HOME | DD
A24-Blumhouse1985 — Don's Personalities (5/6)
Published: 2020-10-19 22:51:39 +0000 UTC; Views: 12638; Favourites: 48; Downloads: 4
Redirect to original
Description
The Raven - (THE RAVEN by Edgar Allan Poe), a talking bird that appears before the grieving narrator to either taunt or condemn him and only utters the word, "Nevermore".PLOT:
"The Raven" follows an unnamed narrator on a dreary night in December who sits reading "forgotten lore" by a dying fire as a way to forget the death of his beloved Lenore. A "tapping at [his] chamber door" reveals nothing, but excites his soul to "burning". The tapping is repeated, slightly louder, and he realizes it is coming from his window. When he goes to investigate, a raven flutters into his chamber. Paying no attention to the man, the raven perches on a bust of Pallas above the door.
Amused by the raven's comically serious disposition, the man asks that the bird tell him its name. The raven's only answer is "Nevermore". The narrator is surprised that the raven can talk, though at this point it has said nothing further. The narrator remarks to himself that his "friend" the raven will soon fly out of his life, just as "other friends have flown before" along with his previous hopes. As if answering, the raven responds again with "Nevermore". The narrator reasons that the bird learned the word "Nevermore" from some "unhappy master" and that it is the only word it knows.
Even so, the narrator pulls his chair directly in front of the raven, determined to learn more about it. He thinks for a moment in silence, and his mind wanders back to his lost Lenore. He thinks the air grows denser and feels the presence of angels, and wonders if God is sending him a sign that he is to forget Lenore. The bird again replies in the negative, suggesting that he can never be free of his memories. The narrator becomes angry, calling the raven a "thing of evil" and a "prophet". Finally, he asks the raven whether he will be reunited with Lenore in Heaven. When the raven responds with its typical "Nevermore", he is enraged, and, calling the bird a liar, commands it to return to the "Plutonian shore"—but it does not move. At the time of the poem's narration, the raven "still is sitting" on the bust of Pallas. The raven casts a shadow on the chamber floor and the despondent narrator laments that out of this shadow his soul shall be "lifted 'nevermore'".
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Fighting Machine/"Tripod" - (THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells), a 100-foot tall, agile, three-legged robotic walker built by the Martians in their quest to invade Earth.
PLOT:
The Coming of the Martians
The narrative opens by stating that as humans on Earth busied themselves with their own endeavours during the mid-1890s, aliens on Mars began plotting an invasion of Earth because their own resources are dwindling. The Narrator (who is unnamed throughout the novel) is invited to an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community. Months later, a so-called "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, near the Narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oily brown skin", "the size, perhaps, of a bear", each with "two large dark-coloured eyes", and lipless "V-shaped mouths" which drip saliva and are surrounded by two "Gorgon groups of tentacles". The Narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous". They emerge briefly, but have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere and gravity, and so retreat rapidly into their cylinder.
A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat-ray before beginning to assemble their machinery. Military forces arrive that night to surround the common, bringing with them field artillery and Maxim guns. The population of Woking and the surrounding villages are reassured by the presence of the British Army. A tense day begins, with much anticipation by the Narrator of military action.
After heavy firing from the common and damage to the town from the heat-ray which suddenly erupts in the late afternoon, the Narrator takes his wife to safety in nearby Leatherhead, where his cousin lives, using a rented, two-wheeled horse cart. He then returns to Woking to return the cart when in the early morning hours, a violent thunderstorm erupts. On the road during the height of the storm, he has his first terrifying sight of a fast-moving Martian fighting-machine; in a panic, he crashes the horse cart, barely escaping detection. He discovers the Martians have assembled towering three-legged "fighting-machines" (tripods), each armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: the poisonous "black smoke". These tripods have wiped out the army units positioned around the cylinder and attacked and destroyed most of Woking. Taking shelter in his house, the Narrator sees a fleeing artilleryman moving through his garden, who later tells the Narrator of his experiences and mentions that another cylinder has landed between Woking and Leatherhead, which means the Narrator is now cut off from his wife. The two try to escape via Byfleet just after dawn, but are separated at the Shepperton to Weybridge Ferry during a Martian afternoon attack on Shepperton.
One of the Martian fighting-machines is brought down in the River Thames by artillery as the Narrator and countless others try to cross the river into Middlesex, and the Martians retreat to their original crater. This gives the authorities precious hours to form a defence-line covering London. After the Martians' temporary repulse, the Narrator is able to float down the Thames in a boat towards London, stopping at Walton, where he first encounters the curate, his companion for the coming weeks.
Towards dusk, the Martians renew their offensive, breaking through the defence-line of siege guns and field artillery centred on Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill by a widespread bombardment of the black smoke; an exodus of the population of London begins. This includes the Narrator's younger brother, a medical student (also unnamed), who flees to the Essex coast, after the sudden, panicked, pre-dawn order to evacuate London is given by the authorities, on a terrifying and harrowing journey of three days, amongst thousands of similar refugees streaming from London. The brother encounters Mrs. Elphinstone and her younger sister-in-law, just in time to help them fend off three men who are trying to rob them. Since Mrs. Elphinstone's husband is missing, the three continue on together.
After a terrifying struggle to cross a streaming mass of refugees on the road at Barnet, they head eastward. Two days later, at Chelmsford, their pony is confiscated for food by the local Committee of Public Supply. They press on to Tillingham and the sea. There, they manage to buy passage to Continental Europe on a small paddle steamer, part of a vast throng of shipping gathered off the Essex coast to evacuate refugees. The torpedo ram HMS Thunder Child destroys two attacking tripods before being destroyed by the Martians, although this allows the evacuation fleet to escape, including the ship carrying the Narrator's brother and his two travelling companions. Shortly thereafter, all organised resistance has collapsed, and the Martians roam the shattered landscape unhindered.
The Earth under the Martians
At the beginning of Book Two, the Narrator and the curate are plundering houses in search of food. During this excursion, the men witness a Martian handling-machine enter Kew, seizing any person it finds and tossing them into a "great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder", and the Narrator realises that the Martian invaders may have "a purpose other than destruction" for their victims. At a house in Sheen, "a blinding glare of green light" and a loud concussion attend the arrival of the fifth Martian cylinder, and both men are trapped beneath the ruins for two weeks.
The Narrator's relations with the curate deteriorate over time, and eventually he knocks him unconscious to silence his now loud ranting; the curate is overheard outside by a Martian, which eventually removes his unconscious body with one of its handling machine tentacles. The reader is then led to believe the Martians will perform a fatal transfusion of the curate's blood to nourish themselves, as they have done with other captured victims viewed by the Narrator through a small slot in the house's ruins. The Narrator just barely escapes detection from the returned foraging tentacle by hiding in the adjacent coal-cellar.
Eventually the Martians abandon the cylinder's crater, and the Narrator emerges from the collapsed house where he had observed the Martians up close during his ordeal; he then approaches West London. Enroute, he finds the Martian red weed everywhere, a prickly vegetation spreading wherever there is abundant water but slowly dying due to bacterial infection. On Putney Heath, once again he encounters the artilleryman, who persuades him of a grandiose plan to rebuild civilisation by living underground; after a few hours, the Narrator perceives the laziness of his companion and abandons him. Now in a deserted and silent London, slowly he begins to go mad from his accumulated trauma, finally attempting to end it all by openly approaching a stationary fighting-machine. To his surprise, he discovers that all the Martians have been killed by an onslaught of earthly pathogens, to which they had no immunity: "slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth".
The Narrator continues on, finally suffering a brief but complete nervous breakdown, which affects him for days; he is nursed back to health by a kind family. Eventually, he is able to return by train to Woking via a patchwork of newly repaired tracks. At his home, he discovers that his beloved wife has, somewhat miraculously, survived. In the last chapter, the Narrator reflects on the significance of the Martian invasion, its impact on humanity's view of itself and the future, and the "abiding sense of doubt and insecurity" it has left in his mind.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Mbwun ("He Who Walks On All Fours") - (RELIC by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child), an ancient, savage, reptilian-humanoid beast controlled by the South American Kothoga Tribe in the Brazilian rainforest, believed to be the son of the devil, Zilashkee.
PLOT:
The week before a new exhibit is about to open at the New York Museum of Natural History, two children are murdered. During the investigation, a guard is killed and a police officer goes missing. Special Agent Pendergast, a New Orleans FBI agent, comes to New York to assist in the investigation, but he is taken off the case when he tries too hard to stop the inevitable disaster that takes place the night of the exhibit's opening. Now a dozen party-goers find themselves fighting for their lives as they are stalked by a creature that even the scientists at the museum do not understand.
Margo Green arrives at her office in the Museum of Natural History only to learn two children have been killed in the museum's basement. Margo is shocked and haunted by these murders, especially as it comes on the heels of her own father's death. Margo attempts to concentrate on her dissertation, but finds herself constantly distracted by the murders, especially when another takes place.
As the police investigate the murders in the museum, the director of the museum continues to push forward with the planned opening of a new exhibition, the Superstition Exhibit. When Special Agent Pendergast arrives from the FBI's New Orleans office, he takes over the case from New York Police Detective D'Agosta. D'Agosta likes Pendergast and does not mind sharing the investigation with him, especially when he witnesses Pendergast taking the pompous director of the museum down a few pegs. However, this moves causes Pendergast to be removed from the case even as he comes close to discovering the true nature of the killer.
Fear runs rampant in the museum, causing many of its workers to call in sick and others to quit their jobs. Despite this fear, writer William Smithback Jr. finds himself fascinated with the idea of a killer, hoping to write a book about it and becomes a bestselling author. Smithback is already at the museum to write a book about the Superstition Exhibit, but finds himself so heavily censored that he begins to wonder if maybe it might not be a better idea to break his contract and sink his teeth into the murder mystery.
On the night of the Superstition Exhibit's opening, it seems everyone who is someone in New York society has shown up. The new FBI agent in charge has had the museum locked down tight, leaving just one security gate open to allow people to flow in and out of the museum. This proves to be a mistake when, at practically the same time, the computer room suffers gunshots, causing the power to go out, and a body is found in the exhibit. The one open security gate closes, locking D'Agosta, Pendergast, and Smithback in the museum. Pendergast leads D'Agosta and Smithback's group into the subbasement while he and Margo hunt the creature on other floors of the building.
D'Agosta leads a group that includes the mayor through the subbasement of the museum while Pendergast baits the creature with Margo's help. Unfortunately, the creature follows D'Agosta's group through the subbasement, killing a police officer and forcing D'Agosta to follow a path he is unfamiliar with. The creature then goes upstairs and kills both the museum director and the public relations director.
Pendergast and Margo manage to attract the creature toward them near the computer room. Margo, who has defined the creature's features thanks to a computer program, is able to tell Pendergast how to kill it. With the creature dead and everyone safe, the scientists are able to discuss what happened and how the creature might have been created. However, none of them, except for Gregory Kawakita, realize the true nature of the creature. Kawakita recognizes that the creature was once a scientist named Whittlesey who found a tribe of Indians thought extinct in the Amazon. Whittlesey was force fed a rare plant that caused him to change into the creature. Kawakita has discovered how to grow the plant and he now sells it on the street.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Ticking Crocodile - (PETER PAN; OR, THE BOY WHO WOULDN'T GROW UP by J.M. Barrie), a massive crocodile that gives off a ticking noise from swallowing a clock, which lives in the isle of Neverland and hunts after Captain Hook after eating his hand.
PLOT:
Peter makes night-time calls on the Darlings' house in Bloomsbury, listening in on Mrs. Mary Darling's bedtime stories by the open window. One night Peter is spotted and, while trying to escape, he loses his shadow. On returning to claim it, Peter wakes Mary's daughter, Wendy Darling. Wendy succeeds in re-attaching his shadow to him, and Peter learns that she knows many bedtime stories. He invites her to Neverland to be a mother to his gang, the Lost Boys, children who were lost in Kensington Gardens. Wendy agrees, and her brothers John and Michael go along.
Their magical flight to Neverland is followed by many adventures. The children are blown out of the air by a cannon and Wendy is nearly killed by the Lost Boy Tootles. Peter and the Lost Boys build a little house for Wendy to live in while she recuperates (a type of structure that to this day is called a Wendy house). Soon John and Michael adopt the ways of the Lost Boys.
Peter welcomes Wendy to his underground home, and she immediately assumes the role of mother figure. Peter takes the Darlings on several adventures, the first truly dangerous one occurring at Mermaids' Lagoon. At Mermaids' Lagoon, Peter and the Lost Boys save the Indian chief's daughter, Tiger Lily, and become involved in a battle with the pirates, including the evil Captain Hook, Peter's nemesis. He is named after the hook that replaced his right hand that Peter cut off in a fight. From thereon, Hook has been hunted by the crocodile which ate his hand after it fell into the water and now wants to eat the rest of him. The crocodile also swallowed a ticking clock, so Hook is wary of all ticking sounds. Peter is wounded when Hook claws him. He believes he will die, stranded on a rock when the tide is rising, but he views death as "an awfully big adventure". Luckily, the Neverbird allows him to use her nest as a boat, and Peter sails home.
In gratitude for Peter saving Tiger Lily, her tribe guards his home from the next imminent pirate attack. Meanwhile, Wendy begins to fall in love with Peter and asks him what kind of feelings he has for her. Peter says that he is like her faithful son. One day while telling stories to the Lost Boys and her brothers, John and Michael, Wendy recalls her parents and then decides to take them back and return to England. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to Peter, Wendy and the boys are captured by Captain Hook, who also tries to poison Peter's medicine while the boy is asleep. When Peter awakes, he learns from the fairy Tinker Bell that Wendy has been kidnapped – in an effort to please Wendy, he goes to drink his medicine. Tink does not have time to warn him of the poison, and instead drinks it herself, causing her near death. Tink tells him she could be saved if children believed in fairies. In one of the play's most famous moments, Peter turns to the audience watching the play and begs those who believe in fairies to clap their hands.
Peter heads to the ship. On the way, he encounters the ticking crocodile; Peter decides to copy the tick, so any animals will recognise it and leave him unharmed. He does not realise that he is still ticking as he boards the ship, where Hook cowers, mistaking him for the crocodile. While the pirates are searching for the croc, Peter sneaks into the cabin to steal the keys and frees the Lost Boys. When the pirates investigate a noise in the cabin, Peter defeats them. When he finally reveals himself, he and Hook begin the climactic battle, which Peter easily wins. He kicks Hook into the jaws of the waiting crocodile, and Hook dies with the satisfaction that Peter had literally kicked him off the ship, which Hook considers "bad form". Then Peter takes control of the ship, and sails the seas back to London.
In the end, Wendy decides that her place is at home, much to the joy of her heartsick mother. Wendy then brings all the boys but Peter back to London. Before Wendy and her brothers arrive at their house, Peter flies ahead, to try and bar the window so Wendy will think her mother has forgotten her. But when he learns of Mrs. Darling's distress, he bitterly leaves the window open and flies away. Peter returns briefly, and he meets Mrs. Darling, who has agreed to adopt the Lost Boys. She offers to adopt Peter as well, but Peter refuses, afraid they will "catch him and make him a man." It is hinted that Mary Darling knew Peter when she was a girl, because she is left slightly changed when Peter leaves.
Peter promises to return for Wendy every spring. The final scene of the play takes place a year later when we see Wendy preparing to go back home after the spring-cleaning has taken place. It is stated that Tinker Bell has died during this year since fairies are naturally short-lived creatures. However, Peter has already forgotten about Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys and even Hook when Wendy returns, and he does not understand Wendy's wistful wish that she could take him back with her. According to the narrator of the play "It has something to do with the riddle of his being. If he could get the hang of the thing his cry might become "To live would be an awfully big adventure!""
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Shark - (JAWS by Peter Benchley), a man-eating Great White Shark that has been terrorizing the beachgoers at Amity Island, eating alive any human unlucky enough to swim in the waters.
PLOT:
The story is set in Amity, a fictional seaside resort town on the south shore of Long Island, New York within the "Hamptons" region; the novel places it halfway between Bridgehampton and East Hampton. One night, a massive great white shark kills a young tourist named Chrissie Watkins while she skinny dips in the open waters after she and a man make love on the beach. After finding what remains of her body washed up on the beach, investigators realize she was attacked by a shark. Police chief Martin Brody orders Amity's beaches closed, but mayor Larry Vaughan and the town's selectmen overrule him out of fear for damage to summer tourism, the town's main industry. With the connivance of Harry Meadows, the editor of the local newspaper, they hush up the attack.
A few days later, the shark kills a young boy named Alex Kintner and Morris Cater, an elderly man, not far from shore. A local fisherman, Ben Gardner, is hired by Amity's authorities to kill the shark, but disappears. Brody and his deputy Leonard Hendricks find Gardner's boat anchored off-shore, empty and covered with large bite holes, one of which has a massive shark tooth stuck in it. Blaming himself for these deaths, Brody again attempts to close the beaches, while Meadows investigates the Mayor's business contacts to find out why he is determined to keep the beaches open. Meadows discovers Vaughn has ties to the Mafia, who are pressuring the mayor to keep the beaches open in order to protect the value of Amity's real estate, in which the Mafia has invested a great deal of money. Meadows also recruits ichthyologist Matt Hooper from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for advice on how to deal with the shark.
Meanwhile, Brody's wife Ellen is missing the affluent lifestyle she had before marrying Brody and having children. She instigates a sexual encounter with Matt Hooper, who is the younger brother of David Hooper, a man she used to date. The two go to a motel after Ellen invites him to lunch at a restaurant several miles away from Amity. Throughout the rest of the novel, Brody suspects the two have had a liaison and is tormented by the thought.
With the beaches still open, tourists pour into the town, hoping to glimpse the killer shark. Brody sets up patrols on the beaches to watch for the fish. After a boy narrowly escapes another attack close to the shore, Brody closes the beaches and hires Quint, a professional shark hunter, to kill the shark. Brody, Quint and Hooper set out on Quint's vessel, the Orca, and the three men are soon at odds with one another. Quint dislikes Hooper, dismissing him as a spoiled rich college boy. Hooper is angry over Quint's methods, especially when he disembowels a blue shark, and uses an illegally caught unborn baby dolphin for bait. Brody and Hooper also argue, as Brody's suspicions about Hooper's possible tryst with Ellen grow stronger; at one point, a heated argument ensues with Brody strangling Hooper for several seconds.
Their first two days at sea are unproductive, although they do come in contact with the shark by the end of the second day. Upon seeing it for the first time and estimating the shark must be at least 20 ft (6.1 m) long and weighing over 2,268 kg (5,000 lb), Hooper is visibly excited and in awe at the size of it.
Larry Vaughn visits the Brody house before Brody returns home and informs Ellen that he and his wife are leaving Amity. Before he leaves, he tells Ellen that he always thought they would have made a great couple. After he is gone, Ellen reflects that her life with Brody is much more fulfilling than any life she might have had with Vaughn, and begins feeling guilty over her prior thoughts of missing the life she had before marrying Brody.
On the third day, after seeing the size of the shark, Hooper wants to bring along a shark-proof cage, to take photos of it and then to use it in an attempt to kill it with a bang stick. Initially, Quint refuses to bring the cage on board, even after Hooper's offers to pay him $100, considering it a suicidal idea, but he relents after Hooper and Brody get into a heated argument. Later that day, after several unsuccessful attempts by Quint to harpoon the shark, Hooper goes underwater in the shark cage. However, the shark attacks the cage, something Hooper did not expect. After destroying the cage, the shark kills and eats Hooper. Brody informs Quint that the town can no longer afford to pay him to hunt the shark, but Quint no longer cares about the money and vows to continue pursuing the shark until he has killed it.
When Quint and Brody return to sea the following day, the shark begins attacking the boat. After Quint manages to harpoon it several times, the shark leaps out of the water and onto the stern of the Orca, tearing a huge hole in the aft section which causes the boat to start sinking. Quint plunges another harpoon into the shark's belly, but as it settles back into the water, Quint's foot becomes entangled in the rope attached to the harpoon, and he is dragged underwater to his death. Brody, now floating on a seat cushion, spots the shark slowly swimming towards him; he closes his eyes and prepares for death. However, just as the shark gets within a few feet of him, it succumbs to its many wounds. The shark rolls over in the water and dies before it can attack Brody. The shark slowly sinks down out of sight, dragging Quint's still entangled body behind it. The lone survivor of the ordeal, Brody watches as the dead shark disappears into the depths and then he paddles back to shore on his makeshift float.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The T-Rex - (JURASSIC PARK by Michael Crichton), a ferocious Tyrannosaurus-rex created by InGen via genetic cloning using old dinosaur DNA from a crystallized mosquito that broke out of its paddock in midst of a system shutdown.
PLOT:
In 1989, a series of strange animal attacks occur in Costa Rica, including a worker severely injured on a mysterious construction project on the nearby island of Isla Nublar. One of the species behind the attacks is identified as a Procompsognathus. Paleontologist Alan Grant and his paleobotanist graduate student Ellie Sattler are contacted to confirm the identification, but are abruptly whisked away by billionaire John Hammond—founder and chief executive officer of International Genetic Technologies, or InGen—for a weekend visit to a "biological preserve" he has established on Isla Nublar.
The preserve is revealed to be Jurassic Park, a theme park showcasing cloned dinosaurs. The animals have been recreated using damaged dinosaur DNA found in blood inside of gnats, ticks, and mosquitoes fossilized and preserved in amber. Gaps in the genetic code have been filled in with "compatible" reptilian, avian, or amphibian DNA. To control the population, all specimens on the island are lysine-deficient and X-Ray sterilized females.
Recent incidents in the park have spooked Hammond's investors. To placate them, Hammond uses Grant and Sattler as fresh consultants. They stand in counterbalance to a famous mathematician and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm, and a lawyer representing the investors, Donald Gennaro, who are pessimistic about the park's prospects. Malcolm, having been consulted before the park's creation, is especially emphatic in his prediction that the park will collapse, as it is an unsustainable simple structure bluntly forced upon a complex system with too many unpredictable variables. Hammond also brings along his grandchildren, Tim and Alexis 'Lex' Murphy, who join the tour group. The park's staff include engineer John Arnold, biotechnologist Henry Wu, game warden Robert Muldoon, public relations manager Ed Regis and veterinarian Gerry Harding. While touring the park, Grant finds a Velociraptor eggshell, seemingly proving Malcolm's earlier assertion that the dinosaurs have somehow been breeding against the geneticists' design.
Meanwhile, the disgruntled chief programmer of Jurassic Park's controlling software, Dennis Nedry, attempts corporate espionage for Lewis Dodgson, a geneticist and agent of InGen's archrival, Biosyn. By activating a backdoor he wrote into the park's computer system, Nedry shuts down its security systems and steals frozen embryos for each of the park's fifteen species in an attempt to smuggle them out of the park. However, during Nedry's escape he loses his bearings due to a sudden tropical storm, and is killed by a Dilophosaurus. Without Nedry to reactivate the park's security, the electrified fences remain off and all the dinosaurs escape. The park's adult Tyrannosaurus attacks the guests on tour, with a juvenile T. rex killing Regis. In the aftermath, Grant and the children become lost in the park. Malcolm is gravely injured during the incident, but is found by Gennaro and Muldoon, and spends the remainder of the novel slowly dying as—between lucid lectures and morphine-induced rants—he tries to help the others understand their predicament and survive.
The park's staff manage to temporarily get the park largely back in order, restoring the computer system by shutting down and restarting the power. When trying to restore the park to working order, they fail to notice that the system has been running on auxiliary power since the restart; this power soon runs out, shutting the park down a second time. The park's intelligent and aggressive Velociraptors escape their enclosure, and kill Arnold and Wu. Meanwhile, Grant and the children slowly make their way back to the Visitor Center by rafting down the jungle river, carrying news that several young raptors were on board the island's supply ship when it departed for the mainland. After the three return to the visitor's center, they are contacted by the others, who instruct Grant to switch on the park's generators. Tim is then able to reactivate the park's main power, allowing Gennaro to force the supply ship to return.
Grant, Sattler, Muldoon, and Gennaro find the wild raptor nests and compare hatched eggs with the island's revised population tally, realizing the animals are leaving the island in an attempt at migration. Meanwhile, Hammond, taking a walk and contemplating building a new park improving on his previous mistakes, hears a T. rex roar and, startled, falls down a hill, where he is eaten by a pack of Procompsognathus. Grant deduces that using frog DNA to fill gaps in the dinosaurs' genetic code enabled a measure of dichogamy, in which some of the female animals changed into males in response to the same-sex environment. The computer tally failed to include newborn animals, having been programmed to stop counting once the assumed correct total number of animals had been found.
The survivors are rescued by the Costa Rican Air Force, which declare the island hazardous and unsafe, and proceed to raze the island with napalm. Survivors of the incident are indefinitely detained by the United States and Costa Rican governments at a hotel. Weeks later, Grant is visited by Dr. Martin Guitierrez, an American doctor who lives in Costa Rica. Guitierrez informs Grant that an unknown pack of animals has been migrating through the Costa Rican jungle, eating lysine-rich crops and chickens, indicating the dinosaurs may still exist in the wild.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Moby-Dick - (MOBY-DICK; OR, THE WHALE by Herman Melville), an giant albino sperm whale that bit off Ahab's leg, sending the whaling captain on an obsessive quest for revenge against him.
PLOT:
Ishmael, the narrator, announces his intent to ship aboard a whaling vessel. He has made several voyages as a sailor but none as a whaler. He travels to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he stays in a whalers’ inn. Since the inn is rather full, he has to share a bed with a harpooner from the South Pacific named Queequeg. At first repulsed by Queequeg’s strange habits and shocking appearance (Queequeg is covered with tattoos), Ishmael eventually comes to appreciate the man’s generosity and kind spirit, and the two decide to seek work on a whaling vessel together. They take a ferry to Nantucket, the traditional capital of the whaling industry. There they secure berths on the Pequod, a savage-looking ship adorned with the bones and teeth of sperm whales. Peleg and Bildad, the Pequod’s Quaker owners, drive a hard bargain in terms of salary. They also mention the ship’s mysterious captain, Ahab, who is still recovering from losing his leg in an encounter with a sperm whale on his last voyage.
The Pequod leaves Nantucket on a cold Christmas Day with a crew made up of men from many different countries and races. Soon the ship is in warmer waters, and Ahab makes his first appearance on deck, balancing gingerly on his false leg, which is made from a sperm whale’s jaw. He announces his desire to pursue and kill Moby Dick, the legendary great white whale who took his leg, because he sees this whale as the embodiment of evil. Ahab nails a gold doubloon to the mast and declares that it will be the prize for the first man to sight the whale. As the Pequod sails toward the southern tip of Africa, whales are sighted and unsuccessfully hunted. During the hunt, a group of men, none of whom anyone on the ship’s crew has seen before on the voyage, emerges from the hold. The men’s leader is an exotic-looking man named Fedallah. These men constitute Ahab’s private harpoon crew, smuggled aboard in defiance of Bildad and Peleg. Ahab hopes that their skills and Fedallah’s prophetic abilities will help him in his hunt for Moby Dick.
The Pequod rounds Africa and enters the Indian Ocean. A few whales are successfully caught and processed for their oil. From time to time, the ship encounters other whaling vessels. Ahab always demands information about Moby Dick from their captains. One of the ships, the Jeroboam, carries Gabriel, a crazed prophet who predicts doom for anyone who threatens Moby Dick. His predictions seem to carry some weight, as those aboard his ship who have hunted the whale have met disaster. While trying to drain the oil from the head of a captured sperm whale, Tashtego, one of the Pequod’s harpooners, falls into the whale’s voluminous head, which then rips free of the ship and begins to sink. Queequeg saves Tashtego by diving into the ocean and cutting into the slowly sinking head.
During another whale hunt, Pip, the Pequod’s black cabin boy, jumps from a whaleboat and is left behind in the middle of the ocean. He goes insane as the result of the experience and becomes a crazy but prophetic jester for the ship. Soon after, the Pequod meets the Samuel Enderby, a whaling ship whose skipper, Captain Boomer, has lost an arm in an encounter with Moby Dick. The two captains discuss the whale; Boomer, happy simply to have survived his encounter, cannot understand Ahab’s lust for vengeance. Not long after, Queequeg falls ill and has the ship’s carpenter make him a coffin in anticipation of his death. He recovers, however, and the coffin eventually becomes the Pequod’s replacement life buoy.
Ahab orders a harpoon forged in the expectation that he will soon encounter Moby Dick. He baptizes the harpoon with the blood of the Pequod’s three harpooners. The Pequod kills several more whales. Issuing a prophecy about Ahab’s death, Fedallah declares that Ahab will first see two hearses, the second of which will be made only from American wood, and that he will be killed by hemp rope. Ahab interprets these words to mean that he will not die at sea, where there are no hearses and no hangings. A typhoon hits the Pequod, illuminating it with electrical fire. Ahab takes this occurrence as a sign of imminent confrontation and success, but Starbuck, the ship’s first mate, takes it as a bad omen and considers killing Ahab to end the mad quest. After the storm ends, one of the sailors falls from the ship’s masthead and drowns—a grim foreshadowing of what lies ahead.
Ahab’s fervent desire to find and destroy Moby Dick continues to intensify, and the mad Pip is now his constant companion. The Pequod approaches the equator, where Ahab expects to find the great whale. The ship encounters two more whaling ships, the Rachel and the Delight, both of which have recently had fatal encounters with the whale. Ahab finally sights Moby Dick. The harpoon boats are launched, and Moby Dick attacks Ahab’s harpoon boat, destroying it. The next day, Moby Dick is sighted again, and the boats are lowered once more. The whale is harpooned, but Moby Dick again attacks Ahab’s boat. Fedallah, trapped in the harpoon line, is dragged overboard to his death. Starbuck must maneuver the Pequod between Ahab and the angry whale.
On the third day, the boats are once again sent after Moby Dick, who once again attacks them. The men can see Fedallah’s corpse lashed to the whale by the harpoon line. Moby Dick rams the Pequod and sinks it. Ahab is then caught in a harpoon line and hurled out of his harpoon boat to his death. All of the remaining whaleboats and men are caught in the vortex created by the sinking Pequod and pulled under to their deaths. Ishmael, who was thrown from a boat at the beginning of the chase, was far enough away to escape the whirlpool, and he alone survives. He floats atop Queequeg’s coffin, which popped back up from the wreck, until he is picked up by the Rachel, which is still searching for the crewmen lost in her earlier encounter with Moby Dick.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Giant Squid - (TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne), a gigantic sea cephalopod that Captain Nemo and his crew encounter on their vessel, the Nautilus.
PLOT:
During the year 1866, ships of various nationalities sight a mysterious sea monster, which, it is later suggested, might be a gigantic narwhal. The U.S. government assembles an expedition in New York City to find and destroy the monster. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist and the story's narrator, is in town at the time and receives a last-minute invitation to join the expedition; he accepts. Canadian whaler and master harpooner Ned Land and Aronnax's faithful manservant Conseil are also among the participants.
The expedition leaves Brooklyn aboard the United States Navy frigate Abraham Lincoln, then travels south around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean. After a five-month search ending off Japan, the frigate locates and attacks the monster, which damages the ship's rudder. Aronnax and Land are hurled into the sea, and Conseil jumps into the water after them. They survive by climbing onto the "monster", which, they are startled to find, is a futuristic submarine. They wait on the deck of the vessel until morning, when they are captured, hauled inside, and introduced to the submarine's mysterious constructor and commander, Captain Nemo.
The rest of the novel describes the protagonists' adventures aboard the Nautilus, which was built in secrecy and now roams the seas beyond the reach of land-based governments. In self-imposed exile, Captain Nemo seems to have a dual motivation — a quest for scientific knowledge and a desire to escape terrestrial civilization. Nemo explains that his submarine is electrically powered and can conduct advanced marine research; he also tells his new passengers that his secret existence means he cannot let them leave — they must remain on board permanently.
They visit many ocean regions, some factual and others fictitious. The travelers view coral formations, sunken vessels from the Battle of Vigo Bay, the Antarctic ice barrier, the Transatlantic telegraph cable, and the legendary underwater realm of Atlantis. They even travel to the South Pole and are trapped in an upheaval of an iceberg on the way back, caught in a narrow gallery of ice from which they are forced to dig themselves out. The passengers also don diving suits, hunt sharks and other marine fauna with air guns in the underwater forests of Crespo Island, and also attend an undersea funeral for a crew member who died during a mysterious collision experienced by the Nautilus. When the submarine returns to the Atlantic Ocean, a school of giant squid ("devilfish") attacks the vessel and kills another crewman.
The novel's later pages suggest that Captain Nemo went into undersea exile after his homeland was conquered and his family slaughtered by a powerful imperialist nation. Following the episode of the devilfish, Nemo largely avoids Aronnax, who begins to side with Ned Land. Ultimately, the Nautilus is attacked by a warship from the mysterious nation that has caused Nemo such suffering. Carrying out his quest for revenge, Nemo — whom Aronnax dubs an "archangel of hatred" — rams the ship below her waterline and sends her to the bottom, much to the professor's horror. Afterward, Nemo kneels before a portrait of his deceased wife and children, then sinks into a deep depression.
Circumstances aboard the submarine change drastically: watches are no longer kept, and the vessel wanders about aimlessly. Ned becomes so reclusive that Conseil fears for the harpooner's life. One morning, however, Ned announces that they are in sight of land and have a chance to escape. Professor Aronnax is more than ready to leave Captain Nemo, who now horrifies him, yet he is still drawn to the man. Fearing that Nemo's very presence could weaken his resolve, he avoids contact with the captain. Before their departure, however, the professor eavesdrops on Nemo and overhears him calling out in anguish, "O almighty God! Enough! Enough!" Aronnax immediately joins his companions, and they carry out their escape plans, but as they board the submarine's skiff, they realize that the Nautilus has seemingly blundered into the ocean's deadliest whirlpool, the Moskenstraumen, more commonly known as the "Maelstrom". Nevertheless, they manage to escape and find refuge on an island off the coast of Norway. The submarine's ultimate fate, however, remains unknown.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Jabberwocky - (ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll), a draconic creature that Alice has to slay in the nonsense poem "The Jabberwock".
PLOT:
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The Sandworm - (DUNE by Frank Herbert), also known as the "Shai-halud", a species of humungous worm-like creatures native to the sandy deserts of the desert planet Arrakis whose larvae are the primary source for a high-prized drug called "melange" (also known as the "spice").
PLOT:
Duke Leto Atreides of House Atreides, ruler of the ocean planet Caladan, is assigned by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV to serve as fief ruler of the planet Arrakis. Although Arrakis is a harsh and inhospitable desert planet, it is of enormous importance because it is the only planetary source of melange, or the "spice", a unique and incredibly valuable substance that extends human youth, vitality and lifespan. It is also through the consumption of spice that Spacing Guild Navigators are able to effect safe interstellar travel. Shaddam sees House Atreides as a potential future rival and threat, and conspires with House Harkonnen, the former stewards of Arrakis and the longstanding enemies of House Atreides, to destroy Leto and his family after their arrival. Leto is aware his assignment is a trap of some kind, but is compelled to obey the Emperor’s orders anyway.
Leto's concubine Lady Jessica is an acolyte of the Bene Gesserit, an exclusively female group that pursues mysterious political aims and wields seemingly superhuman physical and mental abilities. Though Jessica was instructed by the Bene Gesserit to bear a daughter as part of their breeding program, out of love for Leto she bore a son, Paul. From a young age, Paul has been trained in warfare by Leto's aides, the elite soldiers Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck. Thufir Hawat, the Duke's Mentat (people with superhuman intelligence), has instructed Paul in the ways of political intrigue. Jessica has also trained her son in what Bene Gesserit disciplines she can. His prophetic dreams interest Jessica's superior, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. She subjects Paul to the gom jabbar, a deadly test that causes blinding pain as part of an assessment of the subject's self-control. To her surprise, Paul passes despite being exposed to more pain than any others before him.
Leto, Jessica, and Paul travel with their household to occupy Arrakeen, the capital on Arrakis formerly held by House Harkonnen. Leto learns of the dangers involved in harvesting the spice, which is protected by giant sandworms, and negotiates with the planet's native Fremen people, seeing them as a valuable ally rather than foes. Soon after the Atreides' arrival, Harkonnen forces attack, joined by the Emperor's ferocious Sardaukar troops in disguise. Leto is betrayed by his personal physician, the Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, who delivers a drugged Leto to the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and his twisted Mentat, Piter De Vries. Yueh, however, arranges for Jessica and Paul to escape into the desert, where they are presumed dead by the Harkonnens. Yueh replaces one of Leto's teeth with a poison gas capsule, hoping Leto can kill the Baron during their encounter. Yueh is murdered by De Vries upon delivering Leto, while the Baron narrowly avoids the gas due to his shield, which instead kills Leto, De Vries, and others. The Baron forces Hawat to take over De Vries' position by dosing him with a long-lasting, fatal poison and threatening to withhold the regular antidote doses unless he obeys. While he follows the Baron's orders, Hawat works secretly to undermine the Harkonnens.
After fleeing into the desert, Paul realizes he has significant powers as a result of the Bene Gesserit breeding scheme, inadvertently caused by Jessica bearing a son and his exposure to high concentrations of spice. In visions, he foresees futures in which he lives among the planet's native Fremen, and is also informed of the addictive qualities of the spice. It is revealed Jessica is the daughter of Baron Harkonnen, a secret kept from her by the Bene Gesserit. After being captured by Fremen, Paul and Jessica are accepted into the Fremen community of Sietch Tabr, and teach them the Bene Gesserit fighting technique known as the "weirding way". Paul proves his manhood by killing a Fremen named Jamis in a ritualistic crysknife fight and chooses the Fremen name Muad'Dib, while Jessica opts to undergo a ritual to become a Reverend Mother by drinking the poisonous Water of Life. Pregnant with Leto's daughter, she inadvertently causes the unborn child, Alia, to become infused with the same powers in the womb. Paul takes a Fremen lover, Chani, and has a son with her, Leto II.
Two years pass and Paul's powerful prescience manifests, which confirms for the Fremen that he is their prophesied messiah, a legend planted by the Bene Gesserit's Missionaria Protectiva. Paul embraces his father's belief that the Fremen could be a powerful fighting force to take back Arrakis, but also sees that if he does not control them, their jihad could consume the entire universe. Word of the new Fremen leader reaches both Baron Harkonnen and the Emperor as spice production falls due to their increasingly destructive raids. The Baron encourages his brutish nephew Glossu Rabban to rule with an iron fist, hoping the contrast with his shrewder nephew Feyd-Rautha will make the latter popular among the people of Arrakis when he eventually replaces Rabban. The Emperor, suspecting the Baron of trying to create troops more powerful than the Sardaukar to seize power, sends spies to monitor activity on Arrakis. Hawat uses the opportunity to sow seeds of doubt in the Baron about the Emperor's true plans, putting further strain on their alliance.
Gurney, having survived the Harkonnen coup to become a smuggler, reunites with Paul and Jessica after a Fremen raid on his harvester. Believing Jessica to be the traitor, Gurney threatens to kill her, but is stopped by Paul. Paul did not foresee Gurney's attack, and concludes he must increase his prescience by drinking the Water of Life, which is traditionally fatal to males. Paul falls into unconsciousness for several weeks after drinking the poison, but when he wakes, he has clairvoyance across time and space: he is the Kwisatz Haderach, the ultimate goal of the Bene Gesserit breeding program.
Paul senses the Emperor and Baron are amassing fleets around Arrakis to quell the Fremen rebellion, and prepares the Fremen for a major offensive against the Harkonnen troops. The Emperor arrives with the Baron on Arrakis. The Emperor’s troops seize a Fremen outpost, killing many including young Leto II, while Alia is captured and taken to the Emperor. Under cover of an electric storm, which shorts out the Emperor's troops' defensive shields, Paul and the Fremen, riding giant sandworms, assault the capital while Alia assassinates the Baron and escapes. The Fremen quickly defeat both the Harkonnen and Sardaukar troops.
Paul faces the Emperor, threatening to destroy spice production forever unless Shaddam abdicates the throne. Feyd-Rautha attempts to stop Paul by challenging him to a ritualistic knife fight, during which he attempts to cheat and kill Paul with a poison spur in his belt. Paul gains the upper hand and kills him. The Emperor reluctantly cedes the throne to Paul and promises his daughter Princess Irulan's hand in marriage. As Paul takes control of the Empire, he realizes that while he has achieved his goal, he is no longer able to stop the Fremen jihad, as their belief in him is too powerful to restrain.
Related content
Comments: 3
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 0