. His long and dangerous quest, undertaken with loyal companions from the Angyar, a local feudal culture, takes him through many lands, encountering various other cultures and species and facing numerous threats having nothing to do with the one he intends to confront. He identifies five species of highly intelligent life forms (hilfs), the dwarfish Gdemiar, the elven Fiia, the rodent-like Kiemhrir, the nightmarish Winged Ones, and the most human species, the Liuar. Increasingly, as the plot progresses, his experiences impact his personality and make him more attuned to the planet''s culture and changes him from the interstellar sophisticate he had been. He encounters an entity in a mountainside cave and in exchange for "giving himself to the planet", he receives the gift of Mindspeech, a form of telepathy. Finally, after traveling halfway across the globe, and suffering much loss and bereavement, he reaches the enemy''s stronghold which had been set up in a heretofore unknown land occupied by far distant relatives of the Angyar in whose strongholds in the northern continent his journey had begun. Rocannon reverts from the effective role of a Bronze Age hero, into which he had been increasingly pushed during most of the book, back to being the resourceful operative of an interstellar civilization. He uses his mindspeech abilities to both plan and successfully infiltrate the enemy base where he uses an ansible in one of the parked ships to alert his people. A Faster-Than-Light (FTL) unmanned ship (as life cannot survive FTL travel in the Hainish universe) destroys the installation following Rocannon''s escape. Being telepathic, Rocannon feels the hundreds of deaths which he had caused at the moment when they happen - and while recognizing the need to have taken this action, he feels deeply guilty and is further traumatized, in effect burned out and incapable of ever initiating any further action. After the completion of his quest, Rocannon retires with the Angyar of the south continent, surrounded by sympathetic people and with a loving woman at his side. When rescuers from the League finally arrive 9 years later, restricted to relativistic travel below light speed, they find him dead, and slowly becoming a part of mythology. He would never know that the planet had been named Rokanan after him.

Rocannon''s World

The novel is set in the 1980s. Fergus McCann and Uncle Tally find a bog body of a small girl near the Ireland-UK border. At the same time, Fergus is studying for his A-Level physics. He makes friends with Owain, one of the border guards, during one of his morning runs across the border. He opens many coversations with Owain. When he goes back to the site of the bog child, Fergus meets Cora and Felicity O''Brien, a girl his age and her archaeologist mother. Fergus named the bog body "Mel". He goes to Long Kesh prison with his mother to meet his brother, Joe, who has been incarcerated as a political prisoner because of his involvement with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He has joined his friends on a hunger strike in protest to free Ireland from The Troubles. After lifting Mel''s body from the site, the excavation team, including Fergus and Cora, find that Mel has a noose around her neck. A flashback shows Mel and her family struggling to meet loan repayments. Fergus was asked by Michael Rafters to ferry packets across the border in an attempt to end his brother''s hunger strike. Fergus and Cora share their accidental first kiss but begin dating afterwards. After his final A-level exam, physics, Fergus and his family visit his brother in prison to find him gaunt-looking. He gets drunk and dreams about Mel talking to Rur, her love interest. When he wakes up, Cora informs him that Mel was a dwarf. Fergus allows Cora and her mother to stay over at his place due to an appointment with a professor about Mel. Radiocarbon dating reveals that Mel lived around AD 80. After a bombing is shown on the news, Fergus begins to suspect the packets he has been ferrying. He opens them in front of Owain to see condoms and contraceptive pills. Joe falls into a coma after 50 days of fasting. After a heated argument between Fergus and his parents they agree to put him on the drip. Through a series of dreams, Fergus sees the events leading to Mel''s death with Rur stabbing her at her request because she did not want to "feel the noose" around her neck. It is also found out at the end that Fergus'' Uncle Tally actually is a local bomb-maker, nicknamed Deus, meaning god.

Bog Child

Ammonite is the story of Marghe Taishan, an employee of the sinister, monolithic ''Company'', sent to the planet GP (pronounced ''Jeep'') as an anthropologist. The distinctive feature of Jeep is an endemic disease which kills all men (and some women) who contract it. While testing a vaccine made to protect unexposed people form the virus, Marghe makes a journey across Jeep, living with many of its indigenous cultures. She is enslaved by the nomadic Echraide, and then reaches the quieter village of Ollfoss, where she joins a family, learns the mystic discipline of linking, and eventually becomes a ''viajera'', or traveling wise woman, giving up the vaccine in favor of accepting the virus into her body and truly learning what it is like to be a native. Afterward, she is forced to the center of a conflict between her former people, the Mirrors, with their native allies and the Echraide, who follow a member of their tribe whom they believe to be the Death God. Marghe wins peace for all as the Mirror''s guard ship is blown out of the sky by the Company, who believe the vaccine has failed. Adaptation to life on Jeep appears to be a greater theme of Griffith''s novel, as not only Marghe, but other Company personnel, also eventually are forced to settle on Jeep and adapt to the cultures that its prior colonists have created, in order to adjust to the planetary environment.

Ammonite

The "hippo" of the title (occasionally referred to as "the happy hippo" and given to wallowing in long baths) is Edward (Ted/Tedward) Lennox Wallace, an aging, lecherous, one-time hell-raising poet, reduced by diminishing poetic talent to working as a theatre critic. The story opens with the aftermath of Ted being fired from his job on a newspaper. At the suggestion of a sick goddaughter, Jane (suffering from leukaemia), he goes to stay at the Norfolk country house of old schoolfriend and Army colleague from National Service, Lord Michael Logan and his wife Lady Anne, to investigate unspecified mysterious goings-on. Ted reports back to Jane regularly, in the form of long, rambling letters, apprising her of events at Swafford Hall whilst also offering his views on numerous other issues (women, art, poetry, sex, morality and modern life being favorite topics), all the time attempting to uncover the nature of the unusual events that Jane has instructed him to look out for. Over the course of his stay it gradually becomes apparent that other house guests are ascribing healing powers to one of Logan''s children, David (Ted''s other godchild), and indeed it is in the hope that he might bestow his ''talent'' upon them that they have descended upon Swafford Hall. Amongst the assembled guests are a witty and hugely camp, but rebarbative defrocked minister and TV producer, a businessman and his wife and rather gawky teenage daughter, a friend of Jane''s, and Jane''s mother, a woman Ted has crossed paths with disastrously many years earlier. The life stories of the tycoon Logan and his family, as well as Ted''s own, are intertwined to provide a colourful and credible back story. The highly comical story is run through with a stream of sexual practices, some more unusual than others, as Ted uncovers the means by which David delivers his ''healing''. The story contains several (spoof) poems and limericks. nl:The Hippopotamus

The Hippopotamus

The novel is presented as a series of vignettes over a period of about 1500 years, from 1282 ab urbe condita (AD 529) to 2723 AUC (AD 1970). Most of the story-chapters involve Roman politics, either the competition between the Western and Eastern Empires to dominate the other or the violent creation of the Second Roman Republic in about 2603 AUC (AD 1850). Others describe the first Roman circumnavigation of the world and unsuccessful attempts to conquer Nova Roma (North America). Many features of our own history are repeated in this history, though under changed circumstances: The equivalent of the 16th and 17th Centuries have bold navigators and adventurers, romanticised by later generations but unpleasantly brutal and ruthless when looked at closely; in the late 18th to mid-19th Centuries, a decadent old order is overthrown by revolution followed by a reign of terror and the reemergence of Republicanism; though Italy remains a central part of the Roman Empire, the Latin dialect spoken there develops into a kind of Italian, and the name "Marcus" changes into "Marco"; though Vienna is a provincial capital which never had an Emperor of its own, its population dances the Waltz; by the 20th Century, people travel by cars rather than carriages and by the second half of the century, space flight is achieved. It concludes with the first story to be written, when a group of Hebrew citizens in Alexandria prepare to depart Earth in a rocket which explodes shortly after takeoff. But they will try again, still believing God chose them to inherit the Promised Land, just not on Rome-dominated Earth.

Roma Eterna

The beginning of the book establishes the framework in which a 17th century gentleman, mourning the death of his beloved, Lady Mirdath, is given a vision of a far-distant future where their souls will be re-united, and sees the world of that time through the eyes of a future incarnation. The language and style used are intended to resemble that of the 17th century, though the prose has features characteristic of no period whatsoever: the almost-complete lack of dialogue and proper names, for example. Once into the book, the 17th century framing is mostly inconsequential. Instead, the story focuses on the future. The Sun has gone out and the Earth is lit only by the glow of residual vulcanism. The last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, the Last Redoubt, under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. These are held back by a Circle of energy, known as the "air clog," powered from a subterranean energy source called the "Earth Current". For millennia, vast living shapes—the Watchers—have waited in the darkness near the pyramid. It is thought they are waiting for the inevitable time when the Circle''s power finally weakens and dies. Other living things have been seen in the darkness beyond, some of unknown origins, and others that may once have been human. To leave the protection of the Circle means almost certain death, or worse an ultimate destruction of the soul. As the story commences, the narrator establishes mind contact with an inhabitant of another, forgotten Lesser Redoubt. First one expedition sets off to succour the inhabitants of the Lesser Redoubt, whose own Earth Current has been exhausted, only to meet with disaster. After that the narrator sets off alone into the darkness to find the girl he has made contact with, knowing now that she is the reincarnation of his past love. At the conclusion of the adventure, the narrative does not return to the framework story, instead ending with the happy homecoming of the couple and his inauguration into the ranks of their most honored heroes. The term "Abhuman" was used by Hodgson in The Night Land to name (apparently) several different species of intelligent beings evolved from humans who interbred with alien species or adapted to changed environmental conditions and were seen as decayed or malign by those living inside the Last Redoubt, who preserved artificially (to an unspecified extent) their human characteristics, though they were not fit for the new environmental conditions.

The Night Land

A nondescript spacer with little education named Cerne Obrien finds a cache of extremely valuable "retron crystals", but crashes on an idyllic planet before he can sell them. The planet has a single continent, inhabited by humans with a Polynesian culture. The natives live contented lives, hunting a horrific sea-creature called the koluf, which constitutes almost their entire diet. Obrien uses his surviving technology to rid the area of several pests, and eventually marries. The natives come to call him the "Langri", a title of deep respect. Obrien lives a peaceful life, watching his descendants grow up, but when he realizes he is getting old, he begins worrying about the future. Unscrupulous developers would inevitably attempt to turn it into a resort. Obrien could handle them if they arrived soon, but he cannot live forever. He has bright young people sent to him. He begins to teach them "the Plan". It is difficult to teach the non-technological natives all they need to know, as they have little concept of modern galactic society, but he manages it. His best pupil is a young man named Fornri. Even as Obrien lies dying, a developer called Wembling arrives to illegally prospect for minerals. The people, led by Fornri, put the Plan into effect. They first capture Wembling and his men, and the crews of the four scout ships sent to find Wembling. The Navy eventually arrives, official negotiations ensue, and a treaty is signed recognizing the planet under the name Langri. The people of Langri fine the Federation for illegal landings. In due course, this (and Obrien''s retron crystals) allows the people of Langri to hire a law firm as specified in the Plan. Eventually Wembling realises the planet''s potential. He sees to it that the record of Langri''s Galactic treaty is lost and procures a charter to develop a tourist resort. The construction drives away most of the koluf, and the people begin to starve; their adaptation to the environment has eliminated their ability to digest "normal" food. The starving people of Langri fail to get a court to stop Wembling; he has a seemingly valid charter. Meantime, Wembling''s niece Talitha, and his hired (and fired) anthropologist Hort form a relationship, and sympathize with the natives. They discover Obrien''s wrecked craft and read the log, including his notes on the Plan; they are amazed that one man could have created such a complete and detailed scheme, including Obrien''s masterstroke. Fearing to interfere with the Plan, they keep their newfound knowledge to themselves. In accordance with the Plan, the people of Langri have been secretly learning to read. After having achieved the required high literacy rate, they successfully petition for membership in the Galactic Federation. The Plan then enters its endgame: the duly formed planetary government imposes a tax rate of 1000%. Since the natives have few personal assets, they can easily afford to pay, but such an exorbitant rate would bankrupt Wembling. The developer mounts a legal challenge, but there is precedent that a government can impose any tax it wishes, as long as it is applied equally to all. Obrien knew of this obscure precedent and made it the cornerstone of the Plan. The new government of Langri plans to build schools, parks, and hospitals to benefit the people. In the short story version, it even hires Wembling, admiring his ruthless energy, if not his morals. (In the novel he departs in disgust after trying to offer the new government a deal on a hotel.)

Monument

Aza, the adopted daughter of innkeepers in Ayortha, has always hated her appearance. Her prodigious size and her odd coloring – milk-white skin, blood-red lips, and hair that seems to be sooty black – often make her the target of stares and rude comments. However, Aza''s voice garners as much attention as her looks, for Ayortha is a land of song, and Aza is an amazing singer. Besides being skilled at singing, Aza can also flawlessly mimic people and throw her voice without moving her mouth, a form of ventriloquism she calls "illusing". Still, Aza is flattered when a frequent visitor to the inn, a gnome named zhamM, tells Aza that her hair is the most beautiful hair he''s ever seen. While her hair looks black to humans, it is the lovely color htun, a dark purplish color, to gnomes. When Aza''s sister, Areida, goes to finishing school, the Duchess of Olixo, an irritable guest at the Featherbed Inn, requests that Aza accompany her to the royal wedding because her companion has fallen ill. The new queen, Ivi, discovers Aza''s gift and manipulates her. As Ivi cannot sing well, she offers to reward Aza with land and riches for her family as well as elevation to the rank of lady-in-waiting in exchange for Aza illusing a voice for her when she needs to sing; when Aza tries to refuse, Ivi threatens to imprison her and close her family''s inn. Soon after Aza reluctantly accepts Ivi''s offer, the castle is thrown into turmoil when King Oscaro is terribly wounded during a sporting event with centaurs. Aza is caught in the midst of Ivi''s power-hungry plotting, the affection of the king''s nephew Crown Prince Ijori, the suspicions of the choirmaster Sir Uellu, and her own increasing desperation to become beautiful, a desire which grows so strong that she ultimately drinks a beauty potion created by Skulni, the mysterious, evil creature living in Ivi''s magic mirror. With the country on the verge of revolt, the inevitable discovery of Aza and Ivi''s singing deception leaves Aza fleeing for her life when a jealous Ivi leads to Aza being branded as a dangerous ogre. Exiled, Aza is welcomed by the gnomes; zhamM provides her with food, shelter, and a sense of heritage. He assures her that while she is certainly not part ogre, he believes one of her ancestors was a gnome, explaining her strange appearance and htun hair. After she has spent some time with the gnomes, a sinister scheme forces Aza to fight for her life, discover her true source of strength, and ultimately, learns to accept herself. She marries the prince, King Oscaro recovers, Ivi turns from her evil ways, and Aza becomes queen of Ayortha, alongside her husband, King Ijori. She bears three children, all of whom resemble their father but have htun hair just like their mother.

Fairest

A rainy day in Philadelphia means no baseball; Peter Brown, the child protagonist introduced by Thompson in The Gnome King of Oz, mopes in his attic. He finds the sacks that were full of gold when he brought them back from his previous Oz adventure; and one of those sacks contains an odd gold coin. Toying with the coin and thinking of Oz, he wishes himself back in the magic land &mdash; and suddenly finds himself in the front yard of Jack Pumpkinhead. The sensible thing for Peter to do is to head for the Emerald City; and Jack is ready to act as his guide. This is perhaps not the best arrangement &mdash; and the two quickly get lost in the Quadling Country, where they blunder into Chimneyville and Scare City. By chance, Peter finds that his empty sack will consume objects and creatures that are scooped into its open mouth. The two also happen to obtain the magic dinner bell of Jinnicky the Red Jinn, which supplies Peter with needed provisions. The travelers adopt a third member for their party when they meet the doggerel-spouting Snif the Iffin (he''s a griffin who has lost his "gr-"). The three then encounter the unfortunate Belfaygor, the Baron of Bourne. He has been accidentally cursed with a rapidly-growing beard that he must constantly snip away. Even worse, his fiancée, the princess Shirley Sunshine, has been kidnapped by the local villain, Mogodore the Mighty, the Baron of Baffleburg. Boy, baron, iffin and pumpkinhead set out to remedy this situation, and quickly become enwrapped in complexities involving a Forbidden Flagon and a talkative and abusive Sauce Box. When Mogodore sets out to conquer Oz and actually succeeds in seizing the Emerald City, the travelers have to mount a desperate rescue effort. Eventually Jack, with help from the Red Jinn (here introduced for the first time; his name, Jinnicky, is not revealed until later books), manages to save the day: with the Forbidden Flagon, he reduces Mogodore and his thousand warriors to little beings "no bigger than brownies." The miniaturized aggressors are confined to their homeland, also miniaturized. Snif the Iffin recovers his lost "gr-." Order in Oz is restored, with a great celebratory banquet before Peter is sent home, with thanks, once again.

Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz

Lisey''s Story is the story of Lisey Landon, the widow of a famous and wildly successful novelist, Scott Landon. The book tells two stories—Lisey''s story in the present, and the story of her dead husband''s life, as remembered by Lisey during the course of the novel. It has been two years since her husband''s death, and Lisey is in the process of cleaning out her dead husband''s writing area. A series of events occurs that causes Lisey to begin facing certain realities about her husband that she had repressed and forgotten. As Lisey is stalked, terrorized, and then mutilated by an insane fan of her husband''s, Lisey begins recalling her husband''s past—how he came from a family with a history of horrible mental illness that manifested as either an uncontrollable homicidal mania or as a deep catatonia, how he had a special gift, an ability to transport himself to another world, called by Scott Landon "Boo''ya Moon", how Scott Landon''s brother was murdered by his father when his brother manifested an incurable insanity, and finally how Scott Landon murdered his father to save his father from the madness that had finally taken him over. As the novel progresses, we see the complexity of Lisey''s marriage to Scott, and their deep and abiding love for each other. The novel takes place over a very short period of time—a matter of days—but the real story is told in Lisey''s remembrances of her husband, her ability to harness his special power to save herself (and her sister), and finally to find the gift that her dead husband had left for her in Boo''ya Moon—a story just for Lisey. Lisey''s story.

Lisey''s Story

While investigating an alien derelict, Geordi La Forge and Data are sent to a solar system several light-years away by a transporter with interstellar range, to a similar derelict orbiting an Earth-like planet. Once there, they are mistaken for "the Builders", those who the planet''s native populace, a culture similar to late-20th-century Earth, believe are the creators of the derelict, which they call the "Repository of the Gifts". One of the natives, Shar-Lon, discovered the Repository some years before and used its "Gifts" (advanced technology) to end planetary wars that were leading to a possible nuclear holocaust. However, Shar-Lon''s use of the Gifts since that time has led to a worldwide perception of himself and his supporters, the Peacekeepers, as a suppressive force that has limited the social and technological advancement of their people. Assuming the role of "Builders" in order to assess their situation, La Forge and Data are drawn into the social politics of the Peacekeepers and their world, and must extract themselves from the situation and find a way back to the Enterprise without further harming the natives'' culture and violating the Prime Directive.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Sense of the Past

By Henry James

Rocannon's World

By Ursula K. Le Guin

Bog Child

By Siobhan Dowd

Ammonite

By Nicola Griffith

The Hippopotamus

By Stephen Fry

Roma Eterna

By Robert Silverberg

The Night Land

By William Hope Hodgson

Monument

No Author Listed

Fairest

By Gail Carson Levine

Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz

By Ruth Plumly Thompson

Lisey's Story

By Stephen King

The Peacekeepers

By Gene DeWeese