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The Aphasian posted:Got it in one. I don't know why I thought it was a one-word title; I assume I saw the term "omega point" somewhere on the jacket or later just retconned my own memory to pick a more sci-fi title.
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Feb 7, 2008 13:34
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I continuously forget what this book I read a few years back was called. It was the first in a series, I think, and the others had yet to come out so I forgot about it. It was a fantasy book from a few years back. It was set in a winter setting and featured various clans, very celtic like. Long house meetings and such. The main character, I think, went by the name of Raven. He was beginning to develope a mystic-like ability to hunt by sensing the heartbeats of an animal/person from a distance and being able to shoot an arrow into it. He had a brother who was a war hero or some such, I think. There was also a city in the story, which had an evil patriarch kind of guy. And it flashed to a huge tower every so often where the evil patriarch had kept a man in solitude for years and years stuck far underground and he had odd revelations and visions. I think he managed to get free at the end of the book. Anyway, that's all I can really gather. It was a pretty neat book and i'd like to re-read it and follow up on the series if I could figure out what the hell it was.
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Feb 7, 2008 14:56
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The locked up man sounds kind of like part of Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series. That was a real mindblower when I first read it as a teen around 1978.
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Feb 7, 2008 20:31
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My friend was telling me about a series of books he read as a kid about an evil wizard who at some point heard the narrator describing the scenes, then realized he could break the fourth wall and become the narrator, thus omnipotent in the story itself. He said the series' titles all had the word wizard or some synonym thereof in the title, but couldn't remember what the books were. They sounded kind of good, or at least like they might be a good mindfuck. Any help?
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Feb 8, 2008 22:44
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This one is a long shot but I figure I'll try for it anyways. It was a short horror story in a horror anthology book. It was about many people drowning in this public pool. The main character is a guy who's son was drowned in the pool. He thinks that it is really strange so he breaks in at night and sees this chameleon thing that has been drowning the kids. The rest of the story is blurry but I think the guy gets killed and the pool is drained with the creature into a local pond or something. Any help to what anthology this could be a part of or the actual story name would be fantastic.
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Feb 12, 2008 00:09
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Memory lane time! Does anyone remember reading/know the name/author of a short story involving the "people" that create clouds? All I can remember of the story was a male figure who "designed" the sky each day, and it had to be "approved"- But looking down he begins to notice a little girl in a park who looks up at the sky each day, and he tries to communicate with her with messages in the clouds that he sneaks past being approved and then he gets caught and into trouble. It was in my 5th grade reading or literature megabook (McDougal Littell type), and I'm 24 now so something like 1997. Does anyone remember this/know what I'm talking about? HALP!
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Feb 20, 2008 03:23
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If anyone can help me identify this one it'll be a miracle. This book is almost entirely lost in my memory, I only have vague impressions left of it. Man is in an airplane (I think) crash. Either dies or doesn't die, starts exhibiting Christ-Like powers like waterwalking and floating or something. I seem to remember him trying to explain how he did it to his friend, who I think the story uses as the point of view. It was a fairly short book, 200-250 pages, like the thickness of the Narnia books. I'm 27, theres no way I read this after the age of 14. This has been driving me crazy for a LONG time.
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Feb 20, 2008 04:07
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I am looking for a book I read about a few months ago but I doubt anyone will know what it is because I have such scanty information to offer. It was written by a French Catholic bishop or some other kind of luminary back in the 17th or 18th century. He was also a noble, although I cannot remember his rank, and I think he had some illegitimate children. That probably doesn't narrow it down too much. I think it was a collection of observations on courtly life and it focused on the writer's perception that people are motivated by self-interest or vanity or something interesting like that. I want to say that it was called _Memoirs of whoever_ but I am not sure. It sounded interesting though and I cannot remember what it was called.
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Feb 20, 2008 05:58
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Kessel posted:I'm looking for two books. I'm looking for the title of something like this - it might be the same book. I think the kid could use telekinesis by saying a magic word with his animal sidekick. The title had something to do with how the kid was a genius, maybe something along the lines of "The Whiz-Kid"? I believe there was a story in which they went to a masquerade. If anyone can figure the title out based on this description, I will be very thankful. It has been plaguing me for quite a number of years.
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Feb 20, 2008 07:09
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poopcutter posted:I am looking for a book I read about a few months ago but I doubt anyone will know what it is because I have such scanty information to offer. Cardinal de Retz?
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Feb 20, 2008 12:00
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Ok, so this is pretty crazy but I can not figure out what book this is and it's been stuck in my head for days now. I was reading another book and ran across the word "gamboling." As soon as I read it I thought of a book I had read in which a child (I think it was a girl) is either reading a book out loud or telling a story to her Uncle (I think it's Uncle, it may be father) and he purposefully misunderstands and thinks she said that the animals were gambling and replies with something like, "was it the races? cards? dice? Those poor little animals." I remember the scene but cannot for the life of me remember what book it's from and I don't know whether it's from something I read a long time ago or something I read recently. (I reread a lot of my old "kids" books about a year ago when I had to move the boxes of them from my mom's house.) It's not a lot to go on, but any help would be appreciated.
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Feb 20, 2008 22:23
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Technogeek posted:Also, there was a book recommendation I came across on SA some time ago -- a fantasy novel (possibly series) revolving around some turn-of-the-century scientists who wind up in a world where magic is real, and manage to figure out the underlying laws that govern it. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, I'd kind of like to find the book(s) and see if it's any good. Here's a late one: sounds like you want The Compleat Enchanter. If so, yeah it's pretty good. I must have read that twenty times when I was a kid.
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Feb 21, 2008 01:38
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I have no idea when it was published, but I believe it read it in the mid to late 70s. Science-fiction action adventure genre. Basically, a human male is captured by an alien race and taken to a remote planet where he is the quarry in some sort of intergalactic hunt. Very similar to "The Most Dangerous Game" but with aliens. I think the participants were promised freedom if they survived long enough or reached a specific goal. If I recall, the protagonist makes friends with a large lizardman who is fond of mud-baths. I'm pretty sure needle-guns were involved. I think there may have been a sequel.
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Feb 22, 2008 22:41
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Myst posted:I continuously forget what this book I read a few years back was called. It was the first in a series, I think, and the others had yet to come out so I forgot about it. It was a fantasy book from a few years back. Wow, I can't believe I actually managed to identify one of these!
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Feb 23, 2008 01:49
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I've been trying to figure this one out for a loooong time. It's a series of kids books, I don't really remember what reading age, probably quite young. I'll try to recap it the way I remember it, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I am possibly combining two different books here. There's two or three kids, they might be siblings or possibly just friends. One day they see a peculiar old lady in a park. She was really short, with a hat with a feather that reached almost to the ground, and was teetering along on high heeled boots. She gets one of her heels caught in a sewer grating, and the kids help her out. She turns out to be really friendly, and after some conversation with the kids, she says she wants to give them a gift for being so nice. She gives them an old chemistry set that she says was her son's when he was a child, but says she can't find the directions that outlined all the experiments you could perform with the various chemicals. She says she remembers some of the formulas however, and she writes one of them down for the kids. When the kids go home and try the experiment, crazy things happen. I don't remember what exactly, but if I recall correctly, it was a series of books (or I suppose it could have been a bunch of chapters in one long book, but I rather think it was separate books), and each one involves the old lady giving the kids some new thing that they can do with the chemistry set, things going crazy, and them usually needing to go find the lady again to make things right. I also feel like as the stories went on the things that would happen from the chemistry set got more and more strange and "magical", and I think that in a later book they decide that the old woman is actually a witch. (but like, a good witch). One of the strange things about my memory of these books is I swear that one of the books as a plot very similar to the movie "The Peanut Butter Solution" - which is a movie that I have never seen, only heard about. I think the book had an experiment turning one of the kids' hair a weird color, then in trying to fix it they went bald, then in trying to fix that they ended up with runaway hair growth. When someone first told me about the movie, I remember thinking that I'd already read the book, but when I look it up, it doesn't seem to be based on a book at all.
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Feb 24, 2008 18:19
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Mr. Beefhead posted:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=magic.chemistry.set&btnG=Search&meta=
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Feb 25, 2008 11:09
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magic chemistry set
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You've got to be kidding me I am extremely grateful, but simultaneously overwhelmed with shame. I guess I just never searched for that particular (immensely obvious) query.
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Feb 25, 2008 17:09
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poopcutter posted:I am looking for a book I read about a few months ago but I doubt anyone will know what it is because I have such scanty information to offer. Francois de La Rochefoucauld? That sounds like his memoirs. He wasn't a bishop, but his great-uncle of the same name was a very important Cardinal.
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Feb 25, 2008 17:39
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FJG posted:Francois de La Rochefoucauld? That sounds like his memoirs. He wasn't a bishop, but his great-uncle of the same name was a very important Cardinal. That is the one! Thanks.
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Feb 25, 2008 21:54
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Mr. Beefhead posted:I am extremely grateful, but simultaneously overwhelmed with shame. I guess I just never searched for that particular (immensely obvious) query. Thanks for reminding me that this book existed, at least.  I used to love it when I was a kid, and I'd completely forgotten about it!
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Feb 26, 2008 17:41
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EvilMoJoJoJo posted:J V Jones' totally grim and frostbitten series starting with A Cavern Of Black Ice. Thank you so much! I've ordered the trilogy from amazon! That was bugging me for years hah. Edit: Good LORD, the shipping on them was 3 times as much as the books were! To hell with that, i'll hit up some used book stores. Myst fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Feb 26, 2008 |
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Feb 26, 2008 21:04
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A short story I read in a sci-fi anthology way back when. Don't ask me why I even bother when all I remember are a few details, but here goes: Soldiers, fighting a war against some alien race. Everybody is required to wear some kind of distorting mask with a visor, and possibly take some sort of medication, supposedly to protect them from the aliens. The punchline is that the protagonist happens to see some of the alien soldiers without protection and realizes that they are, in fact, humans too, wearing the same distorting masks.
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Feb 27, 2008 16:17
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I've got a fairly easy one. I saw a book in the humor section of Tidal Wave Books in Anchorage Alaska probably about a year ago now. The title had something about clams, and had a close up of a guys face. The art style was similar to these http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Beer-Posters_i2570555_.htm types of posters. It was basically a collection of short stories and humorous lists. I don't think it was very long, it was hardcover, and had a short story by Michael Ian Black in it. Anyway I was hoping for your help, I remember that it was the sort of humor a friend of mine would really enjoy, and I'd like to get it for him for his upcoming birthday. Thanks a bunch!
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Feb 29, 2008 20:01
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I am looking for a book that I read around 1996. It was about a disease that killed everyone who was older then 18, and what the kids who were left behind did. I know that they eventually moved into the school and made it their fortress of sorts to defend against the roving bands of gangs that had formed. Any ideas?
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Mar 7, 2008 05:18
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I have 2, both are kid's or maybe young teen books. I read them before middle school, I think, so they would be from the early 90's, if they were published around the same time I read them. I think they were just random books from after school care, because I don't have them anymore. 1. A boy buys a potion that gives him wings when he rubs it on his shoulders. He starts out as a shy, kinda misfit kid and after he explores the town and ends up saving a drowning kid with his new wings, gains some confidence and whatnot. His mom says something along the lines of 'everyone has a bubble of magic around them. Some people have large ones, and some have ones that only have room for themselves. You, (kid's name), are always making room for more people in yours'. Paraphrased, that was the gist of it. At the end his doctor makes a comment about how much he's bulked up his shoulders. 2. This one was about a boy and his younger sister dealing with their mom paying less attention to them I think? I know at the end she shows them what she's been spending so much time on, which is painting illustrations for kids books, and the boy is really impressed at how beautiful they are. I think at one point the little sister gets lost and they have to go and search for her. One image I remember is they were making dinner, and the boy cuts himself, and thinks that his body, made by god, is less durable than the man-made tin can he cut himself on. He then feels guilty about this thought. I don't even remember if they were any good or not, but I'd like to find out again if I can figure out what the hell they were called.
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Mar 7, 2008 08:31
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ShiningForceHero posted:I am looking for a book that I read around 1996. It was about a disease that killed everyone who was older then 18, and what the kids who were left behind did. I know that they eventually moved into the school and made it their fortress of sorts to defend against the roving bands of gangs that had formed. Any ideas? The Girl Who Owned a City The virus kills everyone over twelve, but everything else is exactly as you describe, with the turning the school into a fortress and everything.
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Mar 7, 2008 08:35
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Mr.48 posted:The Girl Who Owned a City The virus kills everyone over twelve, but everything else is exactly as you describe, with the turning the school into a fortress and everything. Yes, That's it! Thank you, I have been trying to remember what the book was called for a long time now, but no one else seemed to know what I was talking about.
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Mar 7, 2008 16:07
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Crappy Ace Sci-Fi 70s paperback. May have been written by Piers Anthony but I don't think so. Rural Teenagers are visited/abducted by Aliens, only it turns out that there's some twist, it's not earth or something, they're not kids or they're robots. I think everyone else is a robot and it's far in the future. Man this describing things is harder then it sounds!
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Mar 8, 2008 00:13
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Astarael posted:2. This one was about a boy and his younger sister dealing with their mom paying less attention to them I think? I know at the end she shows them what she's been spending so much time on, which is painting illustrations for kids books, and the boy is really impressed at how beautiful they are. I think at one point the little sister gets lost and they have to go and search for her. One image I remember is they were making dinner, and the boy cuts himself, and thinks that his body, made by god, is less durable than the man-made tin can he cut himself on. He then feels guilty about this thought.
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Mar 8, 2008 01:39
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Read this poo poo in like, 7th grade, it's about WW2 and a german POW captured and sent to the US in a concentration camp in the midwest who falls in love with some abused teenage girl and in the end he dies and she gets sent to juvie or something similar
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Mar 8, 2008 02:53
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Here's a summary of a book I've been looking for for ages; It's set in a post-nuclear world about a pilot confined in a satellite with another wheelchair-bound man of great intellect. That's all I can remember, I read this book ages ago and if any one could find it, I'll repay you with e-blowjob, honest.
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Mar 8, 2008 05:00
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rss feeder posted:Read this poo poo in like, 7th grade, it's about WW2 and a german POW captured and sent to the US in a concentration camp in the midwest who falls in love with some abused teenage girl and in the end he dies and she gets sent to juvie or something similar Summer of My German Soldier may be what you are talking about, by Bette Greene. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_My_German_Soldier Edit: punctuation
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Mar 8, 2008 07:31
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How Bout That poo poo? posted:Here's a summary of a book I've been looking for for ages; Do you remember there being virtual reality in the book? Because what you describe sounds (very) vaguely like Tad Williams' Otherland series.
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Mar 8, 2008 08:30
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I read the stories back when I was a kid, call it late 80's early 90's. It was young adult, sort of Baby Sitters Club, Hardy Boys-ish for the target audience. It was a series of books with a brother and sister living next door to The Munsters basically. The Monster neighbors kind of came off as weird ethnic neighbors. I remember Mambo Italiano was always playing in the background. With a Vampire boy and possibly a werewolf girl pretty much becoming BFFs with the main characters. I remember the monster boy was a vampire because he was always flying around on the covers. Anybody remember this series?
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Mar 8, 2008 10:17
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metalhead librarian posted:Summer of My German Soldier may be what you are talking about, by Bette Greene. Yeah! No idea WHY I wanted so bad to know, if I remember, that book was poo poo.
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Mar 8, 2008 16:38
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Mr.48 posted:Do you remember there being virtual reality in the book? Because what you describe sounds (very) vaguely like Tad Williams' Otherland series. No, that's not it. 
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Mar 8, 2008 17:15
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How Bout That poo poo? posted:Here's a summary of a book I've been looking for for ages; It's not post-nuclear, but Waldo has a crippled genius living in a satellite.
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Mar 8, 2008 18:46
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There's a book that I read back in around 2001-ish, which I've had no success finding. It was part of a series (I believe - I never read any of the others) and involved a man and a woman travelling through time, possibly by means of a magical artifact of some kind. There was a second woman pursuing them, although I can't remember if she was after the artifact, or them, or what. This one was set in ancient Egypt, at the time of Akhenaten's reign, and involved the antagonist woman seducing Akhenaten, and the man being punished (for not worshipping the Aten?) by being made to stare into the sun for hours (I think the man was indestructable in some way...). There's also a second, totally unconnected, book which I may as well throw out here as well: it was a kids' or young adult book which I read in about 1997/8, which I think was about a bunch of kids in an orphanage or foster home. All I remember was one creepy kid drawing a lot of spirals, and when asked why she(?) kept drawing circles, replied with something along the lines of "it's not a circle, it's a spiral. Hell is a circle".
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Mar 8, 2008 23:12
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I believe this is a children's book... It's based on a painting of a jungle scene, and basically what happens is you go beyond that painting deeper into the jungle but it tries to keep the style of the painting. It might be based on stuff by Henri Rosseau but I am not sure.
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Mar 8, 2008 23:28
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I guess it was the eighties, early nineties. There was a series of books with one group of magic users who tattooed magic symbols on themselves. They lost a war with some group who danced to do magic, and got locked up in a prison dimension. There were several different worlds, and one had water that would take away magic powers. I don't really remember anything else other than there being a necromancy world.
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Mar 9, 2008 22:15
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