It explores the concepts of war and peace, good government and religious belief. It can be seen as a bridging novel between the all-human Dune universe and the ConSentiency universe series. It is a novel expanded from four short stories: * "You Take the High Road". Appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1958 * "Missing link". Appeared in Astounding Science Fiction February 1959 * "Operation Haystack". Appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1959 * "The Priests of Psi". Appeared in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, February 1960 The story focuses on Lewis Orne, an agent for a government agency which develops "lost planets." After correctly identifying a warlike civilization on the planet Hamal, he is drafted into Investigative Adjustment (I-A), which manages dangerous planets. Under the auspices of I-A, he travels to various planets in order to maintain peace throughout the galaxy. At the same time, the priests of the planet Amel, who practice "religious engineering," set about creating the first human god in their history. After resolving a number of dangerous situations, Lewis is injured and has a near-death experience. Following this, his psychic powers develop, and after passing a series of tests he becomes a god.

The Godmakers

Eldrinson Valdoria took over a year to heal from serious injuries inflicted on him by the Aristo Vitarex. He is happy to reconcile with his daughter Sauscony (Soz) whom he disowned for leaving home to become a Jagernaut. But he can''t do the same with his son Althor, who is lying near death in a military hospital after sacrificing himself to save billions of Skolian citizens during a battle with the Eubian Traders. As part of her military training, Soz is assigned to the battlecruiser Roca''s Pride, named in honor of her mother Roca Skolia. The training, however, turns out to be hard reality after her half-brother Imperator Kurj is nearly assassinated and falls into a coma. Traders simultaneously launch an attack against the planet Parthonia, seat of the Skolian government. This brings the psiberweb, the most important part of Skolian defence, to a collapse. Using an ancient device called Dyad Chair, Soz struggles to keep at least parts of the psiberweb intact. To repair psiberweb and save Skolia from Eubian invasion, Soz’s father Eldrinson has to join the Dyad, expanding it to a Triad with the risk that this could kill either him or one of the other Triad members. The book also shows the fates of other Ruby Dynasty family members: Soz''s brother Shannon dealing with the mystic Blue Dale archers, their mother Roca captured by Traders and Ruby Pharaoh''s husband Eldrin who leaves Parthonia on a ship with Skolian refugees while making a withdrawal from the addictive medicament phorine.

The Final Key

On Earth, audiences are entranced by the musical entertainments staged by an alien troupe, the Ninth Company of the planet Rlaru. Dame Isabel Grayce (one of a long line of formidable society matrons in Vance’s works) has sponsored the entertainments; when the Ninth Company disappears without a trace, she proposes to recoup her losses and bring culture to the wastes of space by forming an opera company which Adolph Gondar (the discoverer of Rlaru) will pilot on a tour of suitable planets, with Rlaru as ultimate destination. Singers, orchestra, a British conductor (Sir Henry Rixon) are engaged; an argumentative critic, Bernard Bickel, who thinks the Ninth Company were fakes, is hired as musical consultant. Dame Isabel’s indolent and aptly named nephew Roger Wool (one of a long line of Vancian put-upon nephews) tags along also, smuggling his new girlfriend Madoc Roswyn, who claims to be a simple girl from Merioneth in Wales, aboard the ship as a stowaway. Like many of Vance’s works, the novel is a picaresque; Gondar has his own reasons for not returning to Rlaru, and diverts the company half way round the galaxy, with various adventures or humiliations occurring on the different planets they touch down on. (There are some similarities with Vance’s later novel Showboat World, which has a travelling company presenting performances of Shakespeare’s Macbeth to generally uncomprehending audiences along an immense river on a distant planet.) Over the course of the voyage, the company stages several celebrated works, such as Beethoven’s Fidelio, Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Così fan tutte, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Flying Dutchman. These are performed before various human or non-human audiences, the libretti and costumes sometimes having to be adapted to become understandable to alien cultures. On the whole, due to such cultural disparities, their reception is far from that expected by Dame Isabel: on a penal colony planet, for instance, the performances are made the cover for a jail-break; on a planet inhabited by a race priding themselves on their musical talents, the productions are vetted by an artistic inspector and the company is fined for every unresolved dissonance in the scores performed; on still another, the performance is mistaken for a trade exhibition and the aliens attempt to buy some of the singers. While Gondar is confined to his cabin, apparently insane, Madoc Roswyn induces his deputy to take the ship to the distant planet Yan. It emerges that her remote ancestors inhabited a land now sunk beneath the Bay of Biscay whose people had colonized that planet and there developed a high civilization. (Here we detect the germ of Vance’s later major fantasy trilogy Lyonesse, the heroine of whose third volume is named Madouc.) A group had returned to Earth thousands of years later, but their spacecraft was destroyed and they were forced to settle in Wales, ever intending to return to Yan. Madoc is their last descendant. She is disappointed by what she finds: Yan’s cities are dust and its folk have reverted to barbarism, hiding in the forests. Although the company present Debussy''s Pelléas to try to establish communication with the unseen inhabitants, they barely escape with their lives. Eventually the voyage ends at Rlaru. It turns out that Gondar had abducted the Ninth Company from the planet; he is suitably punished by the natives, who demonstrate a capacity to creatively manipulate illusion and environment far beyond anything their Earth visitors can achieve. They listen to several operas with mounting boredom, but are utterly entranced by an impromptu washboard jazz band formed by some members of the crew, which has been a source of annoyance to the opera-lovers throughout the voyage. (Vance was at one time a jazz musician.) Dame Isabel returns to Earth, chastened but determined not to admit it; Roger marries Madoc Roswyn and begins writing a book describing the voyage.

Space Opera

During the last half of the eighteenth century, in what was then New France (now part of Canada), Daniel "James" Bulain, son of a French habitant and of an English schoolmaster''s daughter sees his world turned upside-down as his family and the people of the neighbouring seigneurie are massacred by a war party of Mohawks. In his escape into the wilderness he is united with the unrequited love of his childhood, Toinette Tonteur, daughter of the local seigneur, when they are captured by a war party of Senecas, brought to their hidden village far to the west in the wilderness and eventually adopted into their tribe. In the spring following their first winter with the tribe, believing that Toinette, now his wife, has been killed while he was absent from the village, James escapes and joins the French forces under Montcalm and three years later is gravely wounded at the battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec. Cared for by the nuns of the General Hospital, James rises from unconsciousness almost a month later and is reunited with his wife and discovers he has an infant son, after wandering about the battle-scarred town obsessed with finding the three-legged dog he saw pass between the French and English lines just before the battle, which so resembled his own Odd ("Odds and ends"), whom he had last seen in the Seneca village with his wife.

The Plains of Abraham

The main protagonist is referred to in the story as Kochan. Being raised during Japan’s era of right-wing militarism and Imperialism, he struggles from a very early age to fit into society. Like Mishima, Kochan was born with a less-than-ideal body in terms of physical fitness and robustness, and throughout the first half of the book (which generally details Kochan’s childhood) struggles intensely to fit into Japanese society. Due to his weakness, Kochan is kept away from boys his own age as he is raised, and is thus not exposed to the norm. This is what likely led to his future fascinations and fantasies of death, violence, and sex. In this way of thinking, some have posited that Mishima is similar. Kochan is a homosexual, and in the context of Imperial Japan he struggles to keep it to himself. In the early portion of the novel, Kochan does not yet openly admit that he is attracted to men, but indeed professes that he admires masculinity and strength. Some have argued that this, too, is autobiographical of Mishima, himself having worked hard through a naturally weak body to become a superbly fit body builder and male model. In the first chapter of the book, Kochan recalls a memory of a picture book from when he was four years old. Even at that young age, Kochan approached a single picture of a heroic-looking Caucasian knight on horseback almost as pornography, gazing at it longingly and hiding it away, embarrassed, when others come to see what he is doing. When his nurse tells him that the knight is actually Joan of Arc, Kochan, wanting the knight to be a paragon of manliness, is immediately and forever put off by the picture, annoyed that a woman would dress in man’s clothing. The word ‘mask’ comes from how Kochan develops his own false personality that he uses to present himself to the world. Early on, as he develops a fascination with his friend Omi’s body during puberty, he believes that everybody around him is also hiding their true feelings from each other, everybody participating in a ‘reluctant masquerade’. As he grows up, he tries to fall in love with a girl named Sonoko, but is continuously tormented by his latent homosexual urges, and is unable to ever truly love her.

Confessions of a Mask

Gary Boone (who calls himself "Goon") is the self-proclaimed clown of his seventh-grade class. He never stops joking, despite the fact that nobody laughs much, and he has no real friends at school. Entering a talent contest as a stand-up comedian forces him to look more closely at the effect his humor has on others and on himself. His old friends support him and help him with his routine. Throughout the book, he is deciding whether or not he should compete. At one point he even quits, but then rejoins.=http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-Dont-Jokes-Louis-Sachar/dp/0679833722#reader_0679833722 Later, Gary becomes upset with his image and tries to change himself. He befriends Joe, a popular kid in his class, and spends time playing football with him. He also starts to collect baseball cards. He tells his parents about this and instead of telling him to be himself, like he expected, they encourage the change and offer him $100 if he doesn''t tell a joke for three weeks which is the night of the talent show. Gary is a nervous wreck on the night of the talent competition. He is not in the program because he quit (then rejoined). His friend Joe makes sure he can compete, but he is placed last. When it is Gary''s turn, he wets his pants due to his nervousness and excitement. He makes a mistake during the beginning, and soon he forgets his routine. Luckily, two kids who have picked on Gary (referred to as his "fan club"), come and spray water and throw pies at him. This allows Gary to start over, not to mention earning a few laughs. His comic routine runs smoothly and he manages to surprise the audience by showing them his newly shaved head. Gary wins $100 and is respected by his classmates.

Dogs Don''t Tell Jokes

Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother Arliss while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog. Though Travis initially loathes the "rascal" and at first tries to get rid of it, Old Yeller eventually proves his worth, saving the family on several occasions. Travis grows to love this dog named Old Yeller. And they become great friends. The rightful owner of Yeller shows up looking for his dog. The owner recognizes that the family has become attached to Yeller, and trades the dog to Arliss for a home-cooked meal prepared by Travis''s mother, who is an exceptional cook. Old Yeller becomes exposed to rabies while defending the family from an infected wolf. They try to nurse Yeller back to health, but in the end Travis is forced to shoot the dog. Old Yeller''s had puppies with one of Travis''s friend''s dogs, and the puppy helps Travis get over Old Yeller''s death.

Old Yeller

The book begins with Slim sneaking up on, and killing, a "goblin or beast" on the fair grounds of a local carnival. Goblins are monsters which can shape shift between human and bestial forms, genetically engineered super-predators which desire bloodshed and human misery. Created in an ancient, technologically superior era of human civilization, they exist to torment and ultimately murder humans. They can only be seen by a few people, including Slim himself, Rya Raines (his wife), and Joel Tuck (Slim''s friend and fellow carnie). These goblins are superhuman and extremely dangerous and genocidal, at least as intelligent as us, and can mimic human behavior. While they appear and act as a normal person would, they experience only a negative emotions like fear and hate. Their only pleasure is in torturing and murdering humans. Slim''s claim to fame is his "Twilight Eyes", which give him the ability to receive psychic, or prophetic, premonitions of the future. They also allow him to see through the human seeming disguise of the goblins. These eyes are named what they are because they are colored purple like the skyline at dusk. After this encounter, Slim proceeds to join the carnival (one of many he has drifted from) as a way to support himself while killing goblins and hiding from his murderous past (in which he killed an uncle by marriage that was a goblin responsible for the deaths of several family members). One of the prominent members of the "carnies" is a young woman named Rya Raines, who quickly becomes his lover and confidant. As their relationship matures, Slim has several more run-ins with the goblins which leads to the revelation that his friend Joel, and even Rya herself, can see the goblins too, and that each of them in their own way has suffered terribly from the goblins actions in their past. It is soon revealed that Rya had long before made a pact with the goblins to report to them whenever she found someone who could see through their disguise in exchange for safety from their predations. She wants him to make the same pact with them, but he refuses. This reality creates a gulf between her and Slim that almost comes to bloodshed between them. She regrets this later and after reconciling with Slim she becomes his wife. They decide to go on a mission to destroy any and all of the creatures they possibly can. Together they set out on a personal mission to wage a secret war against the monsters in a small mining town named Yontsdown, Pennsylvania, the seeming center of their cruel and brutal version of civilization. There they would discover and face the ultimate, diabolical plans the goblins had for the world and all of mankind.

Twilight Eyes

The novel begins with an explanation of Leonid''s few relationships within the revolutionary movement and the beginning of his relationship with Menni, a Martian in disguise. Soon after they become friends, Menni invites Leonid to go back home with him to Mars. The purpose of this visit would be to teach his own society to Martians and to understand and experience theirs. The trip is accomplished by the "etheroneph", a nuclear photonic rocket. On their way there, Leonid is exposed gradually to Martians and their society. With the help of Menni and Netti, his doctor, Leonid is able to speak the Martian language by the time they arrive. At this point in the novel, Bogdanov details some of the aspects of the socialist Martian society as seen through Leonid’s eyes. Children’s colonies, factories, and housing are a few among the many aspects of this society that Bogdanov describes. Eventually, the unfamiliarity of Mars and the stress of his mission there exhaust Leonid to the point of being delusional. Just in time, Netti is alerted to his condition and treats him for his severe illness. While Leonid is recovering, he finds out, contrary to his original assumption, that Netti is female. His previous feelings for her are then expressed and they fall in love with one another. It is soon after this period that both Netti and Menni are called away for a mining expedition to Venus. While they are away, Leonid develops a relationship with Enno, another fellow shipmate from his arrival to the planet. While discovering many things about the nature of personal relationships on Mars, Leonid uncovers frightening information. He discovers that the council in charge of the Venus expedition was vying Earth’s colonization as a possibility. The argument presented, by Sterni (yet another shipmate), was that this was the only feasible solution and that it would only be made possible if Earth’s population was destroyed. As Leonid’s emotional state was not fully recovered from his exhaustion, this news sent him into a state of psychosis. His resolution is to murder Sterni, which he proceeds to do. After this occurrence, Leonid is sent back to Earth to recover from his extreme apathy. He does so with the aid of Dr. Werner, an old comrade. Once he is able, Leonid rejoins the revolutionary fight, but this time with a mature perspective. The novel ends with a letter from Dr. Werner to Mirsky (a character assumed to be Plekhanov). In this letter, Leonid’s reunion with Netti is described and they are supposed to have returned to Mars together.

Red Star

The story takes place in 2048, 51 years after scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develop "the ultimate weapon", a force field generating device they term a Bobbler. The bureaucracy running the Laboratory use it to enforce an end to conventional warfare (triggering a brief war in the process), calling themselves the Peace Authority. The Bobbler creates a perfectly spherical, impenetrable, and persistent shield around or through anything, and is used to contain nuclear weapons, people, and occasionally entire cities or governments, separating them from the rest of the world (and presumably killing everyone inside by eventual suffocation and lack of sunlight). In an effort to retain their monopoly on this weapon, they make technological progress illegal, and their power and fear of rebellion corrupts them. In this world, governments are weak, where they are permitted at all; the Peace Authority is the true bearer of power and becomes a worldwide government. A group of rebels, the Tinkers, develop technology clandestinely far beyond what the Authority has (while limited to riding horseback and other Authority-mandated anachronisms), but still has no defense against the bobble. One of the original inventors of the bobble is part of the resistance, and he develops a more advanced version of the bobbler which does not require the huge electrical power sources available only to the Peace Authority. It is discovered by the Tinkers (and much later by the Peace Authority) that the bobbles are actually not force fields, but stasis fields; within which time has stopped. So not only are the contents perfectly preserved, but they open spontaneously after a certain time period. The Tinkers use their knowledge and the Peacers'' ignorance of this effect to their advantage (bobbling themselves for short time periods, for instance), and with the help of a young thief (and mathematical genius), they lead a rebellion to try to bobble the power generators of the Peace Authority and thus neutralize its primary weapon.

The Peace War

The protagonist of Kipps is Arthur "Artie" Kipps. In Book I ("The Making of Kipps") he is raised by his aged aunt and uncle in New Romney, on the southern coast of Kent. He attends the Cavendish Academy ("a middle-class school," not a "board school") in Hastings, in East Sussex. "By inherent nature he had a sociable disposition," and Kipps befriends Sid Pornick, the neighbor boy. Kipps falls in love with Sid''s younger sister Ann, and Ann gives him half a sixpence as a token of their love when at the age of fourteen he is apprenticed to the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, run by Mr. Shalford. But the Pornicks move away and Kipps forgets Ann. He becomes infatuated with Helen Walshingham, who teaches a wood carving class on Thursday nights. When Chitterlow, an actor and aspiring playwright, meets Kipps by running into him with his bicycle, their encounter turns into an inebriated evening that leads to Kipps''s being "swapped" (dismissed). But before he leaves Mr. Shalford''s establishment, Chitterlow brings to his attention a newspaper advertisement that leads to an unsuspected inheritance for Kipps from his grandfather of a house and £26,000. In Book II ("Mr. Coote the Chaperon"), Kipps fails in his attempt to adapt to his new social class while living in Folkestone. By chance he meets a Mr. Coote, who undertakes his social education; this leads to renewed contact with Helen Walshingham, and they become engaged. But the process of bettering himself alienates Kipps more and more, especially since Helen has in view taking advantage of Kipps''s fortune to establish herself and her brother in London society. Chance meetings with Sid and then Ann (now a house servant) lead to a decision to abandon social conventions (and his engagement to Helen) and marry his childhood sweetheart. In Book III ("Kippses"), the attempt to find suitable lodging precipitates Kipps back into a struggle with the "complex and difficult" English social system. Kipps and Ann quarrel. Then they learn that Helen''s brother, a solicitor, has lost most of their fortune through speculation. The loss of most of Kipps''s money leads to a happier situation, however, when Kipps opens a branch of the Associated Booksellers'' Trading Union (Limited) in Folkestone, and they have a son. The success of Chitterlow''s play, in which Kipps had invested £2000, restores their fortune, but they are content to remain shopkeepers.

Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul

Since childhood, Bryon Douglas and Mark Jennings have been like brothers, but now times are changing. Bryon is growing up and thinking about who he wants to be, but Mark is still living for the thrill of the moment. The book starts out with their mom being in the hospital. She is Bryon''s birth mother, and Mark''s adoptive mother. Mark''s parents died in an argument with each other when they were both drunk and ended up shooting each other. So Mark and Bryon have to make money to help support the family while their mom is in the hospital getting surgery. Bryon gets a job at the local supermarket while Mark starts bringing in lots of cash. Bryon doesn''t ask where its from. Towards the end of the book, Byron discovers that Mark has been getting his money by selling drugs to hippies. Bryon is horrified since a 13 year old kid they know, named M&M, went missing and lost his mind because of someone selling him drugs. Bryon is shocked about Mark''s new job and calls the police. He waits for Mark to come home. He tells Mark he found the drugs and Mark says that he will stop if it makes Bryon upset. Bryon says it it is too late, that he already called the police. Mark is surprised, he does not believe that it is true. The police come and take Mark away to a reformatory school. Later, he acts up frequently and is sent to prison for a long time. A couple months after Bryon calls the police, he goes to visit Mark in the reformatory school. Mark says that he wanted to see Bryon because he needed to make sure he hated him.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

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The Godmakers

By Frank Herbert

The Final Key

By Catherine Asaro

Space Opera

By Jack Vance

The Plains of Abraham

No Author Listed

Confessions of a Mask

By Yukio Mishima

Dogs Don't Tell Jokes

By Louis Sachar

Old Yeller

By Fred Gipson

Twilight Eyes

By Dean Koontz

Red Star

No Author Listed

The Peace War

By Vernor Vinge

Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul

By H. G. Wells

That Was Then, This Is Now

By S. E. Hinton