Not Really Galileo

All kids have a folklore about their neighbourhood, whether it's an old woman who's really a witch or, in this case, a derelict house that's haunted. Two boys decide to watch an eclipse at the dead of night. -0-The world is full of wonder and meaning yet, today, to understand it we seem to have to choose between science and superstition. I prefer the daydeaming, storytelling way.Samantha and Tracy have been best friends since kindergarten, but now that Tracy has gotten over her shyness and made new friends, Samantha is feeling left out. This is nothing compared to how she feels when a strange girl named Jessica tells Samantha that she’s actually an imaginary friend. Tracy has outgrown Samantha, and it’s time for Samantha to help another child who needs her. But will Samantha be able to move on and fulfill her duty as an imaginary friend?
Views: 256

The Doll With Odd Eyes

Spending years in a wooden chest Betty "The Doll with Odd Eyes” was reluctantly given to a charity shop. She was a gift to Annie over 60 years ago. What will become of her favourite doll now? Would she be loved and cared for.?Investigating the bow and arrow murder of Marko Dubzek at a naturist park just south of town presents Inspector Gilles Maintenon with a pretty pickle indeed. There are no suspects, no one saw or heard a thing and Dubzek has a bit of a past with the police. Death is a many-splendored thing, and in the end, it’s always the one you least suspect. The eighth in Louis Shalako’s The Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery Series, this intriguing noir mystery will not disappoint.
Views: 249

The Pyrrianaut

A short story about vanishing youth and fighting pseudo-dinosaurs.Lt. Edward Philips is a Pyrrianaut, one of the elite soldiers used by ColAdmin to guard their off-world colonies.And he has a problem; well, two problems:At 22 he's getting too old, and his mind too set in it's ways, for the neural link to his armour, and he's going to have to retire soon, and he's not sure what to do, but that's going to have to wait until he resolves the more immediate problem: a gigantic alien pseudo-dinosaur is about to fly into his colony, and he's going to have to stop it.
Views: 248

Plum Duff

Magic is out of fashion.Except, obviously, at Winterturn. Winterturn in Ragnor Bella is a holiday for family, feasting, and a few religious festivities. Jemis Greenwing and Mr. Dart are both quite ready for a quiet week or two after their adventures going to and coming home from Orio City. Jemis in particular is looking forward to the first Winterturn spent with his father since he was a child. Then the fairy fox shows up. Wild magic. Family secrets. Gifts from unknown admirers. Sainthood. And that's before the pageant. Book Six of Greenwing & Dart, fantasies of manners—and mischief.
Views: 247

The Greatest Story NEVER Told

I hope the investigations, interchanges, and interactions that surround the greatest discovery and controversy that pertain to the findings in the Sumerian clay tablets will eventually unite us in a beautiful harmony called love. In our quest for the ultimate Truth, we shall progress and usher in the Golden Age.It is my sincere hope that everyone who reads this work will be inspired to question things and to search out these and other new truths and discoveries for themselves.We should all be engaged in the most important intellectual dialog, exchange, and sharing of the twenty-first century.I do not ask or expect anyone to blindly believe what is written within the pages of this book without investigating all the evidence for themselves. In the quest for truth, all our shutters will be opened onto a brave new world, as if seeing with new eyes life and society in all its splendor and glory with an ever greater sensitivity and realization.Remember, with Truth, sometimes it is stranger than fiction, sometimes it is vastly outnumbered, sometimes it is out there somewhere, and sometimes it lies in our inner awakening.I hope the investigations, interchanges, and interactions that surround the greatest discovery and controversy that pertain to the findings in the Sumerian clay tablets will eventually unite us in a beautiful harmony called love. In our quest for the ultimate Truth, we shall progress and usher in the Golden Age.I thank you in advance for taking time to read my book and using it as a thought-provoking work.
Views: 243

The Dealer

Markie is a successful hitman who has it all. He's tough and in demand and to the crimelords who run San Francisco, he's considered number one. Tommy Brown is a young, clean-cut arms dealer from Boston. He has built up a good reputation for being reliable. But a dark cloud hangs over their criminal relationship and now Markie's past is about to catch up with him.Markie is a successful hitman who has it all. He's tough and in demand and to the crimelords who run San Francisco, he's considered number one. Tommy Brown is a young, clean-cut arms dealer from Boston. He has built up a good reputation for being reliable. But a dark cloud hangs over their criminal relationship and now Markie's past is about to catch up with himA short crime story by Richard Quinn, an aspiring crime novelist with a passion for the retro crime novel.
Views: 241

Picked

It started with a game, a very different computer game, and a desire to know a life so intriguing and different from my own. I had just started to venture out with my own work at my father’s private investigating firm when our paths crossed on purpose. My purpose. I never expected things to go the way they did. I never expected him to be so nice and handsome. I couldn’t be number four. How could any woman love a man with more than one wife? Not only was it impossible, it was ridiculous. There was no way I was getting any closer. I was going to get in, dig around a little, and get out. That’s it. Does anything ever turn out the way we plan? Becker Cole’s wives were not the typical, obedient little housewives wearing aprons and submitting to him I had pegged them to be. They were cute, young and full of life. I loved them. All three of them. And somehow, I loved Becker too. Could I swallow the persona that society expected me to be and share him, or was this too much? Was I ready to be a part of this world? And if I wasn’t… could I just walk away?
Views: 239

Kindred of the Dust

1920. The novel begins: In the living-room of the Dreamerie, his home on Tyee Head, Hector McKaye, owner of the Tyee Lumber Company and familiarly known as The Laird, was wont to sit in his hours of leisure, smoking and building castles in Spain-for his son Donald. Here he planned the acquisition of more timber and the installation of an electric-light plant to furnish light, heat, and power to his own town of Port Agnew; ever and anon he would gaze through the plate-glass windows out to sea and watch for is ships to come home. Whenever The Laird put his dreams behind him, he always looked seaward. In the course of time, his home-bound skippers, sighting the white house on the headland and knowing that The Laird was apt to be up there watching, formed the habit of doing something that pleased their owner mightily. When the northwest trades held steady and true, and while the tide was still at the flood, they would scorn the services of the tug that went out to meet them and come ramping into the bight, all their white sails set and the glory of the sun upon them; as they swept past, far below The Laird, they would dip his house-flag-a burgee, scarlet-edged, with a fir tree embroidered in green on a field of white-the symbol to the world that here was a McKaye ship. And when the house-flag fluttered half-way to the deck and climbed again to the masthead, the soul of Hector McKaye would thrill. Due to the age and scarcity of the original we reproduced, some pages may be spotty or faded. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
Views: 238

City Crimes; Or, Life in New York and Boston

City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by George Thompson is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of George Thompson then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.
Views: 238

Elliot Savant: A Free Fantastical Fable of Foster Flat Digital Short

Thirteen-year-old Dodger Dean has a vivid imagination that tends to get him in trouble at times — as in six or seven times a day. So much so that his mother has to beg Uncle Matt to take Dodger for a couple months each summer so she can recover a shred of sanity. But Foster Flats where Uncle Matt lives has its own unique characteristics that make for a dangerous combination for a boy like Dodger.Thirteen-year-old Dodger Dean has a vivid imagination that tends to get him in trouble at times — as in six or seven times a day. So much so that his mother has to beg Uncle Matt to take Dodger for a couple months each summer so she can recover a shred of sanity. But Foster Flats where Uncle Matt lives has its own unique characteristics that make for a dangerous combination for a boy like Dodger who sometimes crosses the line with his imaginative stories of adventure and intrigue. If you’re a fan of such stories as appeared on The Twilight Zone and those told by writers like Ray Bradbury and Neil Gaiman, you’ll feel right at home in Foster Flat as you journey into the world of a thirteen-year-old with an imagination that often clashes with the real world.
Views: 234

Field Walking

When a hit man crashes his car on the way to assassinate the Reverend Max Kingsley, a team of undercover police is sent to the New South Wales country town of Arajinna to protect him and his wife Judith. But Lenny d’Aratzio, who ordered the hit, is not about to give up his quest for revenge against the man who helped put him in gaol.Back in the days when he ran the Anglican Youth Centre in Sydney’s Kings Cross, the Reverend Max Kingsley fell foul of gang boss Leonard Stanley d’Aratzio. Now, Lenny has an incurable cancer and wants to settle some accounts before he dies. When hit man, Mad Charlie Magro, crashes his car on the way to assassinate Kingsley, a team of undercover police is sent to the New South Wales country town of Arajinna. But Lenny is prepared to set up as many hits as it takes to get revenge against the man who helped put him in gaol. To reduce the risk to other people, Max decides to create a temporary residence in the vestry of the church. It is an anxious time for him and for his wife Judith who remains at Banabrook homestead.Meanwhile, Judith’s cousin, Tony Blake, is renovating a property on the river at Arajinna, where he lives with Emily, the mother of Judith’s half-sister Senator Caroline Blake. The renovations uncover evidence of earlier foul play in the district and Tony’s life is further complicated when he manages to get on the wrong side of the d’Aratzio family.While people in Arajinna go about their business, largely unaware of the dramas being enacted close by, the Blakes and the Kingsleys deal with death on several levels.
Views: 234

Blackcurrant Fool

Magic is out of fashion. Orio City is where that's decided.When his best friend Mr. Dart unexpectedly needs to make an urgent trip to Orio City, Jemis Greenwing's immediate response to ask when.  He's willing to make up to his grandmother so she will lend them her falarode, he's willing to offer to run the errands of half the barony, and he's certainly willing to spend a week or so away from the gossips of Ragnor Bella.It's such a pity that Jemis and Mr. Dart are more than halfway to Orio City before Jemis remembers that his vindictive ex-lover Lark is a rising star in the criminal courts of Orio City.  It's an even greater pity when they realize just what her new position is in the legally instituted court there.What with the dragon Jemis slayed a month ago, his consequent ascension to the position of Viscount St-Noire, and his father's very recent second return from the dead, to say nothing of that still-famous play from the summer, Three Years...
Views: 232

Chicken Soup for the African American Soul

This is the book everyone has been waiting for—an inspiring celebration of the joy, challenges, and triumphs of being African American. Combine Ilyana Vanzant and Terry McMillan, then include a dash of E. Lynn Harris, and you’ve got Chicken Soup for the African American Soul. This book captures the spirit of the community through inspiring storytelling that understands both the struggles and joys of being African American. From Jim Crow to the Civil Rights movement to today’s business leaders and gangsta culture, this book is a primer on black history. And like all Chicken Soup books, it’s a moving tribute to the small things—a moment of insight, a mentor, a lover, the loss of innocence—that make life worth living. This great volume is focused on representing all facets of African American life—man and woman; young and old; rural, suburban, and urban; rich and poor; race conscious and mostly color-blind.
Views: 225

The Person

Delivered on 22 August 2024, Forbes v Baker [2024] WASC 643 represented a turning point in the law as to what it means to be human.Delivered on 22 August 2024, Forbes v Baker [2024] WASC 643 represented a turning point in the law as to what it means to be human.The Deceased, David Baker, was born in unusual circumstances and into a difficult life. Cloned by his father, his genetic code mixed with non-human material, the Deceased died leaving a wife, a lover, and a substantial estate.The Wills Act (WA) provides that a person can make a will. It is alleged by the Defendant, the Deceased's wife, that the Deceased was, by virtue of his mixed DNA, not a "person" for the purposes of the Wills Act.This case represents an important milestone in the developing law relating to reproduction, cloning and humanity.
Views: 222