Fiction Books

CHAPTER IFATHER AND DAUGHTER The old man lay back in his chair asleep. The morning sun beat against the drawn window shades, filling the room with a dim, almost cathedral light. An oil lamp, which had performed its duty faithfully through the night, now seemed to resent its neglect, and spluttered angrily. There was the usual sound of the busy city’s street outside the window, for the morning was... more...

METEOROLOGICAL EMOTIONS Whoever carries a mental kodak with him (as I suspect I was in the habit of doing long before I knew it) must be aware of the uncertain value of the different exposures. This can be determined only by the process of developing, which requires a dark room and other apparatus not always at hand; and so much depends upon the process that it might be well if it could always be left... more...

THE LONDON SUNDAY This seems to be a thing that all exclaim against, and but few see. The phrase is never varied—a sure sign of lack of experience. One cries, ‘Oh, the London Sunday!’ and another, ‘It must be too dreadful for foreigners!’ and before the topic disappears something yet vaguer has been said, in a flickering manner, as to the Boulevards. But in fact London Sunday is little... more...

CHAPTER I. A HARBOUR FROM THE STORM. The wind howled across the level fields, and flying showers of sleet rattled against the old leathern coach as it drove through the thickening dusk. A bitter winter, this year of the Royal tragedy. A rainy summer, and a mild rainy autumn had been followed by the hardest frost this generation had ever known. The Thames was frozen over, and tempestuous winds had... more...

They started giving me the business as soon as I came through the door into the Secretary's outer office. There was Ethel K'wang-Li, the Secretary's receptionist, at her desk. There was Courtlant Staynes, the assistant secretary to the Undersecretary for Economic Penetration, and Norman Gazarin, from Protocol, and Toby Lawder, from Humanoid Peoples' Affairs, and Raoul Chavier, and... more...

It seems unnecessary to say that my story began a long time ago, but I do not intend to be subtle. I am not clever and my lying is unpolished, almost amateurish. So I certainly could not be subtle, which requires both cleverness and an ability to tell the truth and a lie in the same breath. Let us turn back the clock a few ages. I was lying in the sun thinking of love. I understand that you human... more...

CHAPTER I THE ARRIVAL OF VAL In northern Montana there lies a great, lonely stretch of prairie land, gashed deep where flows the Missouri. Indeed, there are many such—big, impassive, impressive in their very loneliness, in summer given over to the winds and the meadow larks and to the shadows fleeing always over the hilltops. Wild range cattle feed there and grow sleek and fat for the fall shipping... more...

The sky was black, with myriads of stars. The ground was white. But it was not really ground at all, it was ice that covered everything—twenty miles north to the Barrier, and southward to the Pole itself, past towering mountains and howling emptiness and cold beyond imagining. The base was almost buried in snow. Off to one side of the main building a faint yellowish glow was the plastic dome of the... more...

How strange it seems, after this long lapse of time, to look back upon those days, and after all that has come between. When I think of the child whose curious fancies, strange whims, and still stranger life, I am about to portray, I find myself inclining towards what is certainly a feeling of bewilderment, and one that might almost be said to be akin to physical pain. That the little fellow I see in... more...

CHAPTER I. THE CROWN PRINCE RUNS AWAY The Crown Prince sat in the royal box and swung his legs. This was hardly princely, but the royal legs did not quite reach the floor from the high crimson-velvet seat of his chair. Prince Ferdinand William Otto was bored. His royal robes, consisting of a pair of blue serge trousers, a short Eton jacket, and a stiff, rolling collar of white linen, irked him. He had... more...