Whensday Bluehouse is an orphan who was rescued from a life working in the Pitts by coffin maker Tick Burrowman. Burrowman is attempting to make a profit by selling Whensday to a woman from Toptown, a part of the world that is unaffected by acid rain and life on The Shelf. Whensday is unsure of the security of this exchange, and sneaks away one night. Burrowman may have actually grown fond of Whensday, and it is unclear if he is interested in giving her away after all. While Whensday is on the run, she stumbles upon a large, mentally handicapped teenager named Honeycut Greenhouse, obviously another orphan. He was separated from his brother, much as Whensday was, and it is obvious that Honeycut doesn’t have the faculties to take care of himself. Whensday decides to befriend Honeycut, and he rescues her during a vicious rape by Second Staff Brown, a minor officer in the military. Honeycut kills Brown, and a manhunt begins, ending with Honeycut’s capture. Whensday flees and hides in the only place she knows, Tick Burrowman’s home. Upon her arrival, she finds him dead, and a former friend, Joe Painter, seriously ill. They cobble together a flotilla of “body boxes” and attempt to paddle up the river, away from the Shelf and the head for Toptown. But Joe Painter dies on the trip, and the current carries Whensday back to the shelf. She is rescued by a secret clan of women, hiding from the Syndicate, and she stays with them.

The Copper Elephant

The book follows the story of two 13-year old boys named Brian and Gregory (who are friends, but total opposites) who visit a mansion in Vermont owned by Gregory''s Uncle Max. Uncle Max is a strange character who uses complicated words from the past such as "effluents" and "insalubrities" and acts very much like an Edwardian-era aristocrat. The two boys uncover the board of the Game of Sunken Places in the nursery and unintentionally set the game into motion. They also meet Gregory''s cousin Prudance, a girl from the area. Thus they become involved in an age-old ritual conflict between enchanted supernatural races. Once they go out into the woods and begin playing the game, they meet unlikely allies such as Kalgrash the troll and work together to accomplish all the challenges using the game board as a map. In the final challenge, Gregory is about to win and Brian is being strangled by Jack Stimple. By believing that Jack was their opponent, the two almost fell into his trap. Jack was not playing the game at all. Gregory was the player for the Thusser Hordes and was about to win when Brian stopped him. Jack Stimple was meanwhile being dragged away by monks for strangling Brian. Gregory trusts Brian, and lets him win the game and so another battle had been won in the name of the Norumbegans.

The Game of Sunken Places

The novel takes place in two time periods: the first deals with the Binewski children''s constant struggle against each other through life. They especially have to deal with the Machiavellian Arty as he develops his own cult: Arturism. In this cult, Arty persuades people to have their limbs amputated so that they can be like Arty, the cult leader, in their search for the principle he calls PIP ("Peace, Isolation, Purity"). Each member moves up in stages, losing increasingly significant chunks of their body, starting with their toes and fingers. As Arty battles his siblings to maintain control over his followers, competition between their respective freak shows slowly begins to take over their lives. The second story is set in the present and is centered on Oly''s daughter, Miranda. Nineteen-year-old Miranda does not know Oly is her mother. She lives on a trust fund created by Oly before she gave up her daughter to be raised by nuns. This had been urged by her brother Arty, who was also Miranda''s father (not through sexual intercourse, but by the telekinetic powers of Chick, who carried Arty''s sperm directly to Oly''s ovum). Oly lives in the same rooming house as Miranda so she can "spy" on her. Miranda has a special defect of her own, a small tail, which she flaunts at a local fetish strip club. There she meets Mary Lick, who tries to convince her to have the tail cut off. Lick is a wealthy woman who pays attractive women to get disfiguring operations, ostensibly so they may live up to their potential instead of becoming sex objects; it is implied, however, that Lick''s real motivation is to punish them for being more attractive than she is. Oly plans to stop Lick in order to protect her daughter.

Geek Love

Jack Aubrey and his crew have made their way in a much knocked-about from the South Seas to the West Indies Squadron lying off Bridgetown. Here Jack meets his bastard black son, Samuel Panda, a student Catholic priest. His mother was Sally Mputa for whom Jack, as a youngster on HMS Resolution, was turned before the mast by his Captain for having stored her secretly in the cable-tiers. Whilst returning to England, the Surprise gives chase to the Spartan, an American privateer, which manages to escape in a squall for Brest. Aubrey — whose financial circumstances remain unsatisfactorily complicated — hears a rumour from a stranger he meets in the "Ship Inn" that Britain will soon sign a peace with France. The stranger, ostensibly a diplomatic agent named Palmer, indicates to Aubrey how he can make money on the stock exchange by buying stocks sure to go up as soon as the news becomes public. Aubrey makes the transactions as advised, and also gives the advice to his father, the widely disliked Radical MP General Aubrey, who makes much larger stock transactions based on this information and spreads the rumour much farther. The rumour of a peace-treaty gets out, and the stock transactions prove highly profitable — more so to the General and his stock-jobbing friends than to Aubrey. But the peace-rumour proves false, Palmer had no government links (it later emerges that two highly placed English agents in the service of the French controlled him). The authorities arrest Aubrey, imprison him in the Marshalsea, and subject him to a Guildhall trial for fraud. Maturin receives two pieces of unwelcome news on his return. A political coup has sidelined his chief of intelligence, Sir Joseph Blaine, thus leaving Maturin in an exposed and dangerous position; and he becomes certain that his and Blaine''s suspicions about treachery in high places have concrete substance. He also discovers that his wife, Diana, has left him because of rumours of brazen infidelity with a red-head in the Mediterranean: rumours that Stephen started, and indeed encouraged, as a means of uncovering the intelligence network in Malta. The rumours are entirely unfounded as Stephen was unwilling to take advantage of the redhead, who was being cruelly used by French intelligence agents. Diana has removed to Sweden under the protection of Jagiello, a mutual friend (introduced in The Surgeon''s Mate), and with all the appearance of carrying on an affair with him. Stephen realizes how deeply he has offended her, resigns himself to her loss and returns to the use of the alcoholic tincture of laudanum. On the positive side, Stephen has inherited a vast sum from his Spanish godfather and become a very wealthy man. Maturin tries everything he can to help Aubrey, using his colleagues in the government and hiring an investigator, but cannot secure enough proof to win an acquittal — Palmer, the key figure, having been murdered and mutilated, largely due to the excessive bounty Maturin had placed on his capture. Despite Aubrey''s touching belief in British justice, his is a political trial given that the Government want to attack General Aubrey and his Radical friends. The court - headed by a Judge and Cabinet Minister, Lord Quinborough, convicts him after a two-day trial, fining him £2,500 and sentencing him to one hour on the pillory. However, instead of London crowds lampooning him, hordes of Royal Navy personnel arrive to cheer Aubrey on. But the authorities also strike him off the Navy List, something he regards as a far more devastating punishment. Maturin utilises a small part of his new-found wealth to buy the old HMS Surprise at auction, and obtains letters of marque and reprisal so she can operate as a private man-of-war. In part he does this because he remains deeply implicated in the intelligence game and would not sail with anyone other than Jack; he also understands that Aubrey''s dismissal from the Navy has wounded his friend dreadfully, and that life ashore as a disgraced officer would probably destroy him. A disgruntled French agent, Duhamel, also makes contact once again with Maturin in London and asks him for assistance in escaping to Quebec. In return, he gives Stephen details of the plot against Aubrey and exposes the British traitors - Wray and Ledward - motivated by profit and by spite against Aubrey.

The Reverse of the Medal

Moon Over Manifest tells the stories of two independent youths who find themselves living—almost by accident—in the small Kansas town of Manifest in two different eras. The two parallel storylines overlap extensively, and both discuss themes of belonging and of feeling an outsider in a community of outsiders. The primary story, a first-person account of Abilene Tucker''s adventures living with an old friend of her father''s in Manifest in 1936, revolves around a chance encounter with Miss Sadie, Manifest''s mysterious Hungarian diviner. Spending the summer working off a debt to Miss Sadie, Abilene finds herself pulled into the story of a boy, known only as Jinx, who train-hops his way to Manifest in 1917 and assimilates into a community divided along cleavages of ethnic origin and economic class. Miss Sadie''s unpredictable recounting of Jinx''s story coincides with Abilene''s discovery of a box of letters and mementos which play conspicuous roles in Jinx''s adventures. Abilene, along with her new friends Ruthanne and Lettie, sets out on an extensive mission to unmask a spy (known by the codename "The Rattler") mentioned in one of the letters, Abilene all the while hoping that their search will uncover clues about the enigmatic character of her father and Abilene''s perceived abandonment. When the present-day spy mission and Miss Sadie''s narrative begin to overlap, Abilene uncovers truths about Manifest that change not only her conception of the town and its people, but of her familial history and, ultimately, her own desires for independence and security. The second storyline, Miss Sadie''s third-person recounting of Jinx''s arrival in Manifest in 1917, is supplemented by newspaper clippings and letters from the era found by Abilene. Jinx arrives in Manifest in October 1917 and immediately befriends young local Ned Gillen, adopted son of the Manifest hardware store owner of ambiguous ethnic origin. As their relationship develops, Ned helps Jinx feel welcome in Manifest while Jinx helps Ned learn the skills the former has garnered from a life on the road. Once Ned goes off to war, however, Jinx''s relationship with the citizens of Manifest changes forever, as he is forced to prove his worth as an outsider without the assistance of an inside friend. This storyline focuses heavily on the role of immigration in mining towns such as Manifest; as the story progresses, Jinx finds himself helping the miners regain their dignity and escape the clutches of the avaricious mine-owners. Historical events mentioned in the book include Prohibition, coal mining, orphan trains, World War One, Spanish Influenza, and immigration.

Moon Over Manifest

The main characters of the book are Barda, Lief and Jasmine, who have retrieved all seven of the magic gems from their perilous Guardians and lairs. They now have the topaz, ruby, emerald, lapis-lazuli, diamond, opal and amethyst gems. The Belt is whole and made, but the hardest part of the journey is yet to come—they need to find the heir of Adin, the true heir to Deltora''s throne. There is, however, another problem. Lief''s father tells him that they would find the heir with the Belt, for it will show the way, but the Belt shows them the way but shows no sign of recognition of the heir. The party knows there is a problem and they have to do something about it. They also know that they need to recruit a member of each of the seven tribes as well. The seven tribe members are Lief of Del for the topaz, Manus of the Ralad people for the ruby, Steven (and Nevets) of the Plains people for the opal, Fardeep of the Mere for the lapis lazuli, Gla-Thon of the Dread Gnomes for the emerald, Zeean of Tora for the amethyst, and Glock of the Jalis for the diamond. In addition to this, they now need to awaken the Belt''s hidden powers and find the heir to the throne of Deltora. However, along the way, their friend Steven and his brother Nevets tell the three to go across a field of hidden grippers, which are plants composed of deep holes with venomous teeth inside to avoid the Grey Guards positioned in the road searching all the caravans passing by. Lief and Jasmine escaped relatively unharmed, but Barda suffers severe damage. They are forced into a small cabin when they find the remains of a man, woman, and small child bearing a note from King Endon with the royal seal at the bottom. When the gang finally reaches the Resistance stronghold, Barda wakes up long enough to tell the three that the letter was false and planted there by the Shadow Lord because when Endon escaped with Sharn, he did not have the royal seal with him as it had always been held with Prandine. Barda''s condition worsens, until he has almost died when all seven tribes are reunited. Lief realizes that Dain is the heir as the Belt is showing that the heir is somewhere in the room. To help prove this, Lief realized that Dain''s name is an anagram of ''Adin''. Dain is then kidnapped by Ichabod just when Lief was supposed to hand over the Belt, and the Belt falls on Barda who then starts to make a recovery. Everyone heads to Del to rescue Dain and falls into an elaborated trap where the puppet master is revealed at last - no other than Dain himself. Dain is a Grade 3 Ol and he has been fooling them all along. Lief manages to kill him with the Belt and then Lief, Jasmine, Barda, and Doom escape to Lief''s old home, where the second secret is revealed - Doom is actually Jasmine''s father. Everyone is then arrested by Grey Guards except for Lief who then, with Kree, goes to the punishment place in the palace to try and save them. When he is there, he suddenly remembers a passage from a book that his father showed him: "Only the Belt of Deltora, complete as it was first fashioned by Adin and worn by Adin''s true heir, has the power to defeat the Enemy." He rearranges the gems in the socketed Belt so that their initials spell Deltora (the order would be Diamond, Emerald, Lapis Lazuli, Topaz, Opal, Ruby, and finally Amethyst), and the Belt''s powers flare to life, saving the country. Lief realizes then that he is the heir and the very last secret is shown, that Endon and Jarred switched places because no one could suspect that a king and queen of Deltora could work as a simple blacksmith and wife. Endon, Lief''s father, dies a peaceful death now that Deltora has been rid of the Shadow Lord at last.

Return to Del

In 1964, astrophysicists on Earth become aware of an immense cloud of gas that is heading for the solar system. The cloud, if interposed between the Sun and the Earth, could wipe out most of the life on Earth by blocking solar radiation and ending photosynthesis. A cadre of astronomers and other scientists is drawn together in Nortonstowe, England, to study the cloud and report to the British government about the consequences of its presence. The cloud decelerates as it approaches the Sun (contrary to physical laws) and comes to rest around the Sun, causing disastrous climatic changes on Earth and immense mortality and suffering for the human race. This section of the novel presages the nuclear winter scenario popularised in the 1980s. As the behaviour of the cloud proves to be impossible to predict scientifically, the team at Nortonstowe eventually come to the conclusion that it might be a life-form with a degree of intelligence. In an act of desperation, the scientists try to communicate with the cloud, and to their surprise succeed in doing so. The cloud is revealed to be a superorganism, many times more intelligent than humans, which in return is surprised to find intelligent life-forms on a solid planet. When the astronomers ask the cloud how its lifeform originated, it replies that they have always existed. One of the characters suggests this is incompatible with the Big Bang theory. Thus it may be that Hoyle was hinting at his own Steady State theory of the existence of the Universe, which most cosmologists consider disproved by the discovery of cosmic background radiation. The cloud then learns that another intelligent cloud has stopped communicating and may have mysteriously vanished, not so far away in space in the cloud''s terms, so it decides to move on, relieving Earth''s suffering. Two of the scientists die in an attempt to learn some of the cloud''s vast store of knowledge through visual signals, in order to gain further insights about the Universe.

The Black Cloud

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

Hal Ambler, a former Consular Operations agent in the Political Stabilization Unit, is kept heavily medicated and closely watched in a psychiatric facility just off the US coast. However, Ambler is unique amongst the other patients in the Parrish Island psychiatric facility, because he is perfectly sane. With the help of a sympathetic nurse, Ambler manages to clear his mind of the drug-induced haze and stage a daring escape off the island. Although he is desperate to discover who put him on Parrish Island and why, the world he returns appears to have conveniently forgotten him. Friends and associates no longer recognize him, no official records of his existence are to be found, and the face he sees in the mirror is not his own. After contacting several old associates who do not recognize him or even have any recollection of his existence, Ambler goes to a cabin in certain part of country which had always been his lone solace even during his days as a field agent. He arrives to find no cabin, and the landscape looked such that there hadn''t been any before. A tranquillizer dart armed with carfetanyl then strikes him, but does not affect his thought processes severely . He tracks down the sniper and forces the sniper, a freelance operative, to give him authorisation codes. However, before the operative can be milked for more information, he is killed by a sniper whose single bullet also grazed Ambler''s neck. He then contacts the agency that is tracking him down. Ambler comes in contact with agents from his past in the Political Stabilization Unit. Among those is Osiris, a blind operative who had an uncanny linguistic ability and has also regarded Ambler as his close friend. His friend is subsequently shot and killed by a Chinese intelligence officer independent of the organization Ambler is being hired by, who believes Ambler wants to assassinate the Chinese head of state. He uncovers a conspiracy involving a State Department official to kill the Chinese President, in order to hinder the shift in power and to restore the old world order of Pax Americana, in accordance with her university lecturer, Ashton Palmer''s fanatical ideals. Ambler manages to unravel the conspiracy, while at the same time discovering that the nurse who had freed him and supposedly helped him on his endeavours to find out more about himself was in league with the "Palmerites", or so those who conform to Palmer''s ideals are called. Ambler''s ability to determine others'' emotions and pick up even the slightest of change in facial expression is foiled, for the nurse was trained in Method acting. At the end of the book, Ambler is seen to be lounging with a CIA officer, albeit a desk-jockey, who had assisted him in self-discovery and the foiling of the conspiracy. fr:L''Alerte Ambler pl:Kryptonim Ambler

The Ambler Warning

Broken begins with the murder of college student Allison Spooner. When the body is pulled from frigid Lake Grant, detective Lena Adams and her oft drunk boss, interim Chief of Police Frank Wallace, follow a trail that leads to the suicide of the prime suspect, Tommy Braham, in his jail cell. The suicide spurs the involvement of Dr. Sara Linton, back in town for Thanksgiving with her family. Still incredibly angry with Lena over her role in Sara''s husband''s death, and convinced Lena''s callous and reckless behavior has led to the possibly innocent suspect''s death, Sara calls in back-up from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Upon arriving in town, Agent Will Trent immediately meets with resistance from the Grant County Police Department. Despite the roadblocks, he unveils serious errors and deliberate cover-ups in the investigation, perpetrated mainly by Frank Wallace. Soon after, Allison''s boyfriend Jason is brutally killed in his dorm room. This definitively points to a murderer still on the loose, clearing Tommy Braham of any lingering suspicion. After discovering a secret link between all three victims, Will and Sara must pull all the pieces together in time to track down the killer.

Broken

The protagonist, a sixth grader named Adam, has recently moved with his family to Buffalo, New York from San Francisco, California. Adam attends St. Luke''s, an expensive private school which he can only afford by virtue of the scholarship he receives as a consequence of his parents both working for the school. Thus, Adam finds himself the only lower-middle class student at an academy full of children of the wealthy. This disparity is often on his mind as he socializes with his friends, and it serves as the catalyst for the book''s central plot and title. Adding insult to injury (at least in Adam''s mind) is the fact that he cannot earn any extra money because he must babysit his two year old sister, Allison, a task which his parents feel is a family duty and not an opportunity for income. Adam spends his free time with Jesse and Tracey, with whom he plays chess as well as Dungeons & Dragons. Adam, usually the winner of chess matches with his friends, realizes that he losing more often than he once did. He attributes this new development to the handheld chess computers that his friends now use for practice. Adam knows that his family cannot afford a chess computer, but he begins to covet the device. Without funds, though, all he can do is wish. Lying in bed one night, he begins to toy with the idea of stealing a $400 talking chess computer from an electronics store in the local mall at which he occasionally shops. He approaches the scheme at first in the same fashion as he would create a Dungeons & Dragons game. As the plot becomes more complicated, and in his mind, daring, he dwells upon whether he should actually execute it. He does. Adam takes his sister to the mall on the day he puts his plan into action. Pushing her in her stroller through the aisles of the electronics store, he quickly pilfers a clock radio while no one is watching. He leaves the store without incident. It is no ordinary clock radio, however, at least by 1983 standards. Rather than waking a sleeper with the radio or an alarm pulse, this particular model will play an audio cassette at the designated time of alarm. This is central to his plan, which includes returning the clock radio to the store after setting it to play a prerecorded message the next day. He spends his remaining time at the mall asking passers-by to read one word each into a portable tape recorder he has borrowed from his father. In total, the message reads: "Beware, you will be hurt if you do not do as I say. Go to the bathroom and lock the door." After recording this message, he places the tape into the clock radio and then returns to the electronics store. He explains to Vanessa, the sales clerk, that his sister inadvertently placed the clock radio in the stroller and he did not notice it at the time. Vanessa is overjoyed, as she had feared that the missing clock radio would be deducted from her paycheck. Adam now believes that he is the last person that anyone would suspect of being a thief, as he returned an item when he could have simply kept it. The next day, he returns to the mall moments before the message is set to be played on the clock radio. At the designated time, he enters the store and takes the chess machine. He makes his escape and is not caught. He plays with the talking chess machine but he is quickly overcome with guilt. He confesses to the theft after his friend Tracey finds the chess machine (which Adam had hid in a Monopoly board game box. He later reveals his transgression to Jesse, and ultimately, to his parents (who punish him, but not heavily, as they recognize that their son is racked with guilt). He returns the machine to the electronic store and earns the wrath of Vanessa, who bans him from the store and accuses him of creepy behavior. She does not call the police.

The Computer That Said Steal Me

The book opens with the narrator visiting a close friend after his fortieth suicide-by-birdplane. Offended by his insensitivity, she kills herself, then, in a new body, embarks on a series of mundane attempts to amuse herself, including stealing a white fluffy desert animal that she keeps as a pet, programming elaborate dreams for herself, having unsatisfying sex with her peers, and employing a wide variety of legal drugs. Incapable of making emotional connections with anyone, she finds her life increasingly unsatisfying, though her demanding and difficult pet does interest her. Soon after going through the mundane rituals of her life the narrator feels like she should not be a Jang teenager anymore. However, the quasi-robots who run the city determine that she is not ready to become an older person. Soon she tries looking for a useful job, but to no avail: robots and computers perform every useful task. She then attempts to have a child, but is unable to find a suitable partner, tries to have a child with herself, and ends up causing the child to die. Unable to fill the emptiness she feels, she joins an expedition to explore the deserts outside the city. During this expedition, the narrator realizes the beauty of life outside of the domes and she gains a strong emotional connection with her stolen pet. However, it is then accidentally killed, devastating her. Upon returning to the city, she is still unable to make lasting emotional connections with her peers. She considers death and wonders if she really belongs in the city or somewhere else.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Copper Elephant

By Adam Rapp

The Game of Sunken Places

By Matthew Tobin Anderson

Geek Love

By Katherine Dunn

The Reverse of the Medal

By Patrick O''Brian

Moon Over Manifest

By Clare Vanderpool

Return to Del

By Jennifer Rowe

The Black Cloud

No Author Listed

Players

By Don DeLillo

The Ambler Warning

By Robert Ludlum

Broken

By Karin Slaughter

The Computer That Said Steal Me

By Elizabeth Levy

Biting the Sun

By Tanith Lee