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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

© 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Dans l'Urbs, Othon tente de convaincre ses anciens alliés de se joindre à lui, mais ceux-ci ont préféré s'allier au pouvoir en place, un triumvirat présidé par Vinius. Le triumvirat tente d'assassiner Plautine et Othon, et ces derniers ne doivent leur salut qu'à l'aide des hommes-chiens qui contrôlent maintenant la Nef d'Othon. Poursuivis par la flotte spatiale de l'Urbs, Plautine et Othon se rendent sur Mars tandis que la Nef et les hommes-chiens se cache sous la glace d'Europe. Dans les entrailles d'Olympus Mons, dans des installations autrefois habitées par les humains, les deux Intelligences rencontrent Plutarque, une Intelligence ancestrale qui a transformé tout le matériel abandonné par les humains en armes défensives, qu'Othon utilise avec succès pour repousser la flotte. En même temps Plautine apprend en rêves (révélant des informations cachées dans sa mémoire) que la maladie qui a fait disparaître les humains durant l'Hécatombe a été transmises par les noèmes dans leur tentative de protéger ces derniers, et que la création de Plautine est le fait de Vinius et d'une entité encore inconnue afin de manipuler les actions des humains sur le long terme dans le but de provoquer l'Hécatombe et la réception du message qui l'a sortie de son sommeil. Sur Europe, les hommes-chiens rencontrent des hommes-bélougas (créés peut-être par des humains) dont la société organisée en castes contrôle des mariages consanguins permettant d'éviter à un petit nombre la régression de leur intelligence. Refusant une telle solution à leur problème, ils repartent après la victoire d'Othon sur Mars, tous ensemble vers la planète à l'origine du message. Ils sont attaqués par Lacus, allié aux Barbares, qui les force à un atterrissage en catastrophe. Là, tandis que les hommes-chiens tentent de repousser les Barbares (une intelligence collective au corps pas vraiment tangible) ils rencontrent Achinus, la première Intelligence, émergée spontanément des réseaux informatiques des humains et qui avait disparu depuis longtemps. Achinus prend soin de la dernière humaine en stase dans un espace de non-temps, Bérénikè. Cette dernière, qui avait aussi disparu avant l'Hécatombe, révèle qu'elle en est l'instigatrice, et qu'elle compte maintenant avec Othon comme bras armé, conquérir la galaxie et recréer une humanité à son image. Plautine finit par déduire que l'Hécatombe était en fait une numérisation à grande échelle de l'humanité, et que les humains ne sont pas morts mais enfermés dans une sorte d'enfer, en attente d'être utilisé par Bérénikè. Plautine tue cette dernière par accident, mettant fin à ses machinations, et libérant Othon et elle-même du Carcan. Achinus transfère l'esprit Othon, à la demande de ce dernier, dans les milliards de milliards de nano-robots qui protégeaient la planète, et Othon, en deus ex machina sauve ses hommes-chiens de l'entité Barbare qui allait les massacrer. Plautine quant à elle part à la recherche des humains.