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In this enduring Victorian classic written in 1876, two stories weave in and out of each other: The first is about Gwendolen, one of Eliot's finest creations, who grows from a self-centered young beauty to a thoughtful adult with an expanded vision of the world around her. The second is about Daniel Deronda, adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman who becomes fascinated with Jewish traditions when he meets an ailing Jewish philosopher named Mordecai and his sensitive sister, Mirah. (Summary by Becky Miller)...

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Romance, Literature

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Second, when telling such lies as may seem necessary to your international standing, do not tell the lies to the people who know the truth. Do not tell the Eskimos that snow is bright green; nor tell the negroes in Africa that the sun never shines in that Dark Continent. Rather tell the Eskimos that the sun never shines in Africa; and then, turning to the tropical Africans, see if they will believe that snow is green. Similarly, the course indicated for you is to slander the Russians to the English and the English to the Russians; and there are hundreds of good old reliable slanders which can still be used against both of them. There are probably still Russians who believe that every English gentleman puts a rope round his wife's neck and sells her in Smithfield. There are certainly still Englishmen who believe that every Russian gentleman takes a rope to his wife's back and whips her every day. But these stories, picturesque and useful as they are, have a limit to their use like everything else; and the limit consists in the fact that they are not true, and that there necessarily exists a group of persons who know they are not true...

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Essay/Short nonfiction

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Novelle per un anno è una raccolta di 241 novelle scritte da Luigi Pirandello. Originariamente sono state pubblicate sul Corriere della Sera, successivamente ripubblicate in 15 raccolte. Inizialmente erano previste 24 raccolte contenenti 365 novelle, tuttavia la prematura morte dell'autore ha impedito il raggiungimento del traguardo. Postume sono state pubblicate altre novelle scritte dall'autore. Le raccolte sono state pubblicate tra il 1922 e il 1938. (Riassunto di Filippo Gioachin)...

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Fiction, Literature

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Sienkiewicz’s epic novel of ancient Rome finds the Empire at the height of her power and splendor, but struggling with the madness and cruelty of the Emperor Nero. A new religion is sweeping across the world, causing many Romans to wonder and leading many others to sacrifice everything for it. Yet, even as a great city burns and darkness threatens to overwhelm the age, hope is found in the love of the Roman tribune Marcus Vinicius for the beautiful Christian maiden Lygia, and in his journey toward his life’s true purpose (Introduction by D. Leeson)....

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Historical Fiction

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Auf die Sängerin Giuseppa Fiametti wird ein Mordversuch verübt. Ganz B ... ist in Aufregung und man munkelt allerlei über die dunkle Vergangenheit der Sängerin. Medizinalrat Lange geht der Sache nach. Es gelingt ihm, das Vertrauen der Fiametti zu gewinnen, die ihm ihre traurige Lebensgeschichte anvertraut. Doch warum nannte die Sängerin kurz nach dem Anschlag den Namen des wohlangesehenen Kommerzienrat Bolnau, der sich durch sein seltsames Verhalten vor allem in den Augen des Polizeipräsidenten mehr als verdächtig macht? (Zusammenfassung von Hokuspokus)...

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Mystery

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The Heroides, also known as the Heroines, the Letters of the Heroines or simply as Epistles are a very famous collection of poems by Ovid, not only for their interesting subject - letters by famous mythological characters addressed to their beloved ones - but also because it's considered by some the first example of the Epistle as a literary genre - a statement made by Ovid himself in his Ars Amatoria. The book as we have it nowadays consists of 21 letters, divided in two parts. The first is composed of fifteen letters presented as if written by a female mythological character to her lover; the second part, also known as Double Heroides, brings three pairs of letters, being the first in each pair supposedly written by a hero, and the second one, the heroine's response to the first letter. Along the Metamorphoses and the Ars Amatoria, the Heroides were one of the most influential works of Ovid, not only in the Antiquity, but also throughout the Middle Ages and up to Modern times. (Summary by Leni)...

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Literature, Epistolary fiction, Ancient Texts, Classics (antiquity)

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La Divina Commedia , originalmente Commedìa , è un poema di Dante Alighieri, capolavoro del poeta fiorentino, considerata la più importante testimonianza letteraria della civiltà medievale e una delle più grandi opere della letteratura universale. È diviso in tre parti chiamate cantiche: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso; il poeta immagina di compiervi un viaggio ultraterreno. Il poema, pur continuando i modi caratteristici della letteratura e dello stile medievali (ispirazione religiosa, fine morale, linguaggio e stile basati sulla percezione visiva e immediata delle cose), tende a una rappresentazione ampia e drammatica della realtà, ben lontana dalla spiritualità tipica del Medioevo, tesa a cristallizzare la visione del reale. (Sommario di Wikipedia)...

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Poetry

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This 1871 revision of The Psalms by the American Bible Union is based on the Common Version, another name for the 1833 revision of the King James Version of The Bible by Noah Webster. (Summary by Mark Penfold)...

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Religion

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The Third Book of the Faerie Queene contayning the Legende of Britomartis or of Chastitie. The Faerie Queene was never completed, but it continues to be one of the most beautiful and important works of literature ever written. Spenser wrote it as a paean to the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, and to the golden age which she had brought to England. Sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh and commended by the foremost literary minds of his day, Spenser's book remains one of the crowning poetic achievements of the Elizabethan period.(Summary by Annise)...

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Myths/Legends, Poetry

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Seneca the Younger wrote the moral essay De Brevitate Vitae — On the Shortness of Life — to his friend Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly. (Introduction by xxxx)...

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Classics (antiquity), Philosophy

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Peter Tourmalin is on a sea voyage back home to England from Australia, to return to his fiancee, and he is very bored. The fact that the time difference adds on extra hours to his boredom only makes it worse. So when he gets a unique opportunity to deposit his spare time into an account with the Anglo-Australian Joint Stock Time Bank, Limited he doesn't hesitate for long. By opening this account, he doesn't have to spend his spare time right away, but can withdraw it at any future date, when he wants a break. All he has to do is present a time cheque to any clock, and he is immediately brought back aboard ship to spend the time withdrawn. Sounds perfect? Peter certainly thinks so, when on a dreary November morning in London, a little tired with his exacting fiancee, he presents his first cheque and gets to spend a sunny quarter of an hour aboard ship. However, things get complicated when it turns out the time withdrawn isn't in consecutive installments, but all mixed up, leaving Peter often with no clue of any preliminaries or his relationship with the person he finds himself with. Since he is almost always dropped in the middle of...

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Fantasy, Science fiction

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The Harvester is one of Gene Stratton-Porter’s romantic novels which combine a love of nature, high moral ideals and a good plot. This is the story of a young man who lives in the country side with his dog and other animals and grows herbs to sell to medical drug supply houses. One evening, he has a vision of his Dream Girl and this is the story of his search for her and what happens when he finds her. (Summary by Readaholic)...

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Teen/Young adult, Nature, Romance

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The Skylark of Space is one of the earliest novels of interstellar travel and is considered a classic of pulp science fiction. Originally serialized in 1928 in the magazine Amazing Stories it is often categorized as the first literary space opera, complete with protagonists perfect in mind, body, and spirit, who fight against villains of absolute evil....

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Science fiction

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Three men down on their luck in Tahiti agree to ship out on a vessel whose officers have died of smallpox. Their desperate venture inspires them to a further idea: they will steal the schooner and its cargo of champagne, sell them, and live a plentiful life. The thought is intoxicating... and so is the cargo, which they sample. Inattention nearly brings them to grief in a sudden storm. This sobering experience is followed by another - apparently the dead officers had a similar ambition! - and their dreams of riches vanish. Then, nearly out of provisions and deep in the heart of the Pacific where the chart shows no land - they happen on a small isle only hinted at in the records and never mapped. Saved! But what is this? The island hides a pearl fishery? In the ebb-tide of fortune, what new villainy will the three attempt? (Summary by Mark F. Smith)...

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Adventure, Fiction, Sea stories

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Arthur Chamberlain has problems. His one-man engineering firm is faltering and his pretty secretary Estelle barely notices him. But these problems are put aside when his Manhattan office building falls into the fourth dimension. Madison Square is filled with wigwams and it’s up to Arthur to engineer a way to make his building to fall back to the future. – The Runaway Skyscraper first appeared in the February 22, 1919 issue of Argosy magazine. (Summary by Gregg Margarite)...

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Science fiction

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Toeristisch verslag van een reis naar Canada en Alaska, in 1892 gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift De Aarde en haar volken. We gaan samen met de anonieme, Europese schrijver in Frankrijk aan boord van een schip met bestemming New-York. Daar aangekomen, reizen we direct door naar Montreal. In deze Oost-Canadese stad begint een lange tocht per trein - helemaal naar de Canadese west-kust - via de nog maar enkele jaren daarvoor aangelegde Canada-Pacific-lijn. Deze voert langs een overvloed aan meren en rivieren, in opkomst zijnde steden en adembenemende bergtoppen en gletschers. Aangekomen in de west-Canadese stad Victoria, neemt de schrijver ons mee aan boord van stoomboot 'The Queen' voor een toeristische tocht naar Alaska. Hij verhaalt van de prachtige ijsbergen, fjorden, gletschers en bossen welke we onderweg tegenkomen, van de geschiedenis van Alaska en van de kleurrijke plaatselijke bevolking. De Pyramide-haven, op 59° N.B., is de meest noordelijke plaats die wordt aangedaan. Daarna ondernemen we de terugtocht. (inleiding door kattekliek)...

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History, Travel

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volunteers bring you 13 recordings of An Ode by Táhirih (Fátimih Baraghání) (1814/1817 – 1852), Translated by Edward Granville Browne (1862 – 1926). This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 7th, 2010. Fátimih Baraghání (1814/1817 – 1852), also known by the titles of Táhirih (Arabic for “The Pure One”) and Qurratu’l-‘Ayn (Arabic for “Consolation of the Eyes”) was an influential Iranian poet and Bábí heroine from the town of Qazvín. Her legacy is important to Bahá’ís, as well as supporters of women’s rights in Iran. In 1844, she became the seventeenth disciple or “Letter of the Living” of the Báb (1819-1850). As the only woman in this initial group of disciples, she is often compared to Mary Magdalene. From June-July 1848, she attended the Conference of Badasht where she appeared without a veil in public (a shocking statement of women’s rights) and declared that a new religious dispensation had been inaugurated. Coincidentally, shortly after this, the Seneca Falls Convention (an important women’s rights convention) was held in New York on the 19th-20th of July, 1848. She was executed in Tehran in 1852. Before her death, sh...

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Religion, Poetry

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Ten Days that Shook the World (1919) is a book by American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, especially Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, closely during his time in Russia. John Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished, and he is one of the few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow, a site normally reserved only for the most prominent Soviet leaders. Max Eastman recalls a meeting with John Reed in the middle of Sheridan Square during the period of time when Reed isolated himself writing the book: ...he wrote Ten Days that Shook the World - wrote it in another ten days and ten nights or little more. He was gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, a stark sleepless half-crazy look on his slightly potato-like face - had come down after a night's work for a cup of coffee. 'Max, don't tell anybody where I am. I'm writing the Russian revolution in a book. I've got all the placards and papers up there in a little room and a Russian dictionary, and I'm working all day and all night...

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History

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Dead Souls (Russian: Мёртвые души) by Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer, was first published in 1842, and is one of the most prominent works of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an epic poem in prose, and within the book as a novel in verse. Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form. In Russia before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, landowners were entitled to own serfs to farm their land. Serfs were for most purposes considered the property of the landowner, and could be bought, sold, or mortgaged against, as any other chattel. To count serfs (and people in general), the measure word soul was used: e.g., six souls of serfs. The plot of the novel relies on dead souls (i.e., dead serfs) which are still accounted for in property registers. On another level, the title refers to the dead souls of Gogol's characters, all of which visualise different aspects of poshlost (an untranslatable Russian word which is perhaps best ren...

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Historical Fiction

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Most of the translations of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam have been in verse. However, there have been three notable exceptions to this convention; the French translation by J. B. Nicolas (1867), the English version by Justin Huntly McCarthy (1889) and another English version by Frederick Rolfe (better known as Baron Corvo, the author of Hadrian VII), published in 1903. Charles Blanden (1857 - 1933) belonged to the group known as the Chicago poets, the most famous of which was Carl Sandburg. Unlike his celebrated contemporary. Blanden was no innovator, and most of his verse is sweet and melodious, composed with craftsmanlike skill, but often lacking in imaginative fervour. Most of his collections of verse, bearing such titles as The Battle of Love, A Chorus of Leaves, A Drift of Song, and A Valley Muse, were published in limited editions, which have not since been reprinted, and today his poetry is considered of little more than historical interest. One of Blanden’s most engaging enterprises was his verse reworking of Justin McCarthy’s prose translation of the Rubaiyat, which was published in 1901. Blanden uses an eight line verse st...

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Literature, Poetry

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The book of John stands out among the Biblical writings about Jesus as an eloquent depiction of his deity, composed in detailed and elegant prose. It's believed to have been written by the apostle John near the end of the first century A.D. The World English Bible is a new public-domain translation, retaining the accuracy and beauty of previous translations as well as of the original languages, while achieving a remarkable level of accessibility to modern readers. Summary by Rachelellen...

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Religion

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We have had many novels about alternate histories, often of the 'What would have happened if Hitler had won the war' type and this is another - except that this one is set in 1913 and the 'William' of the title is that old bogeyman 'Kaiser Bill'. For some reason, at the height of Britain's power, the fear of invasion was common at that time. (See 'The Riddle of the Sands', 'The Battle of Dorking', 'Spies of the Kaiser' or even 'The War of the Worlds') WARNING:- Contains mild anti-semitism and jingoism typical of the period (Summary by Andy Minter)...

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War stories, Fiction

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In The Four Pools Mystery the tyrannical plantation owner is deemed responsible for his own murder because of his mistreatment of the former slaves who continued in his employment after the war. Jean Webster (pseudonym for Alice Jane Chandler Webster) was born July 24, 1876 and died June 11, 1916. She was an American writer and author of many books including Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. (Wiki)...

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Fiction, Mystery

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volunteers bring you 9 recordings of Cana by James Freeman Clarke, from The World's Best Poetry, edited by Bliss Carman. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 14th, 2010. Trivia: After hearing the song John Brown's Body, Clarke suggested that Mrs. Julia Ward Howe write new lyrics; the result was The Battle Hymn of the Republic. He published but few verses, but at heart was a poet....

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Advice, Philosophy, Religion, Poetry

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Next to de Alexis de Tocquville's almost contemporary Democracy in America, Frances Trollope's work may be the most famous (or at least notorious) dissection of manners and morals of the United States. The work was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, and particularly in America, where Trollope was reviled as representing the worst of old world prejudices the new republic (though the criticism did nothing to hurt sales). Accompanied by a son and two daughters, Trollope lived in the United States from 1827 to 1831, spending most of her time in Cincinnati, where she had hoped, when joined by her husband, to open a large department store, which was also to be a place of entertainment and culture. She was, unfortunately, almost entirely ignorant of business practices, and habitually short of money, which her husband was in no position to make up. After leaving Cincinnati she traveled briefly in the eastern states, before returning to England. There is something of a happy ending; Domestic Manners was her first book, and such a success that she turned to writing, producing in her lifetime over a hundred books, which, though they ne...

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Fiction, Travel

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An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, published on March 9, 1776 during the Scottish Enlightenment. It is a clearly written account of political economy at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and is widely considered to be the first modern work in the field of economics....

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Economics/Political Economy

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Über den Zorn (De Ira) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca (etwa 4 v. Chr. - 65 n. Chr.), übersetzt von J. Moser (1782 -1871), veröffentlicht 1828. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, genannt Seneca der Jüngere, war ein römischer Philosoph, Dramatiker, Naturforscher, Staatsmann und als Stoiker einer der meistgelesenen Schriftsteller seiner Zeit. Seneca griff klassisches stoisches Gedankengut auf. Das Problem der Affektkontrolle wird hier auf vielfältige Weise lebenspraktisch, historisch-exemplarisch und politisch abgehandelt. (Zusammenfassung von Wikipedia)...

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Philosophy

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Captain Nemo, The Nautilus, and the mysterious depths of the ocean. Unforgettable. Come join an adventure that will roam among coral and pearls, sharks and giant squid, with wonders of biology and engineering that will thrust us from the Antarctic to Atlantis. Whether voyaging a yarn of the glorious unknown, a tale of the darkness that grips the heart of men, or a reinterpretation of Homer’s Odyssey, we’ll all enjoy the fantastic trip. Seasickness optional. (Summary by Marlo Dianne)...

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Adventure

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“Doc” E.E. Smith pretty much invented the space opera genre, and Triplanetary is a good and well-known example. Physics, time, and politics never stand in the way of a plot that gallops ahead without letup. Having earned a PhD in chemical engineering, it’s understandable that the heroes of Smith’s story are all scientists. He didn’t want to be constrained by the limits of known science, however, so in his hands the electromagnetic spectrum becomes a raw material to be molded into ever-more amazing and lethal forms, and the speed of light is no bar to traveling through the interstellar void. Come enjoy this story of yesteryear, set in tomorrow, where real women ignite love at a glance, real men achieve in days what governments manage in decades, and aliens are an ever-present threat to Life-As-We-Know-It! (Summary by Mark F. Smith)...

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Adventure, Fiction, Science fiction

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A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future is a science fiction novel by John Jacob Astor IV, published in 1894. The book offers a fictional account of life in the year 2000. It contains abundant speculation about technological invention, including descriptions of a world-wide telephone network, solar power, air travel, space travel to the planets Saturn and Jupiter, and terraforming engineering projects — damming the Arctic Ocean, and adjusting the Earth's axial tilt (by the Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company). In Astor's novel, the future United States is a multi-continental superpower. European nations have been taken over by socialist governments, which have sold most of their African colonies to the U.S.; and Canada, Mexico, and the countries of South America have requested annexation. Race conflict is a thing of the past, since the dark elements of the American hegemony have died out. Space travel is achieved by linking an airship to a comet. Jupiter proves to be a jungle world, with flesh-eating plants, vampire bats, giant snakes and mastodons, and flying lizards. The Americans discover a wealth of exploitable res...

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Science fiction