Kategoria BISAC: Juvenile Fiction >> Action & Adventure - General

When he had been at school for about three weeks, the boys called him Six-fingered Jack; but his real name was Willie, for his father and mother gave it him -- not William, but Willie, after a brother of his father, who died young and had always been called Willie. His name in full was Willie Macmichael. It was generally pronounced Macmickle, which was, by a learned anthropologist, for certain reasons about to appear in this history, supposed to have been the original form of the name. . . .

THE LIGHT PRINCESS When the Light Princess was born, somebody screwed up an invitation to her christening and left out her evil aunt. Who was a witch That evil aunt vented her spleen by casting a spell on the Princess that left her immune to gravity. Which was a strange (and often inconvenient ) way for things to be -- more than once the wind caught hold of her while she slept, and you can go the most amazing places on the wind if you have no weight. Then, when the princess got to be a young woman, she met a young prince and fell in love -- and the results of that love are the very...

When he had been at school for about three weeks, the boys called him Six-fingered Jack; but his real name was Willie, for his father and mother gave it him -- not William, but Willie, after a brother of his father, who died young, and had always been called Willie. His name in full was Willie Macmichael. It was generally pronounced Macmickle, which was, by a learned anthropologist, for certain reasons about to appear in this history, supposed to have been the original form of the name. . . . One evening in winter, when he had been putting coals on his grannie's fire, she told him to take...

THE LIGHT PRINCESS When the Light Princess was born, somebody screwed up an invitation to her christening and left out her evil aunt. Who was a witch That evil aunt vented her spleen by casting a spell on the Princess that left her immune to gravity. Which was a strange (and often inconvenient ) way for things to be -- more than once the wind caught hold of her while she slept, and you can go the most amazing places on the wind if you have no weight. Then, when the princess got to be a young woman, she met a young prince and fell in love -- and the results of that love are the very...

Few men knew Elam Harnish by any other name than Burning Daylight, the name which had been given him in the early days in the land because of his habit of routing his comrades out of their blankets with the complaint that daylight was burning. Of the pioneers in that far Arctic wilderness, where all men were pioneers, he was reckoned among the oldest. Men like Al Mayo and Jack McQuestion antedated him; but they had entered the land by crossing the Rockies from the Hudson Bay country to the east. He, however, had been the pioneer over the Chilcoot and Chilcat passes. In the spring of 1883,...

Their heads were matted with uncut hair, long locks of which often strayed before their eyes, beady and black and glittering like the eyes of birds. They were narrow between the eyes and broad between the cheeks, while their lower jaws were projecting and massive.

It was a night of clear starlight, and below them, stretching away remotely, lay range on range of forest-covered hills. In the distance the heavens were red from the glow of a volcano. At their backs yawned the black mouth of a cave, out of which, from time to time, blew draughty gusts of...

"How did you vote on the suffrage amendment?" Charmian asked....

"There is a woman in the state of Nevada to whom I once lied continuously, consistently, and shamelessly, for the matter of a couple of hours. I don't want to apologize to her. Far be it from me. But I do want to explain. Unfortunately, I do not know her name, much less her present address. If her eyes should chance upon these lines, I hope she will write to me." -- From "Confession" In this entertaining collection of tales and autobiographical essays, London relates the days he spent on the road. Each story details an aspect of the hobo's life -- from catching a train to cadging a meal....

From one of the characters of this novel, after parting company with the heroine: "'Jove ' he muttered, doffing his cap gallantly. 'There is a woman ' And a sudden hunger seized him, and a yearning to see himself mirrored always in the gray eyes of Frona Welse. He was not analytical; he did not know why; but he knew that with her he could travel to the end of the earth."

The novel is a story of a working-class couple, Billy and Saxon Roberts, struggling laborers in Oakland at the Turn-of-the-Century, who left city life behind and searched Central and Northern California for suitable farmland to own. The book is notable for its scenes in which the proletarian hero enjoys fellowship with the artists' colony in Carmel, and he settles in the Valley of the Moon. Billy and Saxon are hard working people living in Oakland. When a issue erupts between the San Francisco bricklayers and the Oakland bricklayers, it leads to a riot that pulls both Billy and Saxon into...

Martin Eden is the tale of a sailor who educates himself. Eden has a wicked crush on college-educated society girl Ruth Morse, and thinks that he can get her by becoming one of the literati . . . we all know what happens in that story, don't we? He loses his fiancEe, of course (he's not well "established" enough for her). But Martin finds fame and fortune in the end -- and of course that gets the girl's attention -- as if he'd want it Oh, complication. A classic London novel of social issues . . . which ends up, oddly, in the south seas. Maybe there's something of an autobiography here. ....

. . . .But his verse is strictly private: "His mind would dwell much upon love and friendship in the imaginary abstract, but of neither had he had the smallest immediate experience." That is, until he meets Annie Melville, who takes service as a parlor maid in his household to help support herself and her mother. Annie is beneath his station -- but Hector is oblivious to such concerns. Under Annie's influence, he blossoms as a writer. But will he blossom into a man with the courage to let her know his feelings for her? And what might occur if he does?

The way starts in his room, and he meets is a girl who tells him "Trust the Oak. Trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech. Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest, she is too young not to be changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an ogre, -- you will know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with her web of hair, if you let her near you at night." This is wise advice.

Taking the name "Smoke," he learns to thrive and flourish in the wilds of the frontier.

"Smoke Bellew, " first published in 1912, tells a tale as bracing and fast-moving as an icy mountain stream.

"I wud hae ye promise to merry me, Kirsty, come the time," says the young Francie Gordon to Kirsty; "and that ye ken as well as I du mysel " Kirsty of Corbyknowe leads a simple life among the hills of Scotland, raised by a farming family and blessed with the patient wisdom of the country folk. Frank Gordon is of higher blood, his father having risen to military distinction -- as his widowed mother reminds him, keeping him from his lower-born childhood friend. Yet Frank knows his father would have approved: for Kirsty's father was his own father's best friend.

Phantastes's narrator turns twenty one. Part of his inheritance is his father's desk, with a hidden compartment containing a fairy who tells him he shall find the way into fairy land. The way starts in his room, and he meets is a girl who tells him "Trust the Oak. Trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech. Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest, she is too young not to be changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an ogre, -- you will know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with her web of hair, if you let her near you at night." This...

When you think of Jack London, you probably think of works like Call of the Wild -- yes, there's something fantastic about the work, but in the end it's not something you'd want to shelve with the SF or the Fantasy. It's conservative, and thoughtful, and has a very real understanding of the world. This is something different. Oh, it's got London's understanding, but it was written before he changed his politics -- The Iron Heel gives us a grim, SFnal, and socialist vision of the world endlessly at war -- Vietnam-style war, at that. Fascinating, thoughtful, and exciting stuff from a real...