While on holiday, the protagonist (Scott Carey) is exposed to a cloud of radioactive spray shortly after he accidentally ingests insecticide. The radioactivity acts as a catalyst for the bug spray, causing his body to shrink at a rate of approximately 1/7 of an inch per day. A few weeks later, Carey can no longer deny the truth: not only is he losing weight, he is also shorter than he was and deduces, to his dismay, that his body will continue to shrink. The abnormal size decrease of his body initially brings teases and taunting from local youths, then causes friction in his marriage and family life, because he loses the respect his family has for him because of his diminishing physical stature. Ultimately, as the shrinking continues, it begins to threaten Carey''s life as well; at seven inches tall, he has a battle with the family cat that drives him outdoors, where he is attacked by a swallow in his garden; the conflict drives him through a window into the cellar of his house. Although he survives on the cheese left over in a mousetrap for a while, his size is eventually reduced to less than half an inch, at which point he is forced to engage in a victorious battle with a black widow spider that towers over him. As Carey continues shrinking, he realizes that his original fear that he would shrink into non-existence is incorrect; that he will continue to shrink, but will not disappear as he originally feared, and utters his famous closing line: "If nature existed on endless levels, so also might intelligence."

The Shrinking Man

The novel begins by introducing Massoud Behrani, a former colonel exiled from Iran after the Iranian Revolution. Because his background is military rather than professional, he has not been able to establish a career in the US and works as a trash collector and convenience store clerk. With savings, he pays the rent on an expensive apartment for his family and for an elegant wedding for his daughter, and his fellow, more successful Iranian exiles do not know that he holds low-skilled jobs. Meanwhile, Kathy Nicolo, a former drug addict who is still recovering from her husband abruptly leaving her, has been evicted from her home, long owned by her family, because of unpaid taxes the county wrongfully claimed she owed. When the house is placed for auction, Behrani seizes the opportunity and purchases it. He bets his son''s entire college fund, planning to renovate the house and then resell it for much more than he originally paid as a first step on the way to establishing himself in real-estate investment. He moves his family from their apartment into the house. Meanwhile, when Kathy moves out, she meets Deputy Lester Burdon. They go through the system, hiring a lawyer to fight Kathy''s wrongful eviction, but although the County admits the error, Behrani insists that he will not return the house unless he''s paid what it''s worth, not merely the low sum he paid at auction. In desperation, Kathy goes to the house and attempts to commit suicide twice, first trying to shoot herself and then overdosing on pills. The Behranis manage to stop her both times and she is put in a bedroom to rest. Lester breaks into the house and locks the Behranis in their bathroom at gunpoint until they agree to return the house to Kathy. When Lester takes the Behranis to the county office, Behrani''s son, Esmail, retrieves the gun and is shot by authorities. When Behrani finds out in the hospital that his son has died, he is overcome with grief and rage at both Lester and Kathy. He returns to the house to find Kathy still there and attempts to strangle her. Believing Kathy to be dead, he dons his Army uniform and suffocates both himself and his wife, who had been asleep in the bedroom. Kathy and Lester are arrested and await trial. In the novel''s final scene, Kathy, unable to speak after her final encounter with Behrani, mimes a request for one more cigarette.

House of Sand and Fog

Following on from the events of The Banquo Legacy, the Timelords have cracked the base code the Eighth Doctor programmed into Compassion''s randomiser and intercept her at her next destination. Threatened with enslavement, Compassion activates her built in weapons system and destroys the approaching WarTARDISes, while the Doctor fights for control of her navigation systems. The resulting "hiccup" expels Fitz and the Doctor into the vortex. The Doctor is captured while escaping from the Edifice, a massive bone structure that has appeared in the skies above Gallifrey, and taken to Gallifrey where he is accused of being an agent of Faction Paradox. The Doctor is forced to aid the Time Lords in the capture of Compassion to aid in the forthcoming War. Meanwhile, Fitz appears before a group of disenchanted, young Time Lords who are holding rituals based on the occult texts of Faction Paradox and finds himself unable to escape. Getting further embroiled in the group''s activities, Fitz witnesses the creation of a copy of former President Greyjan the Sane and is then the unwitting donor of material used to pull the original Fitz Kreiner, now in the guise of Faction Agent Father Kreiner, from a Klein bottle universe into the modern day Gallifrey. During her Reaffirmation Ceremony, Lady President Romana is challenged by Greyjan and placed under house arrest, with only Fitz as company. With the aid of Compassion, they are able to escape and witness Faction Paradox corrupting Time Lord history, followed by the Doctor''s fall to the Faction. Travelling to the Edifice with Father Kreiner and a Faction Agent known as Tarra, Kreiner reveals he is not truly working for the Faction and pleads with the Doctor to undo the past so he never becomes Father Kreiner, an act the Doctor cannot agree to. The Doctor reveals that not only has he not fallen to the Faction but the Edifice is, in fact, his old TARDIS, which was not actually destroyed at Avalon. Together he and Kreiner are able to dispose of Tarra before Grandfather Paradox appears on the Edifice to confront the Doctor. The Doctor battles the Grandfather, and decides that the only way to prevent Faction Paradox from destroying Gallifrey''s past is a drastic move: he chooses to use the energy that is holding the TARDIS together to destroy Faction Paradox and Grandfather Paradox, but also destroy Gallifrey in the process. With the whole of Time Lord history seemingly being erased from existence, Compassion is able to rescue the Doctor, Fitz and the remains of the Doctor''s old TARDIS, placing them on Earth for safekeeping, until the TARDIS can regenerate itself over the course of the next century and the Doctor, now suffering from amnesia, can recover. At the end of the novel, the Doctor is stranded on Earth for a hundred years; Fitz is left to his own devices in the late 20th century, with only a time and place to meet the Doctor once the TARDIS is once again active; and Compassion is released from her bonds to both the Time Lords and the Faction, free to roam time and space as she sees fit.

The Ancestor Cell

Jenny Jeffers, a sixteen year old girl, takes a babysitting job for a child named Donny. While babysitting, she gets menacing phone calls from someone and finds a threatening note in her backpack. She soon figures out that Donny''s father, Mr. Hagen, was the one making those calls after finding a stash of newspaper clippings in his closet. Apparently, Donny had a sister when he was younger, but she died in an accident when a previous babysitter wasn''t paying attention to her. After Chuck, Jenny''s love interest, comes over while she is babysitting, Mr. Hagen catches them kissing and becomes angry, having told Jenny never to invite over friends while she was babysitting, explaining how his daughter had died due to neglect. Mr. Hagen then offers Jenny a ride home, but she soon finds out that he is actually taking her out to a rock quarry that had been deserted for years. When they get out of the car, Mr. Hagen forces her to move to the edge of the quarry right beside a deep pit. He tries to push her, but he misses and falls to his inevitable death.

The Babysitter

*Chapter I — Before MCMXIV &nbsp; Memories of the nursery &ndash; realisation of class, you could look up: ::But what of us in our small villa row ::Who gazed into the Burdett-Coutts estate? ::I knew we were a lower lesser world … and, socially and geographically, down ::Glad that I did not live in Gospel Oak. *Chapter II — The Dawn of Guilt &nbsp; The author prefers poetry to his father''s fascinating world of trade. *Chapter III — Highgate &nbsp; His love for Miss Peggy Purey-Cust and trouble with rivals. *Chapter IV — Cornwall in Childhood Evocative sounds and smells of childhood holidays in Cornwall. *Chapter V — Private School To the Dragon School in Oxford, a new interest in churches. *Chapter VI — London John''s father is doing well, they have moved to Chelsea, "the slummy end"; but he preferred leafy Hampstead. *Chapter VII — Marlborough After a depressing start, the discovery of literature, nature and the Wiltshire Downs. *Chapter VIII — Cornwall in Adolescence Adolescent family troubles — an independent exploration of Cornwall. *Chapter IX — The Opening World Up to Magdalen College, Oxford, influences, failing at divinity.

Summoned by Bells

The introduction to the book states: :"The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age. The population continued to climb—and with it the youth percentage. :In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent. :In the 1990s, 82.4 percent. :In the year 2000—critical mass." In the world of 2116, a person''s maximum age is strictly legislated: twenty one years, to the day. When people reach this Lastday they report to a Sleepshop in which they are willingly executed via a pleasure-inducing toxic gas. A person''s age is revealed by their palm flower crystal embedded in the palm of their right hand that changes color every seven years, yellow (age 0-6), then blue (age 7-13), then red (age 14-20), then blinks red and black on Lastday, and finally turns black at 21. Runners are those who refuse to report to a Sleepshop and attempt to avoid their fate by escaping to Sanctuary. Logan 3 is a Deep Sleep Operative (also called Sandman) whose job is to terminate Runners using a special weapon called the Gun, an unusual revolver which can fire a number of different projectiles. Runners are most terrified of one called the Homer which homes in on body heat and deliberately ignites every pain nerve in the body, killing the target. Sandmen practice Omnite, a fictional hybrid martial arts style. On his own Lastday, Logan becomes a Runner himself in an attempt to infiltrate an apparent underground railroad for runners seeking Sanctuary—a place where they can live freely in defiance of society''s dictates. For most of the book Logan is an antihero; however, his character develops a sympathy towards Runners and he becomes more of a traditional hero figure. Jessica 6, a contact Logan made after he chased her Runner brother Doyle 10 into Cathedral where he was killed by the vicious preteen "Cubs", helps him, despite her initial distrust of him. Francis, another Sandman and a friend of Logan, catches up with Logan and Jessica after they have managed to make it to the final staging area before Sanctuary. He reveals that he is actually the legendary Ballard, who has been helping arrange their escape. The 42-year-old Ballard is working from within the system; he believes that the computer that controls the global infrastructure, buried beneath Crazy Horse Mountain, is beginning to malfunction, and that the society will die with it. Sanctuary turns out to be Argos, an abandoned space colony near Mars. Logan and Jessica escape to the colony on a rocket that departs from a former space program launch site in Florida. Ballard remains to help others escape.

Logan''s Run

The novel The Abyss is similar to the movie The Abyss in terms of story but it gives the main characters greater depth and background. It also gives more attention to the aliens’ point of view. Card wrote the novel based on the screenplay and discussions with Cameron. He wrote back stories for Bud Brigman, Lindsey Brigman and Hiram Coffey as a means not only of helping the actors define their roles, but also to justify some of their behavior and mannerisms in the film. For example, Lindsay''s mother was a prissy socialite intent on raising well-mannered, popular, "feminine" daughters, while her father was a civil engineer unable to share his interests with his children. Once Lindsey discovers that she inherited her father''s engineering skills, it affects her entire family perspective and life goals. Coffey was written as a child of a poor single mother who joined the SEALs as a way to give himself a purpose after her remarriage. Separating his worldview into "Them" (Outsiders) and "Us" (him and his mother) defined some of his thought processes in the film as he worked to protect his men from the perceived "Soviet" threat. Card also wrote the aliens as a colonizing species which preferentially sought high-pressure deepwater worlds to build their ships as they traveled further into the galaxy. Their knowledge of neuroanatomy and nanoscale manipulation of biochemistry was responsible for many of the deus ex machina aspects of the film; an NTI saved a diver''s life after a breathing mixture accident, prevented permanent brain damage during Bud''s 2 mile dive, which allowed him to properly disarm the warhead, and a number of NTIs microscopically infiltrated the crew upon their rise to the surface to prevent decompression sickness. The alien reaction to human warfare in the director''s cut was explained to be a result of their monitoring of radio communications and copying the memories of the dead submarine crew; their interactions with the crew of Deep Core finally persuaded them to halt their attack on the coastlines and instead attempt peaceful contact.

The Abyss

"In the Machine", set in mid-to-late 19th Century New York, begins in the aftermath of a wake. Simon, a young man working in a factory had been accidentally sucked into a factory machine which crushed him to death. Due to the poverty present in the lower classes during the Industrial Revolution, Simon''s family sends Lucas, Simon''s disfigured younger brother, to work at the factory in Simon''s place. Lucas has a strange affliction in which he intermittently and uncontrollably spouts the poetry of Walt Whitman''s ''Leaves of Grass'' (Lucas'' favourite book). Walt Whitman was a contemporary of the time and Lucas meets him during the course of the story. Lucas is also concerned Simon has become a ghost and inhabits not only the machine that killed him but all the machines that are becoming commonplace in the city as a result of the Industrial Revolution. This concern leads Lucas to fear for the life of Catherine, Simon''s bereaved girlfriend. Lucas believes Simon''s ghost may try to inhabit the machines at the factory where Catherine works as a seamstress with a view to take Catherine to the afterlife by killing her through the machine''s function. Lucas embarks on a mission to save Catherine by preventing her from going to work. Lucas'' fear of Simon''s ghost is, at the same time, a fear of the Machine and, on a larger scale, the Industrial Revolution in New York City itself. The machines replace humans, even kill them, and the industrial revolution has demeaned the importance of each human individual with its positioning of people as cogs in its own giant machine. In this light, Lucas'' fears and Whitman''s transcendental poetry represent the affirmation of humanity and each individual''s importance.

Specimen Days

The headquarters of "The Hostel of Righteousness" is an old monastery on the small Greek island Kalivari. But this does not imply that the organization is a particularly holy one. On the contrary, Dr. Thaddeus Pilgrim and his followers are among the most unholy people you could have the misfortune of meeting. By chance, Willie Garvin and Modesty Blaise are targeted by Dr. Pilgrim, who has an obsession for creating "interesting scenarios". Dr. Pilgrim sends Sibyl and Kazim, his two top assassins, to England to capture Willie Garvin and bring him to Kalivari under heavy sedation. There Dr. Janos Tyl subjects Willie to the most diabolical brainwashing possible for him; he is made to think that a woman called Delilah has brutally murdered Modesty, and that he must now avenge Modesty''s death by killing Delilah. Willie is shown pictures of this she-devil Delilah, in reality pictures of Modesty Blaise. In other words, Willie is now programmed to kill Modesty on sight, at which point he will regain his memory, and presumably go insane when he realizes what he has done. Modesty manages to pick up Willie''s trail, and she eventually arrives at Kalivari, waiting until after dark to go ashore. Dr. Pilgrim has ensured that Modesty and Willie encounter each other in the old amphitheater, suddenly seeing each other when the spotlights are switched on. Willie doesn''t hesitate a moment, he draws his throwing knife and throws it. The story does not end here, and soon Dr. Pilgrim''s obsession with interesting scenarios goes horribly wrong (for him) when Sibyl and Kazim are killed in gladiator-style duels and Dr. Janos Tyl is felled by a heavy round shield thrown frisbee-style by Willie. And finally, the ungodly Dr. Pilgrim meets his fate at the hands of one of his own assassins.

Dead Man''s Handle

The protagonist is a fictional character named Nicholas Garrigan, a young Scottish doctor who goes to work in Uganda out of a sense of idealism and adventure. He relates how he came to be the personal physician and confidant of Amin, the president of Uganda from his coup d''état in 1971 until his deposition in 1979. The novel focuses on Garrigan''s relationship and fascination with the president, who soon grows into a brutal and ruthless dictator. Garrigan acts repeatedly against his better judgment, remaining in Amin''s employment until he is far past the point of easy escape physically or morally. He is gradually drawn into the corruption and paranoia of Amin''s rule, including the expulsion of the Asians, with disastrous results for those around him. Drawing on his twenty years of living in Africa and his background as a journalist, Foden researched the events surrounding Amin''s rise to power and downfall. He interviewed many of those who watched and participated in the Ugandan ruler''s eight-year reign. The author evokes the form of a memoir by inserting fictional newspaper articles and journal entries, along with actual events. In a 1998 interview with the online magazine Boldtype, Foden said he based parts of Garrigan''s character on an associate of Amin named Bob Astles. As a British soldier who worked his way into Amin''s favour, Astles was much more "proactive" than Garrigan, according to Foden. He paid the price by spending six and a half years in a Ugandan jail after the fall of his protector. Astles compromised himself by his direct association with Amin''s security forces. While Amin was in power, Astles was alternately either favoured or punished; he was imprisoned and tortured on at least one occasion. Amin''s personal physician was, in fact, a Ugandan doctor called Paul D''Arbela. The title of the book refers to Amin declaring himself as the King of Scotland.

The Last King of Scotland

The heroine, Lana, lives in a synthetic city and works as a pixel. Every evening millions of people, working as pixels, perform a 20-minute light show for the other citizens. They wear colourful robes and during each sunset they receive commands in the form of music through headphones. Each command means a certain type of movement, so that by moving/dancing, different parts of their clothes are exposed to the sun rays, thus reflecting the sunlight in different colours. All this can be seen on a huge screen in the synthetic city, where all citizens watch it. After every light show all pixels receive a packet of energy which allows them to survive until their next dose. If a pixel makes a mistake during a show, so that the picture appears distorted, they are punished by not receiving an energy packet. If they haven''t stored anything from their previous doses, they will not survive the next day. Lana''s best friend, Eve, makes such a mistake and is not given a packet. Lana does her best to save her but doesn''t succeed. In the synthetic city there is a rumour spread that some people don''t need these packets of synthetic energy and can live on their own, by the energy their hearts and spirits produce. These people are chased by the energy police: they are slaughtered in the factory (a mystic place about which little is known) and their energy is used for maintaining the lives of the synthetics by turning it into energy packets. Lana is determined to find the Wild people and try to live by her own energy (the phrase "I''ll find it or die" becomes the motto of the book and Ruslana''s project). She finds them in a place called Overground. Overground is located on the roofs of abandoned or ruined skyscrapers, high, where no one can reach the Wild. They have created their own world and culture, possess wings as means of travelling, and have their own language, similar to that of birds. Lana stays with them for a while and finds friends. Lana turns out to be a powerful generator of wild energy, for which she is chased by the energy police. Being in Overground she exposes also her friends to danger. One day, while she is away, the energy police, in search for her, attack the Wild from Overground. When Lana returns, her home is devastated. She sets off to find and destroy the factory where her friends have most probably been taken. On her way she meets the people-wolves, living in the woods, where she stays and learns how to summon the forces of nature, which will help her destroy the factory. During those rituals she is helped by a small drum, given her as a present by an old man from the synthetic city. She gathers a group of devoted young wild "wolves" and they go to fight with the factory and its devastating energy. The first attempt is not successful, the young wolves die, but she manages to enter the factory and is caught by the factory''s host, who calls himself "The Heart of The Factory". Lana becomes his hostage and while she is there, it is implied that the factory''s host might be Lana''s father. Lana manages to escape and saves her Overground friends. They go back to the people-wolves, where they gather a team for a second time. Another fight with the factory follows. The characters'' weapons are different musical or noise producing instruments, including drums and trembitas. The factory''s power is deafening silence. All sounds, all rhythm is lost when approaching the factory. Its anti-rhythm is usually stronger than any other life energy or rhythm. Lana''s task is to defeat this anti-rhythm and, by summoning lightning, which must simultaneously strike all the weakest parts of the factory to destroy it. The friends manage to do this and enter the factory, but once inside, the factory''s anti-rhythm almost kills them. They survive because "The Heart of The Factory" helps them by taking their place in the dangerous anti-rhythm zone. He dies and Lana and her friends remain safe and sound. The Wild go back to their homes and Lana becomes the new "Heart of the Factory".

Wild Energy

The planet Foxfield is inhabited by people who left Earth on the brink of a nuclear war. After a century on their new planet, the inhabitants are contacted by people from Earth. Foxfielders are members of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, who have kept their faith while dwelling on a rather inhospitable planet. The Foxfielders'' survival was made possible only by the natives of Foxfield, the Commensals, who were initially assumed to be hostile, but whose chemical talents have made human survival on Foxfield possible. When Commensals finish their life span, they go to the jungle, to a mysterious structure known as the Dwelling, to add their body and mind to the collective consciousness, the One. Allison Thorne, a widow with a twelve year old son, David, who is in charge of the main settlement''s technical center, is the one contacted by the Earth dwellers, United Nations Interplanetary. The UNI, who have been observing Foxfield secretly for years, are welcomed by the Foxfielders, who learn the history of the past century &mdash; that the war occurred, but was not as bad as thought &mdash; and begin to catch up on technology. Friction soon begins to develop between Foxfielders and the newcomers. Credometers, worn like wristwatches, are accepted by Foxfielders without realizing that doing so makes them irrevocably part of UNI. Aspects of UNI culture, such as majority voting and violent space games in which people are killed, shock the Foxfielders. The UNI representatives have difficulty in understanding the Foxfielders, not surprising given that religion in the UNI is reduced to "preservation societies". Foxfielders fear they will soon be lost in the UNI masses—while the contact affects UNI culture as well. Matters are brought to a head when the One announces that it intends to destroy the UNI ship, and reveals that it has already destroyed satellites. The Foxfielders mount an expedition to the Dwelling with Alison, her boyfriend, Seth Connaught, and a UNI citizen. They are able to persuade the One not to follow through on its plan. A final chapter, set some months later, shows Foxfield slowly integrating into UNI society while insisting on maintaining its own identity.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Shrinking Man

By Richard Matheson

House of Sand and Fog

By Andre Dubus

The Ancestor Cell

By Stephen Cole

The Babysitter

By R. L. Stine

Summoned by Bells

By John Betjeman

Logan's Run

By William F. Nolan

The Abyss

By Orson Scott Card

Specimen Days

By Michael Cunningham

Dead Man's Handle

By Peter O''Donnell

The Last King of Scotland

By Giles Foden

Wild Energy

By Marina and Sergey Dyachenko

Still Forms on Foxfield

By Joan Slonczewski