Book Review: Nemesis
Name of Book: Nemesis
Author: Isaac Asimov was born in 1920 in Petrovichi, Russia. When he was three years of age, his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York. Asimov turned to full time writing in 1958. This accomplished writer is best known for his novels dealing with science fiction.
However, his works extend to other subjects. These include humour, mystery, history, and some volumes involving the Bible and Shakespeare. He has published around 500 books for both young and adult readers. His most famous science- fiction writings are I, Robot (1950) and The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953).
Asimov was dubbed a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1987 by the Science
Fiction Writers of America. He died in 1992.
Setting: The story takes place in two time periods. One set of events takes place in the present, while the other set takes place in the past, drawing closer to the present. It spans over a fifteen year period, beginning in the year 2220. Although most of the important incidents occur on the planet Erythro about 2 light years from our solar system, the novel shifts between Earth, space, and the Settlement named Rotor, which orbits the foreign planet.
Main Character:
Marlene Fisher is a very intelligent young woman at fifteen years of age.
As a child, all who encountered her sensed that she was different. Her wide eyes absorbed all that was around her and seemed to know a great deal. Growing older, her “uniqueness” established itself as a gift in which she is able to read into the body language of others. A slight movement, a stuttered word, the smallest hesitation gives her indication as to one's true feelings and motives.
Some mistake this gift as her being a “psychic”, but she is not. Marlene has only learned how to interpret little signs often overlooked.
Now a young woman, Marlene's uncanny ability has become quite developed.
She finds herself constantly watching people's reactions, and does not hesitate to bluntly speak out what she has learned. Her intuitions sometimes get too interfering and she often crosses the line of being helpful. Many become extremely uncomfortable whenever in her presence, so she is advised by her mother against showing this talent. She tries to follow her mother's warning and her annoyance at the falseness of those surrounding her dwindles.
Although Marlene is obviously an exceptional youth, she has troubles and stresses just like any other teenage girl. She knows she is rather plain looking and senses that others agree, but she has come to accept this fact.
The Salem witch craft trials are the most learned about and notable of Europe's and North America's witch hunts. Its notoriety and fame comes from the horrendous amount of people that were not only involved, but killed in the witch hunt and that it took place in the late 1700's being one of the last of all witch hunts. The witch craft crises blew out of control for several reasons. Firstly, Salem town was facing hard economic times along with disease and famine making it plausible that the only explanation of the town's despoilment was because of witches and the devil. As well, with the stimulation of the idea of witch's from specific constituents of the town and adolescent boredom the idea of causing entertainment among the town was an ever intriguing way of passing time.
In The Return of Martin Guerre, one man's impersonation of an heir from an influential peasant family in the French village of Artigat ultimately leads to his public execution. The tale of Arnaud du Tilh alias Pansette (meaning "the belly") is full of ironies, not the least of which is his death at the hands of a man who by some accounts harbored some admiration for the quick-witted peasant. Set in a time and place where a hardly discernible line separated proper behavior from that which was grounds for death, du Tilh was guilty of more than one serious charge. Yet he was well-known as a strong farmer, loving husband, shrewd rural-merchant, and eloquent speaker. Arnaud's actions are not the result of his own audacity, rather of something more universal, so universal its results can be seen in other historical figures from the text. Du Tilh assumed Martin Guerre's identity because doing so represented a unique opportunity to test the extent of his abilities and leave behind his presently troubled life.
Steven Gregory’s book entitled The Devil Behind The Mirror is an ethnographical study of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean, it occupies the Western half of an island, while Haiti makes up the Eastern portion. Gregory attempts to study and analyze the political, social and cultural aspects of this nation by interviewing and observing both the tourists and locals of two towns Boca Chica and Andres. Gregory’s research centers on globalization and the transnational processes which affect the political and socio-economics of the Dominican Republic. He focuses on the social culture, gender roles, economy, individual and nation identity, also authority and power relations. Several of the major relevant issues facing Dominican society include racism, sexism, and discrimination, economy of resort tourism, sex tourism and the informal economy. The objective of Gregory’s ethnographic research is to decipher exclusionary practices incorporated by resort tourism, how it has affected locals by division of class, gender, and race, increasing poverty and reliance on an informal economy.
During the process of this research paper this semester sources we have been using different sources to create a strong argument and support my point of view regarding Mexican businessmen in El Paso. Among the sources we are using, primary and secondary, historian Mario T Garcia’s book, Dessert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920, is one of them, and most likely, the most important. The book was published on September 10, 1982. The book is an exceptional work dealing with details, statistics, and historical events related to the Mexican journey to the United States. In his book, Garcia spent an entire chapter talking about obreros y comerciantes (labors and merchants) and what their economic activities were in order to support their dream of getting enough money in the United States and come back to Mexico afterwards.
The reading “The Terror” by Junot Diaz is a story I can relate to because of the emotional and physical bullying I experienced in high school which I was able to curb after informing my parents who took immediate actions to put a stop to it. Junot Diaz was narrating his experiences with fear after getting beat-up as an adolescent.
"Her eyes were blue with age. Her skin had a pattern all its own of
she discovers what it meant for her to be attractive growing up. She was constantly
My book, Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code takes place in Ireland and Chicago, during the year 2005 or so. The main characters are Artemis, the boy genius, Butler, his special-forces black belt bodyguard, Holly, a three-foot-tall fairy with, yes, magic, a dwarf with a special talent for burrowing underground, due to his species’ special physical attributes that allow them to ingest several kilos of dirt a second, strip it of any beneficial minerals, and eject it forcibly out the back end.
Assault in the Senate by David E. Johnson describes the grueling debate between Representative Preston Brooks and Senator Charles Sumner. This argument took place in 1856 and has since become a pivotal moment during the civil war era.
As the reader is introduced to the woman we find her talking about very strange and unusual happenings occurring around her. She evens states that she has a condition that signifies insanity, but the doctor would never tell her straight to her face that she was insane. She says, “I think it is due to this nervous condition”(453). This shows that she knows there is something wrong with her. This nervous condition she refers to can only mean that she is having mental problems and is possibly going insane. We can infer this because during this time period, the doctors did not state that someone was insane because they had no medical proof. Instead they would just tell the patients that they have a nervous condition, and send them away. She says, “I always fancy I see people walking in the numerous paths and arbors, but...
meantime she goes through a series of maturing experiences. She learns how to see her
Throughout A Loss for Words, Lou Ann discusses the impact of having deaf parents played in her and her sister’s childhood. Some examples include, being an interpreter and a guide for her parents while she was growing up, causing her to more of an adult rather than being a child (Walker, 1986, p. 2). Lou Ann never minded though she loved to feel important and to help her parents, along with her two sisters, with their business affairs. It was not always easy though Lou Ann says that, “in a few instances I was an unfaithful go-between,” for instance, “the garage mechanic who refused to serve them because [her parents] were deaf” (Walker, 1986, p. 21). As children of deaf parents, Lou Ann and her sister were apart of the deaf culture, but they were also the connection to the hearing world as well. Her parents would often look to her for clues in different situations such as a thunderstorm, someone walking into a room, etc., but they never tried to place any pressure on her it simply came naturally to Lou Ann to help her parents because they relied on her. If I were Lou Ann I probably would have done the same thing, no one should feel helpless and have no one that can help them accomplish tasks that need to be done.
What could make a person transform from a family-man-school-teacher to a weapon-wielding-meth-cook? The first season of the television series, Breaking Bad, shows Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher, beginning to adopt traits and perform actions that would be described by Mike Alsford as those of a super villain. Unlike many characters discussed in Alsford’s book, Heroes and Villains, Walter White seems to lack a definite arc of good slowly giving way to evil in his development. Precisely stated in an article by Sean T. Collins for Rolling Stone, "Walter White doesn't have a character arc. He has a character slope." The villain inside takes over quickly once awoken out of necessity, as if it had always been a part of him, resting in a state of hibernation until Walt’s life is drastically altered by the devastating news of his impending death from cancer.
...e could explore her own intuitions and be her own self, and like most women, it was a dream she had longed for since birth.
This Present Darkness is an eye-opening book about spiritual warfare. In this book, Paretti gives a brief insight to his theological stance on spiritual warfare. He mainly focuses on the involvement and effects of demons and angels on human behaviors. Early in the book Parretti gives the assumption that Demons can take over or even possess people without their own will. In chapter 7 Sandy is listening to Shawn talk about being in tune with the universe, and how everything was connected. All the while Sandy starts to believe these theories, but underlying in the backdrop is a demon whispering sweet things and stroking her hair. Temptations are available to us around every turn, and quite frankly they tend to be rather inviting. The problem is believing that the demons made her believe that she was in tune with the universe. Sandy was shown the temptation of this new way of thinking and eventually, after entertaining the idea, she accepted the belief.