Tuesday, January 4th, 2022
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Midi minuit ]

© Amazon.fr
Au cours de la guerre
Beltram est blessé et perd la mémoire. Il est renvoyé chez lui, l'amnésie
n'étant qu'une ruse pour rejoindre la résistance et libérer Marnie qui
travaille de force dans un usine d'armement. Jenna est aussi prisonnière mais
parvient à s'échapper par un miroir. On lui confie la mission d'aller soigner
le roi du Lenyar, et empêche son assassinat par ordre du vice-roi. Le roi
parvient à faire cesser la guerre de son coté, et tandis que Jim tente
d'arrêter le président usurpateur d'York, ce dernier est enlevé par un miroir.
[ Posted on January 4th, 2022 at 19:36 |
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Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Blake et Mortimer ]

© Amazon.fr
Mortimer est en orient dans une base britannique afin de participer au
rapatriement de sept Espadons entreposés depuis la guerre, tandis que Blake
traque des membres de l'IRA en Irlande. Un des espadons est volé par Olrik et
livré à un ancien SS tandis que les autres sont détruits et que Mortimer est
capturé par Olrik. Olrik et son complice, aidés de l'IRA, recrutent un ancien
pilote d'Espadon afin de bombarder Buickingham Palace. Heureusement, Blake
parvient à se faire recruter à la place du pilote et fait échouer l'attentat.
[ Posted on January 4th, 2022 at 19:20 |
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Sunday, December 26th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Asimov ]

© Amazon.fr
Après son enquête sur Solaria,
Elijah Bailey est invité sur la planète Aurore par le docteur Fastolfe.
Jander, le seul autre robot humanoïde à part Daneel, a été retrouvé désactivé
d'une manière spécifique, et Fastolfe, qui l'a construit, se considère la
seule personne dans la galaxie capable d'avoir fait cela, tout en niant
en être responsable. Au moment des faits, Jander appartenait à Gladïa, la
Solarienne que Bailey avait rencontrée lors de sa précédente enquête. Le
« roboticide » n'est en réalité qu'un prétexte pour affaiblir politiquement
Fastolfe : ce dernier est partisan de permettre aux terriens et à tous les
mondes spaciens de coloniser la galaxie en n'utilisant aucun robot (afin de ne
pas créer par accident des colonies où seuls les robots survivraient), alors
que ses opposants veulent la coloniser au moyen de robots humanoïdes (afin de
créer des colonies propices à la vie humaine) et réserver ce droit aux
habitants d'Aurore. Dans son enquête, Elijah retrouve son ami le robot Daneel
et ils sont accompagnés d'un autre robot de Fastolfe. Giskard. Après avoir
interrogé Gladïa, Elijah interroge Vasilia, la fille de Fastolfe, qui déteste
son père et peint de lui un portrait très négatif. Vasilia travaille pour
l'institut de robotique qui cherche à construire des robots humanoïdes,
Fastolfe refusant de livrer le secret de leur fabrication. Bailey interroge
alors le Dr. Amadiro, directeur de l'institut, et opposant politique direct de
Fastolfe. Ce dernier tente de déstabiliser Elijah en le forçant à s'exposer à
un orage (Bailey n'est toujours pas complètement à l'aise à l'extérieur, même
par beau temps) pour pouvoir le « sauver » et ainsi s'emparer de Daneel afin
de pouvoir l'étudier. Elijah et les robots parviennent à échapper à Amadiro,
et les deux roboticiens sont appelés à discuter avec le président afin de
trouver un compromis, à la façon auroraine. Elijah est présent et explique
comment Amadiro est parvenu à faire régulièrement sortir Gladïa de chez elle
sans Jander afin d'interroger ce dernier pour analyser le comportement de son
cerveau ; c'est cette analyse qui a accidentellement provoqué le gel mental du
robot. D'autres détails permettent à Elijah de découvrir que Giskard est
capable de télépathie. Ce dernier explique qu'il a provoqué le gel mental de
Jander dans le but d'arrêter Amadiro mais aussi d'embarrasser suffisamment
Fastolfe afin que ce dernier fasse appel à Elijah, le but ultime de Giskard
étant d'analyser le cerveau d'un terrien et décider si ces derniers sont plus
aptes que les spaciens à coloniser la galaxie.
[ Posted on December 26th, 2021 at 19:30 |
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Sunday, December 19th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Asimov ]

© Amazon.fr
Elijah Bailey
est envoyé sur la planète Solaria pour y enquêter sur le meurtre du docteur
Delmarre. Sur la planète, Elijah est accueilli par son ami Daneel Olivaw qui a
été envoyé de la planète Aurore pour le seconder. Les habitants de Solaria
vivent isolés les uns des autre, ne supportent pas la proximité d'autres
humains et vivent entourés de robots, ce qui rend un meurtre quasiment
impossible. Les suspects que Bailey interroge sont tous convaincus que Gladïa,
la femme de la victime, est coupable, tout en reconnaissant que le meurtre en
lui-même est impossible à exécuter. Sur Solaria, Bailey affronte sa phobie
d'être à l'extérieur et petit à petit apprend à la surmonter. Il interroge en
« visioconférence » (le moyen habituel utilisé par les solariens pour se
rencontrer) Gruer, le chef de la sécurité de Solaria qui est victime d'un
empoisonnement sous ses yeux. Son enquête l'amène à rencontrer en personne et
malgré leur réticence, l'assistant de Gruer qui essaye de lui faire abandonner
l'enquête, un sociologue autodidacte qui lui raconte la genèse de Solaria, et
l'assistante de Delmarre qui lui montre comment les enfants sont élevés (par
des robots dans une sorte de ferme, et habitués à s'isoler les uns des autre
dès leur plus jeune âge). À la ferme, Bailey manque d'être tué par un flèche
empoisonnée tirée par un des enfants, et de détective commence à imaginer une
solution où les robots sont manipulés de sorte à servir d'arme du crime à leur
insu en effectuant des tâches qui, prises séparément, ne peuvent faire de mal
à un humain. Bailey rencontre alors Gladïa Delmarre en personne et découvre
qu'au contraire de ses compatriotes, elle souhaite être en présence d'autres
personnes. Gladïa entretenait une relation amicale avec Leebig, un roboticien
qui travaillait (sans succès) sur des robots capables de châtier les enfants
désobéissants. Bailey accuse finalement Leebig d'avoir assassiné Delmarre au
prétexte que ce dernier, isolationniste, s'opposait aux plans de conquête de
la galaxie du premier. Il démontre aussi que Gladïa n'est pas capable de
commander les robots suffisamment précisément pour les utiliser comme arme du
crime. Leebig avoue finalement la méthode du crime (un robot au bras
détachable, utilisé comme arme et rattaché au robot pour la faire
disparaître), ainsi que les tentatives de meurtre de Gruer et de Bailey avant
de se suicider. L'affaire est close, et Bailey convainc Gladïa d'émigrer sur
Aurore. De retour sur Terre, Bailey fait son rapport au ministre, et explique
que Leebig a utilisé la colère de Gladïa à l'encontre de son mari comme moyen
de tuer ce dernier en lui fournissant une arme au moment opportun.
[ Posted on December 19th, 2021 at 12:14 |
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Saturday, December 11th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Asimov ]

© Amazon.fr
Dans le futur, les humains se sont regroupés dans des villes géantes
recouvertes de dômes fermés. À coté de New York, Spacetown a été construite
quelques décennies plus tôt par les spaciens, des descendants des humains qui
étaient partis coloniser d'autres planètes. Elijah Bailey, inspecteur de
police, est chargé par son supérieur le commissaire Enderby d'enquêter sur le
meurtre d'un spacien, le Docteur Sarton. Comme elles suspectent un terrien
d'être responsable du crime, les autorités de Spacetown exigent que Bailey
coopère avec Daneel Olivaw, un robot d'apparence humaine créé par Sarton. Les
terriens détestent les robots, car ces derniers fournissent de la main d'œuvre
bon marché et condamnent ceux qui sont remplacés à une existence misérable, et
nombre de terriens font partie du mouvement médiévaliste qui considère que le
passé était mieux que le présent et qui veulent en particulier interdire les
robots. Après quelques fausses pistes, Bailey se retrouve accusé du meurtre
d'un robot employé par la police et d'être lui-même un médiévaliste, tout
comme sa femme (qui a avoué l'être). Au cours de son enquête, Bailey a été
convaincu par les spaciens qu'il a rencontrés que les cités sous dômes n'ont
pas d'avenir, et que les terriens doivent recommencer à coloniser des
planètes. Bailey à son tour a convaincu un meneur du mouvement médiévaliste
qui était suspect du meurtre. La mission des spaciens de Spacetown étant
justement de convaincre les humains de repartir dans l'espace, ils considèrent
leur mission accomplie, et comptent quitter Spacetown, le résultat de
l'enquête étant de peu d'importance. Dans les quelques heures qu'il lui
restent, Bailey réussit alors à démontrer que le meurtrier est Enderby, lui
aussi médiévaliste, et qu'il comptait tuer Daneel, mais a tué Enderby par
erreur, les deux se ressemblant parfaitement. Daneel et Bailey, devenus amis
au cours de l'enquête, se disent au revoir.
[ Posted on December 11th, 2021 at 18:50 |
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Tuesday, November 30th, 2021
Categories: [ Books/Asimov ]

© Amazon.fr
I'm not going to summarize all the short stories, but here's the
The Complete Robot's entry on Wikipedia.
The title is misleading, as Asimov wrote six more robot stories after the book
had been published.
[ Posted on November 30th, 2021 at 17:45 |
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Thursday, August 26th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books ]

© Amazon.fr
Edward Blake est le patron d'une usine anglaise qui est déprimé depuis la mort
de sa femme plusieurs années plus tôt et qui s'est peu à peu distancé de leur
fille. Il décide alors de changer d'air et devient majordome dans une grande
maison en France, sans révéler sa véritable origine. Il y fait la connaissance
de Madame, sa patronne, d'Odile la cuisinière, de Manon une étudiante qui
vient faire le ménage plusieurs fois par semaine, et de Philippe, le
gestionnaire du domaine. Edward se rend vite compte que Madame a des soucis
d'argent et que les seules personnes qu'elle reçoit ne cherchent qu'à lui
soutirer les biens qu'il lui reste. Elle refuse cependant l'aide de son
nouveau domestique. Andrew entreprend alors de résoudre les divers problèmes
de la maisonnée : l'ami de Manon l'a quittée en apprenant qu'elle était
enceinte, Philippe est amoureux d'Odile, mais ses manières rustres font
qu'Odile se défie de lui, et Madame est déprimée depuis la mort de son mari,
en plus d'avoir fait de mauvais placements financiers. Il fait aussi la
connaissance de Yanis, un adolescent du quartier voisin que Philippe avait
surpris à le voler et qu'il contraint depuis à travailler lui, le menaçant de
le dénoncer à la police. Andrew conseille Manon sur comment mieux communiquer
avec son copain, apprend les bonnes manières à Philippe, convainc Odile
d'accepter la présence de Philippe lors des repas, donne des cours de français
et de maths à Yanis pour qu'il réussisse à l'école. Il organise une soirée
d'halloween pour Yanis et ses copains et une fête de Noël pour toute la
maisonnée. Avec Philippe, il va reprendre les bijoux qu'une « amie » de
Madame lui avait soutirés à vil prix, et lorsque Madame vend son domaine à un
promoteur immobilier, il n'hésite pas à user de la force pour reprendre le
compromis de vente et le détruire. Lorsqu'il se décide enfin à avouer à Madame
qu'il a caché son passé, elle lui apprend qu'elle le savait déjà, car ils ont
des amis communs (qui ont permis à Andrew de trouver son emploi de majordome).
Et à la fin, la fille d'Andrew vient lui rendre visite avec son mari et ses
enfants.
[ Posted on August 26th, 2021 at 10:19 |
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Sunday, June 13th, 2021
Categories: [ Books ]

© Amazon.fr
In a dystopian future, Case is a former computer hacker who, having cheated
his last employer, has lost his ability to connect to the matrix as a
punishment. He now survives by committing petty crimes until he is contacted
by Armitage, who offers to repair the damage done to his nervous system in
exchange for a job. Case accepts and starts working with Molly, a mercenary
employed by Armitage. They first steal the device containing saved
consciousness of a famous hacker, nicknamed Dixie Flatline, by hiring a street
gang to simulate a terrorist attack on the building holding the device while
Molly steals it, helped by Case who remotely disables the buildings security
systems. The trio then travels to Istanbul to hire Riviera before flying to
Freeside, a space station functioning as a space resort for rich people. In
the meanwhile, Case is contacted several times by an artificial intelligence
called Wintermute which has been created by the Tessier-Ashpool family. The
law forbids creating an AI with both intelligence and personality and Case
learns that Wintermute is his real boss, Armitage being a fake personality
applied to a traumatized ex-military named Corto. Wintermute wants Case and
Molly to get Riviera to Lady 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool (who lives in Villa
Straylight, at one extremity of Freeside) so that it can be merged with
Neuromancer, an AI with personality. The two AIs would be able to merge
if Lady 3Jane pronounces a given password at the exact moment when the
software security systems that prevent the two AIs from reaching each other is
broken. Riviera is supposed to manipulate Lady 3Jane into pronouncing the
password (in a hidden terminal located at the Villa) while Case, with Dixie's
help, would break the security. Riviera attempts to sabotage the mission for
personal gain, but he is killed and the two AI finally merge into a
superconsciousness.
[ Posted on June 13th, 2021 at 12:17 |
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Sunday, May 30th, 2021
Translation: [ Google ]
Categories: [ Books ]
Ella ja kiristäjä
Ella on ensimmäisellä luokalla. Kun opettaja näyttää huolestuneelta, Ella ja
hänen kaverinsa päättelevät, että häntä kiristetään. He seuraavat häntä kun
hän menee matkalaukku kädessä illalla puistoon (matkalaukku on luultavasti
täynnä rahaa kiristäjälle), mutta lopuksi saadaan tietää että opettaja on
mennyt hiljattain naimisiin, ja että hän on menossa häämatkalle.
Ella teatterissa
Ellan luokka järjestelee koulujuhliin joulukuvaelmaa. Lapset ja opettaja
käyvät ensin teatterissa katsomasa miten näytelmiä esitetään. Lapset
sekaantuvat näytelmän kulkuun, mutta yleisö tykkää siitä silti. Kouluvuoden
lopussa he esittelevät joulukuvaelman. Se ei mene ihan putkeen, mutta yleisö
on silti tyytyväinen.
Ella luokkaretkellä
Ellan luokka lähtee viimeisenä koulupäivänä luokkaretkelle. Kun he saapuvat
museoon, ensimmäiseen pysähdyspaikkaan, opettaja huomaa että hän on unohtanut
rahansa kouluun ja vaikka lapsilla on rahaa ja voisivat päästää sisään, hän
ei voi ja sen takia hän riittelee kassanhoitajan kanssa. He sitten menevät
ruokalaan, jossa lapset sekaantuvat ruoanlaittoon, ja lopuksi he menevät
eläintarhaan, missä he tekevät myös tyhmyyksiä. Kun he tulevat takaisin
kouluun, melkein kaikki menevät kotiin, paitsi yksi lapsi joka on lukossa
koulussa. Hän menee ulos ikkunan kautta puuhun, mutta tarvitsee palomiehien
apua koska hän ei osaa tulla puusta alas.
[ Posted on May 30th, 2021 at 16:34 |
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Saturday, May 8th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Les enigmes de l aube ]

© Amazon.fr
Dans un monde où la moitié des habitants possède un pouvoir magique, Anyelle,
9 ans, vit dans la forêt avec sa belle-mère et son père Elliort. Comme ce
dernier a le pouvoir de faire repousser les arbres, le seigneur local ne se
prive pas de couper les les arbres à l'orée de la forêt. Un jour où un grand
nombre d'arbres avaient été coupés, Anyelle ajout accidentellement son pouvoir
à celui de son père, et les arbres poussent dans toute la ville. Sur le
conseil du vieux sorcier qui vit au fond de la forêt, Elliort emmène sa fille
dans une école de magie afin qu'elle apprenne à contrôler son pouvoir de
Renforcement. L'École des Magies Utiles et Laborieuses d'Hasturget n'accepte
traditionnellement pas les filles, mais une démonstration un peu cataclysmique
de son pouvoir convainc le directeur de l'accepter. Les enseignants n'ont rien
à faire d'une fille et les résultats d'Anyelle sont plutôt mauvais. Elle se
lie cependant d'amitié avec Naxu, un garçon dont le pouvoir est d'annuler la
magie et qui jusqu'à l'arrivée d'Anyelle était le dernier de la classe.
Lorsque commencent les cours de magie de l'esprit, le professeur Ferigas
remarque les capacités d'Anyelle, et lui donne des cours supplémentaires.
Ferigas l'emmène à un concert de magie harmonique, et Anyelle décide que c'est
ce qu'elle veut apprendre. Pour ce faire, elle doit entrer à l'Illustre
Institut d'Ithtir, ce qui lui demande beaucoup de travail. Grâce au soutien de
Ferigas, ses résultats s'améliorent et malgré un incident où Anyelle renforce
le pouvoir de Ferigas et mémorise tous les livres de la bibliothèque, elle
présente un bon dossier d'inscription à Ithtir. Les professeurs d'Ithtir sont
tout aussi misogynes que ceux d'Hasturget, mais grâce à son pouvoir elle
réussit la tâche impossible qui lui était demandée comme examen d'entrée et
est acceptée.
[ Posted on May 8th, 2021 at 14:44 |
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Saturday, April 24th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Les forets d'Opale ]

© Amazon.fr
Luksand est à l'Académie de Lumière pour apprendre à maîtriser son bracelet,
tandis que Rodombre et Altaï tentent de contacter des Forestiers qui
pourraient l'aider à déchiffrer un message indiquant l'emplacement de la
statue du Titan afin de le détruire et de mettre un terme à l'utilisation de
la magie. Après bien des péripéties ils apprennent que le message indique la
position du Titan par rapport à celle du Havre de la lumière, et partent vers
ce but. Luksand quant à lui est découvert à l'Académie et s'enfuit avant que
le Radiant Dhunkral ne s'empare du bracelet.
[ Posted on April 24th, 2021 at 16:52 |
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Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Troy ]

© Amazon.fr
Des sages ensorcellent Fuquatou pour qu'il tombe amoureux de Puitepée et se
fasse dévorer, leur permettant alors de prendre le pouvoir. Fuquatou vient à
Phalompe, un sage ensorcelle Puitepée, et contre toute attente le vénérable ne
se fait pas dévorer et emmène même la femme de Teträm à Eckmül. Le style
vestimentaire troll devient rapidement à la mode lorsque le mariage est
annoncé. Les sages organisent alors un test d'aptitude pour tenter de
destituer Fuquatou, mais l'arrivée de Teträm et Waha fait tomber leur plan à
l'eau et, en tuant celui qui a crée le philtre d'amour, brise le charme. La
famille de Teträm se reforme et les trolls retournent à leur village.
[ Posted on April 24th, 2021 at 16:37 |
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Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Les quatre de Baker Street ]

© Amazon.fr
Polly chante dans un cabaret de l'East End, et Polly tente d'y entamer une
carrière. Après avoir eu une altercation avec Wilson, son ancien patron
surnommé le “dresseur de canaris”, Polly est attaqué dans la rue et
gravement blessée. Charotte ses amis enquêtent, et Charlotte se fait engager
par Wilson. Elle découvre que Wilson est soupçonné du meurtre d'une chanteuse
et que Polly semble être un témoin de l'affaire. Wilson a donc tenté
d'éliminer Polly, mais Tom veille sur elle à l'hôpital, où l'assassin fait une
nouvelle tentative. À son retour d'Italie, Holmes aide les enfants à arrêter
Wilson et son homme de main.
[ Posted on April 24th, 2021 at 16:12 |
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Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Aspic ]

© Amazon.fr
Les esprits qui hantent la maison de la tante de Flora acceptent de quitter
les lieux. Flora enquête alors sur la mort de sa mère, empoisonnée par le
parfum reçu en cadeau d'anniversaire. Le cadeau venait du père de Flora, mais
ce dernier ne l'a pas acheté lui-même et est donc innocent ; le coupable est
son beau-frère qui, criblé de dettes, a accepté d'assassiner sa belle-mère
pour le compte d'une secte d'adorateurs de Cthulhu. Ces derniers ont aussi
tenté d'assassiner le père de Flora qui travaille à maintenir la paix en
Europe, alors que le maître de la secte a massivement investi dans l'industrie
de l'armement et espère au contraire un guerre. Après avoir défait le maître
de la secte et empêché un enfant de Cthulhu de revenir à la vie grâce à la
pierre magique qui empêche Hugo de vieillir, Flora confronte sa famille, mais
devant leur égoïsme, elle décide de couper les ponts définitivement; Hugo lui
a vieilli rapidement et écrit ses mémoires.
[ Posted on April 24th, 2021 at 15:53 |
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Monday, February 8th, 2021
Categories: [ Books/Thursday Next ]

© Amazon.fr
Still recovering from her wounds,
Thursday is offered the job of director of the city library (with a huge budget
and command over the Special Library Service commandos). For quite a while
already, Goliath Corporation has tried to replace her with a synthetic version
of herself in order to induce her family into revealing information about the
Bookworld that the corporation wants desperately to invade. This time, the
synthetic is near perfect and also operates a transfer of her mind, so she does
not immediately notice that she is not in her own body anymore, but she learns
that the bodies degrade quickly after 24 hours. Thursday soon discovers that
the man responsible for the transfers is a former high-ranking Goliath
employee who wants to help her prevent Jack Schitt from finding a way into the
Bookworld's Dark Reading Matter (where the stories go when all copies of a
book are destroyed). In the meanwhile Thursday's son Friday (who should have
been the head of the Chronoguard had its creation not been cancelled by the
failure to invent time travel) receives a letter telling what he could have
been and also telling that he will murder someone by the end of the week and
spend the rest of his life in jail, without a hint of why he would do that. In
the meanwhile, the Creator who had previously unequivocally revealed its
existence, has been smiting several places in England with a pillar of fire.
As Swindon is due to get smitten by the end of the week, Thursday's genius
daughter Tuesday is trying to develop a shield, but she's facing difficulties.
Goliath comes to the rescue with a plan (invoiced 100 million pounds) where
they gather twenty of the worst criminals to attract the smiting away from the
city. Thursday attempts to bring a righteous man near the criminals to prevent
their murder by Goliath through the Creator's actions, but it is her refusal
to kill the man when learning that he is not righteous enough to have any
effect that eventually redirects the pillar of fire towards Jack Schitt. And
in the meanwhile, the probability that an asteroid will hit the Earth forty
years later increases as people's belief in the inevitability of the event
increases (due to some wacky probability theory). In the end, Friday discovers
who he is supposed to kill: it's a man who is meant to kill people whose
existence would reduce the probability of the asteroid hitting the Earth.
Friday only wounds the man, does only a few years of jail, and foils Goliath's
plan to colonize the Dark Reading Matter in order to sell rich people a place
where to be safe from the asteroid catastrophe. Also, Thursday gets rid of her
mindworm and kills Aornis who has secretly been living in her house for the
past two years.
[ Posted on February 8th, 2021 at 20:36 |
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Wednesday, January 13th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books ]

© Amazon.fr
Dans le futur, il est illégal de ne pas consommer, afin de faire circuler
l'argent et soutenir l'économie, mais ils ont sinon le droit de faire à peu
près ce que bon leur semble, tant que c'est monétisable. Les hologrammes
publicitaires sont présents partout dans l'espace public et privé. Les gens
regardent des publicités pour se détendre, et sont publiquement connus sous le
nom de la marque qui sponsorise leur vie quotidienne. Toshiba est donc un
policier chargé d'enquêter sur les citoyen soupçonnés par les algorithmes
l'analyse de la consommation de frauder et de consommer moins que leur quota.
Avec son collègue Walmart, ils soupçonnent un netrunner de frauder. Ils
découvrent peu à peu que certains netrunners (qui ont une dérogation sur
l'obligation de consommer tant qu'ils restent dans leurs mondes virtuels et
utilisent des monnaies virtuelles) participent à un système compliqué de
sociétés écrans qui permet de rediriger une partie de l'argent réel vers des
fonds d'investissements offshore. Avec l'appui d'un netrunner qui s'oppose à
ces fraudeurs qui ne respectent pas la pureté de leur éthique, ils découvrent
que la personnalité simulée de Dany-Robert Dufour, un philosophe du passé,
enseigne certains concepts à ces déviants et promettent qu'un grand évènement
aura lieu sous peu. En même temps, Toshiba déprime, n'ayant pas de but dans la
vie (comme devenir un surhumain alcoolique comme Walmart, ou netrunner,
surhumain, cyborg, changer de sexe, adhérer à une religion…), et commence à
se gaver de médicaments. Il meurt au cours de l'histoire, et est remplacé par
un autre enquêteur aussi sponsorisé par Toshiba. À la fin, Walmart se fait
passer pour un netrunner et reçoit l'information secrète proposée par le
philosophe. Il s'agit d'un accès secret à un lieu virtuel, physiquement situé
sur un tanker transformé en datacenter voguant dans les eaux internationales,
où les « élus » peuvent perdre du temps, faire de la poésie… sans consommer
et sans être poursuivi en justice.
[ Posted on January 13th, 2021 at 20:39 |
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Monday, January 4th, 2021
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Blake et Mortimer ]

© Amazon.fr
Vingt-septième tome des aventures de Blake et Mortimer. Suite à la
destruction par Blake de l'entité entité extra-terrestre cachée sous
Londres,
Mortimer apprend l'existence d'une autre entité, baptisée Moloch par les
chercheurs qui l'étudient. Alors que ces derniers pensent avoir isolé le
Moloch, celui-ci s'échappe et prend possession de plusieurs personnes
qui laissent derrière elles d'étranges hiéroglyphes qui finissent par
apparaître même sur les façades de bâtiments. Mortimer finit par s'allier à
Olrik (qu'il a aidé à retrouver la raison) et ce dernier lui apprend que le
Moloch est un éclaireur chargé d'envoyer le signal de l'invasion de la terre.
Olrik parvient cependant à l'en empêcher, puis Blake détruit le Moloch. À la
fin, Olrik s'échappe.
[ Posted on January 4th, 2021 at 18:14 |
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Friday, December 25th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Thursday Next ]

© Amazon.fr
In the BookWorld, the written Thursday
struggles to keep the few readers of her books interested, after the remake of
the BookWorld where the Great Library setting is replaced with an hollow
planet setting where different genres are regions of islands, and books are
organised geographically along streets in cities. Thursday also works for
Jurisfiction's Accident Investigation Department and is asked to investigate
the crash of a self-published book that was flown on its way to be destroyed
after the last copy in the real word has been destroyed. She meets a strange
character who tells her that ‘one of our Thursdays is missing’ and slips the
real Thursday's Jurisfiction badge in her pocket before being arrested by the
Men in Plaid, an independent militia obeying directly the Council of Genres.
During her investigation, Thursday saves a mechanical man who becomes her
butler and helps her discover that the accident may not have been an accident.
Moreover, the real Thursday has not been seen for a long while and the written
one starts to suspect that the disappearance is linked to the accident.
Thursday decides to report that the accident was just an accident, but
continues investigating on her own time. With Bradshaw's complicity, Thursday
briefly visits the real world and meets Landen who confirms that the real
Thursday has been missing for over a week. Upon her return she tries to find
the taxi whose rear axle was found on the crash site and the taxi's driver,
during which she survives multiple murder attempts by the Men in Plaid and the
fact that the real Thursday was working with a geologist who got killed just
before he could give any useful explanation. Thursday is then ordered by
senator Jobsbworth to pose as the real one during the peace talks that are
planned to take place a few days later in the North, in an attempt to prevent
a war between Racy Novels and its two neighbours Women's Fiction and Dogma. A
delegation travels up the Metaphoric River and discovers that there has been a
terrible battle at the resupply station between a battalion of clowns from
Comedy and an unknown opponent. During the remainder of the journey, Thursday
discovers that Red Herring, her boss from JAID has been replaced by a double
during the journey and has planted a bomb on the boat. She eventually figures
out that Red Herring has learned that there is a large deposit of raw metaphor
(a very valuable substance in the BookWorld) under Racy Novel and had
manipulated the Daphne Farquitt genre to start a war, invade Racy Novel and
take control of that deposit. Thursday then realises that the real Thursday
may have survived the crash and be hiding somewhere in Psychological Thriller;
she indeed finds her severely wounded but alive. In the end Thursday becomes a
Jurisfiction agent and gets permission to change her books' story to mention
the BookWorld and make them more interesting to the readers.
[ Posted on December 25th, 2020 at 16:53 |
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Sunday, December 13th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Thursday Next ]

© Amazon.fr
Fourteen years after Something Rotten
Thursday is working for ACME carpets, which is a front for the now-defunct
SpecOps 13 and 27; most of the members of the service are still working, funded by
Thursday's operations on the cheese black market. But her work at the
unofficial SpecOps is itself a front for her work at Jurisfiction. Over the
past years, five books telling Thursday' adventures have been written. The
first four have lots of sex and gratuitous violence, perpetrated by
Thursday1-4. The fifth one is Thursday's attempt to take control and represent
herself as she imagines herself, and Thursday5 is a soppy new-age fan.
Thursday's current assignment is to train and evaluate Thursday1-4 and
Thursday5 to become new Jurisfiction agents. The former is however too
volatile to be trustworthy, and the second is too soft to make a good agent.
In the meanwhile, Thursday also tries to convince her teenage son Friday to
join the ChronoGuard, as he is supposed to become in the future the head of
the organisation, but the boy is not interested at all. This is the source of
tention, as the potential future Friday, head of ChronoGuard, explains that if
the principle of the time machine is not invented within the next few days,
time travel will not exist and all the work made by the ChronoGuard until now
will be cancelled and some very influential members of ChronoGuard who have
invested a lot of money with their knowledge of the future are really pushing
to prevent this from happening. Thursday discovers, thanks to the phantom of
her uncle Mycroft the inventor, that he had hidden the principle of time
travel in a poem years ago, when he was hiding in the BookWorld, so it should
be safe. In the meanwhile, the perspective of having no time left is causing
people to lose interest in books and prefer reality television and the Council
of Genres is planing to turn Jane Eyre into an interactive book that would
change its story for good. Friday reveals that he is not the lazy teenager he
has been pretending to be, but that it was just an act to prevent the
discovery of time travel. Soon after Thursday is attacked in the real world by
Thursday1-4 and loses the TravelGuide and therefore her ability to go to the
BookWorld and veto the CoG's plans. Aware that the Goliath Corporation as an
almost ready means of travel to the BookWorld, she makes a deal with them, but
she is betrayed and stranded, while the Goliath agent attempts to travel to
the poem and recover Mycroft's invention. The agent is however killed and
Thursday destroys the invention. She is attacked by DanverClones and saved in
the nick of time by Thursday5 disguised as Thursday1-4. Thursday rushes to the
CoG to confront Thursday1-4 who has been pretending to be the real Thursday
and approved all the stupid decisions from the CoG, but she eventually defeats
Thursday1-4 while she was locked in Thursday5's book by destroying the said
book.
[ Posted on December 13th, 2020 at 22:40 |
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Monday, October 12th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Thursday Next ]

© Amazon.fr
After two years spent in the BookWorld as Jurisfiction's
Bellman,
Thursday returns to the real world, accompanied with her son Friday and
Shakespeare's Hamlet. She discovers that the Whig party leader Yorrick Kayne
(who has already caused some trouble earlier)
is campaigning to become dictator of England (a fact confirmed by Thursday's
time-travelling father who warns her that if the Swindon croquet team does not
win the finals, Kayne will eventually cause a nuclear holocaust; the 13th
century St Zvlkx, who has made remarkably accurate predictions in the past
however predicts that Swindon will win the game). Kayne is very successfully
misdirecting the population's attention to hating the Danes, who are accused
to be the source of all of England's problems, ordering all Danish books to be
destroyed. Equally surprising is the fact that the Goliath Corporation is
transforming from a company into a faith organisation where customers would
become followers; as part of the process they offer to repair all the damages
they have caused in the past, allowing Thursday to ask Goliath to un-eradicate
her husband Landen (which eventually happens, after a few cycles of him
appearing and disappearing). In parallel, Thursday gets her job back at
SpecOps (despite having been AWOL for two years) and promises she would find a
way to hide several truckloads of books in Wales. The solution arises when she
discovers that in order for Swindon to win the croquet game after Goliath,
supporting Kayne, has scared off its best players, she needs the help of the
genetically re-engineered neanderthals (who play croquet very well but are not
at all interested in competition). The neanderthals, who cannot make children,
accept on the condition that she helps them find their species' blueprints
from the lab at the Welsh border where they had been created decades ago. The
trip to Wales allows her to hide the books and secure the cooperation of the
neanderthals for the croquet game. Thursday then confronts Kayne, and while
she has failed to recover the self-published novel by a Danish author from
which Kayne has escaped, the latter is transformed into a human during a duel
with the Cheshire Cat and loses his inhuman ability of persuasion (which was
amplified by the ovinator, an invention by Thursday's uncle Mycroft). The
ovinator is destroyed by Hamlet just before the croquet game, which Swindon
wins by a hair. Just at the end, Thursday is mortally wounded by the Minotaur
who had escaped from the BookWorld two years ago under the action of an
accomplice of Kayne's, but as she enters the Underworld, the assassin who had
been paid by Kayne to kill her and had been mortally wounded in an accident
decides to take her place. When she wakes up from her coma a few weeks later,
she learns that St Zvlkx was a time traveller who had been placing bets on
future events with England's oldest betting shop before reappearing in the
present and dying in a road accident. The betting shop now must pay several
billions of pounds in gains; being indirectly owned by Goliath, it forces the
corporation to sell half of its shares to Zvlkx's sponsor.
[ Posted on October 12th, 2020 at 16:36 |
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Saturday, October 3rd, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Thursday Next ]

© Amazon.fr
Thursday hides from Aornis
in a never published story stored in the Well of Lost Plots, the counterpart
of the fiction world's library (where published books are stored) which
preserves unpublished books. She discovers that books are actually created in
the Well and the stories are simply sent to the mind of real-world authors
whose role is only to write them down. The Well is filled with generic
characters, plot devices, various imaginary creatures, as well as misspelling
vyrus, grammasites and other creatures who affect the text, sometimes to the
point where it becomes useless. Unpublished books are preserved for a limited
time, before they are taken apart and their components reused in other books.
As Aornis exists in Thursday's mind in the form of a mindworm, trying to
destroy her personality one memory at a time, Thursday quickly forgets about
her husband Landen; thankfully her Gran helps her fight the mindworm and
recover her memories. At the same time, Thursday completes her training as a
Jurisfiction agent with Mrs. Havisham and becomes a fully qualified junior
agent. She investigates the suspicious deaths of two of her Jurisfiction
colleagues and some time later of Mrs. Havisham herself. All had been
investigating BOOK version 9 (a.k.a. UltraWord), the new operating system
allowing the Well to produce stories, send them to authors, let the readers
actually read the book. UltraWord is created and promoted by Text Grand
Central, and Thursday eventually discovers that UltraWord will not only
severely limit stories to a very bland form of description and narration,
rendering most of the jobs in the Well redundant, but it also allows the
technicians of Text Grand Central to rewrite at will any text without anyone
noticing. She makes those revelations during the Annual BookWorld awards,
where a majority of the BookWorld population is asked to vote for or against
the use of UltraWord. Only the apparition of the Great Panjandrum, summoned by
Thursday using the emergency button of her Jurisfiction TravelGuide allows
for the vote to take place without interference from Text Grand Central. The
Great Panjandrum also names Thursday to be the next Bellman, superintendent of
Jurisfiction.
[ Posted on October 3rd, 2020 at 15:16 |
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Monday, September 7th, 2020
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Leo Loden ]

© Amazon.fr
En vacances à Sète, Léo accepte d'enquêter sur la mort suspecte d'un
ostréiculteur de l'étang de Thau. Ce dernier refusait d'élever des huitres
triploïdes (et était donc moins victime du virus OsHV-1 que ses voisins) et
s'opposait activement à l'ouverture d'une écloserie. La rumeur prétend que la
victime infectait ses concurrents avec le virus, mais l'assassinat d'un
ingénieur travaillant sur une méthode permettant de se passer d'écloserie
ainsi que le témoignage de deux ostréiculteurs fait penser à Loden que la
victime est morte dans un accident et que le directeur de l'écloserie est
responsable de la rumeur et de l'assassinat de l'ingénieur.
[ Posted on September 7th, 2020 at 20:00 |
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Sunday, August 23rd, 2020
Categories: [ Books ]

© Amazon.fr
Harry's second son Albus has been sorted into Slytherin, and his best friend
is Scorpius Malfoy, Draco's son. Burdened by his father's aura, Albus has
difficulties understanding what he expects from him; Scorpius suffers from the
premature death of his mother and from a rumor that he is in fact Voldemort's
son. In his fourth year at Hogwarts, he and Scorpius meet Amos Diggory's niece
Delphi, a young adult. Learning that a Time-Turner has been found (the
Ministry of Magic having previously destroyed all Time-Turners to prevent
nostalgic Death Eaters from changing history)but that Harry would not use it
to save Cedric's life, the trio steals the time-traveling device from
Hermione's (current Minister of Magic) office and travel twenty-four years
back to the Triwizard Tournament to prevent Cedric from winning the first
task. When they come back to their own time, things have changed: Albus is in
Griffindor, Ron is married to Padma instead of Hermione, etc. The trio then
decides to go back to the second task and get Cedric to ridicule himself; when
they are back in their own time, Albus has disappeared and Scorpio discovers
that Cedric had become a Death Eater and indirectly prevented Voldemort from
dying. Scorpius in now a very popular, powerful and evil boy. Knowing the
history from his own reality, he seeks Snape's help and meets what's left of
the Underground (Hermione, Ron and a few others). They accompany Scorpius can
return back to the first task of the Triwizard Tournament and prevent Albus
and himself from tampering with Cedric's task. On their way back Hermione, Ron
and Snape are killed by Dementors, but Scorpius succeeds in going back to the
second task and undoing their previous attempt. Back in their original
reality, their are caught by their parents and severely punished. Harry also
noticed that his scar has started to hurt again, for the first time in over
twenty years. Albus and Scorpio meet Delphi again, and she takes them back in
time to the third task of the tournament. She reveals that she wants Cedric to
become a Death Eater and recreate the reality dominated by Voldemort that
Scorpio has witnessed. The two boys manage to stop her, but she takes them
back it time and space to Godrick's Hollow the day before Voldemort's attempt
to kill Harry and she destroys the Time-Turner before disappearing. In the
future, Harry and Hermione discover that Delphi is not Cedric's niece, but
actually Voldemort's daughter. They then receive a message from the two boys
through an artefact that Harry had kept from his childhood, and thanks to a
Time-Turner inherited by Draco from his father, they travel back in time.
Harry transfigures into Voldemort and attracts Delphi; the gang eventually
manages to restrain her and take her back to their own time. In the end Albus
and Scorpio have come to terms with who they are, and Albus reconciles with
Harry.
[ Posted on August 23rd, 2020 at 17:45 |
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Saturday, August 1st, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Retro Hugo 1945 ]
A.E. van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull (Astounding Science Fiction, May
1944-June
1944)
An American submarine in the Pacific is transported from 1944 to the year
1,000,000. The crew meets a society of winged men who live in a city floating
in the air, above a planet Earth mostly covered in water (brought several
hundreds of thousands of years earlier by meteorites) where solid ground is
not anymore solid and therefore unsuitable for building and living. They learn
that the humans at the time water started to raise have designed two new
species, winged men and fishmen who live in a city under water. The fishmen
have access to natural resources and devices inherited from the original
humans, and have decided to get rid of the winged men by attracting the flying
city towards the water. The winged men, who have not access to natural
resources and build no devices, have used a time-travel device to fetch war
machines from various times in the past. The humans' submarine, equipped with
explosive torpedoes, is the only one able to destroy the underwater city of
the fishmen. All are promised to be sent back to their time once the city is
destroyed. As the commander of the submarine has been taken by the fishmen and
is presumed dead, the first officer is taken to the flying city to meet the
“council”, an omniscient computer that shows him the lives of both the
winged men and the fishmen. He is then returned to the submarine who has been
taken over by warlike women from the year 10,000 who are in a hurry to go back
to their time. But they do not know how to operate a diesel submarine,
allowing the first officer to retake his ship and instead of destroying the
whole city, only destroys its core that controls the devices inherited from
the humans ancestors, putting the fishmen and winged men on equal footing. As
promised, all are then returned to their own time.
[ Posted on August 1st, 2020 at 20:01 |
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Wednesday, July 29th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Retro Hugo 1945 ]
Leigh Brackett (Startling Stories, Fall 1944)
On Mars, in the city of Ruh, Rick tries to escape the goons of the Terran
Exploitation Company. He hides in the house of a seer who predicts he will
cast a shadow over Mars if he lives, and attempts to kill him. Rick kills her,
but is caught by the Company's men and sent to work in a deep, dark mine.
Having caused a riot, Rick manages to escape in the company of Mayo who was
looking for proofs that would convince the weak Martian government to do
something against the slavers of the Company. They end up in the hands of the
Martians, who punish Rick for having killed the seer, but somehow their boy
King makes Rick his successor in the hope that he would unite the oppressed
humans and the Martians against the Company's rule. Back to the surface, Rick
organizes the said rebellion, but he is betrayed and sent away. He then
attempts to catch Jaffa, now head of the Company after having murdered his
boss and kidnapped Mayo, and the chase eventually takes him through the jungle
to the North pole. There he manages to kill Jaffa, free Mayo and come back to
Ruh where he decides not to become the supreme ruler of Mars despite the
prophecy.
[ Posted on July 29th, 2020 at 18:31 |
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Friday, July 24th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Retro Hugo 1945 ]
The Changeling
A.E. van Vogt (Astounding Science Fiction, April 1944)
In 1972, Leslie Craig discovers his life only started a few years ago. While
investigating, he is first interviewed by the US president and then taken
prisoner in his own house. He learns that he is mate of totipotent cells that
give him the ability to regenerate his body. He also needs to go through a few
cycles of regenerations and loses his memory in between those. The reader also
learns that the president wants to obtain Craig's blood to become immortal and
thus become forever dictator of the country. Craig then escapes from his home,
goes on the run, and is eventually arrested after having been setup as the
organizer of an attack on a Women's march. He however manages to escape and is
contacted by a group of totipotent people. After his next regeneration, Craig
develops mind-control powers and in a final part of the story that makes no
sense, manages to modify the president's mind to give up on its dreams of
immortality.
A God Named Kroo
Henry Kuttner (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Winter 1944)
Kroo is god without any believers left. When Danton, a westerner accidentally
enters his temple in the Himalayas, he is unwillingly promoted high priest,
and forced to travel (more or less randomly) to a small village in Burma,
occupied by Japanese troops who secretly manufacture bombs for a future
invasion, using a hydraulic power station. Kroo decides the dynamos will be
his altars and with a few demonstrations of his powers, Kroo forces the villagers
to believe in him. Unable to destroy the dynamos due to Kroo's taboo, Danton's
only preoccupation is to alert the American forces of the imminence of a
Japanese invasion. After convincing Kroo to hibernate for a month, Danton
travels downriver but fails to find an allied base. When he wakes up, Kroo
finds the village deserted and the dynamos are gone. Danton reasons that the
Japanese have taken them downriver, and convinces Kroo that a competing deity
has taken possession of them. Kroo then destroys them, getting killed in the
process, but finally joins the other “dead” deities in their afterlife.
Intruders from the Stars
Ross Rocklynne (Amazing Stories, January 1944)
During the war, a trio of adventurers find a spaceship in Africa. They wake up
Bess-Istra, former dictator from another planet, who escaped after a
revolution. Bess-Istra uses her technology to end the war with minimum damage,
becomes dictator of Earth and reforms it to make it an actually nice place to
live. But Bess-Istra's two associates want to take the power for themselves
and make Earth a military dictatorship. In the end, they are overthrown by a
Bess-Istra apparently converted to Christianity and everything ends well for
the humans.
The Jewel of Bas
Leigh Brackett (Planet Stories, Spring 1944)
On a distant world, people live in fear of the Kalds who take people as
slaves. Ciaran, with the help of a hunter he freed from the Kalds, wants to
save his wife Mouse, taken as a slave. They discover that the slaves are
used for building a large machine in a maze of caves, taking orders from
androids. As they are discovered, Ciaran flees through the caves and
eventually arrives in front of a boy who is asleep. Upon waking up, the boy,
named Bas, explains he had come a long time ago from Atlantis, rejected by his
people because he had accidentally become immortal, and has built Ciaran's
world. Eventually tired of it, he had gone to sleep and has built a more
interesting world in his dreams. In the meanwhile, the androids build a
machine meant to overthrow Bas. Ciaran eventually convinces Bas to disable the
androids and free the humans.
Killdozer!
Theodore Sturgeon (Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944)
A crew of earthworks workers must build an airfield on a remote island. They
accidentally free an incorporeal being from a buried building who takes
possession of a bulldozer and attempts to kill the workers. At first they do
not believe their foreman's depiction of the first murder and believe he is
the culprit. When trying to repair the bulldozer with an arc welder, another
worker is killed. The eventually recognized that the bulldozer is possessed
and that it is afraid of the electric arcs. After a long battle, the manage to
destroy the bulldozer.
Trog
Murray Leinster (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1944)
In 1956, American civilization has almost disappeared due to the influence of
Trog(lodyte)s whose purpose seem to destroy key infrastructures, the theory
being that some sort of global conciousness that rejects industrial
civilization. No-one has seen a trog until a group of three parapsychologists
use their lab's video-surveillance system to observe one. Trogs use a device
triggering narcolepsy in people, allowing them to act undetected. They reason
that trogs are actually Germans who, having failed previously to conquer the
world because of the superiority of the American industry, now use
psychology to diminish their enemy before invading the country. The heroes
thankfully manage to counteract the trogs' devices and prevent the invasion.
[ Posted on July 24th, 2020 at 17:22 |
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Tuesday, July 14th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Retro Hugo 1945 ]
Arena
Fredric Brown (Astounding Science Fiction, June 1944)
Just before the decisive battle between the humans and the Outsiders, one
individual of each species is pulled out of time by an unknown entity and
pitted together on a deserted place, separated by a force field. The entity
promises to wipe out the species of the loser of that fight. Both try building
various weapons with rock and wood from the few plants and discover that
inanimate objects pass through the force field. The human, very near death due
to lack of water understands that unconscious beings can pass through too,
including when asleep, and that's how he manages to kill his opponent. He then
wakes up, the battle over before it even started.
The Big and the Little (The Merchant Princes)
Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction, August 1944)
The Foundation has expanded by imposing its technology along with its religion
to its neighbours. Mallow is sent to Korell, where he escapes a plot involving
a missionary from the Foundation to discredit the Foundation and its religion, but
still manages to get the elite interested in the technology, ignoring the
religious aspect. A few years later, Mallow is tried for causing the death of
the missionary, but shows proof that the missionary was in fact a member of
the local political police. Mallow thus discredits his political opponent,
head of the Foundation clergy and becomes Mayor of Terminus, having gained
popular support by having started a fruitful trade with Korell and much
reduced the influence of the clergy by exposing its head for conspiring
against him. When Korell declares war on the Foundation, Mallow shows that
as Korell's industry and society now depends so much on Foundation technology,
its people will refuse the war in order to keep their way of life. Mallow thus
has resolved the current crisis foreseen by Harri Seldon and taken the
Foundation the next step in its History.
The Children's Hour
Lawrence O'Donnell (C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner)
(Astounding Science Fiction, March 1944)
With the help of his psychiatrist, a man tries to remember what happened to
him a year earlier, when he was in love with a strange young woman, around
whom impossible things tend to happen. As he recovers more and more memories,
he concludes that despite looking like a human adult, she was a
multidimensional child who was left to play with humans, her guardians making
sure that nothing inappropriate happens to her. In the end, the therapy only
reinforces the memory block and the man loses memories of his loved one
forever.
City
Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction, May 1944)
Forty years in the future, thanks to individual and fast means of flying,
inhabitants of cities have mostly moved to the countryside, isolated from each
other. Only businesses and civil servants remain in the deserted city, against
all logic. As the empty houses are invested by squatters who cannot afford to
move, the mayor wants to burn the houses to chase the squatters away. But the
grandson of a now-rich man decides to buy the houses (in particular the one
where his grandfather lived) and turn them into a park and a museum.
No Woman Born
C.L. Moore (Astounding Science Fiction, December 1944)
A famous singer and dancer who had tragically died in a fire a year earlier
reappears in a robotic body, her brain having been preserved. Certain that her
fans will still love her in this metallic body, she successfully reappears on
television. But the man who has constructed her body is convinced that the
people will soon forget her, once the novelty has faded out. She is convinced
of the contrary, but is still unhappy as she foresees that she will miss a
companion like her.
When the Bough Breaks
Lewis Padgett (C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner)
(Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944)
A group of small men arrive from the future into the lives of young parents,
telling them that their boy is the first of a generation of super-humans, and
his future self has sent them to educate him so that he does not have to wait
until he is fifty years old to discover his super powers. The child quickly
turns into a tyrant and eventually comes to his doom, thus preventing the
advent of the super-humans. The parents are in the end rather relieved.
[ Posted on July 14th, 2020 at 18:39 |
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Wednesday, July 8th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Retro Hugo 1945 ]
And the Gods Laughed
Fredric Brown (Planet Stories, Spring 1944)
Asteroid miners spend their free time telling ludicrous stories. In one of
those, the narrator recalls a trip to Ganymede, where the natives were
controlled by sentient beings in the form of earrings, who also took
possession of his shipmates. He ends the story without telling how he escaped,
convincing the audience it was all a lie. The narrator is in fact
possessed as well, but without any visible item, proof that this form is
suitable for invading Earth.
Desertion
Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944)
To study Jupiter, volunteers are transmuted into Jovian beings to be able to
bear the enormous pressure and caustic atmosphere and sent down. As none has
ever come back, the director of the program decides to go there himself with
his dog, and discovers that under the Jovian form Jupiter appears as a
paradise, his dog can communicate with him, and he feels better than ever.
They too then decide not to return to earthling forms.
Far Centaurus
A. E. van Vogt (Astounding Science Fiction, January 1944)
A small crew has spent several hundred years in hibernation travelling to
Alpha Centauri. Upon arrival, they are greeted by humans who had colonized it
after their departure thanks to a faster-than-light travel technology, and
because of their body odour are asked not to meet the population without an
airtight suit. One of them, believed to have become mad during the trip
actually finds a way to travel back through time and space to Earth only a
year after their departure.
Huddling Place
Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1944)
Telecommunications have allowed people to live in relative isolation from each
other, causing an increase in agoraphobia among humans. When a surgeon is
asked to got to Mars and save the life of a martian philosopher friend of his,
he hesitate, but the martians announce they are sending a ship anyway. But the
robot butler sends it away, as it is unthinkable that his master would leave
his home.
I, Rocket
Ray Bradbury (Amazing Stories, May 1944)
A rocket tells its story, from its first commission as a warship, considering
its crew somehow as its blood, and witnessing a failed sabotage attempt. After
the war, it becomes a merchant ship, and eventually crashes on an asteroid,
its whole crew dead. Some time later, its first captain finds its wreckage and
plans to salvage it and use it in the coming war again.
The Wedge (The Traders)
Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction, October 1944)
A Foundation agent, posing as a merchant, is held prisoner on a planet which
forbid buying atomic technology from other worlds, and demand a ransom in gold
for the man. One merchant, sent to his rescue, demonstrates a matter
transmuter as a way to produce the required gold, and succeeds in selling it
to a high-ranking official, recording the transaction and blackmailing him
into not denying it officially. As the official will use the machine to recoup
his investment and progress his political career, this event will gradually
change the society's opinion about atomic technology.
[ Posted on July 8th, 2020 at 11:57 |
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Monday, June 22nd, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Discworld ]

© Amazon.fr
Tiffany
leaves the Chalk to train as a witch with Mrs Level in the mountains. She is
followed by an ancient creature, a hiver, who takes possession of powerful
persons' bodies and drives them mad. The Nac Mac Feegle, aware of the threat,
send a small group after Tiffany to protect her, but the hiver takes
possession of her before they arrive. The hiver looks at people's thought and
give them the power to get what their primitive instinct wants; Tiffany thus
becomes a bully of a witch. Able to travel between worlds, they enter
Tiffany's mind, where a small part of what is left of Tiffany tells them to
fetch objects which smell like her most powerful memories of the Chalk. Awoken
by the smell, she uses the power of the Chalk to reject the hiver. Soon after
Granny Weatherwax, who has been aware of the hiver when Borrowing from bees,
arrives and together with Tiffany they go far in the mountain, where the hiver
could not harm anyone. But it does not attack, and in the morning they return
to the village for the Witch Trials, a yearly fair that Granny has never
missed. This is where the hiver attacks, just after Tiffany understands that
the hiver does not think and only gives the people what they think they want.
She talks to the hiver in her mind, and it tells her that it is as old as the
Disc and it wishes to die. Tiffany then opens a door the realm of Death to let
the hiver go; since the door has closed behind her she is almost stuck there,
but Granny comes and takes her out, telling her that it is sometimes the duty
of a witch to help people to die who don't know how. As Tiffany has no witch
hat, Granny gives her her hat, which gets all the other witches talking. Later
Tiffany brings the hat back to Granny, and they become closer, Granny being
very impressed by the young witch.
[ Posted on June 22nd, 2020 at 17:45 |
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Sunday, May 24th, 2020
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Oksa Pollock ]

© Amazon.fr
Premier volume d'un nouveau cycle des aventures d'Oksa
Pollock.
Cinq ans après être retourné à Édefia, Oksa et Gus sont mariés et attendent
des jumeaux. Mais la pollution et le réchauffement climatique de Du-Dehors
affectent l'Égide qui n'isole plus Édefia aussi efficacement ; une brèche y a
même été découverte, qui permet de sortir. Depuis le retour d'Oksa et
l'annonce qu'il est dorénavant impossible de ressortir, certains habitants ne
rêvent que de sortir, menés par Sol, premier conseiller d'Oksa. Ce dernier
pense qu'il est nécessaire de sortir et d'utiliser la magie pour forcer les
habitants de Du-Dehors à réduire la pollution et à lutter contre le
réchauffement climatique. Oksa rend alors visite à Dragomira et Abakoum sur
l'île des Sans-Âge ; ces derniers lui révèlent que l'Égide se reformera à la
naissance de ses enfants. Oksa et ses amis sortent alors une première fois
pour rencontrer Mortimer à Londres et décider d'un plan. Ils sortent une
deuxième fois pour infiltrer un sommet de chefs d'état et utilisent la magie
pour leur imposer des idées de lutte contre la pollution. Malheureusement,
Till, le demi-frère adolescent de Tugdual découvre par hasard l'existence de
la brèche et Sol finit par obtenir cette information. Sol force alors le
passage vers l'extérieur, blessant au passage les gardiens mis en place par
Oksa, et peu après Till entraîne ses amis dans la brèche. Bien qu'elle soit
sur le point l'accoucher, Oksa et ses amis partent à la recherche de Till,
mais l'accouchement commence alors qu'elle est dans la brèche ; un des bébés
est aspiré par l'Égide alors que cette dernière se reforme, et Oksa accouche
du second à l'intérieur. Till, ses amis et le bébé se retrouvent bloqués à
Caracas, en compagnie de personnes organisées en communauté autonome.
[ Posted on May 24th, 2020 at 11:33 |
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Sunday, May 3rd, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Discworld ]

© Amazon.fr
Tiffany Aching is the nine year old daughter of a shepherding family living on
the Chalk country. She meets Miss Tick, a traveling witch who confirms that
she could become a witch herself. Soon later she makes the acquaintance of the
Nac Mac Feegle, a folk of tiny people who like swearing, fighting, drinking
and whose kelda is dying. The kelda names Tiffany as her temporary successor.
Tiffany has witnessed the ingress of fairy tale creatures into the real world,
and the kelda explains she has been pushing them back. After her death, it
will be Tiffany's responsibility to fight the Queen of the fairy tales who
tries to invade reality. Soon after, Tiffany's little brother is kidnapped,
and Tiffany request the Nac Mac Feegles' help to enter the Queen's land and
rescue her brother. Finding the entrance is a kind of test that gets Tiffany
accepted as the new kelda. In the fairy tale land, she meets Roland, the local
baron's son who had disappeared a year ago. She also eventually finds her
brother. But finding the exit of the fairy tale land is difficult, especially
since the Queen has imported creatures who use dreams the way a spider uses
its web. To escape the horde of nightmares chasing her, she enters such a
trap while controlling the dream to force it to be a dream she has had
frequently and that always ends the same way with her waking up. She indeed
wakes up in the real word, only to have to face the Queen who has followed
her. Thanks to the spirit of her grand mother (who was a witch in all but
name) she manages to capture the Queen and force her back into fairy land.
Soon after, Miss Tick arrives with Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, who
confirm that Tiffany has the making of a witch and will be able to enter
apprenticeship when she is a bit older.
[ Posted on May 3rd, 2020 at 16:43 |
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Sunday, March 15th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Thursday Next ]

© Amazon.fr
Following her success in The Eyre Affair,
Thursday is forced to do PR for SpecOps, but she is prohibited to tell the
truth about the role of Jack Schitt, the Goliath Corporation agent. She
investigates the sudden discovery of a lost Shakespeare play that falls into
the hands of the leader of the Whig party who uses it to increase his chances
of becoming Prime Minister. Thursday's father also tells her that the World is
going to end very soon, being entirely covered with an unknown pink substance.
Over the course of several weeks, Thursday finds herself repeatedly in
situations where an impossibly large number of coincidences almost succeed in
getting her killed, while her hierarchy is trying to find an excuse to arrest
her. Then one day she discovers that her husband Landen has been erased out of
her history by corrupt chonoguards working for Schitt's half-brother
Schitt-Hawse. The latter blackmails Thursday into freeing Schitt from the poem
where he's kept prisoner. In the absence of her uncle who had invented the
Prose Portal, the only way she knows to enter a story is Mrs Nakajima whom she
had met in Jane Eyre. Thursday looks for her in Okinawa where she finds
Nakajima's travel book, allowing her to travel on her own into a story. There
she is chosen to become a member on Jurisfiction, an organization that ensures
the stability of worlds of literary fiction. Thursday becomes an apprentice
to Great Expectations' Mrs Havisham, one of the best Jurisfiction agents.
After a failed attempt by her father to prevent Landen's death as a child,
Thursday fetches Schitt and is kidnapped by Schitt-Hawse, but is rescued by
Mrs Havisham. They then prove that the Shakespeare play was taken from
Jurisfiction's library of lost books, and that the Whig politician is actually
a fictional character, who is arrested too. She then discovers that the
coincidences that almost got her killed have been provoked by Hades' sister
Aornis who wants revenge for her brother's death, by putting Thursday in a
situation where she would prevent the end of the world (by being covered in
out-of-control, self-replicating Dream Topping, invented by her cousin) if she
commits suicide. Thursday is saved in the nick of time by an old version of
her father who takes the self-replicating stuff to the down of time, where it
becomes the beginning of life on Earth. Thursday then goes into hiding into a
book from the library of lost books.
[ Posted on March 15th, 2020 at 13:01 |
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Tuesday, February 4th, 2020
Categories: [ Books/Thursday Next ]

© Amazon.fr
In a parallel universe where England and Russia still fight in the Crimean
war, Thursday Next is a LiteraTec investigator whose job is to fight crimes
against literary art. Soon after the original manuscript for Dickens' Martin
Chuzzlewit is stolen in London without the thieve having left any clue (not
even on video-surveillance), Thursday is transferred to SpecOps 5 to advise an
agent about Acheron Hades, a master criminal with the power to control minds
and look like anyone. Having discovered that Hades has stolen the manuscript,
she attempts to arrest Hades, but she is wounded and her colleagues are killed
in the operation. After an investigation by SpecOps 1 who claims that Hades
has died in a car accident, she sees her future self telling her to take the
LiteraTec job in Swindon, her hometown. Upon her arrival she meets her family
an especially her uncle Mycroft who shows her his new invention the Prose
Portal, a device based on book worms that allow people to enter into literary
works. Besides her new colleagues, she also meets Jack Schitt, a
representative of the all-powerful Goliath corporation who recently promised a
new plasma rifle that would end the Crimean war. Some time later, the
manuscript for Jane Eyre is stolen by Hades, and Mortimer and his invention
disappear. Hades demonstrates his power by removing a minor character from
Martin Chuzzlewit, which causes all copies of the story get instantly
modified. Thursday and her colleague travel to Haworth to investigate, but are
delayed by a time distortion on the motorway which allows Thursday to talk to
her past self. Thursday and her colleagues manage to track some of Goliath's
associates, and they get a clue that the criminal is hiding in the People's
Republic of Wales. Soon after, Hades kidnaps Jane Eyre and threatens to kill
her unless he's paid a ransom. Schitt attempts to swindle the criminal who
escapes again, and they track him to his hideout in Wales. There Thursday
understands that Schitt wants to buy the Prose Portal from Hades to be able to
get plasma rifles from a promotion book about plasma rifles, as in reality
Goliath has been unable to develop the weapon. Convinced by Thursday to return
Jane to her story, Hades goes into hiding in the story, quickly followed by
Thursday, who spends there several months with Rochester, searching for Hades.
They eventually find him and kill him, changing in the process the end of the
story (that most people don't like) to turn it into the happily-ever-after
version that exists in our universe.
[ Posted on February 4th, 2020 at 20:29 |
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Saturday, January 4th, 2020
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Les quatre de Baker Street ]

© Amazon.fr
Holmes confie à ses francs-tireurs le soin de résoudre le meurtre de Gurney,
un chef de gang des docks, tué par une flèche empoisonnée. Les « Mad Dogs »
suspectent le clan des Chinois, et les Chinois suspectent le seul herboriste
chinois qui connait le poison utilisé. Les francs-tireurs rencontrent May, la
fille chinoise adoptive d'un prêtre qui milite pour que la Grande Bretagne
cesse le commerce de l'opium avec la Chine. Voyant que l'herboriste est
accusé, May avoue aux francs-tireurs que c'est elle qui a tué Gurney, ce
dernier ayant causé la mort de ses parents en Chine à cause du trafic d'opium.
Finalement la population chinoise se soulève contre les deux gangs du quartier
et May retourne en Chine avec le prêtre.
[ Posted on January 4th, 2020 at 20:20 |
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Tuesday, December 31st, 2019
Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Largo Winch ]

© Amazon.fr
Largo rencontre un criminel russe qui lui apprend que le groupe W est coté sur
un marché souterrain et qu'il a machiné la perte de valeur du groupe W afin de
gagner de l'argent sur ce marché là, où il avait parié sur la baisse de la
cotation du groupe W. Aidé d'une agent du FSB infiltrée chez le criminel,
Largo s'enfuit et trouve refuge chez un homme d'affaires Russe avent de
rentrer aux États-Unis et de refiscaliser son groupe. Un peu plus tard, il
apprend que l'homme d'affaires Russe est à l'origine du complot, car ce
dernier avait parié sur la hausse de la cotation du groupe W sur le marché
souterrain et voulait d'abord faire baisser la cotation autant que possible.
[ Posted on December 31st, 2019 at 01:10 |
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Monday, December 30th, 2019
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Golden City ]

© Amazon.fr
Harrison est élu maire de Golden City. Lors de la fête, Solo est tué par une
bande de gosses de riches qui voulaient s'amuser avec un pauvre. Ses amis
enquêtent pour trouver ce qui lui est arrivé. En parallèle, les opposants
politiques de Harrison révèlent à la presse que l'une de ses entreprises en
Russie fait du trafic d'organes volés sur des cadavres. Harrison se rend sur
place, se frotte à la mafia locale qui le fait mettre en prison lorsqu'il
refuse de continuer le trafic. Lorsque le criminel torture Amber, Il fait mine
d'accepter sa proposition, mais le fait assassiner sitôt rentré à Golden City.
[ Posted on December 30th, 2019 at 19:23 |
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Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Troy ]

© Amazon.fr
Pour sauver le village troll d'une boule de feu tombant du ciel, Waha arrête
le temps dans tout le village. Elle part alors à la recherche d'un dragon de
neige pour éteindre le feu avant de laisser le temps reprendre son cours. Elle
trouve un dragon dans une station de sports d'hiver, mais ce dernier est lié
par contrat à la station et ne peut la quitter. Waha parvient à détruire le
contrat, à faire venir le dragon au village et à sauver les trolls.
[ Posted on December 30th, 2019 at 19:14 |
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Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Yoko Tsuno ]

© Amazon.fr
Dans une première partie, Yoko, Emilie et Bonnie repartent en 1935 pour sauver
deux enfants d'un accident sur un passage à niveau. Dans une deuxième partie,
Yoko et Emilia doivent convoyer par avion deux momies égyptiennes qu'un lord
Anglais veut renvoyer en Égypte. Emilia apprend de Dinah, la pupille du lord,
que la deuxième momie est en fait le corps de l'épouse du lord que ce dernier
a tuée et embaumée trois ans plus tôt avec l'aide forcée de Dinah. Lors du
vol, elles découvrent à bord de l'avion une bombe dont elles se débarrassent
et de preuves que le lord est un espion travaillant pour les Chinois. Ayant
fait demi-tour, elles sont attaqués à l'atterrissage par le lord qui y perd la
vie.
[ Posted on December 30th, 2019 at 19:08 |
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Categories: [ Books/Comics/Blake et Mortimer ]

© Amazon.fr
Arrivé à Hong Kong, Blake part à la recherche de Mortimer. Pendant ce temps,
ce dernier est transporté par ses ravisseurs vers leur camp en Chine
continentale. Il apprend que le chef de ces derniers veut utiliser le texte
caché dans un objet historique volé pour le légitimer comme dernier
descendant d'un empereur du passé qui aurait obtenu la vie éternelle mais
aurait disparu après avoir refusé d'em payer le prix. Durant sa captivité,
Mortimer retrouve Nasir, très malade, et pour le soigner s'enfuit avec la
complicité d'un malfrat qui veut un trésor mentionné dans la légende de
l'empereur. Après un périple ils trouvent l'empereur, toujours en vie, et
Mortimer parvient à trouver le remède magique pour Nasir. Il est recueilli par
hasard par Blake, parvient à guerir Nasir, puis tous s'enfuient à bord de
l'Aile Rouge que le chef des criminels avait récupérée et que Mortimer était
censé réparer lors de sa captivité. Pendant ce temps, Olrik vole le prototype
secret Britannique, mais échappe à sa destruction par les autorités.
[ Posted on December 30th, 2019 at 18:35 |
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Translation: [ Google | Babelfish ]
Categories: [ Books/Comics/Asterix ]

© Amazon.fr
Deux Arvernes confient Adrénaline, la fille de Vercingétorix, au village
Gaulois pour la protéger des Romains qui veulent la capturer. Adrénaline, qui
refuse de continuer à servir aux Gaulois et aux Romains de prétexte pour se
faire la guerre, s'enfuit sur le navire des pirates. Le navire est attaqué
d'abord par un renégat Gaulois au service des Romains, puis par les Romains
eux-mêmes. Elle finit par partir sur le navire d'un jeune Breton, affrété par
les Arvernes, et qui devait à l'origine la mettre à l'abri en Bretagne.
[ Posted on December 30th, 2019 at 18:19 |
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