Gobbolino is a little black kitten born in a witch''s cave high up on Hurricane mountain with one white paw after it was bathed in moonlight, and sparkling blue eyes who was born to be a witch''s cat with his pure black twin sister, Sootica. While his sister is quite happy to learn spells and turn mice into toads, Gobbolino longs to be a humble kitchen cat; and he embarks on a great adventure to seek out his heart''s desire. First, he tries to be a normal kitchen cat, first at a farm, then an orphanage, then the mayor''s house, but his magic always gets him into trouble. He becomes a show cat, but the other cats are jealous and reveal him as a witch''s cat. He becomes a ship''s cat for a brief period, but returns to shore after using his magic to save the ship from a witch, making the sailors suspicious. He is adopted by a sick princess, but when she is well again she leaves for boarding school without him, and he joins a Punch and Judy show as ''Toby the Dog'', but a witch in the audience reveals him as a witch''s cat. A knight finds him and gives him to a lady as a gift, but when Gobbolino tries to help the knight win over the Lady, he only causes more trouble. He leaves, and is adopted by a woodcutter, but the woodcutter''s great-granddaughter sells him to a pedlar-woman for a dress. Finally accepting his magic, Gobbolino becomes the pedlar-woman''s assistant, but his good heart and unwillingness to cause pain mean he fails at every task he is set. The pedlar-woman leaves him in the care of his sister, Sootica, and her mistress, but once again he is unable to complete his tasks. The witch puts a spell on him, removing his magical powers, and he finds his way back to the farm where he began his journey, his coat having faded to an unrecognisable tabby. Here, he finds his old friends welcome him back happily, and he becomes the farm''s kitchen cat. The name ''Gobbolino'' is from the Italian word for "little hunchback".

Gobbolino, the Witch''s Cat

Carnelian, son and heir to Lord Suth, and prince Osidian have been abducted, drugged and smuggled out of the capital of the three lands, Osrakum, in funeral urns. Carnelian is awakened by a would-be grave robber seeking spoils in the urns. The robber is immediately placed in the dilemma of having looked upon the face of one of the exalted chosen lords, for which the penalty is death, of killing them and risking eventual discovery and death, of being caught in the inevitable hunt for such exalted missing persons and being executed, or fleeing far from the capital with his captives in the hope of selling them as valuable slaves. He chooses the latter as his only chance of survival and thus Carnelian and Osidian are set upon a very different course than Osidians anticipated coronation. Osidian having failed to appear at the coronation, his brother Molochite would automatically be made emperor instead. As mortal brother to the new divine emperor, Osidian would take Molochite''s place as blood sacrifice. Carnelian and Osidian are bound and disguised and marched away from the capital. Osidian is in worse shape than Carnelian, so that Carnelian must make the difficult choices of attempting their escape. Carnelian has a possibility of escape and return to the capital, but either abandoning Osidian or bringing him back would mean his inevitable death. Instead he seizes the opportunity of an attack by nomad tribesmen to transfer them to captivity with the tribesmen, instead of the slavers. As the party returns to the plains which are home to the ochre tribe, Osidian recovers somewhat and his reckless determination defending the party from wild animals, plus his navigational skills and knowledge of the plains drawn from his unconventional and privileged education, impresses the tribesmen. Some of them start to defer to Osidian both as a clearly recognisable member of the ruling race which they have been taught to fear, and as a natural replacement for the dead leaders of their party. The tribesmen return to their village, where a combination of fast talking by Carnelian (whose family had a number of plainsmen as slaves), and growing respect for Osidian mean they are allowed to live as part of the village. Carnelian is accepting of their new life, but Osidian is at first suicidal, but then vengeful. He embarks on a plan to recover his position and sets about manipulating the tribesmen to his ends. By a number of staged encounters, he sets tribesmen from different villages against each other, until he controls a steadily growing warband. This he intends to use as the start of an army to wage war against his brother.

The Standing Dead

The book chronicles the rise to fame of one Montgomery Marvin, a professor of economics who, as an academic teacher, keeps a low profile but who nevertheless is given tenure quite early in his career. While outwardly concerning himself with unspectacular research focusing on "Mathematical Paradigms in an Approach to Refrigerator Pricing" (which is also the title of his Ph.D. thesis), Marvin''s extracurricular activities centre on becoming very rich in a very short time. For that purpose, Marvin has devised a new formula—a stock forecasting model by means of which he and his wife can cash in on people''s euphoria, greed and, as they call it, dementia. Eventually, while everyone loses money in the wake of the "Black Monday" stock market crash of October 19, 1987, the Marvins gain an awful lot. (See also Michael Milken and leveraged buyout.) They decide to spend their money wisely, according to their liberal agenda. Intent on strictly observing the code of business ethics, they start to make use of the "positive power of wealth" and embark on a life of philanthropy. They fund a number of chairs in peace studies to be established at, of all places, military academies. They also secure legislation by which companies are required to label their products according to the percentage of female executives employed by them. After they have launched several of their projects, their operations are increasingly considered un-American and officially put under surveillance. But whatever will happen - Marvin knows that he will be able to nourish his family, as he has been accorded tenure. A Tenured Professor was republished as paperback by Houghton Mifflin in 2001 (ISBN 0-618-15455-8).

A Tenured Professor

Five years have passed since the computer known as Colossus used its control over the world''s nuclear deterrent to take control of humanity. Superseded by an even more advanced successor system built on the Isle of Wight, it has abolished war and poverty throughout the world. National competition and most sports have been replaced by the Sea War Game, where replicas of World War I dreadnoughts battle each other for viewing audiences. A group known as the Sect, which worships Colossus as a god, is growing in numbers and influence. Yet despite the seeming omnipresence of Colossus'' secret police and the penalty of decapitation for anti-Colossus activities, a secret Fellowship exists that is dedicated to the computer''s destruction. Charles Forbin, the former head of the design team that built and activated the original Colossus, now lives on the Isle of Wight with his wife and son, serving the computer as Director of Staff. Though contemptuous of the growing cult of personality around Colossus, he has reconciled himself to Colossus'' rule. His wife Cleo, however, loathes Colossus and is a member of the Fellowship. One afternoon while taking her son to a secluded beach, she receives a radio transmission from the planet Mars. Identifying Cleo as a member of the Fellowship, the transmission offers help to destroy Colossus and asks her to return to the same spot the next day for further instructions. She returns with Edward Blake, Colossus'' Director of Input and the head of the Fellowship. Together they receive instructions to obtain a circuit diagram of one of Colossus'' input terminals and a sample of the information fed into it, along with instructions to proceed to two locations&nbsp;— one in St. John''s, Newfoundland, the other in New York''s Central Park&nbsp;— to receive further transmissions. Though Blake passes the necessary information along to Cleo, she is quickly arrested by the Sect and sentenced by Colossus to spend three months at an "Emotional Study Center" where she is repeatedly raped as part of an experiment designed to help Colossus better understand human emotion. Now under suspicion, Blake approaches Forbin, who is devastated by his wife''s arrest. Explaining the details of their plot, Blake convinces Forbin to help after explaining the details of Cleo''s captivity. Forbin travels in disguise with the requested information, first to St. John''s, then to New York City, where he receives an incomprehensible mathematical problem that the transmission claims will destroy Colossus once it is fed into the computer. Upon his return, Forbin slips the problem to Blake, who enters it into Colossus. While Forbin converses with the computer, Colossus begins to make verbal errors, then stops. Increasingly erratic, it attempts to warn Forbin of a threat from space that it was preparing to meet but breaks down before it can complete the message. Now free of Colossus'' rule, Blake moves to seize power, using the automated fleets of the Sea War Games to threaten the world''s capitals. As Blake gloats, Forbin tells him of Colossus'' warning. Requesting any reports of unusual astronomical activity, they learn that two contacts have been detected leaving Martian orbit and heading towards the Earth. The novel ends with the two men hearing a radio transmission repeating, "Forbin, we are coming."

The Fall of Colossus

Hayek argues that Western democracies, including the United Kingdom and the United States, have “progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past.” Society has mistakenly tried to ensure continuing prosperity by centralized planning, which inevitably leads to totalitarianism. “We have in effect undertaken to dispense with the forces which produced unforeseen results and to replace the impersonal and anonymous mechanism of the market by collective and ‘conscious’ direction of all social forces to deliberately chosen goals.” Socialism, while presented as a means of assuring equality, does so through “restraint and servitude”, while “democracy seeks equality in liberty”. Planning, because coercive, is an inferior method of regulation, while the cooperation of a free market is superior “because it is the only method by which our activities can be adjusted to each other without coercive or arbitrary intervention of authority”. Centralized planning is inherently undemocratic, because it requires "that the will of a small minority be imposed upon the people..." The power of these minorities to act by taking money or property in pursuit of centralized goals, destroys the Rule of Law and individual freedoms. Where there is centralized planning, "the individual would more than ever become a mere means, to be used by the authority in the service of such abstractions as the ''social welfare'' or the ''good of the community''". Even the very poor have more personal freedom in an open society than a centrally planned one. "[W]hile the last resort of a competitive economy is the bailiff, the ultimate sanction of a planned economy is the hangman." Socialism is a hypocritical system, because its professed humanitarian goals can only be put into practice by brutal methods "of which most socialists disapprove". Such centralized systems also require effective propaganda, so that the people come to believe that the state''s goals are theirs. Hayek analyzes the roots of Nazism in socialism, then draws parallels to the thought of British leaders: The increasing veneration for the state, the admiration of power, and of bigness for bigness'' sake, the enthusiasm for "organization" of everything (we now call it "planning") and that "inability to leave anything to the simple power of organic growth"...are all scarcely less marked in England now than they were in Germany. Hayek believed that after World War II, &#34;wisdom in the management of our economic affairs will be even more important than before and that the fate of our civilization will ultimately depend on how we solve the economic problems we shall then face&#34;. The only chance to build a decent world is &#34;to improve the general level of wealth&#34; via the activities of free markets. He saw international organization as involving a further threat to individual freedom. He concluded: &#34;The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century.&#34;

The Road to Serfdom

The Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) is assigned to diplomatic duty to host the wedding between two houses of the Tizarin, a race that lives only in space and engages in commerce. One of the guests is Lwaxana Troi, to represent Betazed. The time setting places it after the events of "Deja Q" (third season) and before "Q-Pid" (fourth season). Kerin, heir to the house of Nistral, will marry Sehra, the daughter of the house of Graziunas. Q puts in an appearance. Although he toys with Picard while asking to be allowed to attend the wedding festivities, he promises to behave himself. Q attracts Lwaxana''s notice, and she is fascinated by Q. To Picard''s horror, Q fans the flames of love. Later, Q also begins to fan the animosity between the two Tizarin houses, mainly by feeding on the occasional blowups between the bride and groom, who are themselves irritated: Sehra by her future father-in-law Nistral''s comments and Kerin by his future mother-in-law Mrs. Graziunas'' comments. The two families come to battle, and a despairing Lwaxana wishes she could do something. Q gives her power, and Lwaxana stops the battle, and Kerin and Serah determine they will marry, no matter what. Meanwhile, Q has revealed his true colors: another way of annoying lower life forms. He scorns Lwaxana, who gives Q a serious thrashing, thanks to Q2 helping her hold onto the power. Meanwhile, a gift of gratitude by Sehra to Wesley Crusher turns out to be anything but a joy, as Sehra gives Wesley a clumsy slave girl. After much pain and a broken rib, Wesley returns the slave girl to Sehra, who had been trying to get rid of her but is now happy to have her back.

Q-in-Law

The book draws attention to the numerical significance of the 2006 global oil production figure: of crude oil per day is equivalent to one thousand barrels per second. He believes the transcendence of this consumption threshold marks the beginning of a historically significant “energy break point” when oil’s dominant position as a primary energy source is no longer tenable. The book examines industrial society''s "addiction" to oil in its past, present and future aspects. The history of humankind’s ongoing adoption and abandonment of energy sources – wood, coal, tallow, whale oil, kerosene, etc. – illustrates a “evolutionary energy cycle”. This cycle is evident today in the problems facing the oil industry. At the time of the book’s publication, various factors — ranging from unrest in the Middle East, a “demand shock” from India and China, exceptionally elevated energy commodity prices and climate change anxiety — weakened oil’s leadership amongst all primary energy sources. The author does not commit to the inevitability of any one particular future outcome, but paints various scenarios that could lead to a peaceful and profitable resolution of the break point.

A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World

In the first novel, Fireball, Simon and Brad are cousins who are mysteriously transported to an alternate history Earth, where the Roman Empire did not break up and Europe remains in pre-Dark Ages technology. In an attempt to improve their status in the new realm, Simon and Brad aid the Church, which is oppressed, to launch a coup by introducing the stirrup and the longbow. The coup succeeds, but the boys did not anticipate the Church as a state power would force everyone in the Empire to convert or die. At the end of the first book, they sail away to the New World, which in the realm, was not discovered yet by the Old World. At the beginning of this novel, they managed to reach the American continent safely. They are received warmly enough by the native tribes in North America, but soon find themselves yearning for more advanced civilizations. Trekking across the continent, they head for the only civilization in America which has significant urban living - the Aztecs. As the Roman Empire has persisted in Europe of this realm until the 20th century due to unchanging externalities, the Aztec too has continued without encounters from the Europeans'' discovery of the New World. In order to quickly gain wealth and status to enjoy a comfortable living, they take part in the sacred games, which is a cross between squash, tennis and handball. Their aim though is to finish second, as the victors will be sacrificed to the gods. Unfortunately, they win. To escape the fate of the winners, they escape again, and this time, are captured by sailors from the Far East. Their story continues in the last book of the trilogy, Dragon Dance.

New Found Land

During a routine day, Det. III Shane Scully accidentally strikes John Bodine, a homeless schizophrenic African America man with his car. After getting him medical attention and trying to offload the man without a lawsuit, Scully is called to a homicide where he finds a cop and former Crip gangbanger in his wife Alexa''s car, and Alexa missing. A series of leads eventually finds Scully interrogating Lou "Luna" Maluga, a psychotic sociopath, and his estranged wife Stacy, the titular "White Sister," both big names in the rap music industry. After being repeatedly ordered to cease investigation and threatened with criminal charges or dismissals, Scully is given an out if he returns his wife''s personal computer, only to find a series of romantic emails between his wife and the "Dark Angel," the same police officer found shot in Alexa''s car with Alexa''s weapon. Later, his son will point out that the majority of the text are veiled references to several rap slang terms and groups, making the messages coded transmissions from the undercover officer. During this time, he receives a phone call from Alexa where she confess to the murder and apparently commits suicide, leaving her in critical condition. Following Stacy Maluga, Scully is eventually lead to Derek Slater, another rap artist whom Stacy is attempting to turn against her husband by exercising an escape clause in his contract, and Bust-A-Cap, a well dressed, well educated, eloquent gentleman outside of his rap artist persona. Scully plays several tapes showing that Maluga is setting up Derek and planning to murder both him and Bust-A-Cap, which he appreciates but does not seem perturbed by, having been targeted with violence before. During this, Alexa undergoes surgery and slides into a coma, and is presumed guilty by the media forces arrayed against her. After learning that the "Dark Angel" really is an undercover officer on long term assignment, he begs that the department attempt to dissuade the media from continuing to slander his wife, and is flatly refused. After preventing there murder at Bust-a-Cap''s latest concert performance, Scully eventually winds up in Vegas, and is captured along with Derek and Bust-A-Cap, and led out into the desert to be executed. Once there, Scully notices there are three dug graves, which is unusual as only Derek and Bust-A-Cap were targeted for murder and Scully was not expected to be in Las Vegas, let alone captured. As they stand around the graves, Scully idly asks Lou Maluga when he is planning on marrying his mistress and divorcing his wife. Extremely confused by the question, Lou Maluga allows Scully, over Stacy''s shrieked objections, that Stacy can''t allow Lou to divorce her, as the court costs and division of property would ruin the rap label she''s struggled to maintain despite her husbands repeated violent episodes and husband''s bungled business practices. After pointing out the number of graves, and explaining how the third one was originally meant for Lou, a violent shootout occurs. Lou Maluga and a few of his bodyguards are killed. Stacy, after confronting Scully and explaining how this doesn''t affect her plans, is shot by her bodyguard "Insane Wayne," an undercover California Sheriff''s officer. After collecting all the survivors, several quickly confess that they hijacked Alexa and her car, picked up the undercover officer, and executed him with Alexa''s weapon, before forcing her to confess to his murder and shooting her in the head. Wayne, having been brought into the Maluga family by the "Dark Angel" was in danger by his relationship, and so no info had been allowed out that might''ve cleared his wife. Scully, enraged by the LAPD for throwing his wife under the bus, agrees to not sue for character defamation and slander in exchange for not being charged or punished for his violations. Alexa, still in a persistent vegetative coma, is scheduled to be taken off life support despite Scully''s strong objections. But when he attends the hospice where she is kept, he finds her body gone. Finding a fire alarm going off in the basement, Scully heads down there to find John Bodine, whom Scully had befriended after a fashion, performing an African tribal dance around Alexa''s body. Believing her to have died after being taken off life support, Scully and the doctors are shocked when she spontaneously revives, and slowly begins to recuperate.

White Sister

Miles graduates from the Academy, and is upset to learn he is being sent to replace the weather officer at the Empire''s winter infantry training base on remote Kyril Island, to see if he can handle the discipline and military routine. Miles refuses to obey what he deems a criminal order by the base commander, who has him arrested for mutiny, and as he is Vor, treason. He is quickly returned to the capital and sequestered in the bowels of Imperial Security (ImpSec) by Simon Illyan, who, along with his father, conclude that Miles had behaved correctly, but that they have larger problems than insubordinate Vorlings. Young Emperor Gregor has disappeared while on a diplomatic mission to Komarr. Miles, traveling to the Hegen Hub on an unrelated mission for ImpSec, is framed for murder and arrested. While in custody, he is startled to find Gregor, who tells him that he ran away from the embassy on Komarr, but was then shanghaied as a technician by an unscrupulous ship owner. Miles complicates matters in an attempt to extricate Gregor, and is soon up to his neck in a mysterious plot involving an amoral femme fatale, his murderous former Kyril Island commanding officer, and Hub power politics. Miles encounters his mercenary friends and, after outmaneuvering their leaders, resumes command under his Admiral Naismith persona. He is able to rescue Gregor, and as a bonus, unify the Hegen Hub in repelling a Cetagandan invasion fleet, with a little timely help from a Barrayaran fleet co-commanded by his father and Emperor Gregor. Gregor and ImpSec decide to put the Dendarii on permanent secret retainer for covert missions, with Miles officially installed as liaison. Thus begins the portion of Miles'' career that ends with his temporary disgrace in Memory.

The Vor Game

Elkinos Skander is an archaeologist stationed on the planet of Dalgonia. The planet was formerly occupied by the long-dead Markovian race, who are known only for the planet-sized computers they built into the crust of the planets they inhabited. A new team arrives to provide help just as Skander unlocks the mystery of the apparently dead computer. One of the new students, patterned (and named) after a brilliant mathematician named Varnett, sees Skander interacting with the computer and confronts him. The two conclude that the computer runs on a form of energy unknown to human physics, forming the basic unified field that governs the existence of the universe. The computer runs on, and controls, that energy. The rest of the new team discovers a surface anomaly near the north pole of the planet, where a hexagonal "hole" appears for a brief interval every day. Skander and Varnett both believe that they will be able to use this anomaly to access the planetary computer, and both set off to attempt to take control. Trying to protect the discovery, Skander stops at the team''s camp and murders them. By the time he arrives at the anomaly, Varnett has already prepared for his arrival and the two struggle on the surface. They are swallowed up by the anomaly when it reopens. Meanwhile, the interstellar freighter Stehekin is transporting three passengers and grain intended for famine relief. The passengers are a businessman named Datham Hain, his "niece" Wu Julee, and a diplomatic courier identified as Vardia Diplo 1261. During the trip, the ship''s captain, Nathan Brazil, discovers that Hain is a "sponge merchant", a trafficker in a drug that causes an incurable, degenerative brain disease. Using the threat of withholding the antidote, the drug can be used to gain power over those it infects. Hain keeps Wu Julee as an example of what happens in this case; she has regressed to a mental age of five and will eventually be turned into a vegetable and allowed to die. Brazil diverts the Stehekin from its course, in an attempt to reach the planet where the sponge sickness originated to obtain the antidote. Before they arrive, Brazil receives a distress call from Dalgonia and detours to investigate. There, they find the seven students murdered by Skander. Subsequently, the entire party travels to the polar gate, and while they are investigating there, the anomaly reopens and they are transported to the Well World. The Well World is a Markovian construct that exists outside our universe. Like Dalgonia, the planet consists largely of an enormous computer that can interact and control the forces of nature. The surface has been patterned into a series of hexagonal patches where Markovians were allowed to experiment in creating their own new forms of intelligent life, and if they were successful they would be sent off into the universe to evolve on their own. Another Markovian was then allowed to try their hand at species design in the now empty hex. The planet still contains many of the approximately 1,500 races that were still on the Well World when the Markovians disappeared. At the Well World, Brazil and his companions are charged with tracking down Skander and Varnett, as the inhabitants of the planet are concerned that either of them could gain access to the central computer there and do untold mischief to the universe. The complication is that travelling through the polar gate on Dalgonia has transformed all of the humans, with the exception of Nathan Brazil, into members of the various species which inhabit the planet. As the book continues, in the fashion of It''s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Nathan comes to realize that his existence is not as it appeared, and memories of his former time on the Well World start to surface.

Midnight at the Well of Souls

This section concerns Franny''s weekend date with her collegiate boyfriend, Lane Coutell. He takes her to a fashionable lunch room, where he is described as “monopolizing” the conversation and trying to impress Franny with his news of receiving a suggestion to publish his latest paper on Flaubert. Franny appears upset, questioning the importance of college education and the worth of Lane''s friends. She eats nothing, and is smoking, sweating, and feeling faint, and must excuse herself to visit the restroom, where, after a crying spell, she regains her composure. She returns to the table, where Lane questions her on the small book she has been carrying. She responds nonchalantly that the book is titled The Way of a Pilgrim and tells the story of how a Russian wanderer learns the power of "praying without ceasing." The Jesus Prayer involves internalizing the prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," to a point where, in a manner similar to a Zen koan, it becomes unconscious, almost like a heartbeat. Lane is less interested in the story than in keeping their timetable for the party and football game, though when Franny faints, he tends to her and postpones the weekend''s activities. After she wakes, he goes to get a taxi, and leaves Franny alone—practicing the act of praying without ceasing. Zooey, smoking and soaking in a tub, is reading a four-year-old letter from his brother, Buddy. His mother, Bessie, enters the bathroom, and the two have a long discussion, centering upon Bessie''s worries about his sister, Franny, who is in a state of emotional collapse. During the conversation, Zooey verbally spars and banters with his mother and repeatedly requests that she leave. Bessie tolerates Zooey''s behavior, and simply states that he''s becoming more and more like his brother Buddy and wonders what has happened to her children that were once so "sweet and loving." After Bessie leaves, Zooey gets dressed and goes to the living room, where he finds Franny on the sofa with her cat Bloomberg, and begins speaking with her. After upsetting Franny by questioning her motives for reciting the "Jesus Prayer," Zooey retreats into the former bedroom of his two older brothers, Seymour and Buddy, and reads the back of their door, covered in philosophical quotations. After contemplation, Zooey telephones Franny, pretending to be Buddy. Franny eventually discovers the ruse, but she and Zooey continue to talk. Knowing that Franny reveres their eldest brother, Seymour—the psychologist, spiritual leader, and confidante of the family, who committed suicide years earlier—Zooey shares with her some words of wisdom that Seymour once gave him. By the end of the call, as the fundamental "secret" of Seymour''s advice is revealed, Franny seems to find illumination in what Zooey has told her: “there isn’t anyone out there who isn’t Seymour’s fat lady” and that the “Fat Lady” is Christ himself.

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Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat

No Author Listed

The Standing Dead

By Ricardo Pinto

A Tenured Professor

By John Kenneth Galbraith

The Fall of Colossus

By Dennis Feltham Jones

The Road to Serfdom

By Friedrich Hayek

Q-in-Law

By Peter David

A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World

By Peter Tertzakian

New Found Land

By Samuel Youd

White Sister

No Author Listed

The Vor Game

By Lois McMaster Bujold

Midnight at the Well of Souls

By Jack L. Chalker

Franny and Zooey

By J. D. Salinger