The Second Jungle Book (Published in 1895) - Written by Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling, a Nobel laureate was born in India to a vivacious Alice Kipling and sculptor Painter, John Kipling. His works range from poems, to children's books. Rudyard was a English language writer whose prose is peppered with colloquial usage and languages mainly from India which opens a window to the prevailing culture and customs of the time. His children's stories are the most endured classics of the time and his short stories are the most sought after. Many of his works are deemed to be controversial as the time progressed. Rudyard Kipling was the product of an imperial India where imperialism under Queen Victoria was at its heights. His poems like 'White Mans Burden' are often sited as a clarion call for the imperialist and has been criticized by subsequent humanist. But as one of the youngest Nobel Prize recipient for English Language, the place for Kipling in human history cannot be discounted and his prose and poems enthuse millions even today. Kipling died in 1936 in London and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The Second Jungle Book is a sequel to the Jungle Book and features five stories of Mowgli and three unrelated stories. Kipling has set all these stories in India, but had written the script in Vermont. In the first Story “How Fear Came” all the animals have gathered around the watering hole where Sher Khan the Tiger brags about his ancient right to kill man. Hathi, the chief of elephants tells the story where in ancient times Tha, the king of beast had appointed the tiger as an adjudicator in his absence. That was the time of harmony where all animals were vegetarians. Tiger accidentally kills and runs away and is marked by creeping wines thus getting stripes for his act. Tha gives him the boon of one night when he is never afraid of the hairless beast, man.



The second story is “The Kings Ankus” where Kaa leads Mowgli to a underground lair which is guarded by a cobra. It is a lost city where jewels abound. Mowgli never realizes the worth of other treasures, but takes the bejeweled Ankus against the warnings of the Cobra. When Bagheera informs him that the Ankus is used to hurt elephants, Mowgli casts it away only to be found by a man. It leaves a trail of killings and Mowgli much, chastened takes it back. In Letting in the Jungle, Mowgli takes revenge from the villagers who imprison his adopted mother Messua with the help of Hathi the elephant.
In Red dog, Mowgli is warned by a waylaid wolf, Won-Tella about a marauding pack of Dhole or wild dogs. Mowgli urges his pack to stay and fight. With the help of Kaa he lays a trap for the Dhole and leads them to the terrible hives. The Dhole are decimated, but Akela, the wolf chief is mortally wounded. In his dying words, he urges Mowgli to seek his kind as he has paid his debt to his adopted wolf family.
The Spring Running is the last of the Mowgli stories. As a seventeen year old Mowgli feels the first awakening of attraction in him. He meets his mother Messua who now is a widow with a small son. On his visit he cannot keeps his eyes off a pretty girl. Bagheera tells him to listen to his instincts and ask him to return to his world. Mowgli leaves his pack to lead a human life.
The other stories involve "The miracle of Puran Bhagat", a politician turned holy man who saves the village from a landslide with the help of animals and “the Undertakers” which is a story of a crocodile, a stork and a jackal with their struggles against man. The last story is Quiqern, which is a nice break from the tropical jungle and takes place in an arctic jungle. Here the a young Inuit, Kotuko along with a girl companion follow a spirit called Quiqern. They need to find a seal and food supplies or their tribe is doomed. As Kotuko travels he finds that the spirit is really two live dogs leading them to the seal. Kotuko accomplishes his mission of getting food for his people.
The second Jungle book is more intense and more adventurous than the first one. It has more things to grab the attention of even the vicious Internet game fanatic. I am not ten anymore, but the tales and lores of Kipling's jungle gives me goose pimples even now. Just read it with your children and leave them in your debt forever. If not read it alone to be transported to a magical kingdom of the man cub and his friends. These tales never age, right?

The Big Four (published in 1927) - written by Agatha Christie - a series of short stories

By this time of publication of this novel, Agatha Christie had developed a huge reputation, and a large number of fans. However, when this novel was published, Agatha Christie had gone through a major upheaval in her life, with her husband declaring that he wanted to divorce her (in late 1926) after stating that he was in love with somebody else, and in December, Agatha Christie had vanished for a period of 11 days after a fight with her husband, with a massive manhunt (and till now, there is no credible story of what happened in those 11 days).
'The Big Four' stars the famous detective Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings, and Inspector Japp, the familiar figures from the Hercule Poirot series. This book is not one single long book involving a crime, but instead a series of short crimes, all of them involving the Big Four villains (and these are in turn linked to a series of short stories that appeared in a magazine called 'Sketch'). The novel however depicts characters that are very cliched, such as the Chinese villain characterised as a Fu-Manchu type of villain, a French charming and dangerous girl, and an American multi-millionaire.



The novel starts with Hastings going to meet Hercule Poirot, who is going to America after an invitation from millionaire Abe Ryland, who is a soap king. At this time, Poirot asks whether Hastings has ever heard of a group called 'The Big Four', but Hastings has no idea. Then a man comes in and starts describing the various members of the The Big Four:
- Number 1 - A Chinese mastermind called Li Chang Yen, the person behind The Big Four
- Number 2 - No Names, but represented by the sign $, so most likely an American
- Number 3 - A charming French lady
- Number 4 - Just the destroyer
Poirot and Hastings faked their departure, but when they come back to the house, they find the man to be dead; the man was identified by Inspector Japp as a member of the Secret Service. And then they get into more adventures, fighting with The Big Four, including more murders.

No Comebacks - by Frederick Forsyth (1982)

Writing gripping short stories is not easy. You do not have the time or the space in order to develop your characters or the story, and yet you are expected to write a story in which the characters are fleshed out to some degree, in which the story has developed enough that the reader does not feel cheated; the best short story is the one in which there is also a twist such that you get a sense of satisfaction after reading the story. There are not too many writers who are able to write effective short stories, and yet Frederick Forsyth has written multiple such compilations. No Comebacks is an interesting collection of 10 such short stories; most of these have twists, there are surprises in these stories, and the settings are also different for many of them. When you read the term, 'No Comebacks', it literally means that once you take an action, there is no way to get back to where you were.



The short stories that make up a part of this collection are:
"No Comebacks"
"There are no Snakes in Ireland"
"The Emperor"
"There are Some Days..."
"Money with Menaces"
"Used in Evidence"
"Privilege"
"Duty"
"A Careful Man"
"Sharp Practice"
The stories are very different, such as the opening one, which is the story of a rich successful businessman who can have everything he wants; however he falls for a married woman who refuses to leave her husband. The rich man sends a hitman, and then you get the twist in the story. Similarly, other stories also have their own twists.

The Rest of the Robots by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was one of the pioneers of the field of writing about robotics, and was most famous for his creation of the Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
These seem simple enough, but as with laws for humans, there can be many interpretations and conflicts that can arise out of using these laws. 'The Rest of the Robots' is a set of 8 short stories that all deal with robots, and many of them also have references to these laws as well as situations arising out of problems with the use of these laws. I found the collection to be very readable and interesting, and considering that most of these stories are more than 50 years old, not dated in any way. We have not had the development of humanoid robotics to the extent that Asimov had written about, so many of these are stories that we will still need to worry about.



The collection was released in 1964, and hence you can consider the book to be a very old book indeed, and yet when I was browsing through some Asimov books on an online bookshop, I found it easily available, which means there is a regular demand for it. The book starts out with a foreword by Asimov in which he explains about how books used to be about robots, they were seen as being part of the Frankenstein complex, where man created robots, and robots would destroy man, and this happened again and again. Asimov chose to move away from this concept, and wrote stories with far more complexity and depth.
The book has 8 short stories:
1. Robot AL-76 goes astray: A story in which a robot bound for the moon somehow manages to get loose on earth, and has to try and figure out its surroundings, especially when it has been fed only information about the moon. It creates a great new machine, but then destroys it when ordered to in mistake. A comedy.
2. Victory international: About projecting the power of robots, especially those constructed with a great deal of care to make extra-strong so that they can impress the ferocious inhabitants of Jupiter.
3. First law: About an exception when the power of the First Law cannot suppress the maternal instincts of a robot, and the robot is willing to let a human die.
4. Let's get together: A political story about robots being used as terrorists. Showcases one of the biggest fears of humanoid terrorists.
5. Satisfaction guaranteed: One of the most complex stories of this volume. Deals with human emotions such as jealousy, envy and a feeling of low confidence, and how this interfaces with the First law.
6. Risk: About how the human mind can still be a much better instrument to deal with uncertainty and complexity rather than even the most complex positronic brain.
7. Lenny: About the maternal instinct in even the most seemingly hard-boiled scientist can come about when dealing with an under-developed robot.
8. Galley slave: A story which deals with the fear in a human about the advent of robotics and how this could totally destroy human creativity in a slow and gradual way.
The last 4 stories also had the character of Dr. Susan Calvin, whom Asimov used as a representative of the robopshycologist, the head in that area for US Robotics, and a pioneer in the development of robots.