The story follows a group of orcs who always find themselves on the front lines of battle against the carefully prepared and always triumphant forces of good. The orcs decided to organize themselves and fight back. As a satire of high fantasy the novel mocks most of the conventions of the genre from using traditional villainous races, orcs, as the protagonists, to having the noble characters have much less than noble motivations and secrets. The opening of the book plays up the orc warleader sent to reclaim a weapons cache in preparation for the ''Last Battle'' between good and evil, which is well on its way. They are assisted by a pair of halflings whose cute demeanor is contrasted with extremely violent acts. The orcs uncover a dragon''s hoard of modern military weaponry, which is endowed with a geas that transforms their minds into replicas of the stereotypical United States Marine Corps mindset, during the Vietnam War. Gentle continues the storyline through the Last Battle and the orcs'' integration into society, along with a military threat that rivals the orcs themselves.

Grunts!

By accident, more than anything else, the three find themselves beside the grave of Thomas Godwin. The grave was dug up by some miscreants for unknown reasons. The rather colorful history of Mr. Godwin makes Feluda curious to know more about the man.From the diary of Thomas'' daughter Charlotte, Feluda finds that a very precious clock went to Thomas'' grave with him. To his surprise, Feluda finds that another party knows about this clock and they are trying to get it aided by the letter with them. Thanks to the brilliance of the detective and the help of ''Haripodobabu'', the chauffeur of Mr. Ganguli, a new introduction in this book, their plot is foiled. The Old Calcutta: for a long time, Calcutta was the capital of British India. Just as the story of the Nawabs plays a vital part in ''Badshahi Angti'' (based on Lucknow), the story of British families who lived in the former capital of the British Raj, plays a prominent part in this story. Feluda goes to a Christian cemetery, to see the graves of the members of the Godwin family. He goes to Ripon Lane to meet a living member of the family. Later on, he finds that there is an Anglo-Indian branch of the family as well.

Gorosthaney Sabdhan

The story begins with a painter named Tim Picasso who suffers critical rejection from his peers and decides to take a break in the Caribbean, where he ends up crewing on a drug smuggling sailboat. When the captain gets drunk and falls overboard, Picasso takes the boat to Florida, and meets up with Jesus Castro, the lead drug smuggler. Castro intimidates Picasso into running the drugs from Miami to Boston, however after Picasso collects the $1.5 million payment from the Irish Republican Army, he escapes by train to the New England town of Tyburn, where a winter storm is picking up force. He decides to lodge at the seaside Admiral Benbow Inn for the weekend, until he can depart for Italy. Meanwhile, Mr. Glowery, a bitter New York journalist and writer who believes that a rival author is sabotaging his literary career, arrives in Tyburn where he is to speak at a fiction workshop being held at the Admiral Benbow Inn. He is immediately tasered by one of Castro''s detectives, who mistakenly confuses him for Picasso. Back at the Admiral Benbow Inn, the innkeeper, George Hawthorne, worries about Mr. Briscoe, a cross-dressing contract worker who is stranded in the abandoned lighthouse just off the coast because of the raging nor''easter, while his unhappy wife, Magdalene Hawthorne, threatens to leave him. The next morning, Mr. Glowery is stuck in a restaurant where he is being coerced by a psychotic cook to peddle his novel in order to pay off a debt he incurred during the night. When Professor Eggman, the director of the fiction workshop, comes across Mr. Glowery, he rescues him and brings him back to the inn. However, few people show up for the fiction workshop because of the storm. Hawthorne''s wife returns from a spa with Picasso; Mr. Hawthorne informs her that he is trying to procure a prostitute for his new arrival, Jesus Castro, who has registered under the false name of Mr. Wassermann. Mr. Hawthorne asks Picasso if he has had sex with his wife and Picasso meekly admits to it. At the lighthouse, Mr. Briscoe decides to brave the storm in a landing craft, but is immediately swamped with water and carried by the tide towards the mainland. After Castro avails himself of the services of a prostitute, he rampages around the property searching for Picasso. The storm crashes through the inn. A guest is killed by a billiards table that falls on top of him and is dragged off into the sea. Mr. Glowery is also dragged off into the sea by the storm. Castro and his assistant round up the guests and interrogate them about the location of the $1.5 million Picasso stole. In another part of the inn a fire starts. Finally, Mr. Briscoe shows up and kills Castro''s assistant before knocking Castro unconscious. While Hawthorne learns his wife is leaving him for the prostitute, the inn becomes completely engulfed in flames. Picasso, Hawthorne, and Briscoe motor a lobster boat over to the lighthouse, and dump Castro''s dead assistant into the sea along with Castro himself, weighed down with two cinder blocks chained to his ankles. When they land on the island, Briscoe runs into the lighthouse and blows himself up. Amongst the rubble of the lighthouse, Picasso notices the inscription "MORTE D''AUTHOR" painted on one of the surrounding rocks and says to the innkeeper "He''s been thinking about this for some time, George."

Light House: A Trifle

April Lady is the story of Nell Cardross the young beautiful wife of the Earl of Cardross. She is of a "good family", one that is accepted by high society, but nonetheless her father and brother spend freely and the family is known to be impoverished. Cardross, on the other hand, is significantly older and has been out in society for some time. Rich and handsome he could have his pick of the season''s débutantes. He falls for Nell on sight and, in spite of the warnings of his friends who are concerned about the gambling habits of her family, he proposes to her at once. Nell''s mother, who has "more hair than wit", tells Nell that Cardross wants an heir and wishes to marry into a good family. She also tells her that she must be a conformable wife and not trouble Cardross. Consequently Nell, who fell for her husband in the same instant he fell for her, keeps him at arm''s length until he starts to doubt her appeal. The couple dance at this misunderstanding for many months ably assisted by Cardross'' half-sister, her fiancé Jeremy, Nell''s brother Dysart and Cardross'' cousin Felix. Naturally the resolution is happy.

April Lady

Bouton befriended sportswriter Leonard Shecter during his time with the Yankees. Shecter approached him with the idea of writing and publishing a season-long diary. Bouton, who had taken some notes during the season after having a similar idea, readily agreed. Bouton chronicled the season—the turning point year in which Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the Woodstock Festival was held, and the year of the Miracle Mets. In so doing, Bouton provided a frank, insider''s look at professional sports teams. The book''s context was the Seattle Pilots'' only operating season, though Bouton was traded to Houston late in the year. Ball Four described a side of baseball that was previously unseen by writing about the obscene jokes and the drunken tomcatting of the players and about the routine drug use, including by Bouton himself. Bouton wrote with candor about the anxiety he felt over his pitching and his role on the team. Bouton detailed his unsatisfactory relationships with teammates and management alike, his sparring sessions with Pilots manager Joe Schultz and pitching coach Sal Maglie, and the lies and minor cheating that has gone on in sports seemingly from time immemorial. Ball Four revealed publicly for the first time the degree of womanizing prevalent in the major leagues (including "beaver shooting," the ogling of women anywhere, including rooftops or from under the stands). Bouton also disclosed how rampant amphetamine or "greenies" usage was among players. Also revealed was the heavy drinking of Yankee legend Mickey Mantle, which had previously been kept almost entirely out of the press.

Ball Four

The evil sorcerer Beelzebub Preposteror has contracted with His Excellency the Minister of Pitch Darkness to perform a certain number of evil deeds each year. This year, however, he did not meet the requirement, because the High Council of the Animals has sent the cat Maurizio as a spy, which forces Beelzebub to be more cautious. On New Year''s Eve he joins forces with the evil witch Tyrannia Vampirella, who has the same problem due to the raven Jakob who is spying on her. Together they try to brew the eponymous Notion Potion that will grant them all wishes, in order to fulfill their part of the contract before midnight. If they succeeded to brew the potion they wouldn''t even have to keep it secret from the animals, because due to the nature of the potion every wish they make will have the exact opposite effect - i.e. if they wish someone good health, he''ll become sick instead. The plot starts on New Year''s Eve at 5 pm and the chapters each represent one hour until midnight to illustrate the increasing time pressure that the characters are under. On the one hand, the sorcerers have to complete a five-meter-long recipe to brew the potion, while constantly getting in each other''s way. On the other, the cat and the raven must find a way to stop their evil plan while tackling their own problems, namely the obesity of the cat and the chronic diseases of the raven. Nevertheless, they devise a plan to exploit a weakness of the potion: when the potion has not been fully drunk up before the first ring of the bell at midnight, the potion won''t reverse the meaning of the wishes - as expected by the two sorcerers - but instead grants them as wished.

The Night of Wishes

Because there is so little room at the home where they live, Bramble Bellflower () decides that he and his family should move. He does not announce the plan until later, when the seven members come over to the other side of the hill and look at their new property. They do not know that Bramble has actually bought and remodelled the house, which is called The Berries. It will be eight days before the family settles in their new spot. But Periwinkle, one of Bramble''s five children, is deeply affected by the change of address; he is afraid he will miss his neighbour, Pimpernelle, and his old home, in the process. He finds his new room, which he will share with brother Dandelion, too large for his liking. Next day, Mistletoe, another young Bellflower, insists that the house''s fixing up be finished. He calls on his four siblings for the task, and they secretly set off to do it. However, when Papa enters to get a lost tool, he is dismayed at the mess they have made. Angrily, he and Aunt Zinnia send them back home, and the father cleans up after them. Soon, he announces that two strapping rams will carry the family''s furniture in carts; the Pedal Express will be involved as well. When the day comes, Bramble, Mistletoe, Poppy and the Bellflowers'' neighbours help out on the goods, while Zinnia and the other children wait for them at The Berries. By afternoon, everything is in place, but the bunnies find out that Periwinkle is nowhere in sight. Instead, the lonely child has set up a small canvas tent near the old home, close to a hazelnut grove. Knowing where Periwinkle possibly could be, Papa searches for him and eventually comes across the tent. Inside, he reminds his son that no one lives at the old Bellflower home any more. But, when Papa tells him of a housewarming at their new place, Periwinkle cheers up, and the two of them head back over the hill to join in the fun.

Family Moving Day

The story involves Malcolm Fisher, a hapless auction clerk in modern-day England, who runs over a badger one night. The badger turns out to be the giant Ingolf, brother of Fafnir, and Fisher becomes the new owner of the Ring of the Nibelung and the Tarnhelm, and, thereby, ruler of the world. He also drinks some of the Ingolf''s blood, which gives him the ability to understand the language of the birds. He finds that if he allows himself any negative emotions such as anger or frustration, he will cause various catastrophes worldwide. Thus Malcolm tries to be as positive as possible in his day-to-day life. He uses the ring to gain enough gold to buy a mansion and tries to live a quiet life. However, Wotan, king of the gods, still wants the ring, as do others, and Fisher finds himself pursued by numerous characters from Wagner''s opera: Wotan and Loge (also known as Odin and Loki in Norse mythology), the Rhinemaidens (who want their gold back), and Alberich (who stole the gold, made the ring and still wants it). He also becomes romantically entangled, first with the Rhinemaiden Flosshilde, and later with one of the Valkyries, Ortlinde. Malcolm is unaware of the Valkyrie''s true identity and does intend to give the ring to her, but a bird reveals to him who she truly is. It is then revealed that his housekeeper is actually Erde (Mother Earth), mother of the Valkyries. Despite this, he continues to believe himself in love with Ortlinde. Malcolm still intends to give her the ring, but she leaves. Wotan then resorts to sending an army. Malcolm faces the army and destroys it as well as all the high gods, by force of will and the power of The Ring. Malcolm fears that he has also destroyed Flosshilde whom he now knows he loves, but it turns out she was just visiting her cousins. When she returns he gives her the ring, believing she will do a better job—and because he thinks that the ring is now merely a token of his love and not the all important Ruling Ring. He keeps the tarnhelm which gives him immortality.

Expecting Someone Taller

Sir Austin Feverel''s wife deserts him to run away with a poet, leaving her husband to bring up their boy Richard. Believing schools to be corrupt, Sir Austin, a scientific humanist, educates the boy at home with a plan of his own devising known as "the System". This involves strict authoritarian supervision of every aspect of the boy''s life, and in particular the prevention of any meeting between Richard and girls of his own age. Richard nevertheless meets and falls in love with Lucy Desborough, the niece of a neighboring farmer. Sir Austin finds out and, disapproving of her humble birth, forbids them to meet again, but they secretly marry. Sir Austin now tries to retrieve the situation by sending Richard to London. Here, however, Sir Austin''s friend Lord Mountfalcon successfully sets a courtesan to seduce Richard, hoping that this will leave Lucy open to seduction by himself. Ashamed of his own conduct, Richard flees abroad where he at length hears that Lucy has given birth to a baby and has been reconciled to Sir Austin. He returns to England and, hearing about Lord Mountfalcon''s villainy, challenges him to a duel. But this goes badly: Richard is seriously wounded. Lucy is so overcome by this turn of events that she loses her mind and dies.

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel

The book is set in a dystopian near future at the end of the twentieth century. The book was written in 1987, during the time of the Thatcher government, and the British Prime Minister features in the narrative. The gender of the politician is never revealed, however. Stephen Lewis is, by his own admission, an accidental author of children''s books. One Saturday, on a routine visit to the supermarket, during a concentration lapse, he loses his only daughter, Kate. Since then, the only purpose in his life is that he is a member of a committee on childcare. Otherwise he spends his days lying on the sofa drinking scotch and watching mindless TV programmes and the Olympic games. His wife, Julie, has become a recluse, and he visits her very rarely. He has a close friend, Charles Darke, who published his first novel and who is now a junior Minister in the Cabinet, and the Prime Minister''s favourite. His own wife, Thelma, is a quantum physicist. She engages Stephen with her outlandish theories on time and space. However, his friends'' lives are about to change irrevocably in a way he cannot understand, and he is a helpless bystander. Eventually Stephen experiences a strange event that he cannot explain: he sees his parents as a young couple in a pub, before they married. The book also deals with his grief and eventually his painful acceptance of the loss of his child.

The Child in Time

The story starts with a girl Kathereine Collins going to a private GYN clinic, located in Manhattan, New York, where she is undergoing treatment for some Gynac ailments. Simultaneously she has started having seizures where in she smells a repulsive and oddly familiar odor and then loses consciousness. She wants to withdraw her records from this clinic and move onto her hometown to her family doctor. While on her way back, she faints at the elevators. The next scene shows her parents visiting her apartment and the cops searching the room as she has been missing for some days now. The story revolves around the protagonist Dr. Martin Philips from then on, who is a doctor in neuroradiology at the NYC medical center. Dr. Martin Philips, a 41 year old neuroradiologist is involved in creating a self-diagonstic x-ray machine, along with Michaels, who is a researcher graduating from MIT and also head of the department of artificial intelligence. Dr. Philips''s girlfriend and colleague Dr. Denise Sanger (28 years old) is also involved in the same hospital. The story proceeds with the hospital working being shown where Dr. Mannerheim, a stubborn neurosurgeon, is to operate on a girl named Lisa Marino who is a seizure patient. She is set to undergo a brain operation to remove damaged brain cells which her doctors say are causing her seizures. The symptoms are described in another female patient, Kathereine Collins, only stronger. However, when Dr. Phillips starts to discover a conspiracy involving usage of human test subjects, he is drawn into a world that is deceiving and dangerous. After the reveal, Dr. Phillips asks to be put in an asylum.

Brain

A young woman with a stunted intellect, being the victim of brain damage from birth, is hired on to perform basic menial labor (such as janitorial services) in a facility dedicated to the operation and programming of a mainframe computer. In her free time, she is curious whether the machine can add and subtract some basic numbers when she types them in. She has checked the results when she goes home, and sometimes spends days adding and subtracting the numbers to see if the results are correct. When she is at work, she has a long day walking alone through the thousands of square feet of the facility, checking on metal casings and consoles in this facility, and dusting them as needed. She knows that typing things into the computer is forbidden for non-scientists. Therefore she chooses her time well, and organizes her day so no one will know she is submitting questions to the computer. She sits down at a console when she knows there is nobody around, and the computer begins to recognize her style of typing. She hunts and pecks rather slowly. She has tried this four times before, and is surprised on the fifth time when the computer starts to talk to her by spooling out information in paper form.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Grunts!

No Author Listed

Gorosthaney Sabdhan

By Satyajit Ray

Light House: A Trifle

By William Monahan

April Lady

By Georgette Heyer

Ball Four

By Jim Bouton

The Night of Wishes

By Michael Ende

Family Moving Day

By Geneviève Huriet

Expecting Someone Taller

By Tom Holt

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel

By George Meredith

The Child in Time

By Ian McEwan

Brain

By Robin Cook

Machine Made

No Author Listed