Research for The Court of Jesters

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now… Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time, Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.

Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, inhabited by genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story's protagonist.

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you'll recognize it immediately.

لقد جاء عام 1984 ومضى، لكن رؤية جورج أورويل النبوئية الكابوسية التي صاغها عام 1949 للعالم الذي كنا نصير إليه تبدو اليوم أكثر راهنية من أي وقت مضى. لا تزال «1984» الكلاسيكية الحديثة العظيمة في أدب «اليوتوبيا السلبية» — رواية أصيلة على نحو مدهش ومقلقة، تخلق عالماً خيالياً مقنعاً تماماً، من الجملة الأولى إلى الكلمات الأربع الأخيرة. ولا يستطيع أحد إنكار سطوة الرواية على مخيلات أجيال كاملة، أو قوة تحذيراتها — وهي قوة يبدو أنها تزداد، لا تضعف، مع مرور الزمن.

Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ... Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh...

Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

Wenn du keine Angst hast, bist du kein Mensch. Als Thomas im Aufzug aufwacht, kann er sich nur noch an seinen Namen erinnern. Er ist von Fremden umgeben – Jungen, deren Erinnerungen ebenfalls verschwunden sind. Freut mich, dich kennenzulernen, Shank. Willkommen in der Lichtung. Außerhalb der hohen Steinmauern, die die Lichtung umgeben, liegt ein grenzenloses, sich ständig veränderndes Labyrinth. Es ist der einzige Weg hinaus – und noch niemand hat es lebend durchquert. Alles wird sich verändern. Dann kommt ein Mädchen. Das allererste Mädchen. Und die Nachricht, die sie überbringt, ist erschreckend. Erinnere dich. Überlebe. Lauf.

The advanced technology of a house first pleases then increasingly terrifies its occupants.

First published in 1967 and re-issued in 1983, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream contains seven stories with copyrights ranging from 1958 through 1967. This edition contains the original introduction by Theodore Sturgeon and the original foreword by Harlan Ellison, along with a brief update comment by Ellison that was added in the 1983 edition. Among Ellison's more famous stories, two consistently noted as among his very best ever are the title story and the volume's concluding one, Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes. Since Ellison himself strongly resists categorization of his work, we won't call them science fiction, or SF, or speculative fiction or horror or anything else except compelling reading experiences that are sui generis. They could only have been written by Harlan Ellison and they are incomparably original. CONTENTS "I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream" "Big Sam Was My Friend" "Eyes of Dust" "World of the Myth" "Lonelyache" "Delusion for Dragonslayer" "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"