Archive for the ‘Books in general’ Category

Goodreads.com – the world’s leading site for books, readers and reviewers – has some amazing lists.

Here’s its Top 100 list for ‘Great coming-of-age books’: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3713.Great_Coming_Of_Age_Books#

And here’s the Top 10 (below) as at 9 October 2012 PST:

1 The Orphan Factory (The Orp... The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2)
by James Morcan
4.6 of 5 stars4.60 avg rating — 35 ratings

My rating:

didn't like it it was ok liked it really liked it it was amazing

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2 The Catcher in the Rye The Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
3.75 of 5 stars3.75 avg rating — 883,250 ratings

My rating:

didn't like it it was ok liked it really liked it it was amazing

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3 To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
4.21 of 5 stars4.21 avg rating — 1,194,930 ratings

My rating:

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4 Great Expectations Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
3.64 of 5 stars3.64 avg rating — 177,415 ratings

My rating:

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5 Jane Eyre Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
4.05 of 5 stars4.05 avg rating — 517,486 ratings

My rating:

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6 The Adventures of Huckleber... The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
3.75 of 5 stars3.75 avg rating — 605,412 ratings

My rating:

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7 Are You There God? It's Me,... Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
by Judy Blume
3.86 of 5 stars3.86 avg rating — 72,491 ratings

My rating:

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8 Anne of Green Gables (Anne ... Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)
by L.M. Montgomery
4.21 of 5 stars4.21 avg rating — 200,602 ratings

My rating:

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9 Little Women Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott
3.95 of 5 stars3.95 avg rating — 605,241 ratings

My rating:

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10 Harriet the Spy Harriet the Spy
by Louise Fitzhugh
3.97 of 5 stars3.97 avg rating — 33,541 ratings

My rating:

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(Points are based on the ranking of the book on each list and the number of people have voted for it. A book’s “score” is the total).

Yamashita’s gold, also referred to as the Yamashita’s treasure, is the name given to the alleged war loot stolen in Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes in the Philippines. It is named for the Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita, nicknamed “The Tiger of Malaya”. The rumored treasure has been the subject of a complex lawsuit that was filed in a Hawaiian state court in 1988 involving a Filipino treasure hunter, Rogelio Roxas, and the former Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos.

Above: Ferdinand Marcos with wife Imelda.

                                                Below: Some of the missing booty?

Here’s an excerpt from our international thriller novel The Ninth Orphan on this subject:

Few knew more about Yamashita’s Gold than Naylor did. His own father had served in the Philippines under General MacArthur and, at the end of World War Two, had witnessed the earliest discoveries of Japan’s massive plunder.

Naylor had also confirmed that the former president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, had obtained much of his personal fortune from later discoveries.

He knew Japan had gained enormous wealth when it invaded China and a dozen or so other Asian countries during the Second World War. The Japanese looted bullion by the truckload.

In addition to the incalculable amounts of gold, gigantic quantities of diamonds, silver and religious artifacts had also been stolen. These colossal treasure troves were shipped to the Philippines in preparation for transportation to Japan. However, as the war in the Pacific intensified, the ever-increasing presence of Allied ships made the transport of such treasure problematic for Japan. As a result, much of it was hidden in the Philippines.

General Yamashita                                                     General Tomoyuki Yamashita

There’s also a British/Royal connection to Yamashita’s Gold. Here’s another excerpt from The Ninth Orphan:

Kentbridge had instructed Seventeen not to mention anything about Yamashita’s Gold. The last thing they needed was another competitor. As much of the lost treasure was originally Britain’s, Kentbridge knew they’d want it back if they found out about it.

Britain’s connection with the treasure dated all the way back to Hitler’s rise to power. Fearing Germany was going to invade, Britain had shipped the bulk of its gold reserves, including the Royal Family’s massive stockpile, to Singapore, which was under British rule at the time. When Singapore suddenly fell to the Japanese in 1942, Britain lost nearly all of its gold supplies overnight.

Find out more about Yamashita’s Gold in our novel The Ninth Orphan here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056I4FKC

The Ninth Orphan (The Orphan Trilogy, #1)

Calling all Followers: We’d love your feedback so feel free to share your thoughts and let us know what you think about this blog entry.  – Lance & James

Introducing…White Gold

In our new release, coming-of-age spy novel The Orphan Factory, we explore a fascinating scientific discovery called Ormus, also known as White Gold.

What is Ormus?

From http://www.bewellbuzz.com/ website: Ormus, often referred to as ORME (Orbitally Rearranged Monatomic Element or M-state element), is made from water and other substances and is also known as monoatomic gold, white gold, white powder gold, M-state, AuM, micro clusters, and manna.

ORMEs have the same number of protons and electrons as their mineral counterparts that are found on the Periodic Table of elements. These are chemically identified as a separate class of substances, as is the case with halogens. They, however, have separate placements on the two-dimensional Periodic Table. Such elements are similar to silicon-type, ceramic powdery substances that appear to be isolated forming micro-cluster bits of atomic materials.

This observation was first made by Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose in the 1920s, due to which is it now known as the Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). This was later confirmed in 1995 by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in a laboratory.

Ormus is believed to be a precious metal element in a different atomic state. Gold, silver, platinum, iridium, osmium, palladium, mercury, rhodium, ruthenium, copper, nickel, and cobalt were identified by Davidson as Ormus elements. He also stated that all these metals were available in abundance in their Ormus form as compared to their actual states. Ormus elements are embedded into the DNA structure of plants and animals and are thought to be an integral part of our skin, nails, hair, blood, brain, and all the organs of our body.

Since Ormus elements have the same number of protons and electrons as their mineral counterparts, it is very difficult to distinguish between the two categories. The only difference lies in how these elements spin. Ormus elements are known to respond to the magnetic forces of attraction and repulsion. They are superconductors at room temperature and exhibit other quantum physical behaviors on a visible scale.

ORMEs are also known to exhibit the quantum physical behaviors of super fluidity, anomalous responses to gravity, Josephson tunneling, and magnetic levitation.

Below is an excerpt from The Orphan Factory, which features White Gold prominently in its plot:

As the White Gold dissolved under their tongues, not one of the orphans gave the substance a second thought. They’d been taking the powder all their lives and gave it no more consideration than they gave drinking water or breathing air.

Doctor Pedemont, however, remained fascinated by the extraordinary substance even though he had been working with it for over a decade. He knew it as ORME, or Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements, a complex concentrate of chemical elements. The nonscientific name White Gold Powder referred to the fact that when processed its appearance was reminiscent of cocaine powder, although it was many times more expensive than cocaine, and even gold for that matter.

Like most of the substances and technologies Doctor Pedemont employed to perfect his orphan creations, the produce was not known to official science. Although the scientific community was aware of Arizona cotton farmer David Hudson’s accidental discovery of ORME back in 1975, they had been denied the opportunity to test the latest strains. Indeed, they never knew of their existence.

Pure White Gold Powder, the rarest and most effective strain, had been completely withheld from mainstream scientists and from the public at large. That way, elite groups like the Omega Agency could use it in total secrecy to profit from its unquestionable benefits and to further their own agendas.

Prepared by extracting and isolating elements from sea water and volcanic soil, then vortexing them with magnets, the substance had been shown to assist in a variety of diverse fields including agriculture, engineering and aeronautics. However, it was the superconductor’s effects on humans that Doctor Pedemont and his Omega superiors were focused on.

The agency had hired physicists, chemists and biologists to conduct laboratory experiments and design a version of ORME specifically for the orphans. They used various technologies to monitor the effectiveness of the powder, including dark-field microscopy of the blood and EEG tests on the brain.

ORME’s biological results were outstanding. As well as balancing both hemispheres of the brain, the product had also been proven to activate so-called Junk DNA, and the orphans’ regular consumption of it allowed them to move, fight and think as efficiently and effectively as almost any adult. Regular, carefully controlled contests between the orphans and Omega’s veteran field operatives demonstrated this fact beyond any doubt. Contests ranging from math and speed-reading tests to chess and martial arts tournaments saw the orphans always pushing their elders to their limits, often holding their own and sometimes even winning.

As he watched his manufactured orphans consume their prescribed allocations of the substance, Doctor Pedemont pondered its scientific make-up. Besides gold, he knew it contained a number of other metals including rhodium, iridium, copper and platinum which, like the gold portion, all existed in their non-metallic states.

Dispensing a phial to the last of the orphans, the doctor then handed another to Kentbridge who promptly emptied its contents under his tongue. As the biological effects were known to be similar for everyday people like him, Kentbridge thought it couldn’t hurt.

He’d been consuming it for over a decade – ever since Doctor Pedemont had assured him it would correct most of his damaged DNA and keep his body in shape. White Gold also had anti-aging benefits, something Kentbridge figured he would need in future if he was to keep up with the orphans.

Find out more about the mysterious substance known as White Gold in the The Orphan Factory – available now on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008M9WWKW/

The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2)

From Wiki: Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional, or planned, residential community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital.

A total of 909 Temple members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in an event termed “revolutionary suicide” by Jones and some members on an audio tape of the event and in prior discussions. This includes over 200 murdered children. The poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five others by Temple members at a nearby Port Kaituma airstrip. The victims included United States Congressman Leo Ryan. Four other Temple members died in Georgetown at Jones’s command.

To the extent the actions in Jonestown were viewed as a mass murder, it was the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001.

Well, that’s the official story.

But there have always been rumors of CIA involvement with the cult prior to the massacre. Mind control experiments such as MK-Ultra have also regularly come up in conspiracy theories.

So what really happened in 1978 at Jonestown?

Mass suicide, mass murder, a CIA experiment, or what?

Find out in our book The Orphan Factory: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008M9WWKW/

The Orphan Factory (The Orphan Trilogy, #2)

Introducing Pastiche, the new release kindle ebook by Louisana author and humanitarian Remy Benoit.

Pastiche

The exquisite cover is courtesy of John Cory, author of Yesterday’s Kiss.

Author’s note:

All of us have memories stored in our bodies, in all our senses. It is my hope that my small offering in Pastiche will inspire you to stand in front of a mirror, or at the top of a hill, by the water looking for all your connections to the past, the present, the future, the entirety of the life of universe.When we examine who we were, who we have become, who we wish to become, we have set paving stones on the way to our truest self.The most wretched “might have been” in life is the dream that we could have fulfilled, our most important dream, if we had but followed its call.Do please, take your first step to that dream, and then the second, and then the third…enjoy the journey, accept your mistakes…and then take the fourth step…and the….

-Remy Benoit