Translated from French By Alys Eyre Macklin

As ten o'clock struck, M. de Hartevel emptied a last tankard of beer, folded his newspaper, stretched himself, yawned, and slowly rose.

The hanging-lamp cast a bright light on the tablecloth, over which were scattered piles of shot and cartridge wads.  Near the fireplace, in the shadow, a woman lay back in a deep armchair.

Outside the wind blew violently against the windows, the rain beat noisily on the glass, and from time to time deep bayings came from the kennel where the hounds had struggled, and strained since morning.

There were forty of them: big mastiffs with ugly fangs, stiff-haired griffons of Vendee, that...

Translated from French By Alys Eyre Macklin

Ravenot, debt collector to the same bank for ten years, was a model employee.  Never had there been the least cause to find fault with him.  Never had the slightest error been detected in his books.

Living alone, carefully avoiding new acquaintances, keeping out of cafes and without love-affairs, he seemed happy, quite content with his lot.  If it were sometimes said in his hearing: "It must be a temptation to handle such large sums!" he would quietly reply: "Why? Money that doesn't belong to you is not money."

In the locality in which he lived he was looked upon as a paragon, his advice sought after and...

Translated by Sheryl Curtis

It was a stormy night and TF1 was broadcasting an old episode of Fantômas. The credits had just started when someone pounded on the mechanical shutter of the front door: heavy, violent, rhythmic blows. Like the beating of a heart, but a heart in turmoil, on the verge of exploding. A noise made all the more unsettling by the rain-lashed PVC.

Sitting in her leather armchair, Mama stood up abruptly, then looked at my father, worried. Who could that be, her eyes screamed.

Waking with a start, Dad sighed. The day spent with the family had taken its toll on him. Between the barbecue, the soccer game and the stroll at the Platier d’Oye, the natural reservoir where we occasionally liked to spend time, he’d spent the day on the go. The heavy heat that overwhelmed us had done nothing to improve his temper...

Before the temple of Solis stands a tree, gnarled, black and leafless. It looks dead, but its roots are still strong. It has stood for generations. Beneath the tree is an altar of volcanic stone, its hollowed center black as the tree. Here the villagers bring the treasures of their hearts: their prayers, their hopes, and their children.

Every family has brought at least one child to the tree, swaddled in ash-gray blankets. Midwives soon learn to recognize the Children of the Fire; born bright-eyed and feverish, red-faced and wailing. The grieving parents carry the child to the tree, tie a white prayer-ribbon to its branches, and lay the child in the smooth bowl of the altar. A high fire basket stands beside it. As the sun sets, the parents cast a small bundle of rosemary and rue into the basket, and set the fuel alight. Dropping one last kiss on the tiny, burning forehead, they turn...

The monster was available by appointment only.

Liza had made her appointment a week in advance, and by the time she stood on the monster's porch twisting her fingers, she had talked herself into the request she meant to make.

The porch light was blotted out, and she looked up with a little squeak.  "Are—are you the—"

"I'm her assistant, Ivor," said the man who answered the door.  "You'll know her when you see her.  Come in."

He looked like enough of a monster to Liza, tall and stoop-shouldered, with a face that leaned to the left.  "All right," she said, and he let her past him, into the house.

The entire house smelled of metals—silver and iron, some, but mostly gold.  Under the metallic scent of the gold, Liza could smell something like molding cornbread.  The...

“I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the stillness of the night calling on all good people to pray for the souls of the dead, it being All Souls’ Eve.”

—Charles Dickens

    
The new boy pounded on the door nine times before Sorsha Sarin, her long skirt flying, finally caught up with him, reaching up as high as she could to catch his fist in hers lest it hit the door again.

The other children skidded to a halt as they, too, reached the door, clustering around it, breathing hard. The older ones held lanterns that flickered feebly in the Irish twilight, each like a will o’ the wisp. It was the one night of the year they could legitimately beg their neighbors for specially prepared extra food, in preparation for the morrow of prayer and...

She brings the heels of her shoes down onto the papers spread over the table between us, and I’m pressed up against the back of my chair, not quite shaking, not quite still. Yesterday, she took out my neck with a swing of the edge of her hand. That’s not a blow from which you can easily recover. My head was hanging from my shoulders by a string.

She cranes her chin back because she’s bored around me. I was talking just a moment ago; now I’ve lost my nerve, and either way she has no motivation to listen, because I’m no one, and in her mind she’s the Sun God. She pops the front two feet of her chair off the ground, and it terrifies me, because everything she does terrifies me. I can’t tell what I’m looking at anymore. I’ve got no sense of judgment.

She’s watching the sky, where the golden stars change places every...

I.

In terms of explosive power and the stakes involved, it’s the largest battle humanity has ever engaged in,” Fowler commented as we watched the drones depart, “and no human will see it with their own eyes.” 

I met Mark Fowler, master engineer of F4 drive units, when I arrived at The Revenge, a hastily built station located between stars, but this was my first opportunity for a conversation with him.  Our mutual friend Carl ‘the Prof’ Fitzhugh had briefly introduced him to me, but until now he had been only one in the sea of new faces I had met.

“I can’t believe the military finished this station so quickly,” I said, “or that the government approved it in the first place, considering that we don’t even know if the enemy is still at Metallica.”

Prequel to Gate of Souls, A Familiar's Tale, Book One

She woke on the thirteenth day of her life, for since birth she slept like a fairy princess from an old tale, a maiden enchanted by shadows.  Waking at last, organic sensations mesmerized her; whispers filled her ears, the incense-smoked air she breathed stirred her from cloudy slumber.  Touching her body with curious wonder, she discovered she was a woman.

She was not alone.  Voices surged with rising elation.  Sitting up in the great bed, she stared at the robed beings that circled her cradle of sleep, dancing their primal ballet with grim joy.  They ceased their ritual, these hooded-figures in gray robes, and bowed.  They spoke as one, “Hail Obsydia, daughter of Ahridum, God of Darkness and Chaos.”

Worship soothed her confusion, but not...

PART 1: BLOOD ALCOHOL CONTENT

"Ugly people are evil?” Mark asked, laughing.

“That’s not what I said. If you look at a large majority of books and movies, there is often an unattractive antagonist to indicate some lapse in morality. Maybe they have a scar, or some type of exaggerated deformity that distinguishes them from the heroes. Regardless, it is that very distinction that provides an automatic guilty verdict from the audience before the opportunity for crime occurs. It all falls back to our obsession with appearances,” Will said.

“Why are you telling me this?” Mark asked.

“Because you are obsessed with image,” Will replied. “You have fallen into a permanent state of superficiality that holds no weight outside of fiction. You are either callous or...