All Snippets
Domesticating Dragons – Snippet 09
Domesticating Dragons - Snippet 09 CHAPTER SEVEN Design 48 The utility of a biological simulator in a place like this was obvious, at least to me, but I'd still have to get the design team on board. I believed in my program's logic--so did Evelyn, or she wouldn't otherwise have brought me in--but integrating it with the existing design program was a major challenge. It had to be seamless, built right into DragonDraft3D so that the designers could run simulations at every step of their process. That's a lot harder than it sounds. I knew my own...
WarSpell Space Race – Snippet 06
WarSpell Space Race - Snippet 06 Chapter 3-- Jumping in Location: Cynthia Westin's Apartment, Orange County, California Time: 10 AM, January 20 Leaning against the kitchen counter in his sister's apartment, Jason Westin said, "What I'd most like to do is go to space. I always wanted to do that." Jason was about six feet one, tall and lanky with wavy brown hair and brown eyes. The Merge gave him an authority that wasn't noticeable before. In the weeks since the Merge, he and his sister were concentrating on rebuilding their references for the...
The Macedonian Hazard – Snippet 10
The Macedonian Hazard - Snippet 10 Eumenes' smile died as his mind turned to Cassander. Cassander was no general, but he was smart and had a flexible mind, and that might well be more important in this new sort of warfare than personal courage. Finally the unloading was finished, and another ship's boat pulled in and started unloading supplies and equipment. The Queen would be heading for Alexandria as soon as the boats were back aboard. Queen of the Sea, Alexandria Harbor November 10, 320 BCE Ptolemy sat in the Royal Lounge, reading the...
Two Cases For The Czar – Snippet 06
Two Cases For The Czar - Snippet 06 "I'd like to," Bernie assured the lad, "but where did Pavel go?" "He went to tell Colonel Aslonav that you are here." "Dumnye D'iaki Zeppi." Colonel Aslonav bowed and Bernie sighed. Mikhail had bumped Bernie to the status of "duma clerk," basically the highest rank a person without family rank could get. It made him almost a suitable match for Natasha, which Bernie approved of. It also made him the target of fawning attention and knives in the back, which Bernie approved of rather less. But Mikhail didn't...
Two Cases For The Czar – Snippet 05
Two Cases For The Czar - Snippet 05 "Huh?" Aside from the whole lady of the evening bit, which Miroslava had had read to her from one of my mysteries and just loved for some reason, none of it made any sense to me. I'd spent the day reading gauges in the shop and finding that not enough steam was turning back into water. So for the next hour or so, Miroslava told me of her day. How the state of the room told her that Vetrov was trying to have sex with some one shortly before he died, and that something had gone wrong, leading to violence and...
Domesticating Dragons – Snippet 08
Domesticating Dragons - Snippet 08 CHAPTER SIX INTERLUDE I was twelve when I first got interested in genetics. My brother Connor was ten, and we spent every waking minute together. That's probably why I noticed the little changes. He started to tire more easily, whereas I had boundless energy. He couldn't jump as high as he used to. No one believed me, though. I tried telling my mom how there were some days when he couldn't keep up with me. And that he had trouble getting to his feet sometimes. He'd get on all fours, then push his butt up in...
The Macedonian Hazard – Snippet 09
The Macedonian Hazard - Snippet 09 Roxane's Suite One Hour Later Roxane sat on the couch and said, "That was a mistake." "It doesn't matter." Eurydice shrugged. "You know what happened in that other history and you know how Olympias felt about Philip's mother. There is nothing I can do to keep safe from her, not as long as we are both on this ship." She glanced at Philip. Philip and Alexander were across the room. Philip was writing out equations in a combination of Greek and ship people English notation, while little Alexander sat...
WarSpell Space Race – Snippet 05
WarSpell Space Race - Snippet 05 "If you set your goal to try to make a better mousetrap, you generally get a better mousetrap and not that much else. Try to measure the age of the universe and mostly what you're going to find out is how old the universe is. But try to put a girl on the moon and there are hundreds of problems to solve. Solve one of those problems, find another, solve it, and the solutions to one have to fit with the solutions to the others. That means black boxes that you can plug in and they do their job without screwing up...