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A humorous, entertaining, satirical look at the music industry by way of a science fiction adventur romp, complete with aliens and thef ate of the Earth at stake. Here's the setup: there is a Refined League of aliens who have mastered the siences and now focus all their highest energies on the Refined Arts-- but they aren't very good at music, and when they discover Earth's music (by way of the theme song "Welcome Back Kotter"), they are blown away - some of them literally die in ecstasy. They spend the next several decates listening to human music, and when they finally recover enough to start studying other aspects of Earth culture, they discover that -- due to our anti-piracy laws -- they owe all the wealth of the galaxy to Earth.

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The humorous, entertaining, and occasionally insightful story of Montgomery Brewster, who has to spend a million dollars in a year. Monty Brewster, the son of parents who made a "romantic runaway match" and then died when he was a child, was just one of the rich young bucks in New York, until he inherits a million dollars from his grandfather. Shortly after that, he discovers that he has another inheritance from an uncle on his mother's side-- but, due to the poor relationship between the two sides of the family, there is a condition attached. Monty's uncle James Sedgwick didn't want any of his fortune mixed with that of Monty's grandfather, Edwin Peter Brewster. In order to inherit Sedgwick's five million, Brewster will have to spend his inheritance within a year. But, he can't tell anyone (besides his lawyers) what he is doing, and his uncle's friend Swearengen Jones will monitor to make sure Brewster doesn't gamble too much, give too much to charity, or otherwise break the conditions of Sedgwick's bequest.

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Kyreol and Terje grew up as children together in the Riverworld, but left it many years ago and now live in the Dome City, where Kyreol has trained as a pilot and to travel to other planets and study other peoples. Terje still visits the Riverworld to observe the hunters and their rituals while staying unobserved himself. Terje is beginning another visit to the Riverworld just as Kyreol is about to leave for her first off-world trip, to the planet Xtal. Kyreol's mother, Nara, has some presentiment or dream of danger but doesn't know what exactly will happen or what to do about it; and both trips end up being quite different than anyone expected.

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I wanted to re-read Emma after watching one of the many movie adaptations, especially when it occurred to me I hadn't read it in quite some time. After watching and then reading in a short time period, I feel that the movie versions invariably make Emma seem to be a bit of an idiot -- whether due to the fact that the story is compressed for time, or the need to visually telegraph what is going to the viewers. In the book, it's rather more subtle. Emma is a lively, intelligent, imaginative creature who makes some errors in judgement - which are actually fairly reasonable, especially when you consider the fact that your perspective is usually rather skewed when your involved or close to what is going on, and particularly when someone is actively trying to deceive you.

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In a dismal future, with an economy and environment in shambles, people live in "stacks" - vertical scaffolding of trailer parks - or are homeless, and they spend all their time in the virtual world of OASIS. When the inventor of OASIS, James Halliday, dies with no heirs, he releases a video explaining he has hidden an "easter egg" challenge somewhere within OASIS, and the first player to find the three keys and complete the three gates will inherit his wealth and majority stake in the company. This world reminded me somewhat of the movie "The Matrix," but in this case everyone chooses to take the blue pill because reality is so terrible and the many worlds and galaxies of OASIS are so enticing. The story is told from the perspective of Wade Watts, aka Parzival (the name of his OASIS avatar, referencing the grail quest) or "Z" to his friends, the person who found the first key.

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Arthur Penhaligon is the asthmatic new kid at school. He didn't know about the Monday run and doesn't have a doctor's note explaining how very bad his asthma is - so the teacher makes him run. When he's lying in in a field, collapsed and barely breathing, something strange happens that might be a hallucination, but isn't. A fragment of the Will left by the Architect has escaped the dead sun where it has been imprisoned for millennia, and manages to trick Mister Monday into giving the lesser key to Arthur, fulfilling the bare letter of the law of the Will (since Arthur is an heir and very near death).

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By the end of Starcrossed (which I read last October), Helen has learned that not only is she a Scion, a member of a superhuman race descended from the demigods of Greek mythology, but also that she is the Descender-- a special Scion who can physically enter the Underwold and may be able to end the curse on the Houses, the blood lust incited by the Furies which forces them to kill members of other houses or any family members who are kin-killers. This book picks up shortly after that, and Helen is exhausted because she spends every night in the Underworld, stuck and and in pain; she's emotionally upset because she is still incredibly drawn to Lucas (the Paris to her Helen), even though they are apparently cousins and now they really can't be together-- since inbred Scions tend to be the dangerous kind of crazy, in addition to that whole problem of uniting two of the Houses resulting in a war. Eventually, Helen finds a new ally to help her with her quest in the Underworld: a young man named Orion.

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The story of the cool, collected, imperturbable Englishman Phileas Fogg and his passionate, good-hearted, sometimes hapless manservant, the Frenchman Jean Passepartout, and their famous trip around the world. Fogg lives his life completely by regimen, every day the same down to the minute he arrives at the Reform Club (he fired his previous servant because he couldn't keep up that schedule). Then, suddenly, on a bet-- to prove it can be done, and that "the unforeseen does not exist"-- he sets off around the world. He doesn't do it for the money that is wagered; in fact, he spends nearly all of the remaining half of his fortune that he didn't wager, so by winning he just breaks even. He doesn't do it for the adventure or to see the sights; Passepartout does quite a bit more looking at sights than Fogg, who is simply planning his next train or steamer. Certainly, Fogg doesn't shy away from adventure-- he saves Auoda from suttee because he has time, and he calmly and repeatedly bails out Passepartout, even to the point of chasing after American Indians to rescue him.

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