For those of you who have not read this novel, but the name sounds somewhat familiar, worry not. You are indeed correct, with the name being similar to the biblical ‘Cain and Abel’. The novel was released in 1980, with was an international bestseller. It remains on the popular list, being among the more famous, if not the most famous, book of Jeffrey Archer. It has been made into a 1985 television mini-series as well. The book is essentially a life story of 2 men, born into 2 entirely different societies and circumstances, but sharing the same date of birth, April 18, 1906. This book is the story of William Lowell Kane, and Wladek Koskiewicz (later to be called Abel Rosnovski), and truth be told, is a great book.

These are 2 men with an entirely different start in life, with one thing in common; both are extremely confident and self-starters. They have built up whatever they currently own in life, and are willing to take a fight all the way to the end.
Kane is born in a rich family, but loses his wealth and inheritance after a series of misfortunes. His father dies in the Titanic disaster, and his mother marries a man who does nothing but squander his wealth and waste it away. Eventually, after his mother dies in a miscarriage, Kane throws his step-father out.
Abel, on the other hand, lives a life of poverty. He is born in a forest, and only gains some hope of a better life due to his intelligence; the local Baron recognizes his intelligence and seeking to get a good companion for his son, adopts Abel. However, soon after, with the First World War breaking out, the Russian Army kills the Baron and his son, rapes Abel’s sister, and takes Abel to Siberia (However, Abel also discovers that the Baron was actually his father, since both of them have only one nipple each). Abel manages to escape from Siberia, and after almost getting his hand amputated in Turkey for stealing, he manages to reach the US.
And this is where the battle between the 2 starts to germinate. After Abel starts to rise by dint of ability, his benefactor suffers because Kane’s bank refuses to lend funds during the depression, and actually commits suicide. Blaming Kane for this, Abel has two ambitions, how to become a successful and rich man, and how to defeat Kane. He has one option, if he can get enough shares of Kane’s bank, he can get Kane kicked off the board (he does not know that Kane was the one who had actually helped him in the past and Kane cannot tell him also).
This rivalry takes a strange turn when the children of both of them meet, fall in love, and marry over the massive objections of both of them. What happens next ? Do these 2 bitter enemies forgive their children and each other, and reconcile with their grandchild ? Read the whole novel, it is a great work of fiction.

The Gold Rush is silent-era movie, a Charlie Chaplin movie, released in 1925. As with many Chaplin movies, the movie was written, and directed by him and starred him in the lead role. It was another of the ‘Little Tramp’ roles. As per Charlie Chaplin, The Gold Rush was a movie that he wanted to be remembered by. The movie also starred Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite, and Georgia Hale. Georgia Hale got the role by chance, since Lita Grey was originally selected for the role, but Lita then got married to Charlie Chaplin in 1924, and hence was no longer to be the lead lady for the role. However, during the making of the film, Charlie’s marriage to Grey had collapsed, and Hale (who had idolized Chaplin from the beginning) was much more intimate with her leading man.
The movie was a huge commercial success, earning more than $ 4 million at that time. In 1942, Chaplin took the movie into the talkie space, re-releasing the movie with a musical score (that was nominated for an Academy Award), adding a personal narration in his own voice, and doing some more editing to reduce the length of the movie by a few minutes.

Chaplin’s previous movie ‘A women of Paris’ had failed, and Chaplin was looking to see how he could recoup from that. He wanted to make a great movie, something that he would be remembered for. And then he came on the stories of some of the tragedies of the Great Alaskan Gold Rush; with tales of hardship, struggle and tragedy. The movies takes The Tramp in the Yukon, along with many others like him, heading over the Chilkoot Pass (some spectacular shooting in Hollywood sets). He gets stuck in a remote cabin with little supplies, along with another prospector and an escaped fugitive.
In this setting happens one of the most iconic scenes from the silent film era, the eating of a leather boot by a starving man. Another iconic shot from the movie is of the cabin tottering on the edge of a cliff while the inhabitants struggle to get out. You also have the betrayal of The Tramp and the other prospector by the fugitive (who in turn meets his end at the hands of an avalanche).
The Tramp becomes very rich after finding gold. Once he reaches the town, The Tramp thinks that he is falling for a dance-hall girl (Hale), but why would she notice him ? She initially snubs him, but they have a happy ending.

Arthur C Clarke was a visionary story teller and science fiction writer. He will forever be remembered for his visionary writings, such as the conceptualization of the geo-stationary communications satellite; and for his great works of fiction such as the ‘Space Odyssey 2001′ (made into a excellent movie). In Space Odyssey 2010, he continues his work, moving ahead the story of the monolith around Jupiter (in a slight adjustment, while 2001 the book was about Saturn, while 2001 the movie was about Jupiter, and hence 2010 the book refers to Jupiter – so readers should not get confused that the first book talks about Saturn while the second book talks about Jupiter).
2001 was in the decade when the quest for the moon was at its peak, and the book was right before the Moon landings were planned, so there was a great more public enthusiasm for the book (more suspense). This book (Odyssey 2) was released in 1982, so it was not directly linked to anything happening in real life, and the space program was ongoing, but that initial romanticism was missing.

This book was set in a period 9 years after the events of 2001, and a joint Soviet-American expedition on Soviet spaceship Alexei Leonov is planned to visit the abandoned Discovery spacecraft so that they can find out what really happened (after all, David Bowman vanished from the viewpoint of Earth (he turned into a starchild)), as well as to determine what happened with regard to the monolith. However, there is a surprise since a spacecraft leaps out of Earth orbit, and is revealed to be a Chinese inter-planetary spacecraft called Tsien, setting a course for Jupiter and expected to reach before the Leonov.
The Tsien lands on Europa to collect water for its propulsion, but runs into an accident when native life forms overwhelm the ship (attracted by the light from the ship) and given the loss of the ship, the crew are destined to die there (the final survivor radioing this information to the arriving Leonov). The Loenov eventually reaches the Discovery and Dr. Chandra manages to reactivate HAL. At the same time, we learn that the ethereal form of David Bowman visits his mother and girlfriend on Earth; he also does investigation of the life forms on Europa and in the cloud region of Jupiter. In the balance between these 2, the life forms on Europa are deemed to have a far greater potential for growth and evolution.
Bowman then appears before Floyd and warns that they must leave Jupiter within 15 days. Naturally, the crew hesitate to believe Floyd until they see the monoliths growing all over Jupiter, at which point an emergency mission is setup, using the Discovery as a booster for increasing speed. And in a scene designed to remind humans about the awesome capabilities of the intelligence behind the monoliths, the monoliths actually increase the density of Jupiter until the planet becomes a star (having achieved nuclear fusion). And there is a final warning that Bowman delivers via HAL, “ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.” HAL in turn is absorbed in the monolith just like David Bowman was.

In today’s world, we take underground tunnels, trains, space travel, satellites, etc, as standard everyday things. However, there was a time when there was no concept of having long tunnels under the seabed, or massive bridges many kilometers long; and travel to space was difficult to visualize (astronomy existed, but to visualize precise details was difficult). It is to the credit of the science fiction writers of that time that they were able to visualize underwater, underground, and space travel adventures. One of the most famous science fiction writers of that time was Jules Verne, who wrote about locations and adventures that were unheard of in the 19th century, and many of which bear a good resemblance to what came into reality many many decades later. One of Jules Verne’s novels that makes interesting reading is the tale of a journey underground – A Journey to the Center of the Earth.

However, this novel should be looked upon as fiction. In this particular case, the novel is not very accurate. However, it is still a good work of fiction, and should be read for that reason alone.
The story is that of an eccentric professor, who is attempting to follow in the footsteps of an Icelandic adventurer who had made an epic journey to the center of the earth a long time back, and of which there are not many records. The professor gets his nephew to follow him (well, actually the nephew volunteers for this expedition), and along with a strong, silent, guide, they head off this to this incredible journey.
The professor finds a coded text in a book written by Snorri Sturluson, and is desperate to decode the parchment, going without food if necessary. It is the nephew, Axel who managed to decode the code, finding that it was just written backwards. He is concerned about what his uncle will do if he finds that the text has been decoded, but after 2 more days without food, gives up and tells his uncle about the decoding. The code is very simple: “Descend, bold traveler, into the crater of the jokul of Sneffels, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the calendas of July, and you will attain the centre of the earth; I have done this, Arne Saknussemm” (the translation in English).
Inspite of the protestations of his nephew, the professor is eager to take this trip, and after arriving in Reykjavík, they hire an Icelandic hunter, Hans Bjelke, as their guide. After some delay due to clouds, they are able to find the starting point, and start a descent into a crater. And then start their adventures, with very sharp descents, almost running out of water once, another time when Axel separates from the others and is only able to find the others due to a strange acoustic phenomenon. They find strange creatures, and a massive underwater cavern with a huge water body; the water body contains many prehistoric creatures.
At a point however, they find that the path is blocked; they decide to blast their way through; however, the resultant upheaval pulls them through the blasted path at a high speed, and soon they find themselves in a close proximity to hot water and magma. Just when they are sure that they will soon boil, they find themselves rising fast, and soon get ejected from a volcano (in Stromboli, in Italy – very far away from their descent point in Iceland). They are all termed as heroes when their journey comes to public knowledge.