Lenie Clarke-rifter, avenger, amphibious deep-sea cyborg-has destroyed the world. Once exploited for her psychological addiction to dangerous environments, she emerged in the wake of a nuclear blast to serve up vendetta from the ocean floor. The horror she unleashed-an ancient, apocalyptic microbe called ßehemoth- has been free in the world for half a decade now, devouring the biosphere from the bottom up. North America lies in ruins beneath the thumb of an omnipotent psychopath. Digital monsters have taken Clarke’s name, wreaking havoc throughout the decimated remnants of something that was once called Internet. Governments have fallen across the globe; warlords and suicide cults rise from the ashes, pledging fealty to the Meltdown Madonna. All because five years ago, Lenie Clarke had a score to settle.

But she has learned something in the meantime: she destroyed the world for a fallacy.

Now, cowering at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, rifters and the technoindustrial “corpses” who created them hide from a world in its death throes. But they cannot hide forever: something is tracking them, down amongst the lightless cliffs and trenches of the Midatlantic Ridge. The consequences of past acts reach inexorably towards the very bottom of the world, and Lenie Clarke must finally confront the mess she made.

Redemption doesn’t come easy with the blood of a world on your hands. But even after five years in purgatory, Lenie Clarke is still Lenie Clarke. There will be consequences for anyone who gets in her way-and worse ones, perhaps, if she succeeds. . . .

This is a sequel to Starfish and is closely tied together in story. I would recommed reading Starfish first.

Alas, gone is the fascinating deep-sea environment, the best part of the first book of this series, replaced by a pure cyberpunk plot. The best parts of Starfish, the descriptions of the alien environment at the bottom of a deep sea trench and the exploration of the emotional and mental changes that it brings, are left behind completely.

Starfish tells the story of an underwater base named Beebe Station, deep in the Pacific Ocean near the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The ostensible purpose of the personnel at Beebe Station is to maintain the nearby machinery that supplies power to the world by harvesting geothermal activity. However, the book spends little time on the day-to-day duties of the people at the station — they occasionally do their work, but much more interesting things happen all the time. The personnel are chosen for their level of dysfunction among the members of above-water society (the drybacks), and we get many close encounters with madness and psychosis. The people in the station are also changing, due to isolation as well as to some illegal fiddling with their biochemistry. Corporate malfeasance is nothing new, but the future only makes it more dangerous, especially in combination with the catastrophic reach of advanced technology. Near the end of the book, some conventional suspense arrives and we get some tired tropes about saving the world and keeping one’s humanity alive. Up to that point, the plot of the book is as shapeless and messy as could be, and I don’t say that as a criticism. Sometimes a non-standard narrative becomes completely indecipherable and all the reader can do is give up. Starfish is impossible to summarize properly, but it also keeps the reader on-side and interested from beginning to end.

The year is nineteen-sixty-something, and after endless millennia of watery sleep, the stars are finally right. Old R’lyeh rises out of the Pacific, ready to cast its damned shadow over the primitive human world. The first to see its peaks: an alcoholic, paranoid, and frightened Jack Kerouac, who had been drinking off a nervous breakdown up in Big Sur. Now Jack must get back on the road to find Neal Cassady, the holy fool whose rambling letters hint of a world brought to its knees in worship of the Elder God Cthulhu. Together with pistol-packin’ junkie William S. Burroughs, Jack and Neal make their way across the continent to face down the murderous Lovecraftian cult that has spread its darkness to the heart of the American Dream. But is Neal along for the ride to help save the world, or does he want to destroy it just so that he’ll have an ending for his book?

Published in 1532, The Prince is a shockingly frank guide to the art of cultivating power. How does one establish power and maintain control over other people—or an entire nation? How does a prince relate to his citizens? Machiavelli’s brilliant and cold-blooded vision reflects on all of the necessary aspects of leadership. His advice always cuts to the chase, stating that if a prince must choose between being loved or feared, it is better to be feared. No ingredient in the recipe for absolute power is left out, whether it concerns military control or day-to-day princely behavior. Machiavelli’s work has remained a classic political treatise for centuries. Its honest and realistic insight has stayed fresh and eye-opening to this day.

Χρήσιμο γλωσσάρι που επεξηγεί όρους ίσως άγνωστους από τα έργα του Νίκου Καββαδία.

The story is told in the first person by Jim Hawkins, whose mother kept the Admiral Benbow Inn, and who shared in the adventures from start to finish. An old sea dog comes to this peaceful inn one day, apparently intending to finish his life there. He hires Jim to keep a watch out for other sailors, but despite all precautions, he is hunted out and served with the black spot that means death. Jim and his mother barely escape death when Blind Pew, Black Dog, and other pirates descend on the inn in search of the sea dog’s papers. Jim snatches up a packet of papers to square the sailor’s debt, when they were forced to retreat from the inn. The packet contains a map showing the location of the pirate Flint’s buried treasure, which Jim, Doctor Livesey, and Squire Trelawney determine to find. Fitting out a ship, they hire hands and set out on their adventure. Unfortunately, their crew includes one-legged Long John Silver, a pirate also in search of the treasure, and a number of his confederates. Jim, hidden in an apple barrel, overhears the plans of the crew to mutiny, and he warns his comrades. The battle between the pirates and Jim’s party is an exciting and bloody one, taking place both on the island and aboard ship. Jim escapes from the ship, discovers the marooned sailor, Ben Gunn, who has already found and cached the treasure, and finally the victors get safely aboard the ship with the treasure.

The prototype for all science fiction, H. G. Wells’s fantastic novel will not let you out of its grip as it narrates the invasion of Earth by ruthless Martians. In 1938, a radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds—done in the style of a news broadcast—panicked the listening public.