The Wonderful Visit tells how an angel spends a little more than a week in southern England. He is at first mistaken for a bird because of his dazzling polychromatic plumage, for he is "neither the Angel of religious feeling nor the Angel of popular belief," but rather "the Angel of Italian art." As a result, he is hunted and shot in the wing by an amateur ornithologist, the Rev. K. Hilyer, the vicar of Siddermoton, and then taken in and cared for at the vicarage. The creature comes from "the Land of Dreams" (also the angel''s term for our world), and while "charmingly affable," is "quite ignorant of the most elementary facts of civilisation." During his brief visit he grows increasingly dismayed by what he learns about the world in general and about life in Victorian England in particular. As he grows increasingly critical of local mores, he is eventually denounced as "a Socalist." The vicar, his host, meanwhile comes under attack by fellow clerics, neighbors, and even servants for harboring a disreputable character (no one but the vicar believes he comes from another world, and people take to calling him "Mr. Angel"). The angel''s one talent is his divine violin-playing, but he is discredited at a reception that Lady Hammergallow agrees to host when it is discovered that he cannot read music and confides to a sympathetic listener that he has taken an interest in the vicar''s serving girl, Delia. Instead of healing, his wings begin to atrophy. The local physician, Dr. Crump, threatens to have him put in a prison or a madhouse. After the angel destroys some barbed wire on a local baronet''s property, Sir John Gotch gives the vicar one week to send him away before he begins proceedings against him. The Rev. Mr. Hilyer is regretfully planning how he will take the angel to London and try to establish him there when two catastrophes abort the plan. First, the angel, who "had been breathing the poisonous air of this Struggle for Existence of ours for more than a week," beats Sir John Gotch with Gotch''s own whip in a fury after the local landowner insolently orders him off his land. Distraught to think (mistakenly) that he has killed a man, he returns to the village to find the vicar''s house in flames. Delia, the serving girl, has entered the burning building in an attempt to rescue the angel''s violin: this extraordinary act comes as a revelation to the angel. "Then in a flash he saw it all, saw this grim little world of battle and cruelty, transfigured in a splendour that outshone the Angelic Land, suffused suddenly and insupportably glorious with the wonderful light of Love and Self-Sacrifice." The angel attempts to rescue Delia, someone seems to see "two figures with wings" flash up and vanish among the flames, and a strange music that "began and ended like the opening and shutting of a door" suggests that the angel has gone back to where he came from, accompanied by Delia. An epilogue reveals that "there is nothing beneath" the two white crosses in Siddermorton cemetery that bear the names of Thomas Angel and Delia Hardy, and that the vicar, who never recovered his aplomb after the angel''s departure, died within a year of the fire.

The Wonderful Visit

Kiera the Thief sends a letter to Vlad''s estranged wife Cawti, offering to meet and tell her of Vlad''s most recent adventures. In return for not telling Vlad some of Cawti''s secrets, Kiera insists on making some omissions from her story. The rest of the novel is Kiera''s story, seemingly without the omissions she makes to Cawti. Vlad contacts Kiera from the city of Northport and asks her a favor: break into the mansion of the late Orca businessman Fyres and take any documents she can find. She agrees if he will explain why. He tells her that he went to Northport to find a healer for Savn, a Teckla boy whose mind was damaged during the events of Athyra. A local healer, whom Vlad calls "Mother" because he cannot pronounce her name, agrees to help Savn if Vlad will help fix her problem: she''s being evicted from her cottage. Vlad navigates through a labyrinth of business records to discover that Mother''s land is ultimately owned by Fyres, who only a week ago died on his yacht. Kiera agrees to help Vlad and performs the burglary. She then goes to her local Jhereg contact in the Organization, Stony, and pumps him for information. He tells her that Fyres''s empire was an illusion of loans and deception. Further, his death has devastated a number of businesses, banks, and even some Jhereg crime syndicates, causing most to fold. The closing of banks has ruined many private citizens, including Mother. Vlad becomes suspicious of the quick Imperial investigating that judged Fyres''s death an accident. He disguises himself as a Dragaeran and begins questioning Fyres''s relatives and the Imperial investigators. He quickly determines that a cover-up is underway by at least one covert Imperial agency. Kiera conducts several burglaries and determines that the Empire''s Minister of the Treasury is also involved. During these investigations, Mother makes progress with Savn, who begins to respond more to people around him. Vlad and Kiera''s investigations bring them notice from the conspirators, including Vonnith, who was responsible for closing Mother''s bank. With Vonnith''s help, Vlad is ambushed by Stony, who has learned Vlad''s true identity as an infamous fugitive from the Jhereg Organization''s assassins. With the help of Loiosh, Vlad kills Stony and escapes. Vlad and Kiera use these events to put the pieces into place: Fyres was assassinated by the Jhereg out of revenge, and his death has allowed a small group of conspirators to profit greatly while the government covers up the assassination to maintain the financial stability of the entire Empire. Vlad lays out the scope of the conspiracy before one of the Imperial agents, whose boss had been killed by one of the conspirators. In return for Vlad killing the architect of her boss''s assassination, the agent agrees to get the deed to Mother''s house from Vonnith. With those exceptions, the conspiracy will be allowed to succeed. Jhereg loans will protect most citizens from total bankruptcy, and the market will survive. With everything sorted out, Kiera confronts Vlad about several of his actions during the course of the investigation and Vlad admits that he knows a secret about Kiera. Citing several instances when Kiera''s speaking patterns changed and she displayed more knowledge of arcane military history than would be expected, Vlad reveals that Kiera is in fact an alternate identity of Sethra Lavode, the most powerful sorceress in the world. Kiera admits the truth, but takes comfort in the fact that Vlad, being the only person who knows both Sethra and Kiera, has had the ability to discover her secret. One of Kiera''s omissions in her tale to Cawti appears to be this final revelation. Some time after the end of her tale, Kiera sends another letter to Cawti, sending her best wishes. She also compliments Cawti''s young child, Vlad Norathar, whose existence is apparently one of Cawti''s secrets.

Orca

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!

The eponymous heroine, Isabel Thorne, is a young woman, half British, half Italian, who works for the Italian secret service and who has been commissioned to bring about the signing of the secret contract right in the capital of the enemy by representatives of all countries involved, both European and American. Her brother, an inventor, has devised a secret weapon by which missiles can be fired from submarines (see also depth charge) which will, it is hoped, secure military dominion over the rest of the world. Members of the U.S. Secret Service, who have been alerted, are assigned to prevent the signing of this "Latin compact" and bring to justice those involved who have no diplomatic immunity. One young representative by the name of Grimm, however, although absolutely loyal to his government, falls in love with the beautiful foreign agent. In the end Isabel Thorne, who reciprocates her admirer''s love, becomes estranged from her employer, the Italian government, because she does not want Grimm, who has been captured by the conspirators and knows all their secrets, to be murdered. Stripped of all her power and possessions, she unites with him at the end of the novel, no longer elusive. A trivial novel in its time, Elusive Isabel has been completely forgotten but can now be easily accessed via the Project Gutenberg web site.

Elusive Isabel

The novel opens aboard Hong Kong-based Transpacific Airlines Flight 545, a Norton Aircraft-manufactured N-22 wide-body aircraft, flying from Hong Kong to Denver. An incident occurs on board the plane about a half-hour west of the California coast and the pilot requests an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, stating that the plane encountered "severe turbulence" in flight. The pilot gives air traffic control conflicting information regarding the type and severity of injuries, but does inform them that crew members were hurt and "three passengers are dead." The incident seems inexplicable. The N-22 is a plane with an excellent safety record and the pilot is highly trained, making the possibility of human error unlikely. Passengers and flight crew give concurring accounts of the circumstances of the disaster, and the most likely explanation turns out to be a technical problem that was thought to have been fixed years before. As the vice-president of Quality Assurance at Norton Aircraft, it is Casey Singleton''s job to try to protect the design''s (and Norton''s) reputation, especially since it jeopardizes a crucial aircraft purchase deal with China. However, not only does she have to deal with a ratings-hungry media intent on assigning blame for the incident, she must also deal with Bob Richman, an arrogant and suspicious junior executive assigned to assist her. All the while, she has to navigate the murky politics of the factory union and try and soothe the tempers of disgruntled Norton workers who fear the fallout from the incident will bankrupt the company and cost them their jobs. As Casey investigates further, she discovers a deeper plan at work. Bob Richman had secretly plotted with another Norton executive, John Marder, to oust CEO Harold Edgarton from his position and seize control of the company. They intended to wait for an incident that would put the N-22''s reputation in question and torpedo the company''s deal with China. Then, once in control of Norton, they would secretly negotiate with a South Korean airline for an even larger aircraft deal initially worth several billion dollars, but one that will eventually destroy the company. Casey manages to thwart the plan by finding and then publicly revealing the true cause of the incident. It was not caused by any technical fault in the plane, but was in fact human error: The plane''s captain had allowed his son, also a pilot, but one not certified to fly the N-22, to take the controls in flight. At this point, a mechanical malfunction occurred, caused not by a design flaw at Norton but by poor maintenance practices at Transpacific Airlines. The son panicked and attempted to correct the problem, unaware that the plane already had a failsafe system for such an event. The conflicting control signals caused the plane to maneuver wildly, causing the fatalities. With the N-22''s reputation cleared, the China deal goes off without a hitch and the company''s future is secured. Afterwards, Edgarton promotes Casey to be the head of the company''s Media Relations Division. Richman is fired and later arrested in Singapore for narcotics possession, while Marder leaves the company, supposedly on good terms.

Airframe

Manny and the tools are heading off to their family reunion, when Abuelito, Pepe, Chico and Lola drop by to collect the movie projecter, so they can show old movies at the reunion. Manny''s motorcycle is broken, he drops off at Kelly''s to get the spare part and Pat finds his "cousin" on the front of the hardware catalogue. They set off, but then realise that the gas tank is low of gas. They spot a gas-station and spot the gas pump is broken. Manny fixes it and fills up. A big hardware truck comes and fills up. Pat spots it has his "cousin" on the front. He, Flicker and Squeeze travel into the delivery van and try to find his "cousin". They stay in there too long and are soon found travelling along the road! Manny comes out of the gas-station shop with snacks. They realise that three tools are missing. Pops, the gas-station owner says that the truck is heading for Big Town Hardware. Manny tries to get to the truck and takes the back way, which is the quickest. They reach a farm and some cows are on the road. Manny trys to overtake them but hit a rock and has blown tyre. To pass the time, Manny decides to round up the cows and put them in their field. He fixes the fence, so they can''t get out any more. A farmer comes along and Manny tells him about the blown tyre. The farmer introduces his family of animals and fixes the tyre. Manny thanks the farmer and drives off. Meanwhile, in the delivery truck Pat and the other look to see if Manny is coming. They are not. They are travelling along, when a bridge that has been destroyed stops them. They try to jump over the lagoon. Manny and the tools cross the lagoon safely. They are on the road again and spot Big Town Hardware, where Pat and the others are Manny thinks they are the truck, but they are not. Pat and the others are searching for Pat''s "cousin" inside. They spot a cardboard drawing of him, but don''t see him for real. They wait in the truck, but Manny and the tools are inside the building. When Pat, Flicker and Squeeze are in the truck, it drives off. Manny comes out of the building, just in time and spots Pat and the others. He chases the truck on his motorcycle. A van is in front and will not let Manny pass. A few minutes later, the van turns out into another road and Manny can go faster. They see the truck and take a shortcut to get there. Manny is behind the delivery truck and Pat and the others see them. Manny tries to overtake the truck, but a car passes. Stretch leaps on the windscreen of the truck and gets the driver to stop. The driver stops and Manny gets the tools out of the delivery van. He thanks the driver to stop and heads off to his family reunion. He meets Uncle Tito, Grandma Pedro, Aunt Sonia, Aunt Lupe and Uncle Igre. The episode ends with the family singing Family Reunion.

Handy Manny''s Motorcycle Adventure

The book tells the story of Ted Mundy, a Pakistani-born Briton who as a student becomes proficient in the German language. He joins a 1960s-era student protest group in West Berlin and becomes a lifelong friend of a West German student anarchist named Sasha. Having been brutally beaten by West Berlin police and ejected from Germany, Mundy fails at several careers, as a teacher at an English prep school, as a newspaper reporter, a radio interviewer and a novelist. Eventually Mundy obtains a position with the British Council. Meanwhile, Sasha has defected to East Germany to become a member of the notorious Stasi secret police. On a trip to East Germany with a youth theatre group, Mundy and Sasha meet again. By this time Sasha has become totally disillusioned with the Communist Bloc and enlists the naive Mundy to become a double agent. Sasha has access to state secrets and he recruits Mundy to help him smuggle them out of East Germany and deliver them to MI6, the British Secret Service. Their efforts contribute to the collapse of the GDR and eventual destruction of the Berlin Wall. Later, Sasha and Mundy once again conspire in grandiose schemes to combat American military and industrial globalization. The two ideologues become pawns of the group they thought they were combating. After they are killed, they are portrayed as terrorists "with connections to Al-Qaeda", in efforts to convince European governments to support the United States in its "war on terror". After Mundy''s death, Amory, his controller from the British intelligence service during his espionage years, tries to publicize the truth, but slander by the British government results in his story being totally discredited. The novel is a chilling reminder of the ability of governments and groups to manipulate public thinking to achieve their private ends, and underlines the need for people to not simply believe what they are told/sold without question.

Absolute Friends

Olivier Ameisen is a French Doctor practising in New York. He has a private Cardiology practice, a varied social life, and work that he loves doing. He is a gifted pianist with a loving girlfriend. There is no reason for him to drink to excess and no history of drinking in his family, but nonetheless he becomes an alcoholic. The book starts with an embarrassing blackout episode and being treated in an emergency room by one of his ex-students. Ameisen attempts many different ways to stop drinking. He attends hundreds of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, takes medication, goes to various expensive rehabs, and seeks the guidance of educated friends. For fear of harming patients, he quits practising and closes his business. Nothing that he tries works and he continues to relapse, regardless of the consequences. He starts to drink so much he is no longer aware if it night or day, and regularly ends up needing medical treatment for injuries sustained while drinking. He is eventually committed to hospital as a result of an intervention, and faces the loss of his New York medical licence, along with financial ruin caused by expensive stays in rehab and unemployment. Losing everything in New York, he returns home to France to live with his elderly mother. He keeps drinking and is committed to hospital again by his family. Olivier''s mother dies and he begins to feel there is no chance of controlling his drinking. His girlfriend sends him an article about Baclofen. He begins experimenting with taking the drug, and finds this drug removes all his cravings for alcohol. The second part of the book details his attempts to get his findings fully researched and published, and ends with a call for more research. Despite his achievements, Ameisen relates how he has been plagued by feeling of insecurity and anxiety, and suffered panic attacks throughout his life.

The End Of My Addiction

David Fyfe, a high school English teacher, brings Wolfe a problem regarding a contract and inheritance. His brother Bert has just died of pneumonia and left his estate to David, another brother Paul, and their sister Louise Fyfe Tuttle. But under the terms of an agreement with Bert''s business partner, Johnny Arrow, all assets from their uranium mining operation go to Arrow, and the assets represent nearly all of Bert''s five million dollar estate. Paul Fyfe thinks that Arrow might have killed Bert before he could shelter his assets by giving them to his relatives. The family hires Wolfe to determine whether there''s enough evidence of a crime to refer the matter to the police. Twenty years earlier, Bert was charged with the murder of his father. Bert was acquitted, largely on the basis of an alibi provided by Vincent Tuttle, at the time his roommate and later his brother-in-law. After his acquittal Bert broke contact with his family and moved to Canada, where, in partnership with Arrow, he struck it rich in uranium. Having recently returned to New York to re-establish ties with his family, Bert invited them to his hotel suite for dinner, and to a Broadway show. But Bert fell ill with pneumonia and required bed rest and 24-hour nursing care. Paul, a masher, manhandled nurse Anne Goren, who phoned the attending physician to send another nurse. Louise Tuttle volunteered to watch Bert, and Miss Goren left. Then Paul got into a fistfight with Arrow over Miss Goren, who had aroused romantic and protective feelings in Arrow. Arrow beat Paul so badly that he was arrested and spent the night in jail. That night, Bert died, and his doctor certifies that the death was due to pneumonia. Paul now suggests that Arrow might have found a way to substitute something toxic for the morphine that the doctor had left with the nurse. There are several strange aspects to Bert''s death. One is that Bert''s father had died in a similar fashion 20 years earlier – someone had opened the bedroom windows on a snowy winter night as the father lay asleep, also suffering from pneumonia. Louise Tuttle has felt guilty ever since, because she was supposed to be looking after him but had fallen asleep in the next room. Then there''s the matter of the missing ice cream. Paul had brought two quarts of ice cream to Bert''s hotel room and put them in the refrigerator. It went uneaten due to the subsequent events, but somehow it has disappeared. Wolfe sends Archie to see Paul, Louise and Vincent in Mount Kisco to check on the morphine, and while he''s there to investigate the ice cream''s disappearance. Yet another strange aspect is that when Bert''s body was found, there were two hot water bags next to him. The presence of the bags was expected; that they were both empty was not.

Three for the Chair

Wedge Antilles, fresh back from the Bacta War on Thyferra, decides to make a new fighter squadron/commando team. While pitching the idea to Admiral Ackbar, he proposes a way to build the squadron without any cost to the New Republic: he''ll use screw-ups, wash-outs, and pilots who are a hair''s breadth of being kicked out of Fighter Command&mdash;the pilots that no one else will take. Whilst Rogue Squadron was compiled from elite pilots with ground fighting expertise as a secondary, this new squadron was to be consisted of expert ground combatants with piloting skills as a secondary. Antilles, with help from Wes Janson, scrounges up a team that comes to be known as Wraith Squadron: *Jesmin Ackbar, communications expert and the niece of Admiral Ackbar *Hohass "Runt" Ekwesh, a Thakwaash with multiple personalities *Garik "Face" Loran, a former Imperial child-recruitment actor *Voort "Piggy" SaBinring, a Gamorrean pilot *Kell Tainer, the son of a Rebel pilot that Janson was forced to kill and a demolitions expert *Myn Donos, the sole surviving pilot of an Imperial ambush to his Talon squadron *Ton Phanan, former doctor and part mechanical *Falynn Sandskimmer, vehicle specialist from Tatooine with chronic insolence *Tyria Sarkin, former Antari Ranger with minor Force abilities *Eurrsk "Grinder" Thri''ag, an expert code slicer and prankster The novel focuses on Wraith Squadron''s antics as it goes undercover as the crew of Night Caller, an Imperial blockade runner under the employ of Warlord Zsinj.

Wraith Squadron

Lyle works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and spends evenings seated close to the television, rapidly flipping channels, while his wife Pammy works at a "grief management firm" in the World Trade Center. While their marriage is free of problems and they have many friends, a cloud of ennui hangs over their domestic life. Pammy joins her friends Ethan and Jack on a trip to Maine, where they come to the realization that their collective nostalgia for simpler times and rural life is largely invented. Pammy begins a sexual relationship with Jack, who is in a homosexual relationship with Ethan, which ultimately ends in Jack''s inexplicable self-immolation at a nearby junkyard. Meanwhile, in a divergent and concurrent storyline, Lyle witnesses the shooting death of one of his acquaintances, George Sedbauer, on the floor of the exchange. Through this event, Lyle becomes privy to a vague conspiracy of violent terrorists targeting Wall Street, and his curiosity draws him into their fold. His recruitment and participation are equally inexplicable, a function of the draw of revolutionary activity and respite from the boredom of his ordinary life. His engagement with the radicals, themselves devoid of any morality or particular ideology, becomes more absurd when he attempts to inform on them to equally ill-defined government agents, and begins having sexual relationships with two other conspirators. Lyle discovers that J. Kinnear, one of the shadow key figures in the terrorist network, is a double-agent himself and the web of essentially meaningless conspiracies appears to be endless and be the end in itself; pursued not for chaotic ends, but for the sake of imposing structural order on what the "players" view to be chaos.

Players

When Adam Forrest comes to re-paint the outside of the Unicorn Inn in Vendale he is determined to make sense of an old story told in the Dyson and Owland families. Long ago, it is said, Dyson the innkeeper desired to marry Gertrude Owland, the daughter of a knight, who lived on the other side of the ridge in Thoradale. She was willing, but the knight refused permission and trained a pack of hounds, together with a fierce unicorn brought from overseas, to defend her. Dyson used magic to entice the animals into the land of the fairies under the fell, while he eloped with Gertrude. However, he did not know that all the Owland fortune was in the collars of the animals, and he was later drowned by the fairies while trying to retrieve it. According to local legend, the hounds can sometimes still be heard hunting under the hill. Mary and Nan Owland live at Lew Farm, near the site of the old Owland house. Mary is young enough to believe in the fairies of the tale and to believe that the hounds and the unicorn are still alive under the fell, while her older sister Nan does not believe any of it. Adam thinks there is a common-sense explanation and, quite possibly, a treasure to find. While repainting the inn sign he finds an ancient hunting horn embedded in the frame. He guesses that Dyson used it to draw the hounds towards a steep black cliff between the dales known as Yowncorn Yat (local dialect for "Unicorn Gate"), the cliff having acted as an echo wall. One night Mary sneaks out to Yowncorn Yat and crawls through a tunnel under the hill which she thinks is an entrance to fairyland. She catches one of the hounds, except that it turns out to be a fox, and unknowingly picks up some silver treasure and a horned skull at the bottom of a mineshaft. Adam is sure he has worked it all out except that he cannot account for the skull which could only have belonged to a unicorn.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Wonderful Visit

By H. G. Wells

Orca

By Steven Brust

Grunts!

No Author Listed

Elusive Isabel

By Jacques Futrelle

Airframe

By Michael Crichton

Handy Manny's Motorcycle Adventure

No Author Listed

Absolute Friends

By John le Carré

The End Of My Addiction

No Author Listed

Three for the Chair

By Rex Stout

Wraith Squadron

By Aaron Allston

Players

By Don DeLillo

A Grass Rope

By William Mayne