The work traces the death of Claudius, his ascent to heaven and judgment by the gods, and his eventual descent to Hades. At each turn, of course, Seneca mocks the late emperor''s personal failings, most notably his arrogant cruelty and his inarticulateness. After Mercury persuades Clotho to kill the emperor, Claudius walks to Mount Olympus, where he convinces Hercules to let the gods hear his suit for deification in a session of the divine senate. Proceedings are in Claudius'' favor until Augustus delivers a long and sincere speech listing some of Claudius'' most notorious crimes. Unfortunately, most of the speeches of the gods are lost through a large gap in the text. Mercury escorts him to Hades. On the way, they see the funeral procession for the emperor, in which a crew of venal characters mourn the loss of the perpetual Saturnalia of the previous reign. In Hades, Claudius is greeted by the ghosts of all the friends he has murdered. These shades carry him off to be punished, and the doom of the gods is that he should shake dice forever in a box with no bottom (gambling was one of Claudius'' vices): every time he tries to throw the dice they fall out and he has to search the ground for them. Suddenly Caligula turns up, claims that Claudius is an ex-slave of his, and hands him over to be a law clerk in the court of the underworld.

The Pumpkinification of Claudius

The novel centers on a young boy named Beto, who has been left by his mother to be raised by his Spanish grandmother Josephina and Yaqui grandfather Manuel, both of whom carry on the spiritual traditions of their cultural heritages, Manuel as a shaman and Josephina as a curandera. The two grandparents each pass on to Beto the knowledge they have preserved, in order to prepare him to return to his mother and enter the larger world. Although the novel centers on Beto around his grandparents, it presents a picture of their 1958 community, a spot-in-the-road outpost of Phoenix, Arizona known at the time as "Buckeye Road" (and which has since become part of the metropole under the name Buckeye). Buckeye Road contains an assortment of characters from various ethnicities: Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Euroamericans, African Americans, even Chinese and Hindu residents. It seems to be a town built by outsiders, including not only ethnic minorities but prostitutes, lesbians and transvestites. Véa uses this collection of people to explore not only the intersection of ethnic marginalization, but also the similarities and overlaps between spiritual traditions. Véa allows a place for Latino Catholicism, African American Christianity, peyote shamanism and Creole spirituality in this generous novel.

La Maravilla

Elderly Dr. Luke Croxley narrates a story with a very old theme set against the English village of Lynmouth. Rita Wainwright is 38, "a mature beauty with a weakness for younger men". Her gentle husband, Alec, more than 20 years older, seems more interested in radio broadcasts of World War II news than in his wife''s notorious affair with a handsome young American actor, Barry Sullivan. Rita and Barry decide to run away together but a radio performance of Romeo and Juliet apparently turns their minds to a romantic double suicide. After the broadcast, their twin lines of footprints lead up to the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, and none return. When their bodies are found, though, it is found that both of them had been shot through the heart at very close range, "body range, with some small-calibre weapon". Sir Henry Merrivale is in the neighbourhood posing for a portrait by a local artist (in the garb of a Roman Senator), and agrees to investigate this baffling mystery, which he solves just in time to take his place in the House of Lords.

She Died a Lady

Set in the early 1970s, this novel serves as the introduction to Spenser, a private investigator in Boston. Spenser is hired by Bradford W. Forbes, the president of the fictional Taft university (heavily implied to be Northeastern) to recover a stolen illuminated manuscript, a medieval document of great historical and literary importance. It is being held ransom by an unknown organization that demands $100,000 be donated to a free school for the manuscript''s return. It has no inherent monetary value and cannot be fenced. Head of campus security Carl Tower recommends investigating a radical student group called ''SCACE'' (Student Committee Against Capitalist Exploitation) and their secretary, Terry Orchard. After talking to her and boyfriend Dennis Powell, Spenser receives a call from Terry in the middle of the night requesting help. Spenser arrives at her apartment to find Dennis murdered, the killer having used Terry''s gun, and Terry under the influence of an unknown drug. He determines that the murder is an attempt to frame Terry and from that point is determined to clear her name, believing the missing manuscript and Dennis''s murder are related. Spenser''s investigation leads him to Lowell Hayden, an English professor at the university who is reputedly an anonymous member of SCACE. Spenser asks permission of the English Department head to interview the members of the faculty but is rebuffed. Ignoring the department head''s warning Spenser sneaks up to Hayden''s office and interviews him anyway. Hayden denies knowing either Dennis Powell or Terry Orchard, although Spenser believes Hayden does in fact know them. Spenser leaves the English Department offices and is met by campus security: he has been summarily ''fired'' from finding the manuscript. Spenser is summoned to meet Joe Broz, a local crime lord, shortly after talking to Hayden. Broz warns Spenser to stop his investigation and hints that the manuscript will be returned if he does. The very next day the manuscript is anonymously returned to the university, just as Broz said it would be. Undeterred by this series of events Spenser continues his investigation to prove Terry''s innocence in the murder of Powell and tie it to the theft of the manuscript. Spenser tries to contact Cathy Connelly, Terry Orchard''s former roommate and the only other person who knew Terry owned a gun. Connelly doesn''t answer her door so Spenser breaks in. He finds Connelly''s body floating in the bathtub, in his estimation murdered. Boston Police Captain Yates believes the death was accidental but his subordinates, Lieutenant Martin Quirk and Sergeant Frank Belson, believe otherwise. Nor do they believe Terry Orchard murdered Dennis Powell. Spenser begins working unofficially with Quirk and Belson to find the truth behind the Powell and Connelly murders. This is the first of many such collaborations that continue throughout the Spenser series. It is a mutually beneficial relationship: the police are able to use Spenser to gather information that they could not obtain through strictly legal channels and Spenser is able to use police resources to which he would not normally have access. After a gun battle with some of Broz''s gun thugs near Jamaica Pond in Boston and a life and death struggle with Broz''s top hit man in a Boston hotel, Spenser ties Joe Broz to Lowell Hayden, leading to Hayden''s arrest and possibly Broz''s arrest. Dennis Powell was in fact dealing heroin on the university campus, heroin supplied by Broz to Hayden, and Hayden to Powell. Hayden believed the heroin would allow people to realize the truth behind SCACE''s anarchist ideals; Powell dealt it for the sake of the money to be made from it. Believing Powell had betrayed SCACE Hayden had Broz put a hit on Powell, orchestrated the framing of Terry Orchard for the crime, and murdered Cathy Connelly himself to cover it up. The manuscript was stolen by Powell at Hayden''s behest to help fund SCACE''s cause. Broz had Hayden return it in the hopes that Spenser would drop the case before discovering the heroin distribution scheme.

The Godwulf Manuscript

During summer break, at Camp Blue Moon, the vampire Lorenzo "Renz" Angelini sinks his fangs into the throat of sixteen-year-old Destiny Weller. Afterwards, she and her twin sister Livvy return home in Dark Springs with a craving for blood; they feed on a rabbit''s blood and Destiny sucks blood from a package of liver. While at the house of a family friend, Coach Bauer, the sisters meet Marjory Bauer, another vampire. Marjory says she is undead and the Restorer can restore their life. At Dark Springs High School, in Renz''s office, Destiny talks with him and decides he is the Restorer. She asks him if he will help her and her twin. He says that he will come and take care of her at the senior overnight. Back at her house, Destiny greets her friend Nakeisha Johnson, who tells her Renz was left out of the camp yearbook and there are no photos of him. From this, Destiny determines that Renz is actually a vampire and not the Restorer. During the senior overnight, Destiny meets Renz, shoves a wooden tent pole through his body and kills him. Her father appears, and tells her that he is the Restorer. He cures her, and they go and find Livvy and her friend Ross Starr at the edge of a grassy clearing. Livvy tells Destiny and her father that she has been immortal since camp, and that she and Ross exchanged blood. Livvy and Ross change into blackbirds, and fly off into the black sky.

Dangerous Girls

An alien spacecraft arrives on Earth, contact is established, and the two peoples begin to learn about each other. Frank Nobilio, Science Advisor to the American President, and Cletus Calhoun (a Tennessee hillbilly popularizer of science, somewhat like Carl Sagan), are the two main ambassadors to the aliens (who call themselves Tosoks). The Tosoks explain that their ship was damaged in the Kuiper belt (during initial attempted repairs, one of the eight Tosoks died), and they are assured that humans can provide or build the tools necessary to fix it. This will take about two years. Things go well for over a year, with the Tosoks taking a tour of the major civilized countries of Earth, during which they view and are impressed by the August 11, 1999, total solar eclipse. Then Cletus Calhoun is found dead, under circumstances that place one of the aliens, Hask, under suspicion. Calhoun bled to death when his leg was completely severed with a tool unknown to human forensic pathologists; also, his jaw, one eye, and his spleen have been removed and are never found. Hask appears while the police are investigating and, in the Tosok fashion, has shedded his skin; it is speculated that he did so in order to hide any tell-tale blood splatters. Hask is arrested for murder, and the remainder of the novel concerns Hask''s trial in a Los Angeles, California court. Hask maintains that he never murdered Calhoun, who was his friend. His attorney, Dale Rice, an African-American who is famous for defending civil and political rights cases, believes that another Tosok murdered Calhoun for deviant reasons; the Tosoks have as strong a taboo about internal anatomy as most humans do about sex: it is a private matter, not to be shared with others, except for extreme cases, such as surgery. Rice speculates that the Tosok surgeon might be the murderer, or the Tosok named Ged, who shows signs of unnatural interest in the courtroom discussions of internal anatomy, or even the eighth Tosok, reported dead, who might be alive and in hiding. When Rice brings this last hypothesis to the courtroom, Hask is alarmed and announces that he wants to change his plea to guilty. Rice tells Hask that his duty is to defend him. Small things that the other Tosoks do (for example, the surgeon, Stant, pleads the Fifth while on the witness stand) lead Frank and Rice to suspect that the Tosoks are hiding more than one truth from them. At last Hask persuades Rice to take a day off court duty, and they and Frank secretly travel to the Arctic, where the eighth Tosok, Seltar, is indeed alive. They explain to Frank and Rice that the other Tosoks are determined, because of a combination of religious beliefs and a desire to protect the Tosok species, to destroy all intelligent life on Earth, including animals that might evolve intelligence. Most Tosoks share this determination, and they have already exterminated life on other planets. Hask admits that he was responsible for Calhoun''s death, but had not wanted to kill him, only to restrain him. Calhoun had come across Hask secretly communicating with Seltar, his beloved mate; Seltar was to be responsible for destroying the mothership when the Tosok leader, Kelkad, had received repairs to the ship and could then wipe out the humans, hence the need for the story about her death. Armed with this information, the police confront the six complicit Tosoks. Kelkad realizes that Hask has betrayed them and runs to kill him; Hask kills Kelkad instead. The remaining five Tosoks are imprisoned. In the Epilogue, aliens from yet a different planet arrive on Earth, explain that they were to be victims of the Tosok genocide but succeeding in fighting back, and will take the Tosok prisoners with them to make them pay for their crimes. Dale Rice, always the champion of the underdog, goes with them into space to become defense attorney for the accused Tosoks.

Illegal Alien

In the Wedded Bliss, the author mainly puts the focus on his wife Chen Yun as showing his sorrow to beauty. Chen Yun’s is not so beautiful, but she pursues beauty by nature. She takes painting and embroidering as a necessity to composing poem and regards the simple life as the ideal situation. Shen Fu treats her like a close friend who can share with his hobbies and feelings, but the idea is not recognized by the orthodox society, which only remains as the author’s yearning for beauty. The Little Pleasures of Life gives a vivid description of the leisure time activities of Shen Fu: his joys of his childhood, his adult life cultivating flowers, and the experiences of composing poems with other scholars. He tends to be close to nature in childhood and takes delight in nature. While in the adulthood, he has very little time to focus on nature, and is often chained to worldly possessions. Many of the episodes are involved with discussions of aesthetic experiences, which are really worthy of careful thinking. In Sorrow, Shen Fu points out that most of his life frustrations are out of his uprightness and his commitment to words. Though this chapter opens with the author’s own sorrow, actually its large content deals with the bumpy life of Chen Yun which is also due her characters. The content is full of the author’s endless love for his wife and resentment to the unfaire fate. The Joys of Travel not only portrays beautiful scenic spots the author had visited but also records anecdotes, local customs and historical allusions. Different from others, the author holds the belif that the gaining of experience counts rather than having a rough view and following what others said.

Six Records of a Floating Life

Sales of The Stingray Shuffle, a good novel by good novelist Ralph Krunkleton, have soared recently. The book''s publishers, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, mount a publicity blitz culminating in a train journey with the author from New York to Miami. What they do not realize is that no one is reading the book; dealers are using a bookstore as a front, hollowing out copies of Shuffle to hide drugs. Meanwhile, Serge A. Storms and pothead pal Lenny Lipowicz resume their pursuit of $5 million worth of insurance fraud payout. Thrown into the mix are Johnny Vegas the accidental virgin, Paul the passive-aggressive private eye, Ernest Hemingway lookalike Jethro Maddox, and the world''s least competent drug cartel. Most of these characters find their way onto the Stingray Shuffle, the temporarily-rechristened train to Miami. The Stingray Shuffle ties up a three-book plot arc that began with Florida Roadkill, continued with Hammerhead Ranch Motel, and was then shelved for two years while Dorsey wrote the only slightly relative Triggerfish Twist and Orange Crush. It is ultimately revealed that Serge''s plan for the money is to buy a trip into space (and a monogrammed spacesuit) from the Russians.

The Stingray Shuffle

She becomes obsessed with her uncle, Danny Farrell, who has always been a black sheep of sorts in the family. Danny is believed to have died in an airplane flying over China while working for the CIA. Roger''s mother, Brigid, is a powerful widow with a lot of dirty secrets. The family is an example of an Irish Catholic family''s ascent into the upper middle class, perhaps even the upper class, after a few generations, reflecting a common theme of sociologist Greeley. However, aside from Danny, there have been other mysterious deaths in this family, and Noelle courageously probes this dark side of her ancestry, leading to the truth about who she really is. Noelle is clearly the most significant character in the book. Greeley has said that she is meant to embody the Church. She is a spunky girl who once takes over a church service with her guitar-playing rendition of the hymn "Lord of the Dance", much to the dismay of her folk group leader, and gives a spontaneous, powerful homily about life being a dance where God chooses the partners. Sometimes, however, God wants to dance alone, with just us.

Lord of the Dance

:See main article: The crash and rescue Alive tells the story of the Uruguayan Rugby team (who were alumni of Stella Maris College) and their friends and family who were involved in the airplane crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 which crashed into the Andes mountains on Friday, October 13, 1972. Of the 45 people on the flight, only 16 survived, resorting to cannibalism to live. The book was published two years after survivors of the crash were rescued. Read interviewed the survivors and their families for an extensive period of time before writing the book. He comments on this process in the Acknowledgments section: I was given a free hand in writing this book by both the publisher and the sixteen survivors. At times I was tempted to fictionalize certain parts of the story because this might have added to their dramatic impact but in the end I decided that the bare facts were sufficient to sustain the narrative...when I returned in October 1973 to show them the manuscript of this book, some of them were disappointed by my presentation of their story. They felt that the faith and friendship which inspired them in the cordillera do not emerge from these pages. It was never my intention to underestimate these qualities, but perhaps it would be beyond the skill of any writer to express their own appreciation of what they lived through.

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

The novel is the second part of The Second Foundation Trilogy and takes place almost entirely in the same time frame as "The Psychohistorians," which is the first part of the novel Foundation. In addition to telling a more expanded version of Hari Seldon''s confrontation with the Commission of Public Safety it also interweaves R. Daneel Olivaw''s struggle against a sect of robots who oppose his plans for humanity. While covering the same period as in Asimov’s “The Psychohistorians,” Foundation and Chaos focuses more on paternal superrobot R Daneel Olivaw than on Hari Seldon. Olivaw’s 20 millennia of machinations and contrivances are questioned by “Calvinian” robots who do not observe Olivaw’s Zeroth Law (“No robot may harm humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”) developed in Asimov’s Robots and Empire. Olivaw’s actions dampen human intellectual growth and variation until the human species matures. The novel’s primary issue is whether Olivaw’s ends justify his means. Does the ancient Auroran robot really serve humanity’s greater good? Should Olivaw decide this for himself? Seldon seems unaware of Olivaw’s role in perpetuating brain fever and other dampeners. But Seldon would probably approve, considering his quarantining of the New Renaissance worlds when Seldon served as Imperial 1st Minister. Foundation and Chaos portrays the rise of mentallics (telepaths who can influence other’s thoughts) such as Wanda Seldon and Stettin Palver, who will form the Second Foundation. Twisted rogue mentallic Vara Liso even foreshadows the mutant Magnifico’s spectacular rise 310 years later. Powerful Public Safety Commissioner Linge Chen again plays a prominent role as the true Imperial power behind fatuous playboy Emperor Klayus. Reconstructed superrobot Dors Venabili reappears as well.

Foundation and Chaos

The main protagonist in Romero''s novel is Violetta Rosario "Viola" Dananay. Viola narrates her life in the Philippines and her eventual move to the United States. Viola was conceived before the marriage of her parents who belong to Manila''s socialite class. Viola grew up in Manila during the regime of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. Her life was complicated by her quarrelsome parents. One of the main reasons for the disagreements between Viola''s parents was her father''s reputation as a womanizer and philanderer. Viola''s father left the family to live with a pregnant mistress. Viola''s mother, Ludy, left for the United States to escape the indiscretions of her husband, leaving Viola behind. Upon arrival in America, Viola''s mother became an undocumented immigrant working as a maid in New York City. After the fall of the Marcoses, Viola''s father was implicated in charges of corruption committed by the Marcos government. Viola''s father decided to send Viola, already a teenager, to the United States to live with her mother. Viola obeyed her father but with a "secret agenda": to return to the Philippines together with her mother.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Pumpkinification of Claudius

No Author Listed

La Maravilla

No Author Listed

She Died a Lady

By John Dickson Carr

The Godwulf Manuscript

By Robert B. Parker

Dangerous Girls

By R. L. Stine

Illegal Alien

By Robert J. Sawyer

Six Records of a Floating Life

No Author Listed

The Stingray Shuffle

By Tim Dorsey

Lord of the Dance

No Author Listed

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors

By Piers Paul Read

Foundation and Chaos

By Greg Bear

Always Hiding

By Sophia Romero