Fiction Books

Sandeman, 2624 CE It was midafternoon before Dana's hunger overcame her excitement at being on Sandeman, hiking with her chosen lord—her thakur, in the Sandeman term she preferred—and trying to track a balik. She hadn't gotten within two hundred meters of the wolflike predator, and had finally realized she wasn't going to, so the two found a small clearing with bare rocks which made... more...

BEFORE THE CURTAIN As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the... more...

CHARON Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his weariness. It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was of a piece with Eternity. If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided all time in his memory into... more...

CHAPTER I. CHRISTIE. "AUNT BETSEY, there's going to be a new Declaration ofIndependence." "Bless and save us, what do you mean, child?" And the startled old lady precipitated a pie into the oven with destructive haste. "I mean that, being of age, I'm going to take care of myself, and not be a burden any longer. Uncle wishes me out of the way; thinks I ought to go, and,... more...

Introduction The eastern woodrat exerts important effects on its community associates by its use of the vegetation for food, by providing shelter in its stick houses for many other small animals, and by providing a food supply for certain flesh-eaters. In the course of our observations on this rodent on the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation, extending over an eight-year period, from... more...

"Well, they're gone!" said Direxia Hawkes. "H'm!" said Mrs. Tree. Direxia had been to market, and, it was to be supposed, had brought home, beside the chops and the soup-piece, all the information the village afforded. She had now, after putting away her austere little bonnet and cape, brought a china basin, and a mystic assortment of white cloths, and was polishing the... more...

DEFINITION AND DEVELOPMENT Mankind has always loved to tell stories and to listen to them. The most primitive and unlettered peoples and tribes have always shown and still show this universal characteristic. As far back as written records go we find stories; even before that time, they were handed down from remote generations by oral tradition. The wandering minstrel followed a very ancient profession.... more...

This was the rainy year. Last year had been the dry one, and it would come again. But they wouldn't be here to see it, Captain Louis Carnahan thought. They had seen four dry ones, and now had come the fourth wet one, and soon they would be going home. For them, this was the end of the cycle. At first they had kept track of the days, checking each one off on their calendars, but the calendars had... more...

I AN OFFER TO OPEN THE RIVER Considering the state of the imperial city of Frankfort, one would not expect to find such a gathering as was assembled in the Kaiser cellar of the Rheingold drinking tavern. Outside in the streets all was turbulence and disorder; a frenzy on the part of the populace taxing to the utmost the efforts of the city authorities to keep it within bounds, and prevent the... more...

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the... more...