The Sweet Hereafter is a multiple first person narrative depicting life in a small town in Upstate New York in the wake of a terrible school bus accident in which numerous local children are killed. Hardly able to cope with the loss, their grieving parents are approached by a slick city lawyer who wants them to sue for damages. At first the parents are reluctant to do so, but eventually they are persuaded by the lawyer that filing a class action lawsuit would ease their minds and also be the right thing to do. As most of the children are dead, the case now depends on the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court. In particular, it is 14 year-old Nichole Burnell, who was sitting at the front of the bus and is now is unable to move from the waist down (but isn''t paralysed), whose deposition is all-important. However, she unexpectedly accuses Dolores Driscoll, the driver, of speeding and thus causing the accident. When she does so, all hopes of ever receiving money are thwarted. All the people involved know that Nichole is lying but cannot do anything about it. Only her father knows why, but he is unable to publicly reveal his daughter''s motives. The novel captures the atmosphere in a small town suddenly shaken by catastrophe. Fathers take to drinking, secret affairs are abruptly ended, whole families move away. Only the reader/viewer knows that Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, has himself effectively lost his own child&mdash;his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him over the phone that she has just tested HIV positive. The book, written in 1991, was chosen in 1998 by Nancy Pearl, the then Director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, and Chris Higashi, the current Program Manager, to be the first selection for "If All Seattle Read the Same Book", a program that has continued in the Seattle community and at many other public libraries around the country.

The Sweet Hereafter

Sherlock Holmes is sent to live with his unknown aunt and uncle in Holmes Manor in Hampshire over his school holidays when his father is unexpectedly sent overseas with the British Army. He cannot go home as his mother is unwell, and cannot go to London as his older brother Mycroft is busy working for the government. Wandering around the estate and the surrounding countryside he soon befriends a boy his own age named Matty Arnatt (who has witnessed an unusual death involving a cloud of death). After a few days of holidays Sherlock discovers that his brother Mycroft has hired him an unusual American tutor named Amyus Crowe. During their first lesson together Sherlock finds a dead body on the Holmes'' estate and witnesses the same death cloud surrounding the body that Matty had previously seen. He detects a yellow powdery substance around the body and takes a sample of it. With Matty''s help he tracks down a warehouse which has links to one of the deceased, and almost dies in the warehouse when the villains set it alight. Holmes escapes the building, and determines that he must travel to Guildford and locate an expert in exotic diseases who might help identify the yellow substance. He, therefore, sets out with Matty on his barge to Guildford, and although they are attacked along the way by the villains, they nevertheless make it to his destination and discovers that the yellow substance is bee pollen. On returning home he visits his tutor''s home, where he meets Crowe''s daughter Virginia. A few days later Sherlock is lured to a fair, where he is forced to participate in a boxing match, from which he is kidnapped and interrogated by the unseen Baron Maupertuis until he is rescued by Matty, and the pair go to his tutor''s home. Knowing that the Baron has left his headquarters, Sherlock, Matty, Crowe and Virginia determine to follow and locate the Baron. They discover that the Baron is shipping a weapon from a London wharf, and after a series of chases, Sherlock and Virginia are kidnapped to France by the Baron, and further interrogated. The pair escape and meet up with Crowe and Matty and set out to stop the Baron from trying to destroy the British Army.

Death Cloud

Moscow, 1882. When Fandorin returns from Japan with his manservant Masa, he enters the service of Moscow governor Prince Dolgorukoi. Later that day, the White General Mikhail Sobolev, nicknamed the Russian Achilles and an old friend of Fandorin''s, is found dead in the same hotel. Officially, he died of a heart attack, but Fandorin becomes suspicious when he talks with the body guards of the general. Fandorin had befriended these cossacks when he rooted out a Turkish spy during the siege of Plevna (see The Turkish Gambit). But the same cossacks now treat him with hostility. Fandorin finds out the reason for their hostility as he discovers that the general had not really died in the hotel, but was moved there from the apartment of his mistress. Found dead in a compromising situation, the cossacks tried to prevent a scandal and protect the reputation of the general. But Fandorin looks even deeper and finds out that a large sum of money is missing. He learns that Sobolev is trying to raise funds to begin a political campaign, and Fandorin begins to suspect foul play. He finds that the general has been poisoned in a very clever manner, and the killer anticipated the cover up, which would ensure his safe getaway. Fandorin further discovers that the plot leads up to the highest levels of the Tsar''s government, and that he himself is now viewed as an enemy of the state for his efforts to catch the killer. The killer is Achimas Welde, a hired assassin, who has only failed three times in his career. One of those times was his assignment to kill Fandorin, when he just managed to kill Fandorin''s wife, as Fandorin himself was chasing him (see The Winter Queen). The second half of the novel is told from Achimas'' point of view and recounts his life story, up to the plot to kill Sobolev and the investigation. By chance, Achimas discovers that the man who hired him to kill Sobolev was Grand Duke Kirill Alexandrovich, the younger brother of Tsar Alexander III. In the concluding chapters of the novel, Fandorin kills Achimas, and prepares to flee Moscow (believing himself to be a target of the plotters), but Prince Dolgorukoi''s assistant meets him at the train station and tells him that everything has been covered up and he can continue in the service of the state.

The Death of Achilles

In the previous novel Tarzan and Jane''s son, Jack Clayton, a.k.a. Korak, had come into his own. In this novel Tarzan returns to Opar, the source of the gold where a lost colony of fabled Atlantis is located, in order to make good on some financial reverses he has recently suffered. While Atlantis itself sank beneath the waves thousands of years ago, the workers of Opar continued to mine all of the gold, which means there is a rather huge stockpile but which is now lost to the memory of the Oparians and only Tarzan knows its secret location. A greedy, outlawed Belgian army officer, Albert Werper, in the employ of a criminal Arab, secretly follows Tarzan to Opar. There, John Clayton loses his memory after being struck on the head by a falling rock in the treasure room during an earthquake. On encountering La, the high priestess who is the servant of the Flaming God of Opar, and who is also very beautiful, Tarzan once again rejects her love which enrages her and she tries to have Tarzan killed; she had fallen in love with the apeman during their first encounter and La and her high priests are not going to allow Tarzan to escape their sacrificial knives this time. In the meanwhile, Jane has been kidnapped by the Arab and wonders what is keeping her husband from once again coming to her rescue. A now amnesiac Tarzan and the Werper escape from Opar, bearing away the sacrificial knife of Opar which La and some retainers set out to recover. There is intrigue and counter intrigue the rest of the way.

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

Nin''s usage of the word incest in this case is metaphorical, not literal. In other words, in this book the word "incest" describes a selfish love where one can appreciate in another only that which is similar to oneself. One is then only loving oneself, shunning all differences. At first, such a self-love can seem ideal because it is without fear and without risk. But eventually it becomes a sterile nightmare. Toward the end of the book, the character called "the modern Christ" puts Nin’s use of the word into context: “If only we could all escape from this house of incest, where we only love ourselves in the other." Nin was under the analysis of Otto Rank during the period of writing House of Incest. Rank was an early disciple of Freud, serving as the secretary and youngest member of his Vienna group, but had long since dissented from Freudian orthodoxy and developed his own theoretical school. Incest: From a Journal of Love"—The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932–1934) reveals that the two were also having an affair. Rank helped Anaïs edit House of Incest. He had experience with this topic, as Otto Rank''s most famous book is The Trauma of Birth. House of Incest is largely an attempt by the narrator to cope with the shock of the trauma of birth. Anaïs Nin describes the process as akin to being "[e]jected from a paradise of soundlessness.... thrown up on a rock, the skeleton of a ship choked in its own sails."

House of Incest

The novel opens with a brief history of Vlad Taltos and a description of how he acquired his jhereg familiar, Loiosh. Despite being an Easterner in the Dragaeran city of Adrilankha, Vlad is a minor boss in the criminal activities of the Jhereg Organization. One day he is approached by an extremely powerful member of the Organization''s ruling Council and offered an assassination job with a staggeringly large reward. The contract is to kill another Jhereg crime lord, Mellar, who has absconded with a fortune from the Jhereg treasury. Vlad accepts. Mellar has become the houseguest of the Dragonlord Morrolan e''Drien in his floating fortress, Castle Black. Vlad is a personal friend of Morrolan and has a standing invitation to Castle Black, which would make the assassination quite easy. However Morrolan holds fast to the Dragonlord traditions of hospitality, and will permit no harm to come to his guests for any reason. The last time a Jhereg assassinated a Dragonlord''s houseguest, it resulted in a war between the two Houses that decimated both. Morrolan has invited Mellar to stay for seventeen days, but the Jhereg need the hit performed before that time. Vlad is forced to find a compromise between the interests of his House and his friend. Vlad''s other friends, Aliera e''Kieron and Sethra Lavode, are more lax on the rules of hospitality and offer their help. Aliera wants to kill Mellar herself, as it is obvious to everyone, even Morrolan himself, that Mellar manipulated Morrolan and used the Dragonlord''s honor as a shield against the Jhereg. This is a grave insult to the House of the Dragon. Sethra, the oldest and wisest of the group, agrees with Aliera''s position, but feels that they must still respect Morrolan''s wishes and find a way that will not violate his honor. While Vlad looks for a solution, the Jhereg come up with their own plan. The Demon first interviews Vlad to see if he would go along with it, and when it is clear to him that Vlad would not, he tries to have Vlad assassinated. Vlad manages to escape and guesses the Demon''s intentions, but he is too late. He arrives at Castle Black to find Morrolan already assassinated. With Morrolan dead, Mellar would no longer be under his protection, and thus his death would not start a second Dragon-Jhereg war. Vlad foils this solution by breaking the enchantment preventing Morrolan''s resurrection and has his friend brought back to life. The Jhereg, however, are undeterred. They would rather risk another Dragon-Jhereg War than allow Mellar''s humiliating theft to become publicly known. An assassin descends on Mellar, but Vlad and his friends thwart him as well. On reflection, Vlad realizes that Mellar''s bodyguards, who are always hovering nearby, were mysteriously absent during the attempt on his life. Vlad manages to deduce, with the help of some other information gathered by his second-in-command, Kragar, that it is Mellar''s intention to be assassinated. Mellar is a half-breed—a mix of Dragon, Jhereg and Dzur—and intends, through his death, to get his revenge on all his parent Houses by causing two to erupt into war and leaking information that would forever shame the third. Having solved the mystery of Mellar''s crime, Vlad finally realizes how to solve his own dilemma. With the help of nearly all of his friends, Vlad tricks Mellar into thinking he has killed Aliera, which would nullify his guest-rights with Morrolan. Mellar, believing his plan is ruined, flees Castle Black to avoid a purposeless death at the hands of the Jhereg. This actually takes him out of Morrolan''s protection. Vlad follows him and engages the master swordsman in a duel. While near defeat, Vlad uses witchcraft to contact a nearby wild jhereg. With this second jhereg''s help, Vlad kills Mellar, earning a vast bounty and saving two Houses in the same stroke. Rocza, the name given by Vlad to his second familiar, mates Loiosh.

Jhereg

Kinsey’s curiosity is roused when she receives a call from a man who has bought some of her possessions at an auction of defaulted storage locker items. She recognises the box as stuff which she left in the possession of her former husband, Michael Macgruder - whom she met and married during her time on the Santa Teresa Police Force at the age of 21 - when she walked out 8 months into the marriage in 1972. Mickey had asked her to give him a false alibi when he was accused of violence against a recently-returned Vietnam veteran Benny Quintero, who later died. Kinsey refused to lie, assuming his guilt, and left him. As well as high school and police academy memories, she finds in the box a letter written to her 14 years before, shortly after she left Mickey, which never reached her. It’s from Dixie Hightower, barmaid at an old haunt from that era called the Honky-Tonk, saying that Mickey was with her the night he was accused of killing Benny. Whilst shocked to find out her husband was cheating, Kinsey realises she did Mickey an injustice thinking he killed Benny and sets out to find out what has happened to him. The trail leads her to Shack, a former colleague of Mickey’s, and to Tim Litenberg, the son of another colleague, who is running the Honky-Tonk, as well as to Dixie herself, living in new-found luxury with her Vietnam vet husband Eric. Kinsey finds out Mickey had been frequenting the Honky-Tonk and is suspicious of his motives, sensing that he had uncovered some sort of illegal activity. She also contacts Mark Bethel, Mickey’s lawyer on the Quintero manslaughter charge, another veteran now running for political office. Two LAPD officers shock Kinsey with the news that Mickey is in a coma, having been shot with a gun registered to her, a present from Mickey she abandoned along with him. She is disconcerted to find this puts her high on the suspect list, especially since her assurances that she hasn’t spoken to Mickey in years are belied by a record of a 30-minute call from Mickey’s number to her apartment in recent weeks. Illegally breaking into Mickey’s apartment in search of answers, Kinsey finds a stash of weapons, false IDs, and evidence of a trip Mickey made to Louisville, Kentucky, but her search is interrupted by a biker called Carlin Duffy, looking for Mickey, and who has been a frequent visitor in recent months according to Mickey’s neighbour Wary Beason. Duffy, a habitual criminal, turns out to be Benny Quintero’s half brother, and like his brother, hails originally from Louisville. Clearly he and Mickey shared an interest in finding the truth about Benny’s death. From Duffy, Kinsey learns that Mickey was interested in Benny’s connections to a young Louisville journalist called Duncan Oaks, who was killed in Vietnam. Benny had Duncan’s press pass and dog tags, which Duffy passed to Mickey, and which Kinsey assumes have been stolen from Mickey’ s apartment, though she later find she has them herself, sewn into a jacket of Mickey’s she took from the apartment as a souvenir. Kinsey follows Mickey’s trail to Louisville. She discovers that Oaks was injured in Vietnam but disappeared in transit for medical treatment, and also that he was a classmate of Mark Bethel’s wife Laddie. She deduces that Duncan and Laddie had some sort of affair, giving Mark Bethel a motive for Duncan’s disappearance in Vietnam. Back in Santa Teresa, the LAPD detectives reappear and confirm they have traced Bethel’s fingerprints in Mickey’s apartment, searching for the missing press pass, and suspect him of shooting Mickey. They compare notes and conclude that Bethel must have pushed Oaks out of the medical helicopter, witnessed by Benny Quintero. When Quintero headed for California after the war and presumably tried to blackmail Bethel, Bethel killed him and set Mickey up to the take the rap. Years later when Mickey finally uncovered the truth, Bethel shot him, implicating Kinsey. Kinsey is reluctantly persuaded by the detectives to attempt to trap Bethel into a confession, an operation which goes badly wrong, and she ends up a target. However Duffy, now understanding Bethel to be the one responsible for his brother’s death, decapitates Bethel with a digger, saving Kinsey. Meanwhile Kinsey has uncovered the truth at the Honky-Tonk: it is being used to manufacture fake IDs, as Mickey had discovered. She reports the scam, and having exonerated Mickey on all fronts, is with him when he dies without regaining consciousness.

"O" Is for Outlaw

Story of the Eye consists of several vignettes, centered around the sexual passion existing between the unnamed late adolescent male narrator and Simone, his primary female partner. Within this episodic narrative two secondary figures emerge: Marcelle, a mentally ill sixteen-year-old girl who comes to a sad end, and Lord Edmund, a voyeuristic, English émigré aristocrat. Simone and the narrator first consummate their lust on a beach near their home, and involve Marcelle within their activity. The couple are exhibitionists, copulating within Simone''s house in full view of her mother. During this second episode, Simone derives pleasure from inserting hard and soft boiled eggs for her vaginal and anal stimulation; she also experiences considerable enjoyment from the viscosity of various liquids. The pair undertake an orgy with other adolescents, which involves some broken glass and involuntary bloodletting, and ends with Marcelle''s psychological breakdown. The narrator flees his own parents'' home taking a pistol from the office of his bedridden, senile, and violent father. They view Marcelle within a sanatorium, but fail to break her out. Naked, they flee during night back to Simone''s home, and more displays of exhibitionist sex ensue before Simone''s widowed mother. Later, they finally break Marcelle out of the institution, but unfortunately, Marcelle is totally insane. Deprived of her therapeutic environment, she hangs herself. The pair have sex next to her corpse. After Marcelle''s suicide, the two flee to Spain, where they meet Sir Edmund. They witness a Madrid bullfight, which involves the prowess of handsome twenty-year-old matador, El Granero. Initially, El Granero kills the first bull that he encounters and the animal is consequently castrated. Simone then pleasures herself by vaginally inserting these taurine testicles. Unfortunately, El Granero is killed by the next bull that he fights, and his face is mutilated. As the corpse of El Granero is removed from the stadium, his right eye has worked loose from its socket, and is hanging, bloody and distended. Simone, Sir Edmund, and the narrator visit the Catholic Church of San Seville after the day''s events. Simone aggressively seduces Don Aminado, a handsome, young, Catholic priest, fellating him while Simone and the narrator have sex. Sir Edmund undertakes a blasphemous parody of the Catholic Eucharist involving desecration of the bread and wine using Don Aminado''s urine and semen before Simone strangles Don Aminado to death during his final orgasm. Sir Edmund enucleates one of the dead priests'' eyes, and Simone inserts it within her vagina, while she and the narrator have sex. The trio successfully elude apprehension for the murder of Don Aminado, and make their way down Andalusia. Sir Edmund purchases an African-staffed yacht so that they can continue their debaucheries, whereupon the story ends. In a postscript, Bataille reveals that the character of Marcelle may have been partially inspired by his own mother, who suffered from bipolar disorder, while the narrator''s father is also a transcription of his own unhappy paternal relationship. In an English language edition, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag provide critical comment on the events.

Histoire de l''oeil

The book is divided into four parts (Prison, Desert, Esacape and Refuge). Najib Muhammad, the protagonist of the novel, is a young man from somewhere near Kayamkulam, Kerala state, recently married and dreams of a better job in any of the Persian Gulf states. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia however he got trapped. Najib Muhammad is taken away by a rich Arab animal farm supervisor from King Khalid International Airport and is being used a "slave" laborer and shepherd assigned to look after goats, sheep and camels for almost three and half years in the remote deserts of Saudi Arabia. He is forced to do back-breaking work, is kept half-hungry and is denied water to wash and suffers unimaginably. The farm''s brutal supervisor keeps Najib in control with a gun and binoculars and frequently beats him with a belt. In a country where he does not know the language, places or people, he is far away from any human interaction. Najib steadily starts to identify himself with the goats. He considers himself one of them. His dreams, desires, revenge, hopes—he identifies all it with them. He talks to them, eats with them, sleeps with them and virtually lives the life of a goat. Still he keeps a ray of hope which will bring freedom and end to sufferings some unknown day. Finally one night with the help of Ibrahim Khadiri, a Somalian worker in the neighboring farm, Najib Muhammed and his friend Hakim escape from the horrible life to freedom. But, the trio fumbles across the desert for days, and young Hakim dies of thirst and fatigue. Finally, Ibrahim Qadiri and Najib manage to find their way to Al-Bathaa, Riyadh, where Najib gets himself arrested by the Regular Police in order to get deported to India. Najib spends several months in the Sumesi Prison before being put on a plane to India by the Saudi Arabian authorities.

Adujivitam

The protagonist is Bob Arctor, member of a household of drug-users, who is also living a parallel life as Agent Fred, an undercover police agent assigned to spy on Arctor''s household. Arctor/Fred shields his true identity from those in the drug subculture, and from the police themselves. (The requirement that narcotics agents remain anonymous, to avoid collusion and other forms of corruption, becomes a critical plot point late in the book.) While supposedly only posing as a drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to "Substance D" (also referred to as "Slow Death," "Death," or "D"), a powerful psychoactive drug. An ongoing conflict is Arctor''s love for Donna, a drug dealer through whom he intends to identify high-level dealers of Substance D. Arctor''s persistent use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently, or "compete." Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor''s superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path," a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the secretive organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games intended to break the will of the patients. The story ends with Bruce working at a New-Path farming commune, where he is suffering from a serious neurocognitive deficit after withdrawing from Substance D. Although considered by his handlers to be nothing more than a walking shell of a man, "Bruce" manages to spot rows of blue flowers growing hidden among rows of corn, and realizes the blue flowers are Mors ontologica, the source of Substance D. The book ends with Bruce hiding a flower in his shoe to give to his "friends" – undercover police agents posing as recovering addicts at the Los Angeles New-Path facility – on Thanksgiving.

A Scanner Darkly

The novel tells the story about how an 11-year old girl named Aubrey Priestly recovers from losing her little sister (Savannah) and her father in a car crash. The first main event was when Aubrey’s mother runs away and leaves Aubrey alone in their house. Aubrey soon has to go shopping and buys a fish which she names Sammy. For a week, Aubrey lives on Spaghetti-Os and cheese and crackers. Eventually, Aubrey’s grandma shows up because Aubrey wasn’t answering the phone. Aubrey decides to lie to her grandma about her mother being missing, saying she would come for dinner, but Aubrey''s grandma soon finds out that Aubrey''s mother is missing. Grandma decides that she will take Aubrey with her to her house in Vermont. While in Vermont, Aubrey makes a new friend (Bridget) and has fun with her and her sister (Mabel). Mabel reminds Aubrey of Savannah and a few times Aubrey freaks out. When the school year begins, Aubrey has to go see the school counselor, Amy, who gives Aubrey an assignment to sit by someone new at lunch. She decides to sit by Marcus, another boy under Amy''s guidance. At first he was kind of nervous. Then after a while he loosens up and they become friends. Aubrey’s mother finally arrived at night, waking Aubrey up by the sound of her voice in the house. At first she thought it was a dream, then she thinks it’s too clear to be a dream. She goes down stairs to see her mom and grandma arguing in the kitchen. For a while, Aubrey’s mother lives with Aubrey and her grandma, trying to recover from all she’s been through. After she gets better she goes back to her house in Virginia without Aubrey. After a few months, Aubrey’s mother decides that she is ready for Aubrey to come home. The choice of returning is left to Aubrey, who is very excited at first but realizes she has a difficult decision to make. She decided to stay with her grandmother and will visit during the summer. In conclusion Aubrey realises that it would be best if she stayed with her grandma as she would miss her too.

Love, Aubrey

Bobby begins on the territory of Veelox, with Gunny, where they land in the dark room outside the Veelox flume. Bobby and Gunny encounter Saint Dane and believe they have him cornered, however, four realistic holograms of the villain suddenly appear around him, allowing the actual Saint Dane to escape (to a territory called Eelong) amidst the confusion. Bobby and Gunny decide to split. Gunny will immediately go to Eelong and report back later with news while Bobby stays on Veelox because Saint Dane had mentioned that it is on the verge of destruction. Bobby hates the darkness and is worried if the inhabitants of Veelox are floating giants after meeting Aja Killian, the local Traveler, in the form of a massive holographic face. Bobby doesn''t know if the huge hologram is life-sized. He meets up with a very ordinary, humanoid Aja in a city much like those on Second Earth, called Rubic City. The only differences are that it is deserted, and there is a huge structure called the Lifelight pyramid looming over the town. Aja explains that Lifelight is a virtual reality world—a computer that gives people''s desires the appearance of being real. Almost everyone on Veelox is in it, living out their own perfect virtual lives. She takes Bobby through it, and he is amazed at the vedders, who are the "physical" caretakers of the bodies, and the phaders, computer geniuses running the place. She is one of the latter. Bobby experiences his own fantasy "jump";he meets his family, plays with his dog, Marley, and plays a basketball game where he and his team simply cannot lose. Aja then explains that, because Lifelight is so perfect, hardly anyone leaves. No food is being made. The territory is dying. However, she has a way to stop Lifelight....a Reality Bug that preys on your fears to make it all less-than-perfect. She then takes Bobby to where he left off in his fantasy, but uses her virus to make it different. His opponents are taller, his coach has a heart attack, and he is injured. While in the locker room Aja tells him is this is how to save the territory. However, a Saint Dane hologram appears and tells them that the bug is working "far better than you could imagine". Saint Dane is right. The Reality Bug has become far too realistic; its use of fears to dilute the jumps has a placebo effect on people, in that if they die in their fantasy, the death is real. Only one man can stop the rapidly evolving virus; Dr. Zetlin, who invented Lifelight and the only one to know of the origin code, the key to purging the bug from the processing code. Zetlin is in Lifelight. Thankfully, he is in the alpha grid, which can be brought online independently of the rest of Lifelight. However, he can''t simply be pulled out. Bobby would need help in the danger to come. Bobby goes to Zadaa and convinces its Traveler, Loor, to come along to help him defeat the nightmares. She agrees, and they start the alpha grid up again, with Aja acting as phader-vedder. They plan to get the source code from Dr. Zetlin and destroy the Bug. However, the software is malfunctioning. Rather than send them into Zetlin''s fantasy, it sends them into a "Wild West" and thence into Aja''s own residence. They meet Saint Dane twice therein before they are pulled out. Aja takes them to Zetlin''s fantasy, where Zetlin resides in a massive building called the ''Barbican'', which can either stand upright or on its side. The first level of its structure is a tropical jungle filled with plant-animal life forms. The second level is a sort of large pool, with racing motorboats following lights. The level after that is a snow covered landscape, where Bobby has to finish a race called slickshot in which six skaters need to pick up red balls and put them into buckets. Unfortunately, only four people can finish the race. Bobby finishes the race (with a bit of intervention from Loor) and sees that Zetlin is actually one of the racers, a popular sixteen-year-old called the "Z" in his fantasy. Bobby, Loor and Aja convince him to spill the code, which turns out to be "zero." When Aja enters the code, it turns out that Saint Dane sabotaged it. The Reality Bug takes physical form(a black ameoba-like shapeshifter), and chases Bobby, Zetlin, Aja, and Loor around Zetlin''s fantasy home, and even into the real world when it grows too powerful to be contained by Lifelight. They leave Zetlin''s jump and shut down all of Lifelight, and the Reality Bug is destroyed. The Travelers feel they have beaten Saint Dane&mdash;again. But at a ceremony congratulating Aja and explaining the loss of Lifelight, Dr. Sever, prime director of the program, steps up. She turns out to be Saint Dane in disguise, and she stirs up the crowd, promising to bring Lifelight back online. He/She succeeds, everyone reenters Lifelight, and Saint Dane receives his first victory. Saddened, Bobby sets off alone for Eelong, leaving Aja behind to seek some avenue of hope. Aja trusts him.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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The Sweet Hereafter

By Russell Banks

Death Cloud

By Andy Lane

The Death of Achilles

By Boris Akunin

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

By Edgar Rice Burroughs

House of Incest

By Anaïs Nin

Jhereg

By Steven Brust

"O" Is for Outlaw

By Sue Grafton

Histoire de l'oeil

No Author Listed

Adujivitam

No Author Listed

A Scanner Darkly

By Philip K. Dick

Love, Aubrey

By Suzanne LaFleur

The Reality Bug

By D.J. MacHale