conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled Saving Thanehaven about Noble, Rufus, Noble's with the genre: Teen & Young Adult, Literature & Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Gr 5-8Noble's life is one of struggle and battle. He must fight everything he encounters, including the terrain he stands on, in his quest to reach the castle and free the princess. Even his own morphing weapon, Smite, can't be trusted. This all changes when Noble encounters Rufus, whose refreshing independent philosophy offers him a choice to leave behind his life of violent drudgery. Noble's quest is then transformed into one of liberation, as he in turn offers the individuals he encounters on his way the freedom to change their destinies. The only thing is, it turns out that Noble and his band of freedom seekers are in fact characters in computer gamesand Rufus is a computer virus sent by the ostracized and disgruntled ex-friend of Mikey, the boy who owns the computer. Eventually Noble realizes that Rufus's only agenda is to force Noble's computer home to crash. With the support of his ragtag bunch of gaming heroes, Noble forces a showdown with Rufus. the author creates a hilarious combination of disparate game characters from Noble the Knight to zombies, MyScene-type fashion victims, and Lulu the silver unicorn from a preschool game. Their attempts at cooperation outside their individual game environments provide a very funny background to an overall theme of is there capacity for independent thought in software and gaming programming? As in Terry Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind (HarperCollins, 2004), readers are left with sympathy for the characters in the games, who are doomed to inevitable extinction as each new level is achieved. the author successfully delivers life lessons from gaming, and has a lot of fun along the way.Jane Barrer, United Nations International School, New York City(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Gr 5-8Noble's life is one of struggle and battle. He must fight everything he encounters, including the terrain he stands on, in his quest to reach the castle and free the princess. Even his own morphing weapon, Smite, can't be trusted. This all changes when Noble encounters Rufus, whose refreshing independent philosophy offers him a choice to leave behind his life of violent drudgery. Noble's quest is then transformed into one of liberation, as he in turn offers the individuals he encounters on his way the freedom to change their destinies. The only thing is, it turns out that Noble and his band of freedom seekers are in fact characters in computer gamesand Rufus is a computer virus sent by the ostracized and disgruntled ex-friend of Mikey, the boy who owns the computer. Eventually Noble realizes that Rufus's only agenda is to force Noble's computer home to crash. With the support of his ragtag bunch of gaming heroes, Noble forces a showdown with Rufus. the author creates a hilarious combination of disparate game characters from Noble the Knight to zombies, MyScene-type fashion victims, and Lulu the silver unicorn from a preschool game. Their attempts at cooperation outside their individual game environments provide a very funny background to an overall theme of is there capacity for independent thought in software and gaming programming? As in Terry Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind (HarperCollins, 2004), readers are left with sympathy for the characters in the games, who are doomed to inevitable extinction as each new level is achieved. the author successfully delivers life lessons from gaming, and has a lot of fun along the way.Jane Barrer, United Nations International School, New York City(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Saving Thanehaven
  Noble stands on the fringes of Morwood, assessing the terrain. Spread out before him is a forest of dead trees. They look like antlers, ivory pale and twisted, their barbed limbs clawing at the sky. Beneath them the ground is as slick as a bog. It's a strange color—the color of raw flesh—with clumps of coarse, snarled hair clogging up its clefts and hollows. There are fragments of armor strewn about.
  The silence is eerie. No birds are twittering. No wind is blowing. Flashes of blue sheet lightning flicker across the lowering storm clouds, but there's no thunder. The very shadows seem to throb with menace.
  Smite squirms impatiently. She's caught in Noble's iron grasp, her shaft changing from gray to silver to a molten, eye-searing white as she slowly and irritably begins to shape-shift. Her mace-head flattens and unfurls into an ax blade. Then it sprouts a spike to become a halberd. When he sees the spike widening into a double-edged sword, Noble reluctantly advances.
  It's no good trying to reason with Smite. She's a Tritus—a dumb animal—and all the training in the world won't tame her ravenous appetite. If Smite doesn't slake her hunger very soon, she'll start feeding on Noble. She's done it before. He generally keeps his right hand clasped around her neck, so that her small, scaled head is nestled against his palm like a pommel. This means that, if she wants to bite him, he can only stop her by disarming himself.
  Though large and muscle-bound, Noble treads lightly. His hauberk is made of leather, not chain mail. His head is bare and he carries no shield. From his belt hang only a flask, a purse, and a knife. Even so, the land yields to his weight like blubber; his boots leave a faint depression with every step. They also shed the salt that he's collected on his long and dangerous trek across the dried-up sea that rings Morwood. During this journey, he managed to fight his way through a crystalline labyrinth full of salt devils—leathery creatures that were frantic to suck every drop of moisture from his body. Now, as he moves from hummock to hummock, he scatters so much salt in his wake that the ground sizzles like fat on a fire. He doesn't like that. He doesn't like anything about Morwood. There's no shelter here, and his path oozes a reddish liquid whenever Noble applies any pressure to it. Once or twice, he slips and loses his footing.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Then a tusk follows the incisor as the great walls slowly shed their teeth, one by one, and red trickles stain the gleaming, ivory-colored towers.
  Sure enough, he's pointing at Rufus—or rather, at the top of Rufus's head. Rufus is marching up a shallow staircase that separates one mass of empty seats from another. Behind him are Yestin, Brandi, Lulu, and Lord Harrowmage.
  With a muffled exclamation, Noble leans forward. "Quick!" he barks. "I have to get in there! Before they leave!"
  Lorellina looks at him blankly for a moment. Then she blinks and catches her breath. "Oh!" she exclaims. "Yes. Yes, I—I understand."
  Noble is torn. On the one hand, he's worried about Lorellina. On the other hand, he realizes that he'll have to be quick if he wants to catch up with Rufus. So he sidles reluctantly out of the booth, with many a backward glance.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Noble can't suppress a reluctant smile. Rufus really is incorrigible. "I have," Noble rejoins. "Again and again. Because it's not as if you're telling me anything I haven't already heard."
  When he emerges from the airlock, stripped of his white suit and headpiece, Tess is hovering by the door. She takes one look at his face and chirps, "It's hard, isn't it? He's terribly persuasive."
  He's looking around at the towering piles of clutter in Rufus's bedroom. There are shoes, cables, banana peels, soft drink cans, dirty clothes, cushions, and flash drives. There are screwed-up balls of paper and plastic. There's a bike helmet and a sleeping bag. But it's the flickering light in one dark corner that's really caught Mikey's attention.
  Rufus thinks for a moment. "Spooky," he finally offers, with an embarrassed laugh. "Like there's a ghost in the machine. Like it's been taken over."
  Within seconds, they're fully engaged in a nerf-blaster fight. And while pink foam arrows bounce off the walls of Rufus's small, messy, suburban bedroom, Mikey's old laptop hums and flickers away, unregarded, in one dingy corner.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: And while pink foam arrows bounce off the walls of Rufus's small, messy, suburban bedroom, Mikey's old laptop hums and flickers away, unregarded, in one dingy corner. Rufus really is incorrigible. "I have," Noble rejoins. "Again and again. Because it's not as if you're telling me anything I haven't already heard."
  When he emerges from the airlock, stripped of his white suit and headpiece, Tess is hovering by the door. She takes one look at his face and chirps, "It's hard, isn't it? He's terribly persuasive."
  He's looking around at the towering piles of clutter in Rufus's bedroom. There are shoes, cables, banana peels, soft drink cans, dirty clothes, cushions, and flash drives. There are screwed-up balls of paper and plastic. There's a bike helmet and a sleeping bag. But it's the flickering light in one dark corner that's really caught Mikey's attention.
  Rufus thinks for a moment. "Spooky," he finally offers, with an embarrassed laugh. "Like there's a ghost in the machine. Like it's been taken over."
  Within seconds, they're fully engaged in a nerf-blaster fight.Noble can't suppress a reluctant smile.