James Caplon Answell arranges to visit his future father-in-law, Avory Hume, at his house in London. Hume invites the prospective bridegroom into his strong room that is fitted with sturdy metal shutters and a thick wooden door. The room contains trophies and arrows that relate to Hume''s hobby of archery, and they chat about archery while Hume pours drinks from a cut-glass decanter. As Answell collapses, he realizes that the drink has been drugged. When he comes to, he''s alone in the locked and bolted room with Hume, who has been fatally skewered with an arrow. The remainder of the novel takes place at Answell''s trial for the murder of Hume, and he is being defended by barrister and amateur detective Sir Henry Merrivale. We learn that Hume has set the actions of the plot in motion because he believes that he is having an interview not with the wealthy and blameless man who wants to marry his daughter, but a similarly named relative, Captain Answell, who is blackmailing her (and in a plot development that is extremely frank for the mores of 1938, she is being blackmailed because she posed for "obscene" photographs for her lover). Hume''s household has participated to some extent in the activities that have conspired to make Answell look guilty. The decanter with the drugged drink has been replaced with an innocuous duplicate, and some mysteriously disappearing items include a suitcase full of clothing and an ink-pad. But it is the location of a tiny piece of blue feather from the fatal arrow that proves to be the decisive clue that reveals the murderer—it''s revealed in the climactic courtroom scene to be hidden in the "Judas window". In the British prison system, a "Judas window" is in the door of a cell and enables the guards to observe prisoners without being seen themselves. But Sir Henry Merrivale points out another Judas window that is in every room, but that no one notices.

The Judas Window

Together again in the summer holidays, the Five Find Outers are finding the hot summer rather dull - until they learn that Peterswood is apparently the headquarters of a gang of poachers who are carrying out burglaries outside of the village. It appears that the gang may be passing messages to each other in Peterswood. Fatty''s voice has broken, and this allows him to use a wide range of new adult disguises. Fatty tries out various new disguises including that of an old balloon selling woman, and finally disguising himself as an old tramp who spends his afternoons sitting on a bench in the middle of the village. The children discover that the old man was being used by the gang to pass on messages. The children learn that the gang plan to meet at a waxworks hall, to discuss their next robbery. Fatty disguises himself as Napoleon so that he can listen in on the gang''s meeting. Mr Goon, however, has the same idea and disguises himself as a policeman. Unfortunately, during the gang meeting, Mr.Goon sneezes, giving the game away - but Fatty is caught instead. The gang tie Fatty up and lock him in a cupboard before leaving to carry out their latest jewellery robbery. Mr. Goon leaves Fatty locked in the cupboard to teach him a lesson, but luckily Larry returns to the Town hall and frees him. The children believe that Mr Goon has solved the mystery before them, as the jewel thieves are arrested. However, a pearl necklace they stole is missing. The grand mystery has a grand ending, then.

The Mystery of the Missing Necklace

In Sliding Scales Flinx is confounded by how to proceed with his life. He abandoned his injured girlfriend, Clarity Held, on the planet New Riveria under the protection of his friends Truzenzuzex and Bran Tse-Mallory (see events in Flinx''s Folly) with the understanding he would search the galaxy for the Tar-Aiym weapons platform that has once been in the system Pyrassis. Not knowing where to go to start the search, Flinx first visits his homeworld of Moth, then broods as his ship, Teacher takes in aimlessly through the galazy. Teacher’s AI suggests something unusual to take him out of his funk: a vacation. This is followed another surprising suggestion: that he take the vacation in an isolated world that falls within the reach of the AAnn Empire, a near-desert planet named Jast. The native sentient species of Jast is the Vssey, a single-sex species that resembles and acts much like a giant mobile mushroom. The Vssey are loosely allied with the AAnn, though not yet a part of their empire. Some members of the Vssey are strongly opposed to a closer alliance, though the ruling government seeks to bring the two worlds closer together. Flinx enters this unsettled atmosphere and is immediately suspected of being a spy for the Humanx Commonwealth. Taken by Secondary Administrator Takuuna VBXLLW on what is to be a sightseeing tour of a canyon. Either through accident or fortune Takunna’s tail knocks Flinx over the edge of the canyon and to his death. Flinx manages to survive the fall, but with a head injury causing amnesia. He wanders the Jast desert for several days before being rescued by a Chraluuc, a member of a most unusual organization: an AAnn artist colony known as the Tier of Ssaiinn. Considered outcasts by AAnn society, Flinx is safe among these aliens, so safe that he is actually adopted by the Tier under the name Flinx LLVVRXX once he proves to them he has the soul of an artist. Meanwhile, back in the cities of Jast, an insurrection is ongoing as a faction of Vssey start a bombing campaign against the AAnn. Based on his success in getting rid of the supposed Commonwealth spy Flinx, Takuuna is given the assignment of tracking down this disruptive element. Although he uses the best of AAnn intimidation and hunting techniques, his mission is a failure until a bit of luck and a low-level functionary delivers the name of the one and only terrorist. Fortune also provides him with the location of Flinx, the human he thought he had killed. Takuuna travels to the Tier to arrest Flinx, but finds his efforts thwarted by the Tier’s unusual Imperial charter. Nevertheless he manages to get special authorization to arrest one of their members and forces Flinx into hiding in canyon where the artist group is creating a group project. Cornered, Flinx and Chraluuc seek safety in a Tier built shelter, but circumstances arise allowing one of Takuuna’s soldiers to kill Chraluuc. The shock of seeing his friend killed allows Flinx to respond, instinctively, with his empathic Talent, knocking out Takuuna and driving the soldier permanently insane. His memory restored, Flinx is able to contact Teacher and leave the troubled world of Jast. Takuuna is airlifted from the Tier, but his transport is sabotaged by the singular Vssey terrorist killing him and destroying the AAnn Authority’s transportation annex. Flinx decides he has had enough of a vacation—from the Commonwealth and himself—and heads back to his home territory.

Sliding Scales

In 1933 Reza Shah signed a deal selling Iranian oil extraction rights to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later called British Petroleum (BP). Though Iran was officially neutral at the start of World War II, its monarch was friendly towards the Axis. Following the 1941 Allied Invasion of Iran, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Shah, who upheld the oil agreement with APOC, which by then had been renamed the "Anglo-Iranian Oil Company". When the first democratically elected parliament and prime minister in Iran took power in 1950 they planned to seize the oil assets in Iran that had been developed by the British, violating the still running oil contract with British Petroleum. The British Government followed to court in Belgium''s International Court and lost the case against Iran''s new government. Great Britain reacted by blockading the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, halting Iran''s trade and economy. The US was concerned that Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh was seeking help from local superpower, the Soviet Union, in the case against Great Britain. The Dwight D. Eisenhower administration agreed with the Churchill government to restore the pro-western Shah to power. In the summer of 1953, the CIA and Britain''s MI6 arranged a coup in Tehran. The Iranian prime minister was successfully overthrown. Mossadegh spent the rest of his life on his country estate under house arrest, and Iran remained a staunch Cold War ally of the West. After more than 20 years of the Shah''s rule, there was a bloody revolution in 1979 after which Iran became the Islamic Republic it is today. Regarding US policy as it developed towards Iran in the early 1950s, the book portrays it as having been variously driven by the fear of annoying the British, or attempting to be an honest broker, or as being motivated by efforts to stop the spread of Communism. The fact (stated at the end of the book) that US companies were granted the majority of the oil concessions from the Shah''s government after the coup, does not feature significantly in the earlier part of the narrative. However, that this was the chief reason for the coup is the tacit conclusion of the book. The British critic David Pryce-Jones takes strong issue with this conclusion in his essay "A Very Elegant Coup" (link below). In his view, the attempted Communist takeover of Iran was the chief issue, and the portrayal of the CIA by Kinzer as ''arrogant, thuggish and immoral'' was originally a notion put forward by leftists who sympathized with the attempt.

All the Shah''s Men

The book is narrated in the first person, in the manner of a coming-of-age story, or Bildungsroman. The protagonist, tracing his life from early childhood, is Omon Krivomazov, born in Moscow in the post-World War II years. In his teenage years, the realization strikes him that he must break free of Earth''s gravity to free himself of the demands of the Soviet society and the rigid ideological confines of the state. After finishing high school, he immediately enrolls in a military academy. Omon soon finds that the academy does not, in fact, create future pilots, but instead exposes cadets to a series of treacherous trials, beginning with the amputation of both of their feet, so they can manifest Soviet heroism. This military school pecularities are coming as a reference to a famous Soviet ace-pilot Alexey Maresyev, who despite being badly injured in a plane crash after a dogfight, managed to return to the Soviet-controlled territory on his own. During his 18-day long journey, his injuries deteriorated so badly that both of his legs had to be amputated below the knee. Desperate to return to his fighter pilot career, he subjected himself to nearly a year of exercise to master the control of his prosthetic devices, and succeeded at that, returning to flying in June 1943. In the book, before such intentional "amputation" happens, though, Omon and his friend are whisked out of the academy into a top-secret installation under KGB headquarters in Moscow, where they start preparing for an "unmanned" mission to the Moon - he is told that to substitute for researching, building and launching an automated probe, the Party prefers people, trained for "heroism", to fulfill the tasks nominally performed by machines, such as rocket stage separation, space vehicle course correction and so on. Soon Omon indeed seems to be launched to the Moon, strapped into a seat inside a Lunokhod, which he is meant to drive like a bicycle on the lunar surface, as the last piece in the space mission puzzle, in order to deliver a radio beacon to a specific point and activate it. This he does, even though his protection against the vacuum and the interstellar cold, once he leaves the confines of the hermetically sealed Lunokhod, consists of a cotton-filled overcoat and "special hydrocompensatory tampons" stuffed up his nose. However, when it comes the time for him to shoot himself after placing the beacon, as ordered, the gun he was given for that purpose misfires, and he finds himself not on the Moon at all, but in an abandoned subway tunnel, where he had been driving his Lunokhod all along, carefully ignoring all signs which might have given him a clue as to his real whereabouts. He tries to escape, is given chase, but manages to find his way into the "normal" world again, coming up into one of the stations of the Moscow Metro. One of Omon''s "teachers" explains the idea behind the charade. The idea is that even if the fact that the Soviet Union is a champion of peaceful space exploration holds true only inside a person''s head (namely, the hero''s; no one knows of him or his mission apart from its organizers), this is not much different from it being the reality. The reality, when it concerns subjects not capable of being experienced, is in fact only a perception formed in people''s consciousness, and can be manipulated to the extent that the question of "true" version of events becomes meaningless (this idea juxtaposes with the conspiracy theories concerning the moon landing by the United States astronauts, even though the latter is never mentioned in the novel). The book met with a significant success in the early post-Soviet cultural landscape and continues to be reprinted with the later works by Pelevin.

Omon Ra

The story centers on the relationship between Mrs Kitty Warren, a brothel owner, described by the author as "on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman" and her daughter, Vivie. The play also focuses on Mrs. Warren''s handsome young friends Mr. Praed and George Crofts, and the local reverend, Samuel Gardner, who becomes the catalyst of the play by revealing Mrs. Warren''s profession. The play focuses on the social hypocrisy and relationships of the characters, who are all middle class other than Sir George Crofts. Vivie Warren is a modern and highly educated lady of the late Victorian period, distinguishing herself at the Acturial Mathematics Tripos at the university. Vivie, Mrs. Warren''s (the name was adopted by Mrs. Warren to hide her true identity and to give the impression that she is married) daughter, meets Praed, her mother''s friend and through their conversation it is revealed that Mrs. Warren and Vivie do not have a close relationship. Within the same Act Mrs Warren returns to her home after time away bringing with her two friends, Mr. Praed, an architect, and George Crofts, a man close to Mrs. Warren''s old profession and sexual relations. Both are bachelors. Vivie is shown to have a romantic relationship with Frank Gardner, whose father, the Reverend Samuel Gardner also joins into the group. His fleeting mention of Mrs. Warren''s past and and their reactions to meeting each other make it clear that he was familiar with her when she was a prostitute, even though it is not explicitly said. Mrs. Warren explains her impoverished past and decision to be a prostitute at last to her daughter, but hides the fact that she is still in the business. Vivie, is horrified to discover from Crofts (who is attracted to her despite being old enough to be her father) that her mother''s fortune was made managing high-class brothels. The reconciliation of Mrs. Warren and Vivie ends at this point as Vivie flees from these revelations to Honoria Fraser''s chambers to become independent of her mother''s wealth, which provided for her before. At a last confrontation when Praed and Frank are finally knowledegable of the truth and when there is a last appeal and calculative manipulation by Mrs. Warren, the play ends with Mrs. Warren deciding to leave her daughter.

Mrs. Warren''s Profession

The plot concerns the title character, Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin. As a boy, he is considered unattractive, withdrawn, and an object of ridicule by his classmates. One day, when a guest comes to his father''s party, he is asked whether he knows how to play chess. This encounter serves as his motivation to pick up chess. He skips school and visits his aunt''s house to learn the basics. He quickly becomes a great player, enrolling in local competitions and rising in rank as a chess player. His talent is prodigious and he attains the level of a Grandmaster in less than ten years. As his obsession with chess grows, he becomes socially detached and physically unhealthy. At a resort, he meets a young girl, never named in the novel, whose interest he captures. They become romantically involved, and Luzhin eventually proposes to her. Things turn for the worse when he is pitted against Turati, a grandmaster from Italy, in a competition to determine who would face the current world champion. Before and during the game, Luzhin has a mental breakdown, which climaxes when his carefully planned defense against Turati fails in the first moves, and the resulting game fails to produce a winner. When the game is suspended Luzhin wanders into the city in a state of complete detachment from reality. He is returned home and brought to a rest home, where he eventually recovers. His doctor convinces Luzhin''s fiancée that chess was the reason for his downfall, and all reminders of chess are removed from his environment. Slowly however, chess begins to find its way back into his thoughts (aided by incidental occurrences, such as an old pocket chessboard found in a coat pocket, or an impractical chess game in a movie). Luzhin begins to see his life as a chess game, seeing repetitions of ''moves'' that return his obsession with the game. He desperately tries to find the move that will defend him from losing his chess life-game, but feels the scenario growing closer and closer. Eventually, after an encounter with his old chess mentor, Valentinov, Luzhin realizes that he must "abandon the game," as he puts it to his wife (who is desperately trying to communicate with him). He locks himself in the bathroom (his wife and several dinner guests banging on the door). He climbs out a window, and it is implied he falls to his death, but the ending is deliberately vague. The last line of the (translated) novel reads: "The door was burst in. ''Aleksandr Ivanovich, Aleksandr Ivanovich,'' roared several voices. But there was no Aleksandr Ivanovich."

The Defense

The party led by Quenthel Baenre journeys to the drow city of Ched Nasad in hopes of learning more about Lloth''s silence. The beginning of the book is mostly a running battle as Quenthel Baenre foolishly commands the party to travel through the domain of Kaanyr Vhok who immediately dispatches his Tanarukk soldiers (led by an Alu-fiend) to destroy the party. The Alu-fiend takes an interest in Pharaun Mizzrym early but continues to harry them. The party eventually makes it to Ched Nasad. Once there, they realize Ched Nasad is in real danger. The city is very much in conflict as the lesser races have taken to the streets and violence is around every corner. One of Ched Nasad''s noble houses has contracted with a Duergar mercenary band to attack the city (A plot which they believe will ultimately make their house rise to power). Unfortunately for the drow, the duergar do too good of a job with their stonefire bombs and in the ensuing battle Ched Nasad is destroyed. Quenthel''s party fights at every turn to try and escape the doomed city and eventually they reach a portal (with the help of two new female additions to the party named Halisstra Melarn and Danifae). The book ends just as the drow party escape through the portal and the City''s Calcified web strands give out causing Ched Nasad to fall to its doom. This book introduces the characters Halisstra and Danifae to the drow party, both of whom go on to become prominent in the rest of the series.

Insurrection

The novel is broken into thirteen chapters, with the first five being the development of King Arthur''s background, while the remaining are nearly stand-alone stories covering the exploits of different knights. He is shown as the son of Uther Pendragon, begot upon Lady Igraine with the assistance of Merlin. Merlin did not feature in Sutcliff''s previous Arthurian stories of Sword at Sunset, but is shown here as being the driving force behind the ascension of King Arthur and his court. Merlin is depicted as being descended from the Lordly Ones, or the ''Little Dark People'', as Sutcliff commonly refers to the possible original inhabitants of Great Britain. He orchestrates Arthur''s upbringing under Sir Ector, alongside his foster brother Sir Kay. Arthur''s identity as ruler of Britain is revealed when he pulls the Sword from the Stone, but he later receives Excalibur, a different sword, from the Lady in the Lake. The rest of the novel''s chapters cover many of the other classic Arthurian characters and tales, including: the origins of Lancelot of the Lake, as well as his encounters with Elaine;Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Beaumains, the Kitchen Knight; Tristan and Iseult, in a retelling nearly identical to Sutcliff''s earlier novel of the same name, albeit a much shorter version; Geraint and Enid; Gawain and the Loathly Lady; and finally the arrival of Percival at Arthur''s court, which is connected by Merlin''s previous prophecies to presage the beginning of the Round Table''s downfall. The book stops here, to be continued in The Light Beyond the Forest and The Road to Camlann.

The Sword and the Circle

This book takes place in 1872. A young woman called Sally Lockhart goes to visit where her father used to work, a shipping company named Lockhart & Selby. Sally’s father, Matthew Lockhart, died when his ship, the schooner Lavinia, sank when he was coming back from talking to the Dutch shipping agent Hendrik VanEeden. Matthew Lockhart was a former army man, and Sally''s late mother was fighter in the Indian Mutiny. On the morning the book begins, Sally received a note in the mail and went to ask her father’s partner, Samuel Selby, what the note meant. Instead she saw Mr. Higgs, Mr. Selby’s secretary, and asked him two things: if he knew of a man named Marchbanks and if he had heard of something called the “Seven Blessings”. After she asked about the letter, Mr. Higgs had a heart attack and died. She tells the porter and finds out that she has to go to the inquest because she was a witness. Sally meets a thirteen year old office boy named Jim Taylor to whom she shows the letter. Jim informs Sally that the letter said that the man named Marchbanks lived in Chatham in Kent. He also volunteers his help, but she doesn’t need it at the moment. Sally goes back to her aunt’s house, where she lives now, and is mocked by her aunt at having no ladylike accomplishments (she CAN shoot a pistol and do financial work). Sally visits a man called Mr Marchbanks, while she is there he gives her book containing information about things which happened when Sally was little. Marchbanks tells her she must leave because there is a woman in his house who is their enemy. The woman follows Sally away from the house but Sally hides from her in the tent of a photographer named Frederick Garland. Before she leaves, he hands her his business card to keep if she ever finds herself in trouble again. She gets on a train and starts to read the book Mr Marchbanks gave her. She falls asleep and when she wakes up the book is gone and the only thing left behind are a few loose pages. The only thing that she remembers is that the offender wore a bright tweed suit, and a brown bowler hat with a pin in it. She frantically searches, but, the book is really gone. Across town, around the same time, young Adelaide is tending to one of Mrs. Hollands'' guests. Along with the soup and bread she bring him, she lights him a pipe containing opium. This is a regular affair, since the man will give useful information to do with a large sum of money when under the influence of opium (an addictive drug). He begins to rave, as usual, and mentions that he must find Sally Lockheart, because he has a message from her father. He makes Adelaide promise to not tell Mrs. Holland, for she is an evil woman, and he begins to rave nonsense once again. Adelaide later meets with Jim, whom she tells about the man''s raves. Jim promises to pass the message onto Sally, and he writes her a letter, suggesting they meet as soon as possible, to discuss the matter at hand. Later in the story, Sally finds out that Major Marchbanks was her father, who sold her to Matthew Lockheart for a ruby and that her "father" made up the story of her romantic mother. She leaves her Aunt and finds out she is just taking care of her because she gets money from Sally''s father Mrs. Holland claims the ruby is hers, because the former owner of the ruby was in love with her (and claims she was prettier than Sally). Mrs. Holland killed Sally''s father. Sally throws the ruby that Fredrick found into the water and Mrs. Holland goes after it and drowns. THE END This book is the first of the Sally Lockhart Quartet: # The Ruby in the Smoke # The Shadow in the North # The Tiger in the Well # The Tin Princess

The Ruby in the Smoke

Pete Garden, the protagonist, is one of several residents who own large swathes of property in a depopulated, post-apocalyptic future world. These residents are organized in groups of regular competitors who play a board game called "Bluff". These contestants (or "Bindmen") stake their property, marriages and future status as eligible game players on its outcomes. Pete also experiences bipolar disorder, which may adversely affect his competence as a Game participant. The Game is administered by amorphous, silicon-based aliens from Titan, Saturn''s largest satellite. These creatures, known as the vugs, are obsessed with gambling. In addition, the Game''s exogamy helps to promote human fertility after the devastation of global warfare, after satellite-borne "Henkel Radiation" weaponry from Red China sterilized much of the Earth''s population. The vug exert hegemony over Earth but do not occupy it as such. Instead, it is visualised as a paternalistic relationship. Moreover, while the vugs are telepaths, they do not allow the use of human telepathy or precognition within the context of the Game. It is also the case that the vugs are involved within human society, using induced hallucination to maintain the semblance of human form. They also perpetuate the charade through the use of physical human shells or simulacra. At the beginning, Pete has lost his favorite property, Berkeley, and his wife, Freya. Moreover, Berkeley''s new owner has sold it to a notoriously corrupt Bindman from the East Coast, Jerome Luckman. Pete misses Freya, and worries about the compatibility of his new wife. He is also attracted to Pat McClain, a mysteriously fertile woman living within his remaining property, as well as Mary Anne, her eighteen year-old daughter. Pat is a telepath, while her husband Allen is precognitive, and their daughter manifests telekinesis. These telepaths resent the fact that they are not allowed to participate in the Game, due to possible abuse of their abilities during the contest. Pete breaks off his tentative relationship with Pat when he discovers that his new wife, Carol, is pregnant - a rare occurrence in this largely infertile, depopulated world. Luckman, the new owner of Berkeley, is murdered, and Pete is implicated, along with six other members of his group, Pretty Blue Fox. However, Pete and the other group members are suffering from induced amnesia, and this only makes them look even more suspicious in the eyes of both vug and human law enforcement officials. Pete discovers that vugs are abusing their own psionic abilities to appear human. However, the vugs also have their own political factions, which further complicates matters. "Extremists" favour subversion and conquest of Earth, while "moderates" favour the status quo of paternalistic collaboration. Fertile humans begin an underground resistance against the vugs, but in the ultimate ironic twist, they are replaced by vugs posing as humans. Pretty Blue Fox syndicate members are teleported to Titan where they play a decisive end-Game with Titanian vug counterparts for the geopolitical future of the United States. * Rossi, Umberto, “The Game of the Rat: A.E. Van Vogt’s 800-Words Rule and P.K. Dick’s The Game-Players of Titan”, Science-Fiction Studies #93, 31:2, July 2004, pp.&nbsp;207–26.

The Game-Players of Titan

The story starts in Honolulu in 1941, where a Japanese boy, Eddy, lives. He has a brother, Herbie, and numerous friends. His friends are in the army, and Eddy, who is 16 years old, joins the US army by illegally altering his birth certificate to appear 18 years old. They enlist in Camp McCoy. Eddy''s father strongly opposes this as he feels that Eddy is betraying Japan, but soon Japan attacks Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Eddy and his Japanese company must do manual labor, such as digging trenches, while the soldiers of other nationalities go on with regular army training. He then is mobilized by Lieutenant Sweet to Cat Island, Mississippi, along with his comrades. They then embark on a secret mission commissioned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which is for training dogs: Dogs are trained to smell the Japanese people, and this is training them so that when they are released in the Pacific theater, the dogs would track and kill the Japanese soldiers. This severely demoralizes the soldiers. Later, when they commute from the island to the mainland, their boat motor stalls. When they call for assistance, the US Coast Guard comes and shoots the boat, suspecting that they were the enemy. Accidental attacks continue, and the treatment of the Japanese-American soldiers becomes worse as the war worsens. Eddy is nearly killed once when his dog''s trainer, Smith, calls the dog back slightly late. The soldiers are forced to treat the dogs harshly, which is against their will. After a few weeks of grueling treatment of the Japanese, the government observes and evaluates this project. It is deemed unsuccessful, and Eddy now is assigned to combat in the European theater.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Judas Window

By John Dickson Carr

The Mystery of the Missing Necklace

No Author Listed

Sliding Scales

By Alan Dean Foster

All the Shah's Men

By Stephen Kinzer

Omon Ra

By Victor Pelevin

Mrs. Warren's Profession

By George Bernard Shaw

The Defense

By Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

Insurrection

By Thomas M. Reid

The Sword and the Circle

By Rosemary Sutcliff

The Ruby in the Smoke

By Philip Pullman

The Game-Players of Titan

By Philip K. Dick

Eyes of the Emperor

By Graham Salisbury