Miriam''s parents expel her at a young age because of her powers of healing, and she wanders for years. At the age of eighteen Miriam falls into the hands of Catholic authorities, denounced as a witch. Grievously injured by her tormentors, Miriam escapes, and Mika, a traveling midwife, takes her in and nurses her back to health. After curing one of Mika''s patients of eclampsia, Miriam goes on the run again. As she travels through the forest, she comes upon Baron Roger of Aurverelle, a nobleman out hunting who has been mauled by a bear. After she heals him, he rapes her and leaves her for dead. Inhabitants of Saint Brigid, one of the Free Towns, find her and summon Varden, an elf, to help heal her injuries. While recovering in Saint Brigid, she realizes that the Elves have the power to change people. Formulating a plan for revenge on Baron Roger, she convinces Varden to perform a metamorphosis upon her to make her larger and stronger, able to engage in armed combat. Another Elf, Terrill, agrees to train her in the Elven way of armed combat. The change goes as planned, but she comes to realize that it has made her not completely human, and she is gradually becoming an elf. Aloysius Cranby, the bishop who had imprisoned Miriam, tracks her by imprisoning and interrogating Mika the midwife and comes to Saint Brigid. After days of fruitless searching for Miriam the human, Cranby realizes that Miriam the elf is just one of several elves welcome in the village when she kills one of his companions, though he never realizes the two Miriams are one and the same. Deeming this information more important than completing his original task, he flees the village, and Varden kills him to keep this secret safe. Miriam persuades Terrill to go with her to free Mika from the Inquisition''s prison. In a final full-contact sparring match with Terrill, Miriam concludes her transformation into an Elf. As a symbol of acceptance of her completed change, she formally takes the Elvish form of her name, Mirya. She and Terrill go on to infiltrate the prison. Using their Elven senses and agility to find humanly-impossible ways of piercing the tight security, they make their way to the dungeon, free Mika, slaughter the inquisitors, and flee. After leaving the city, Mirya, Mika, and Terrill return to Saint Brigid. Still unable to abandon her quest for vengeance, Mirya uses her Elven powers to search through all of the potential futures, and she forces into reality what had been only a dimly possible future, wherein Baron Roger and she can duel. As a result, Baron Roger conceives the idea of arranging a sham hawking trip in nearby Beldon forest, where Mirya will be waiting for him, so that he will have the privacy to violate a young woman in his care. When Roger arrives, Mirya initiates a sword battle with him. Finally, Mirya prevails over him, wounding him mortally. Realizing only then that keeping him alive is better than killing him, she heals him then uses her powers to remake his mind so that he is less aggressive, less ambitious, and committed to keeping the Free Towns safe.

Strands of Starlight

Ben Hartman is vacationing in Switzerland when he meets his old school buddy Jimmy Cavanaugh - who tries to kill him. As he dodges assassins, mysterious tails, and police while searching for a safe place to hide, he finds his twin brother, Peter, who was thought to have died in an airplane crash several years earlier. Peter describes an international corporation which was formed in the last days of World War II, composed of financiers, influential members of large corporations, and Nazi brass. He gives Ben a photo of some of the leaders, only to find out that their father was a member. Soon, Peter is killed by a sniper, and Ben escapes with his life again. He later meets up with Liesel (Peter''s girlfriend). Meanwhile, United States Department of Justice Agent Anna Navarro is recruited by a secretive group within the DoJ to investigate the deaths of a list of influential men around the world who have been dying mysteriously. Her probes turn up false leads, possible coverups, and dead ends, until she finds out that the men have been poisoned, using the same obscure toxin. Following the leads, she finds that the men she had been assigned to investigate are part of an international group of financiers and business moguls. She soon finds out that she has been reported "off the reservation", and the attempts begin on her life as well. Through their own distinct investigative means, the two protagonists discover more about the shadowy group, which is called Sigma. It is learned that Sigma has grown from a simple attempt to plunder the Nazi treasury and stabilize the industrial and financial state of the world in the wake of the war, to a political and financial machine which controls as many as 75% of the world''s leading companies, and has enough covert political clout to directly influence the outcome of the likes of Presidential elections. Sigma also helped some of the Nazi war criminals, including Nazi doctor Gerhard Lenz, evade capture. Protagonists Hartman and Navarro eventually meet and form an alliance, since both are being hunted by Sigma assassins. Through their concerted efforts, they discover that Sigma is experiencing an internal struggle. The founders, who are dead or dying, believe that Sigma should disband, as it had played its role in the world; they''re called the angeli rebelli, and are being hunted by the new Sigma leadership. That new leadership, an apparently philanthropic doctor named Jürgen Lenz, son of Sigma founding member Gerhard Lenz, has decided on a new direction for the group, and is determined to eliminate any internal opposition. Navarro is kidnapped by Lenz, and Hartman tracks them to an old castle in the Austrian Alps. Successfully infiltrating the castle, he discovers Sigma''s new direction: age reversal. Lenz had found a way to reverse human aging based largely WW2 era experimentation on children with premature aging also known as Progeria, and he had been treating some of the world''s elite to reverse their aging as well. Lenz was his own first successful experiment, for his real name is Gerhard - he is the Nazi doctor and a founding member of Sigma. After killing Lenz, Hartman and Navarro escape in a helicopter, while the castle is destroyed by an avalanche. The book is based on the Bilderberg Group and the myths and mysteries surrounding it.

The Sigma Protocol

The Penguins of Doom is set in the fictitious city of Conwell, Massachusetts, which is described in the book as a suburb of Boston. Conwell is home to the book''s main character, a seventh-grader named Septina Nash, who is one of a set of triplets. In an attempt to locate her missing triplet sister, Sexta, Septina leads an expedition into the fictitious "Frozen Triangle of Doom" region of Antarctica. The plot is conveyed through letters and notes written by Septina to her teachers, parents, and others. Most of the letters include Septina''s doodle-style illustrations. Septina''s early letters tackle her conflicted feelings toward her missing sister, with whom she did not always get along. Septina also describes a series of improbable events, such as the appearance of wild penguins in her hometown, the arrival of a mad scientist who proclaims himself to be Septina''s arch enemy, and an encounter with a robot duplicate of herself programmed by the CIA. Septina attempts to distract himself from her problems, first by pursuing an ambition to become an Olympic-level skateboarder, then by trying to find a husband for her math teacher, and finally by helping a friend collect empty yogurt containers for a radio station contest. By the end of the novel, Septina learns to somewhat control her talents and locates her sister with the aid of her triplet brother, math teacher, arch enemy, three penguins, and school counselor. The title The Penguins of Doom is derived from the three penguins adopted as pets by Septina. The penguins hail from the Frozen Triangle of Doom section of Antarctica.

The Penguins of Doom

Spock travels back to the time and place of Here Come the Brides, a television program loosely based upon Asa Mercer''s efforts to bring civilization to 1860s Seattle by importing the marriageable Mercer Girls from the war-ravaged East Coast of the United States. The show''s premise was that eldest brother, Jason Bolt, bet his entire logging operation that he could persuade one hundred marriageable ladies to come to Seattle, and that all of them would be married or engaged within one year. Much of the dramatic and comic tension revolved around the efforts of their benefactor Aaron Stemple to thwart the deal and take control of the Bolts'' holdings. Spock discovers a Klingon plot to destroy the Federation by killing Aaron Stemple before Stemple could thwart an attempted 19th-century alien invasion of Earth. During most of the story, Spock has lost his memory and is cared for by Stemple, who passes him off as his nephew "Ishmael" and helps him hide his alien origins. Spock identifies one of the women in the story as likely to be an ancestress of his.

Ishmael

The protagonist, Mattia Pascal, finds that his promising youth has, through misfortune or misdeed, dissolved into a dreary dead-end job and a miserable marriage. His inheritance and the woman he loved are stolen from him by the same man, his eventual wife and mother-in-law badger him constantly, and his twin daughters, neglected by their mother, can provide him with joy only until an untimely death takes them. Death robs him even of his beloved mother. To escape, he decides one day to sneak off to Monte Carlo, where he encounters an amazing string of luck, acquiring a small fortune. While reading a newspaper on his return home, he discovers, to his immense shock and delight, that his wife and mother-in-law declared an unknown corpse to be his own. Faced with this sudden opportunity to start afresh, he first wanders about Europe, and finally settles down in Rome with an assumed identity. His character develops in unexpected, even admirable, ways. Yet one admirable act brings the protagonist a crisis, followed by additional crises that lead him to conclude that continuing with his plans will entail only misery for those he loves, precisely because his entire life, including the precious liberty he thought he had gained from his past, is now a lie. He ultimately decides to fake his own death and return to his original life. But even that proves difficult; his family and town have long since adjusted to his "death," and his own adjustment of character prompts him to have mercy on his now remarried wife. So the twice-dead Late Mattia Pascal reduces himself to a figure outside the mainstream of society, a walk-on part in his own life.

The Late Mattia Pascal

(Chapter 1 is the first of three important moments in Joshua marked with major speeches and reflections by the main characters; here first God and then Joshua make speeches about the goal of conquest of the Promised Land; at chapter 12, Joshua looks back on the conquest; and at chapter 23 Joshua gives a speech about what must be done if Israel is to live in peace in the land). God commissions Joshua to take possession of the land and warns him to keep faith with the Covenant. (God''s speech foreshadows major themes of the book: the crossing of the Jordan and conquest of the land, its distribution, and the imperative need for obedience to the Law; Joshua''s own immediate obedience is seen in his speeches to the Israelite commanders and to the Transjordanian tribes, and the Transjordanians'' affirmation of Joshua''s leadership echoes Yahweh''s assurances of victory). The Israelites cross the Jordan through the miraculous intervention of God and his ark and are circumcised at Gibeath-Haaraloth (translated as hill of foreskins), renamed Gilgal in memory (Gilgal sounds like Gallothi, I have removed, but is more likely to translate as circle of standing stones). The conquest begins in Canaan with Jericho, followed by Ai (central Canaan), after which Joshua builds an altar to Yahweh at Mt Ebal (northern Canaan) and renews the Covenant. (The covenant ceremony has elements of a divine land-grant ceremony, similar to ceremonies known from Mesopotamia). The narrative now switches to the south. The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering into an alliance with them by saying they are not Canaanites; this prevents the Israelites from exterminating them, but they are enslaved instead. An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem is defeated with Yahweh''s miraculous help, and the enemy kings are hanged on trees. (The Deuteronomist author may have used the then-recent 701&nbsp;BCE campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in Judah as his model; the hanging of the captured kings is in accordance with Assyrian practice of the 8th century). With the south conquered the narrative moves to the northern campaign. A powerful multi-national (or more accurately, multi-ethnic) coalition headed by the king of Hazor, the most important northern city, is defeated with Yahweh''s help and Hazor captured and destroyed. Chapter 11:16-23 summarises the campaign: Joshua has taken the entire land, and the land "had rest from war." Chapter 12 lists the vanquished kings on both sides of the Jordan. Having described how the Israelites and Joshua have carried out the first of their God''s commands, the story now turns to the second, to "put the people in possession of the land." This section is a "covenantal land grant": Yahweh, as king, is issuing each tribe its territory. The "cities of refuge" and Levitical cities are attached to the end, since it is necessary for the tribes to receive their grants before they allocate parts of it to others. The Transjordanian tribes are dismissed, affirming their loyalty to Yahweh. Joshua charges the leaders of the Israelites to remain faithful to Yahweh and the covenant, warning of judgement should Israel leave Yahweh and follow other gods; Joshua meets with all the people and reminds them of Yahweh''s great works for them, and of the need to love Yahweh alone. Joshua performs the concluding covenant ceremony, and send the people to their inheritance.

Book of Joshua

The book is set in the fictional town of Winthrop. The protagonist of the book is an unnamed African-American "nomenclature consultant" who has had recent success in branding and selling Apex bandages, which come in multiple colors to better match a broad array of skin tones. The novel begins with the main character being contacted by his former employer, which he had left after losing a toe. He travels to the town of Winthrop after requests from the town council, which has proposed that the town be renamed. However, three key citizens disagree what the name should be: Albie Winthrop, descendant of the town''s namesake (who''d made his fortune in barbed wire); Regina Goode, the mayor (descendant of one of the town''s two founders); and Lucky Aberdeen, a software magnate who''s leading the drive to rename the town. Winthrop wants to keep the name; Goode wants the town to revert to the name it bore at its founding as a town of free blacks, Freedom; while Aberdeen wants to call it "New Prospera."

Apex Hides the Hurt

The prologue introduces main character Inspector Lindsay Boxer, San Francisco P.D., who is in a depression and holding a gun to her head as a result of losing a love interest on a case called "The Honeymoon Murders". Book One begins with David and Melanie Brandt, freshly married, in their hotel room at the Grand Hyatt. A man outside the door calls "Champagne" and David opens the door. The man, Phillip Campbell, then violently kills the bride and groom and immorally brutalizes the corpse of Melanie. The book then cuts to Inspector Lindsay Boxer in her general practitioner''s office. The doctor, Dr. Roy Orenthaler, tells Lindsay that she has a rare, and deadly, blood disease called Negli''s aplastic anemia. Throughout the book, Lindsay struggles with the physical side-effects of getting blood transfusions for Negli''s, and the emotional aspect of having a life-threatening disease. During the appointment, she is called to the crime scene of a double murder at the Grand Hyatt. At that scene she is introduced to Cindy Thomas, covering the story. A second pair of bodies are found, and after Lindsay is told she has a new partner due to the sensitivity of the case, Cindy, Lindsay and medical examiner Claire Washburn join forces to attempt to solve the case. A third pair of bodies is found in Cleveland, Ohio, which are thought to be connected to the San Francisco cases. As Lindsay and company go through the case they acquire a fourth friend, Assistant D.A. Jill Bernhardt. Together, the four friends attempt to pin down a suspect, leading to the shocking conclusion. A subplot features Lindsay''s attraction to Chris Raleigh, her new partner, but will the attraction last until she soon realizes that there is absolutely nothing to lose?

1st to Die

The book begins with Slim sneaking up on, and killing, a "goblin or beast" on the fair grounds of a local carnival. Goblins are monsters which can shape shift between human and bestial forms, genetically engineered super-predators which desire bloodshed and human misery. Created in an ancient, technologically superior era of human civilization, they exist to torment and ultimately murder humans. They can only be seen by a few people, including Slim himself, Rya Raines (his wife), and Joel Tuck (Slim''s friend and fellow carnie). These goblins are superhuman and extremely dangerous and genocidal, at least as intelligent as us, and can mimic human behavior. While they appear and act as a normal person would, they experience only a negative emotions like fear and hate. Their only pleasure is in torturing and murdering humans. Slim''s claim to fame is his "Twilight Eyes", which give him the ability to receive psychic, or prophetic, premonitions of the future. They also allow him to see through the human seeming disguise of the goblins. These eyes are named what they are because they are colored purple like the skyline at dusk. After this encounter, Slim proceeds to join the carnival (one of many he has drifted from) as a way to support himself while killing goblins and hiding from his murderous past (in which he killed an uncle by marriage that was a goblin responsible for the deaths of several family members). One of the prominent members of the "carnies" is a young woman named Rya Raines, who quickly becomes his lover and confidant. As their relationship matures, Slim has several more run-ins with the goblins which leads to the revelation that his friend Joel, and even Rya herself, can see the goblins too, and that each of them in their own way has suffered terribly from the goblins actions in their past. It is soon revealed that Rya had long before made a pact with the goblins to report to them whenever she found someone who could see through their disguise in exchange for safety from their predations. She wants him to make the same pact with them, but he refuses. This reality creates a gulf between her and Slim that almost comes to bloodshed between them. She regrets this later and after reconciling with Slim she becomes his wife. They decide to go on a mission to destroy any and all of the creatures they possibly can. Together they set out on a personal mission to wage a secret war against the monsters in a small mining town named Yontsdown, Pennsylvania, the seeming center of their cruel and brutal version of civilization. There they would discover and face the ultimate, diabolical plans the goblins had for the world and all of mankind.

Twilight Eyes

World War III begins early in the 21st century. It is fought between the two superpowers, Wes-Dem and Pac-Peop. The fighting is extensive and severe, most of it performed by "leadies", robots built to withstand the most extreme circumstance. The Earth becomes a battlefield. Unable to exist in the atmosphere created by robot war, vast "ant tanks" are constructed underground to save the diminishing human population. The government and war engine remains on the surface, the elite "Yance-men". Their president, Talbot Yancy, delivers inspirational speeches to the tankers, motivating them to increase their production of leadies and win the war. The war does eventually end. However, the Yance-men design a conspiracy to maintain the wealth of the Earth for themselves. Yancy continues to describe devastation in televised speeches. The tankers continue to produce leadies. Talbot Yancy is actually a computer generated simulacrum. The Yance-men program him from the "Agency" in New York. They live in immense villas on private parks, called "demesnes". The leadies are actually used by the Yance-men as personal servants and to maintain their estates. The Agency is run by the most vicious and greedy Yance-man, Stanton Brose, who is kept alive by pre-war artificial organs which he hoards. The story begins in one of the tanks, named Tom Mix (named after the actor Tom Mix). The tank president, Nicholas St. James, is forced to go to the surface to look for an artificial pancreas for the tank''s lead mechanic. He emerges on David Lantano''s property (a Yance-man). When some of Lantano''s leadies try to kill St. James, they are destroyed by a mysterious man who looks like Talbot Yancy. St. James wanders around, through the ruins of a 10 year old war, and eventually ends up at Lantano''s mansion. There he learns where he can find an artificial organ. Simultaneously, Adams (another Yance-man) is put on a special mission by Brose. He must plant evidence of alien artifacts on land belonging to a housing developer (Louis Runcible) so the land can be legitimately seized. The artifacts are buried using a time travel device. One by one, the people attached to this project are killed. Adams fearfully retreats to Lantano''s mansion. Another person to appear in the mansion is Webster Foote, the owner and operator of a private detective corporation. Foote accepts on a per-case basis work from everybody (including Brose, Lantano and Runcible) but wishes to save Runcible from the plot against him. Lantano then reveals to Foote, Adams and St. James, that he is a Cherokee from the distant past, somehow being given extended life by the time travel device that placed the artifacts back in time. He has lived through history, taking many positions of note under different names, and now he has killed the members of this special project. Lantano, Foote, and Adams together now plot to kill Brose and free the people underground. However, Adams figures out Lantano was behind the deaths as part of his plot to bring down Brose. In desperation and fear, he joins up with St. James, who discovered a cache of artificial organs, and flees into the Tom Mix tank with him. They discover that Lantano was ultimately successful but contemplate that the biggest lie is yet to come.

The Penultimate Truth

As the eldest son from a lower middle class household, Sunil Robert began his life in Hyderabad spending his childhood without any worries. His family, though poor, was well respected in the community. Robert was popular among his friends. Life came to a rapid halt after his father lost his job and could not find another one. Robert, still very young, was forced to change with circumstances, coming to terms with his new responsibilities and learning to live with the stigma of a life on borrowed money, food, clothes and books. As he struggled through his school and college days, he grew bitter and resentful towards his father, his extended family and the community which he lived in. Robert found himself getting involved with the local mob. However, before things got worse, Robert decided to take control of his life. With the help and support of his family and the local community, he got his life back on track. He got a job and decided never to venture back to those dark days again. Through the rest of the memoir, Robert summarises his rise as a corporate communicator at the technology giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and how he eventually dealt with his harsh feelings. He learned to forgive, raised his family responsibly and finally achieved what he has made of himself today.

I Will Survive

The novel opens amidst a raging thunderstorm. Wolfstein is a wanderer in the Swiss Alps who seeks cover from the storm. He is a disillusioned outcast from society who seeks to kill himself. A procession of monks runs into him and saves his life. Bandits attack them and take Wolfstein to an underground hideout. He meets Megalena, whom the bandits have abducted after killing her father in an ambush. Wolfstein manages to poison the leader of the bandits, Cavigni, and to escape with Megalena. Ginotti, a member of the bandits, befriends Wolfstein. Wolfstein and Megalena flee to Genoa where they live together. Olympia, a woman of the town, seduces Wolfstein. Megalena, enraged by the relationship, demands that Wolfstein kill Olympia. Wolfstein is unable to kill her. Olympia kills herself. Ginotti follows Wolfstein. Ginotti is a member of the Rosicrucian, or Rose Cross, Order. He is an alchemist who seeks the secret of immortality. He tells Wolfstein that he will give him the secret to immortality if he will renounce his faith and join the sect. Eloise de St. Irvyne is the sister of Wolfstein who lives in Geneva, Switzerland. Ginotti, under his new identity of Frederic Nempere, travels to Geneva and seeks to seduce her. Ginotti reveals his experiments in his lifelong quest to find the secret of eternal life: "From my earliest youth, before it was quenched by complete satiation, curiosity, and a desire of unveiling the latent mysteries of nature, was the passion by which all the other emotions of my mind were intellectually organized. ... Natural philosophy at last became the peculiar science to which I directed my eager enquiries.". He has studied science and the laws of nature to ascertain the mysteries of life and of being: "I thought of death---... I cannot die.---''Will not this nature---will not the matter of which it is composed---exist to all eternity? Ah! I know it will; and, by the exertions of the energies with which nature has gifted me, well I know it shall.''" Ginotti tells Wolfstein that he will reveal the "secret of immortal life" to him if he will take certain prescribed ingredients and "mix them according to the directions which this book will communicate to you" and meet him in the abbey at St. Irvyne. In the final scene, which takes place at the abbey of St. Irvyne in France, Wolfstein finds the corpse of Megalena in the vaults. An emaciated Ginotti confronts Wolfstein. Wolfstein is asked if he will deny his Creator. Wolfstein refuses to renounce his faith. Lightning strikes the vaults as thunder and a sulphurous windstorm blast the abbey. Both men are struck dead. This is the penalty they pay for "the delusion of the passions", for tampering with forces that they neither can control nor understand in seeking "endless life".

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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Strands of Starlight

By Gael Baudino

The Sigma Protocol

By Robert Ludlum

The Penguins of Doom

By Greg R. Fishbone

Ishmael

By Barbara Hambly

The Late Mattia Pascal

By Luigi Pirandello

Book of Joshua

No Author Listed

Apex Hides the Hurt

By Colson Whitehead

1st to Die

By James Patterson

Twilight Eyes

By Dean Koontz

The Penultimate Truth

By Philip K. Dick

I Will Survive

No Author Listed

St. Irvyne

By Percy Bysshe Shelley