Melange, or spice, is the most valuable and rare substance in the universe, which can do everything from prolonging life to facilitating interstellar travel. And it can only be found on one planet, the unfriendly desert Arrakis. He who dominates Arrakis controls Spice. And he who controls the spice controls the universe. When the Emperor strips the Harkonnen clan of the title of ruling and gives that title to the Atrids, the Harkonnen kill Duke Leto the Atrid. His son Paul and his concubine Jessica flee into the desert. To avenge his father and reclaim the planet from the Harkonnen, Paul must gain the trust of the Freemen, the natives of Arrakis, and lead a tiny army against the countless forces of the enemy.

Herbert is an American science fiction writer best known as the creator of Dune and its sequels. Although Herbert became known as a science fiction author, he was also a journalist, photographer, novelist, book reviewer, environmental consultant and lecturer. Two film adaptations of the novel “Dune” were released in 1984 and 2000. A new film is in preparation, directed by Denis Villeneuve.

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Biography

Charlotte was the third of six children. When the girl was five, her mother passed away, and her aunt Elizabeth Brenwell moved into their parish rectory to look after the orphaned children. When Charlotte was eight years old, her two older sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, died of consumption. This event made Charlotte responsible for the family, and the eldest of the four remaining children, which strengthened her personality and spirit.

Charlotte Brontë was short, frail, wore glasses to correct her nearsightedness, and considered herself unattractive. She was a political conservative, strict, intelligent and ambitious. She had high moral principles, and despite her modest public demeanor, she was always ready to defend her point of view.

The writer spent eight months in 1824 at Clergy Daughters School, in the village of Cowan Bridge, which served as the prototype of the Lovud School in the novel Jane Eyre. She was then a pupil at Roe Head School in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, for two years, and worked as a teacher there for another three years. It was at Roe Head that she made two faithful friends, Ellen Nassie and Mary Taylor. Then, from 1842-1843, she was at Mrs. Auger’s boarding house (Brussels), where she fell in love with her own teacher, Constantin Auger. Between 1824-1831, she and her brother and sisters were homeschooled by her father and Aunt Brenwell. Charlotte was a splendid artist, a needlewoman, and, of course, a writer.

Mrs. Brontë wanted her daughters to become governesses. Charlotte changed two jobs – for three months (in 1839) she lived with the Sidwick family at Stonewaype, in Lozerdale. She then spent six months with the White family at Upperwood House in Rodon. Charlotte disliked her job, and suggested that the three sisters, Emily and Ann, open their own school in Haworth. Aunt Brenwell wanted to arrange the material side of things, but those plans never came to fruition.

What Charlotte really wanted was to be a writer. From a very young age, she and her brother Brenwell practiced writing poems and stories, relying on their rich imagination and the fictional world of Angria. As Charlotte herself claimed – her mind was so prolific that she wrote far more before she was thirteen than she did afterward.

In 1846, Charlotte convinced her sisters to publish a collection of poems under the male pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell-it was a commercial failure. By the end of 1847, however, the debut novels of all three sisters had been published, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was a tremendous success.

After the publication of the book “Shirley” in 1849, there were rumors that under the male pseudonym of Carrer Bell hides a simple teacher. Charlotte became a celebrity in literary circles, and the publication of the novel Villette in 1853 only strengthened her reputation.

In December 1852, Charlotte receives a marriage proposal from the vicar (second priest of the parish) of her father, Arthur Bell Nicholls. Charlotte’s father was against the union, in part because he thought his daughter was too sickly to bear and bear a child without dire consequences, and, not to upset her father, Charlotte refused Arthur. In spite of this, Bell Nicholls did not give up, and continued his courtship, and eventually the couple were married on June 29, 1854. The marriage was a happy one, but very short. Charlotte Brontë died in her last pregnancy on March 31, 1855.

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The plot of the book

A dangerous virus – an extremely contagious and equally lethal strain of influenza being developed as a biological weapon – escapes from a secret U.S. Defense Department laboratory by tragic accident, and a 19-day pandemic ensues. The edited 1990 reprint opens with a prologue in which King describes in more detail the development of the virus in the laboratory and the security breach that caused the virus to leak.

All of the lab employees are killed, but one of them, security guard Charles Campion, manages to escape and take his family out of state. A couple of days later, his Chevy crashes into a gas station in Arnett, Texas. The gas station owner Bill Hapscomb and his employees drag Campion, half-dead, out of the car, who dies on the way to the hospital, having managed to infect Bill and the ambulance workers. Bill infects his cousin, a traffic police officer. So the virus spreads out of state and an uncontrollable infestation begins. The army isolates the town, not shy of shooting unarmed people, but these efforts go to waste – the “super flu”, dubbed “Captain Torch” by journalists, spreads like an avalanche through the country and beyond its borders. Only 0.6 percent of people are unaffected; all those infected die. Through the prism of several personal tragedies, the writer describes the disintegration of society, the explosion of violence, the failure of the government and army to stop the pandemic and, in the end, the death of virtually all of humanity. Many survivors also die, unable to cope with the loss of their loved ones or unable to survive in a new world where they have to fend for themselves.

Stuart Redman, one of the first to be exposed to the flu, is immune to it. After being forcibly detained in a specialized center in Stovington while trying to create a cure, he manages to escape after the deaths of all the employees, one of whom has to be killed personally. He crosses paths with intelligent sociology professor Glenn Bateman, pregnant college student Franny Goldsmith, and a complex teenager, Harold Lauder, who wanted to get to the CDC, and talks them out of it. Larry Underwood, a disillusioned pop musician who became popular shortly before the outbreak, after his mother died, follows in their footsteps. Stu and Fran, to Harold’s disappointment, are drawn to each other, and they become lovers. The rejected Harold harbors resentment.

All of the characters share dreams in which they see a 108-year-old black woman named Abagail Freemantle from the town of Hemingford Home. Following their dreams, they visit this woman, the oldest person in the state of Nebraska. Mother Abagail becomes their spiritual leader; she leads the group to Boulder, Colorado, where other survivors, drawn by her telepathic messages, flock. They are joined by Nick Endros, a deaf-mute sheriff’s deputy from Shoyo, Arkansas, and Tom Cullen, a kindhearted retarded fellow from May Town, Nadine Cross, an old maid and former kindergarten teacher in New Hampshire, and Ralph Brentner, a good-natured farmer from Oklahoma. Uniting in Boulder, the heroes try to build a renewed society, christen their land the Boulder Free Zone, organize funeral crews, and restore electricity.

At the same time, in the west, a “dark man” calling himself Randall Flagg, who has paranormal powers, is trying to build his own state from people summoned by visions sent to him. His powers are many times greater than those of Mother Abagail, but he uses them for evil; the people he gathers worship him as a messiah and gladly submit to his fascist dictatorship. He crucifies drug addicts on crosses. Flagg saves Lloyd Henride, a cannibalistic prisoner, from starvation by making him his right-hand man. A pyromaniac nicknamed Garbage Buck, after destroying the Cheery Oil Company oil tanks in Gary, Indiana and meeting a madman named Kid, joins Flagg’s group in Las Vegas and becomes a weapons specialist. Flagg prepares for war with Boulder.

Mother Abagail receives a vision from which she realizes that because of the pride she is experiencing, she must go into the wilderness. Nadine Cross is visited by dreams in which she sees Flagg informing her that she is promised to him, so she does not respond to Larry Underwood’s signs of attention, who continues to date Lucy Swann. Nadine, teaming up with Harold, decides to destroy the Free Zone Council, which includes many key figures in Boulder. Shortly before, the council sends three scouts to Las Vegas, whose identities are kept secret from the others. Harold plants a bomb in the building where the council was to meet and detonates it, leaving Boulder with Nadine. As Mother Abagail returns at the same time, most of the casualties are avoided, but Nick is killed by the explosion. Before she dies of exhaustion, Mother Abagail reports “God’s will” that Stu, Larry, Glen, and Ralph must travel to Las Vegas to destroy Flagg.

Flagg identifies two spies, but they are killed before they can reveal the identity of the third, Tom Cullen. On the way to Vegas, Harold slips and falls off a cliff, breaking his limbs. Nadine tells him that it was all set up by Flagg from the beginning. Harold, repenting, dies. Nadine meets Randall and he has sex with her, during which she loses her mind. He introduces her to the community as the mother of his unborn child. During one of her epiphanies, Nadine provokes Flagg, and in a fit of rage, he throws her out the window of the building. Nadine dies, smashing to death on the sidewalk. Flagg’s infinite power begins to be questioned, and people begin to flee the city. On the way, Stu breaks his leg, and the other companions decide to leave him behind. Larry, Glenn and Ralph are taken prisoner by Flagg’s men. Glenn is killed by Lloyd for disobedience. Flagg decides to draw and quarter the prisoners in public. At that time Trashy Buck, who has obtained a nuclear bomb, returns to town.

Flagg is unable to control the ball of energy he created, which he used to incinerate one of the rebels. The ball takes the form of a hand, which in the visions the heroes called “the hand of God,” flies too close to the bomb and triggers an explosion that kills almost all the inhabitants of Las Vegas. Flagg takes the form of a shapeless monster and disappears moments before the explosion. The dying Stu is discovered by Tom Cullen and nursed back to health. They return to Boulder shortly after Franny gives birth to a baby. The baby falls ill with the “Captain Torch” virus, but is eventually cured of it. Everyone realizes that newly born babies can become immune to the super flu. Stu and Fran decide to leave Boulder and go to Okangwith.

The novel’s epilogue tells us that Flagg survives a nuclear explosion and wakes up somewhere in the southern hemisphere. He regains his former powers and memory and begins to gather new followers.

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Rise up, sons of Borogravia, in defense of the Motherland! Evil and treacherous neighbors who only dream of invading Borogravia are at her borders again! They just have to be mean and treacherous – for we are a peace-loving and honest people, are we not? So it just has to be THEIR fault that we are continually at war, doesn’t it? But here’s the problem. A little one, but still. Borogravia’s sons are kind of, well, that. Gone.

The ones that are left, well, they don’t have arms. Or legs. Or any other things that are important for the defense of the homeland. It’s not enough to fight here, you can’t even work in the fields. So the potatoes are also running out. In fact, the bark from the trees is already running out. And then, by themselves, the last recruits begin to have questions in their heads. Such as these. Yes, we are certainly a proud country, but what exactly are we proud of? We are, of course, all ready to die for our country, but why do the special political corps always have to monitor our readiness? And what, in fact, are we fighting for if all the good people of this country are in this little barracks of recruits? All these questions, however, are only up to the moment when the enemy appears.

War is war. There’s no time to think, you have to kill. To kill people who you have nothing against, and who also have nothing against you, and to kill without hesitation, quickly and clearly. Otherwise they will kill you. And don’t forget to watch your own officer! For if your enemies want more than anything not to meet you, it is your own officer who wants you to die for the Motherland.

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