conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled Trouble With Lichen about Parkes, Lucas, Benyon with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Contemporary?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903, the son of a barrister. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From 1930 to 1939 he wrote short stories of various kinds under different names, almost exclusively for American publications, while also writing detective novels. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logical fantasy'. As the author he wrote The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble with Lichen, The Outward Urge, Consider Her Ways and Others, Web and Chocky. the author died in March 1969.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Trouble with Lichen
  Yesterday's announcement of a temporary moratorium on certain payments by Threadneedle and Western led to unsettled conditions on the London Stock Exchange today. Insurances opened torpid and glissaded slowly lower. Later a slight revigoration set in and they sobered with dominant issues a few shillings slimmer. Fidelity, however, was not nourished, and, later, prices once more verged into a slow sink.
  The unusual step taken by Threadneedle and Western is attributed to an announcement made last Wednesday by Miss Diana Brackley, who controls the well-known West-end beauty salons of Nefertiti Ltd, in which she claimed that definite progress had been achieved in slowing the natural rate of organic deterioration, which would lead to a perceptible rise in the present figures for the expectation of life.
  The fact that this claim has evidently received more serious attention in actuarial circles than would seem likely to be given to an announcement emanating from such a source is probably attributable to the fact that Miss Brackley is a scientist, holding high honours in biochemistry from Cambridge University, who spent several years in advanced biochemical research work before turning her talents to the development of her notably successful business in a field where competition is notoriously strong and custom proverbially fickle....
  The Times restricted its comments to the financial page, and the effects on insurance stocks. Without specifying the cause, it reproved those who had allowed their judgement to be stampeded by unsubstantial rumours, and had thereby encouraged panicky reactions in what was normally one of the most stable sections of the market.
  The Financial Times was more factual, but also cautious. It, too, deplored the effect of a possibly irresponsible announcement, but it also drew attention to the noticeable rise in chemicals, particularly United Commonwealth Chemicals' ordinaries, which had set in at approximately the same time that insurances began their second decline. The Express, the Mail, the News Chronicle all made references to Miss Brackley's claims, but preserved a careful vagueness on details – there was, for instance, no suggested figure of the life-increase; just an indefinite proposition that people might be able to live a little longer – and in each case it was given a not-too-committal position of only semi-validity, on the woman's page.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know four more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Anyway, whatever the causes, Diana could perceive that the fight was not going to be quite the free-for-all she had envisaged, but something more like a large-scale tourney, with a large spectatorship whose favour could be swayed to one side or the other.
  Considering the situation, she decided that her original strategic plan would be assisted rather than hindered by the development.
  Nevertheless, gratifying though an easy victory in Phase One followed by discovery of weaknesses in the enemy forces may be, it plays havoc with a careful timetable. There is an anxious interlude when it is uncertain whether reserves can be brought forward in time to exploit the advantage.
  Reading, however, in each newspaper announcements of various prominence that the Saturday night play on the Home Service would be postponed from nine-fifteen to nine-thirty in order to give Miss Diana Brackley an opportunity of making a statement regarding the Antigerone, she was able to feel that the next phase could now begin...
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: After some moments' contemplation of it he got out, opened the gate, and took his car through. He drove up slowly, parked where the lane widened, close to the house, and sat there for a moment before he got out.
  He did not approach the house at once, but walked thoughtfully to the edge of the levelled shelf, where he stood looking across the garden and the placid sheet of water beyond. He remained there in unmoving contemplation for almost a minute. Then, as he made to turn, something close to his feet caught his attention. He regarded it for some seconds, and then bent to pick it up. He looked at it expressionlessly, as it lay in the palm of his hand. Then the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. He let the piece of lichen drop, and turned towards the house.
  He was shown into a large, low, comfortable sitting-room: white paint, grey walls, a few excellent flower pictures, wood embers smouldering beneath a polished copper canopy in the fireplace. He was looking out of the window when the door opened.
  She paused. She regarded Francis's face carefully for nearly half a minute, and then turned her own away.
  When the sun, setting behind the opposite mountains, brought shadows creeping across the lake, Francis's car was still parked beside Glen Farm. Within the house, the really important decisions had been taken, but, on the couch before the fire, lesser points of merely general importance continued to raise themselves.