conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled The Dubious Hills about Secret, Country, Dubious with the genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Set in a small village in the magical world first introduced in her YA trilogy The Secret Country , the author's beautiful and compelling adult novel presents fascinating philosophical puzzles about the nature of knowledge, responsibility and evil. Centuries before, battling wizards eliminated war from the Dubious Hills. Part of their formula for peace was to parcel out mundane experience and knowledge: only the village's Gnosi knows how to teach, only its Akoumi understands about death and only the Physici knows about, and can experience, pain. That Physici is Arry, a 14-year-old girl whose parents' death left her in charge of her young siblings. To counterbalance the Dubious denizens' lack of innate understanding, the wizards bequeathed the villagers magical birthrights, some specific talent that appears at the onset of puberty. This finely balanced, bucolic society is upset by the invasion of wolves offering dangerous insights. In order to protect her world, Arry must search for ways to deal with the wolves' offer. The answers she finds are neither easy nor painless and serve as reminders of just how cruel, and wonderful, children can be. As in The Secret Country , the author uses snippets of Tennyson, Shakespeare, Hopkins and others for her spells, adding a touch of poetry to her already lovely language. <BR>Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.. End with the sentence ' She shut the door, and in the light of the lamps she had lit to cut Con's hair she looked at Oonan.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Dubious Hills
  Arry opened the door to call the cats. It was a cold night, but with a green spring cold, not the dry baked cold of autumn or the damp and penetrating cold of winter. The moon was full; it crowded out the stars in its half of the sky and put a thin blue skim-milk light over the mud of the yard, the slate stepping stones, the cover of the well, the lilac bushes with their new leaves—and there was the white cat crouched under the pine tree, from which during the day the squirrels teased her.
  Arry stepped outside, leaving the door open. The black cat shot around the corner of the house and through the doorway. The white cat yawned.
  Woollycat got up and walked around to the other side of the tree. Arry's mother had always said Arry was too tender of those cats, which were supposed to spend their nights outside working, catching rats and mice and the little sleek voles that ate the tender shoots of the new oats. Arry preferred to have the cats sleep on her feet, and she knew that cats loved to be warm. She stepped into the mud and squelched her way over to the tree.
  Arry flinched. Somebody was badly hurt; somebody sounded as if he had fallen out of the tree and broken his back. She began to skid down the hill, calling, "Who is it?"
  As they went through the door into the house, the white cat whipped between their feet, thudded across the wooden floor, and scrambled up the ladder into the attic. At least, thought Arry, she wouldn't have to go out again looking for her later. She shut the door, and in the light of the lamps she had lit to cut Con's hair she looked at Oonan.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Arry let her breath out and rubbed her eyes. The light falling in the door was brighter. "Did I wake you up?" she said.
  They sat on in silence. Arry was afraid to let her mind wander, lest somebody else's certainties flood it again. She supposed she must ask Mally about this. She blamed it on Halver, but that might not be right. "Oonan?" she said.
  Oonan stood up all the way and began pacing the floor again. Arry watched him. They did this for a very long weary while. Arry's chin bumped her chest. She pulled her head back up, blinking. A great dark shape came through the open door, darted past Oonan, and seized the blanket of the bed in its jaws. Arry shot off the bed. The large wolf gave her a brief considering glance, curled its lip at her, and dragged the blanket back out the door.
  Nothing happened for some time. Then Arry twitched all over and almost fell off the bed, and at the same moment Oonan tripped over something and bumped the wall, or at any rate that was what it sounded like. They had not heard the wolf come, but in the quiet after Oonan bumped the wall they heard the sound of a bare foot stirring the gravel, and then someone was standing in the doorway, blocking all the light.
  Oonan went into one corner and lit a lantern. He stood up, holding the light out before him, and made a sound as if somebody had hit him in the stomach.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Oonan rolled his eyes and made a small groan. She told him the story, with frequent additions from Con and a little actual help from Beldi. Oonan looked at her with great intentness the whole time, even when Con was speaking. When they finished, he went on looking.
  Oonan looked puzzled and irritated; then his brow cleared. "Ah. The ones with poisoned apples; the ones who drive their sons to kill their other sons; all the cruel ones. I think so. I told you, I am still finding out what has happened. I think knowledge is altered."
  Oonan frowned. "That will do you harm," he said. "Go to Heathwill Library, where they understand breaking the bounds of knowledge."
  They crossed the river at the Waterpale ferry just at dawn. The ferrywoman was sleepy but amiable. Arry gave her one of Frances's coins, which she took as if there were nothing unusual about it.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: She told him the story, with frequent additions from Con and a little actual help from Beldi. Oonan looked at her with great intentness the whole time, even when Con was speaking. When they finished, he went on looking.
  Oonan looked puzzled and irritated; then his brow cleared. "Ah. The ones with poisoned apples; the ones who drive their sons to kill their other sons; all the cruel ones. I think so. I told you, I am still finding out what has happened. I think knowledge is altered."
  Oonan frowned. "That will do you harm," he said. "Go to Heathwill Library, where they understand breaking the bounds of knowledge."
  They crossed the river at the Waterpale ferry just at dawn. The ferrywoman was sleepy but amiable. Arry gave her one of Frances's coins, which she took as if there were nothing unusual about it.