All Snippets
The Macedonian Hazard – Snippet 03
The Macedonian Hazard - Snippet 03 214 12th Street, Fort Plymouth, Trinidad March 12, 320BCE The kiln design was mostly out of Wikipedia, but Donald had helped. It turned out that plumbing helps with preheating air to make the fire hotter. Something called reverse flow. The air came in right next to where the burned air went out, so the flue preheated the air. Stella was the one who wrote up the variance request that let them put the kiln behind the house in the fifty foot field that went between the houses and the town wall. Stella had never...
Serpent Daughter – Snippet 41
Serpent Daughter - Snippet 41 "Sleep, little creature. Sleep and dream no more." Chapter Nine "Therefore," Zadok Tarami said, "one must not marry frivolously or with a double mind, but as a solemn, if joyous, act of will." The priest stood at the top of three steps in the Basilica of Cahokia, wrapped in his clerical plumage. Bill wore a new coat of Cahokian gray. It was neatly pressed, its buttons glittered, and the newly dyed gray shone like Bill's blacked boots. Bill would have had a hard time saying what Cathy was wearing; he couldn't take...
1637 No Peace Beyond The Line – Snippet 43
1637 No Peace Beyond The Line - Snippet 43 "But I do not know these things." "Perhaps not, but they will listen and obey what you tell them, Lady Anne Cathrine." He smiled. "You may constantly point out that you are 'only' a king's daughter, but they still refer to you as 'the princess'. Without that voice of authority, they will continue to bicker with each other. You need not be knowledgeable, but even so, you will have far more knowledge than any of them, simply by dint of having been present at such expansive entertainments." An hour. She...
Domesticating Dragons – Snippet 02
Domesticating Dragons - Snippet 02 CHAPTER TWO The Waiting Game I left Reptilian with a good impression and a handful of vague promises. Evelyn said that they'd proceed with a license for my simulator. If it did as I promised for their genetic engineering team, she might even be able to bring me on. My car stuck out like a fresh pimple among the glittering sedans in Reptilian's parking lot. It was technically a sedan, too, but the previous owner had welded the back doors shut for reasons that remained unclear. I'd bought it in a police...
The Macedonian Hazard – Snippet 02
The Macedonian Hazard - Snippet 02 It was hard work, but it paid fifteen bucks an hour in ship credit and Stella was going to need every dime of that. 214 12th Street, Fort Plymouth, Trinidad December 28, 321BCE Stella climbed the short bamboo ladder to the ground floor that was four feet above the ground. President Wiley promised that they would get plumbing using bamboo as soon as possible, but for now there were composting toilets that amounted to honey buckets that would be picked up by carts that would come around daily. The flooring was...
1637 No Peace Beyond The Line – Snippet 42
1637 No Peace Beyond The Line - Snippet 42 Chapter 22 Oranjestad, St. Eustatia Moments after retrieving the already-anxious Cuthbert Pudsey, a familiar voice with a Dutch accent inquired, "Do you approve of the preparations, Lady Anne Cathrine?" She turned after an instant's delay: the time it took for her to be sure that she had successfully pasted a smile over her expression of surprise and fear that, somehow, someone had seen her eavesdropping in the infirmary. Maarten Tromp was standing just to one side, hands folded before him. As he...
Domesticating Dragons – Snippet 01
Domesticating Dragons - Snippet 01 DOMESTICATING DRAGONS Dan Koboldt To Sadie, our favorite miracle. CHAPTER ONE Reptilian Three years, five months, and thirteen days after my dog died in the canine epidemic, I walked up to the door of Reptilian Corporation wearing a suit I couldn't afford. The company leased a shining 20,000-square-foot facility in downtown Phoenix. I'd seen plenty of fancy buildings before, but this one took the cake. Ten stories of glass and steel nestled in a verdant landscape of trees, shrubs, and actual grass. It looked...
Serpent Daughter – Snippet 40
Serpent Daughter - Snippet 40 Iron Andy Calhoun was famous well beyond Appalachee, and Youngstown was basically Appalachee, anyway. "Mr. Andrew is indeed here," the hostess said. "He has already reserved your room, which is number eight, upstairs. His room is number nine." She handed him a key. "Is he in?" "I believe so." "Thank you." Cal climbed the stairs, rifle in one hand and small carpetbag in the other. Was it his imagination, or did Big Ears watch him climb? All four men in the parlor looked like frontier types, with muddy boots or...