The story begins in Santa Barbara, California. Travis Cornell, a former Delta Force operative, feels that his life has grown pointless, and is exploring a canyon near his home when he encounters two genetically engineered creatures that have escaped from a top-secret government lab. One, a golden retriever with extraordinarily enhanced intelligence, befriends Travis; the other, a terrifying creature known as the Outsider, appears to be trying to kill the dog. After eluding the Outsider, Travis takes the dog home and names him Einstein. Meanwhile, Nora Devon, an introverted young woman, whose abusive aunt recently has died, is attacked in her home by a man who attempts to rape her. Travis and Einstein intervene and the three quickly form a tight bond. Travis, Nora, and Einstein soon find themselves on the run not only from the Outsider, but from federal agents determined to track down the lab escapees, and Vince Nasco, a ruthless professional assassin, hired to kill the creatures and eliminate any witnesses he may encounter along the way.

Watchers

The ''Wasp Factory'' of the title is a huge clock face encased in a glass box and salvaged from the local dump. Behind each of the 12 numerals is a trap which leads to a different ritual death (for example burning, crushing, or drowning in Frank''s urine) for the wasp that Frank puts into the hole at the center within tubes. Frank believes the death ''chosen'' by the wasp predicts something about the future. There are also Sacrifice Poles, upon which hang the bodies and heads of larger animals, such as seagulls, that Frank has killed and other sacred items. They define and ''protect'' the borders of Frank''s territory - the island upon which he lives with his father. Frank occupies himself with his rituals and maintaining an array of weapons (from his catapult, to pipe bombs and a crude flame thrower) to control the island. Frank is haunted by an accident which resulted in the loss of his genitalia, and resents others for his impotence, particularly women. He goes for long walks and runs patrolling the island, and occasionally gets drunk with his dwarf friend Jamie in the local pub. Other than that, Frank has almost no contact with the outside world and admits that he is afraid of it due to what it did to his brother, Eric. Frank''s older brother Eric is in an insane asylum after being arrested for brutalizing the town''s dogs. He escapes at the start of the novel and throughout the book rings Frank from phone boxes to inform Frank of his progress back to the island. Their conversations invariably end badly, with Eric exploding in fits of rage. Frank is confused as to whether or not he is looking forward to seeing Eric, but it is clear Frank loves his brother dearly. Frank remembers his older brother as being extremely sensitive before "the incident" that drove him mad: a tragic case of neglect in a hospital where Eric was a volunteer. While attempting to feed a smiling brain-damaged child with acalvaria, Eric realizes that the patient is unresponsive and only smiling off into space. He checks the usually-alert patient''s head dressings to find the child''s exposed brain tissue infested with day-old maggots. At the end of the novel, Eric''s imminent return precipitates a series of events that result in Frank discovering male hormone drugs in his father''s study. After confronting his father, Frank finds out that he is in fact female, and that when he thought he was castrated by a dog mauling at an early age, Frank''s father had simply pumped her full of male hormones to see if she would transition from female to male. The father said it was simply "an experiment" and there are hints it was in order to distance himself from the women he felt had ruined his life.

The Wasp Factory

David Mingolla is an artillery specialist in the United States Army serving in a near-future Central American war (references are made to then-future "Afghanistan in ''89" and a nuclear weapon that destroyed Tel Aviv). As his unit serves in "Free Occupied Guatemala", Mingolla goes on leave and meets a woman named Debora in a cantina. They gradually become lovers; however, as they get close to each other, Mingolla feels intense mental pain later identified as a psychic probing his mind. Soon after this, Mingolla is recruited into the Psicorps, an elite group of psychics the United States has assembled to counter the Soviet Union''s own. Debora, a veteran of the revolt that led to American intervention in the first place, is designated his target. On his way through Psicorps training to refine his mental abilities, Mingolla learns that this front of the Cold War (published before 1991, before USSR''s fall) as well as the war itself is a manipulation by two Panamanian families, the Madradonas and the Sotomayors, over three centuries to increase psychic potential in humanity as well as their own genetic diversity. Mingolla and Debora meet and part several times before their meeting with the Madradonas and Sotomayors in Darién, Panama and become embroiled with the members of Mingolla''s former squad in a firefight which culminates in the nuclear destruction of Panama City. David and Debora leave the city and their former friends and antagonists behind them, deciding that ultimately what matters is their love for one another, the only item that has not been blatantly manipulated. The fictional work excerpted several times in the novel, Juan Pastorín''s short story collection The Fictive Boarding House, gives clues to the nature of the novel and Mingolla''s experiences himself in a type of foreshadowing. The lyrics of Prowler heard or sung or thought among members of Mingolla''s unit which bookend Life during Wartime serve this function as well. As a nod to science fiction author Philip K. Dick''s work, the text itself does not present a clear or objective account of what truly happened to Mingolla or what was hallucination on his part. (At one point on Mingolla''s journey, an AI combining a downed Sikorsky helicopter and a long-range guided missile imparts "revelation" to him.) PsiCorps'' intensive drug therapy to hone Mingolla''s potential as well as the presence and use of "Sammy" (short for Samurai, an intense stimulant) and Frost, a super-addictive version of cocaine, make the third person point of view essential for this novel. es:Vida durante la guerra (novela)

Life During Wartime

This book is an outgrowth of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft, which Lessig lost. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution says, "The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Several times in the past century, congress has extended the copyright law in several ways. One way was to extend the term "on the installment plan". Another was to broaden the scope to include not only copying but creating "derivative works". This latter broadening is so ambiguous that it provides a foundation for massive abuse of power by companies holding large copyright portfolios. For example, the Recording Industry Association of America sued a freshman at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) for $10,000,000 for improving a search engine used only inside RPI. Lessig cites another example where Fox demanded $10,000 for the rights to use a 4.5 second video clip with The Simpsons playing on a television in a corner of a scene in a documentary. Anyone producing a collage of video clips can potentially be similarly sued on the grounds the collage is a "derivative work" of something copyrighted or that the collage contains a shot that is copyrighted. Lessig argues that this substantially limits the growth of creative arts and culture, in violation of the US Constitution; the Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the constitutional authority to properly balance competing interests on cases like this. In the preface of Free Culture, Lessig compares this book with a previous book of his, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, which propounded that software has the effect of law. Free Culture''s message is different, Lessig writes, because it is "about the consequence of the Internet to a part of our tradition that is much more fundamental, and, as hard as this is for a geek-wanna-be to admit, much more important." (pg. xiv) Professor Lessig analyzes the tension that exists between the concepts of piracy and property in the intellectual property realm in the context of what he calls the present "depressingly compromised process of making law" that has been captured in most nations by multinational corporations that are interested in the accumulation of capital and not the free exchange of ideas. The book also chronicles his prosecution of Eldred and his attempt to develop the Eldred Act, also known as the Public Domain Enhancement Act or the Copyright Deregulation Act. Lessig concludes his book by suggesting that as society evolves into an information society there is a choice to be made to decide if that society is to be free or feudal in nature. In his afterword he suggests that free software pioneer Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation model of making content available is not against the capitalist approach that has allowed such corporate models as Westlaw and LexisNexis to have subscribers to pay for materials that are essentially in the public domain but with underlying licenses like those created by his organization Creative Commons. He also argues for the creation of shorter renewable periods of copyright and a limitation on derivative rights, such as limiting a publisher''s ability to stop the publication of copies of an author''s book on the internet for non-commercial purposes or create a compulsory licensing scheme to ensure that creators obtain direct royalties for their works based upon their usage statistics and some kind of taxation scheme such as suggested by professor William Fisher of Harvard Law School http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/PTKChapter6.pdf that is similar to a longstanding proposal of Richard Stallman.

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

The novel centres on three very different men: * David Fenwick comes from a mining family but is drawn towards politics, aspiring to help his people, and becomes a strong supporter of nationalisation. Initially, he finishes up his baccalaureate degree and is a teacher at a school for the children of miners. * Joe Gowlan begins as a miner, drifts and then becomes upwardly mobile as a bookie''s assistant and a war-profiteer. * Arthur Barras is the son of Richard Barras, the unscrupulous owner of the Neptune Colliery. He is unhappy with his father''s values but also feels too weak to do much about it. Reactions to the failure of industrial action on safety issues in the coal mines are crystallized in the characters of Davey and Joe, who take vastly different routes in escaping from the working class. While Davey becomes an MP in order to fight for nationalisation of the mines, Joe essentially joins the mine owners. Jenny Sunley is Davey''s indifferent wife who craves social status, and other characters have short but distinct tales of their own. Cronin shows a broad sympathy for the workers and a dislike of the bosses, but also allows that at least some of the bosses can be decent at a personal level. Central to the story is the Neptune coal mine and a catastrophe that occurs there. The Great War is also a factor: do you volunteer to fight, volunteer for non-military duties, use trickery to evade service or openly defy the system by refusing call-up? There is a brief description of one of the tribunals that examined conscientious objectors, often refusing to accept their objection as valid. There is also a clear commitment to the idea of nationalising the mines, replacing the mass of small private owners that existed at the time. The novel ends with most of the men much changed, and it is an excellent description of working-class life in the North of England during that period.

The Stars Look Down

Unlike most of Plato''s dialogues, Socrates does not appear in the Laws: the dialogue takes place on the island of Crete, and Socrates appears outside of Athens in Plato''s writings only twice, in the Phaedrus, where he is just outside the city''s walls, and in the Republic, where he goes down to the seaport Piraeus five miles outside of Athens. The conversation is instead lead by an Athenian Stranger (in Greek, xenos) and two other old men, the ordinary Spartan citizen Megillos and the Cretan politician and lawgiver Clinias from Knossos. The Athenian Stranger, who resembles Socrates but whose name is never mentioned, joins the other two on their religious pilgrimage from Knossos to the cave of Zeus. The entire dialogue takes place during this journey, which mimics the action of Minos: said by the Cretans to have made their ancient laws, Minos walked this path every nine years in order to receive instruction from Zeus on lawgiving. It is also said to be the longest day of the year, allowing for the densely packed twelve chapters. By the end of the third book Clinias announces that he has in fact been given the responsibility of creating the laws for a new Cretan colony, and that he would like the Stranger''s assistance. The rest of the dialogue proceeds with the three old men, walking towards the cave and making laws for this new city which is called the city of the Magnetes (or Magnesia). The question asked at the beginning is not "What is law?" as one would expect. That is the question of the apocryphal Platonic dialogue Minos. The dialogue rather proceeds from the question of who it is that receives credit for creating laws. The questions of the Laws are quite numerous, including: *Divine revelation, divine law and law-giving *The role of intelligence in law-giving *The relations of philosophy, religion, and politics *The role of music, exercise and dance in education *Natural law and natural right The dialogue uses primarily the Athenian and Spartan (Lacedaemonian) law systems as background for pinpointing a choice of laws, which the speakers imagine as a more or less coherent set for the new city they are talking about.

Laws

Seven dammar collectors from Air Jernih village, Pak Haji, Sutan, Sanip, Talib, Buyung, and Pak Balam, venture into the forests of Sumatra, led by the dukun Wak Katok. However, upon departure Buyung realizes that he has forgotten to check his kancil trap and returns to Wak Katok''s. Upon his arrival, he removes the kancil from the trap and goes to a nearby stream to have a drink. At the stream, he meets Wak Hitam''s young wife Siti Rubiyah, who is crying. After comforting her and giving her the kancil, they have sex two times. It is Buyung''s first time. Buyung later arrives at the camp in the evening, just before maghrib prayers. The following day, the dammar collectors go hunting and shoot a deer. After shooting it, they hear the roar of a tiger. Hurriedly they carve up the dear, then bring it to their next camp. That evening, while defecating, Pak Balam is attacked by a tiger. Although Wak Katok manages to frighten the tiger by firing his rifle, Pak Balam is seriously injured. He tells the others of prophetic dreams he had, and concludes that God is punishing them for their sins. Pak Balam then admits his sins, as well as some of Wak Katok''s. Due to his sins being brought to light, Wak Katok begins worrying that the others have lost faith in him. To prevent that, Wak Katok divines that the tiger attacking them is not supernatural or sent by God, much to the other''s relief. The next morning, they abandon some of their dammar and continue on their way back to Air Jernih, carrying Pak Balam. Around midday, Talib is attacked while urinating and severely wounded. Although they are able to frighten the tiger away, the dammar collectors are unable to stop Talib from succumbing to his wounds; he dies soon after admitting that he has sinned. Frightened by Talib''s fate, Sanip confesses both his sins and Talib''s. They establish camp and spend the night uneasily, worried that the tiger will attack. Due to Pak Balam''s worsening condition, the next day the dammar collectors are unable to continue their journey. Instead, after burying Talib, Wak Katok, Buyung, and Sanip go to hunt the tiger. After following the tiger''s tracks for most of the day, they realize that it has doubled back and is going to their camp. Meanwhile, at camp, Sutan snaps due to Pak Balam''s continuous admonition to repent his sins and attempts to strangle him. After being stopped by Pak Haji, Sutan runs away into the forest, where he is attacked by the tiger and killed. Pak Balam also dies from his wounds and is promptly buried. The following morning the remaining dammar collectors leave to hunt the tiger, taking a path through a thicket. They walk for hours, and eventually Pak Haji realizes that they are lost. After Buyung saves his life from a tree viper, Pak Haji confides in him and they decide to watch Wak Katok more closely. Not long after, they confront Wak Katok, saying that he is only making them more lost. Wak Katok snaps, and threatens to shoot Buyung unless he confesses his sins. Buyung is unwilling, and Wak Katok prepares to shoot him. However, they are interrupted by the approach of the tiger. Wak Katok tries to shoot him, but his rifle misfires because the gunpowder had become wet. Using fire, Buyung and the others manage to frighten the tiger away. Sanip tells the others that he saw Wak Katok rape with Siti Rubiyah; Wak Katok counters that he paid her, and she would have sex with anyone willing to give her something. Wak Katok becomes more unstable and tells the others to go into the darkness, threatening to shoot them. Unwilling to face the tiger, Buyung, Pak Haji, and Sanip attempt to ambush Wak Katok. Although they succeed in stopping him and tying him up, Wak Katok shoots Pak Haji in the process. Before he dies, Pak Haji tells Buyung "before you kill the wild tiger, you must kill the tiger within yourself." The following morning Buyung and Sanip bury Pak Haji, then take the bound Wak Katok hunting for the tiger. Although Wak Katok threatens them, they refuse to release him and discard the talismans he gave them. Around midday they find the remains of Sutan, and bury them.

Harimau! Harimau!

Mallory, a private investigator from New York, spends New Year’s Eve in his office, with a bottle of whisky, and in a terrible mood. His business partner left for California with Mallory’s wife, having also blackmailed some of their clients. Since the infuriated victims head for the detective’s office, it seems that the night will end up tragically; yet, the plot suddenly takes an unexpected turn as in the room appears a strange creature, an elf called Mürgenstürm. Mürgenstürm, who comes from an alternative world, is in equally serious trouble. He was obliged to guard a valuable animal, the unicorn called Larkspur. He neglected his duty and the unicorn was stolen. Now, the elf’s life is in danger, so he wants to take advantage of Mallory’s service. As he has no other way out of trouble the detective decides to follow Mürgenstürm, and to search for the stolen animal. They enter the alternative New York through the gate in the basement of the very building where Mallory has his office. When the detective examines the scene of the crime, he encounters the eye-witness, a cat-girl Felina, who, despite her cat-like personality, will become Mallory’s loyal partner. She reveals that the culprit is a leprechaun, Gillespie, working for a perilous and powerful demon Grundy that is responsible for spreading evil in both New Yorks. At the same time, the Grundy finds out about Mallory’s investigation and tries to dissuade him from taking further steps. Nevertheless, Mallory does not abandon the investigation and in search of information about the unicorn visits various places in the alternative New York, such as the Museum of Natural History, full of dead yet regularly reviving animals, and Central Park, occupied by wholesalers offering completely useless goods. On his way Mallory meets Eohippus, a six-inch tall horse that helps him find the expert on unicorns, a former huntress still craving for adventure, Colonel Winifred Carruthers. Unlike Mürgenstürm, who gradually turns out to be more an accomplice in the crime than the victim, Carruthers and Eohippus are valuable allies. Due to Colonel, Mallory comes into contact with a magician, The Great Mephisto, and finds out the motives for the crime. In the unicorn’s head there is a ruby that would enable the Grundy to move freely between the two worlds and gain more power than he has ever had. After a long search Mallory reaches Gillespie’s flat on the 13th floor of a cheap hotel only to find out that the leprechaun ran away, the unicorn is already dead, and the gate between the two cities begins to close. In the meantime, Mallory’s partners, Colonel and Eohippus, are caught by Gillespie. Soon after that the detective receives an invitation to the auction at which the precious ruby is to be sold. The Grundy appears there too, and he seems to have all the cards. Yet, it turns out that Mallory, with the help of Felina, has already found and hidden the jewel, which gives him an advantage over the enemy. Grundy sets Mallory’s friends free and agrees to wait until the detective delivers the ruby. Mallory, who has no intention of letting the Grundy wreak havoc in both worlds, has the jewel transported to "his" New York just before the passage between the two worlds closes. Then he meets the Grundy only to inform him about it. Since the demon cannot be sure whether Mallory tells the truth he does not dare to kill the detective, but promises to have his revenge in the future. Mallory is content to stay in the alternative New York, where his work makes more sense. He is determined to continue his struggle against evil having the noble Colonel and of the mysterious Felina at his side.

Stalking the Unicorn

The story, set in Latium in AD 77, opens with the deaths of Falco''s newborn son (posthumously named Justinianus), and Marcus Didius Geminus, alias Favonius, Falco''s estranged father. Following the funeral, Falco is astounded to discover that his father has left him and the rest of the Didii family a sizeable fortune, but with one problem: before Geminus died, he impregnated Falco''s friend Thalia and as a result, he is now forced to share Geminus'' inheritance with Thalia''s yet unborn child. While auditing his father''s business contacts, debtors and creditors, it transpires that a debt owed was never paid because the creditor in question, Julius Modestus, has disappeared. Falco travels to the towns south of Rome with his adopted daughter Albia (who is unhappy that Falco''s brother-in-law Aulus has married someone else) and pays off the debt owed to Modestus'' nephew, Sextus Silanus (and to investigate the disappearance of Silanus'' uncle), while his friend Lucius Petronius Longus, the captain of the vigiles in Rome''s Twelfth District, finally discovers Modestus, who has been brutally murdered and eviscerated. A clan of Imperial freedmen in the Pontine Marshes, the Claudii (consisting of four siblings named Nobilis, Probus, Virtus and Pius; and their wives and female siblings) are implicated in Modestus'' grisly murder but as Falco and Petronius investigate further, they attract the interest of the Imperial Chief Spy, Anacrites &mdash; who, as usual, takes the case away from them. Meanwhile, however, another courier is found murdered and mutilated in the same manner as Modestus, while Anacrites'' behaviour begins to become more erratic (and suspect) even as Falco and Petronius (covertly) investigate the murders further, eventually discovering more victims and the murderers themselves too, who are none other than the four Claudii brothers. It is thus discovered that Modestus may have been killed by the Claudii for attempting to speak out against them. Pius is abducted by Falco and Petronius to be taken away as a slave in a mine, Virtus and Probus are finally apprehended while Nobilis dies by falling upon the swords of Falco and his friends. Yet, even after the Claudii are wiped out, it is revealed that the Claudii may have had a fifth brother who could be a co-prepetrator. The identity of this fifth brother and his connections to Falco, his friends, and the imperial government are finally deduced; however, the Didii, Camilli (Falco''s in-laws) and Petronii families realise that they know too much and that their lives (and possibly even the ruling Flavians) are now potentially threatened by this same person. Forced to make a difficult decision, Falco and Petronius finally decide to take matters into their hands, conspiring to "send Nemesis to deal with him" once and for all, ending the novel and the series so far in a cliffhanger.

Nemesis

This novel deals with the attempts of the son of (fictional) Chola king Parthiban, Vikraman, to attain independence from the Pallava ruler, Narasimhavarman. The Cholas remain vassals of the Pallavas. Parthiban conveys his dream of the Chola dynasty regaining its glory - which he believes is lost since they are no longer the independent rulers of their land - to his young son Vikraman. Parthiban refuses to pay the taxes to the Pallavas and this triggers the Pallavas to wage war against the Cholas. In the resulting war Parthiban is killed and in the battlefield an enigmatic monk promises to Parthiban that he will make sure that Vikraman fulfills Parthiban''s dream. Vikraman grows up and plans his retaliation against Narasimhavarman. But his uncle, Marappa Bhupathi, betrays him and Vikraman is arrested and banished from India by Narasimhavarman. The narrative moves on to describe how Vikraman comes back longing to meet his mother and the mysterious beauty whom he saw before being deported. To his woe he later discovers that his mother has disappeared and has in fact been kidnapped by the savage Kapalikas - a tribe which believes in human sacrifice. He also comes to know that the beauty he has fallen for, Kundhavi, is none other than the daughter of his sworn enemy, Narasimhavarman. The novel climaxes with the identity of the monk being finally being revealed as pallava king, Narasimhavarman and establishment of the independent Chola kingdom under Vikraman in Uraiyur. Vikraman also marries kundhavi in the final chapter.

Parthiban Kanavu

The collection tells the story of a merchant family from a small Galician town which resembles the writer''s home town, Drohobycz, in many respects. The story abounds in mythical elements, introduced by means of the visionary and dreamlike literary depiction (e.g. frequently occurring motif of labyrinth), characteristic of the writer. It is thus mythologized reality, processed by the imagination, artistically distorted and enriched by all possible references and allusions to other literary works, to great myths, to other, more exotic domains of reality. One of the most significant characters in the work is the Father, who is not only the head of the family, a merchant running a textile shop in the marketplace, but also a mad experimenter endowed with superhuman abilities, a demiurge living between life and death, between the world of the real and the imaginary. Despite the literary fascination with the character of the Father displayed by Schulz, it is Józef who he renders the protagonist, as well as the narrator of the work. In the character of this young boy, eagerly discovering the world that surrounds him, many of Schulz''s own traits are clearly visible.

The Street of Crocodiles

The residents of Tiamat are split into two clans: "Winters" who advocate technological progress and trade with offworlders, and "Summers" who depend on their folk traditions and rigid social distinctions to survive on this marginal planet. Every 150 years, the sun''s orbit around a black hole dramatically impacts the planetary ecology and to keep the uneasy peace, the government switches from Winter rule to Summer rule under a matriarchal monarch. Interstellar travel between Tiamat and the Hegemony is only possible during the 150 years of Winter rule, and a single woman rules the entire planet: a "Snow Queen" in Winter, a "Summer Queen" in Summer. The Hegemony''s interest in Tiamat has to do with the "mers," sentient sea-dwelling creatures whose blood provides the "water of life," a virus that restores physical youth. Mers are hunted as frequently as possible during the Winter years, to the brink of extinction. This also allows a single Snow Queen to reign for the entire 150-year season, and it is with the Snow Queen, Arienrhod, that the story begins. She has secretly implanted several Summer women with embryos, clones of herself, in the hopes of extending her rule past her ritual execution at the end of Winter. The novel follows Moon, the only one of these clones to survive to adolescence. She and her cousin Sparks are lovers, and both are "merry-begots", conceived during the planetary festivals held every 20 years to remind Tiamat of the cycle of power. Moon becomes a sibyl, a position of high status among the Summer people, since they are keepers of knowledge freely available to anyone who asks. Sibyls enter a trance and by mysterious means, can answer questions. Sparks, unable to join her among the sibyl mystics and curious about his offworld heritage, travels to Carbuncle, Tiamat''s capital, where he is immediately caught up by Arienrhod and eventually becomes the "Starbuck": her consort and commander of the mer hunts. Moon receives a message, apparently from Sparks, urging her to come to Carbuncle, though the city is barred to sibyls. On her way, she becomes entangled with smugglers and is taken off-world – a one-way trip for a Tiamatan citizen, as the Hegemony forbids Tiamat full access to their worlds. She is taken to the capital planet, Kharemough, and discovers that the Winters'' prejudice against sibyls is a political tool used by the Hegemony to preserve its control of technology on Tiamat. Sibyls are highly respected throughout the other planets of the Hegemony; only on Tiamat, due to a careful reinforcement of superstitions during the reign of Winter, are they considered dangerous and mentally unstable. Eventually, despite the waning window of safe travel offered by Tiamat''s orbit, she negotiates a return after finding out from a trance that Sparks is in danger. After a crash landing and short sojourn as a captive by an outback tribe of Winter fugitives in the north, Moon returns to Carbuncle and confronts Arienrhod for the fate of her beloved Sparks. Here she discovers the truth of her heritage and that Arienrhod considers her a failure; she wanted a clone in spirit, not just in body, a clone who would keep the Summers from rejecting technology – throwing all imported devices into the sea – at The Change. Moon proves her wrong by participating in the ritual competition for the Summer Throne, and winning. The Change will proceed, and Winter will end&mdash;but with an enlightened queen, preparing Tiamat to face the Hegemony as a peer when the 150 years of summer end and interstellar travel is again possible through the black hole.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Watchers

By Dean Koontz

The Wasp Factory

By Iain Banks

Life During Wartime

By Lucius Shepard

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity

By Lawrence Lessig

The Stars Look Down

By A. J. Cronin

Laws

By Plato

Harimau! Harimau!

By Mochtar Lubis

Stalking the Unicorn

By Mike Resnick

Nemesis

No Author Listed

Parthiban Kanavu

By Kalki Krishnamurthy

The Street of Crocodiles

By Bruno Schulz

The Snow Queen

By Joan D. Vinge