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The Sibyl's Urn: You are invited on a strange trip in time...a haunting journey...back to ancient Rome. Your host is the enigmatic Professor Darwin, who claims to have been an old friend of your family. Even more mysterious is his beautiful and erudite young companion, Amalthea. She is given to be his daughter, but is just as likely a mythological persona thousands of years old. Let's not even talk about that cricket she keeps in an ancient wooden birdcage. Your quest is driven by Darwin's desperate search for an oracular urn connected with the Sibyls of Cumae, who communicated with the gods, deep in a smoky, delphic cavern not far from the devil's lake at Avernus. Your journey crosses a thousand years of Roman history from the archaic Iron Age settlement to the late and corrupt empire under Carinus. Narrated by a capricious garden spirit from the long-lost past, this entertaining fantasy is by turns surprising, shocking, even scary. Your reality today was shaped by strange and capricious imaginers of long ago. They dabbled in a mix of fantasy and reality, magic and ritual, that has compelling echoes in today's world. You'll meet a corrupt emperor, a heroic goddess, a young couple of escaped slaves from the Iron Age Salt Road, and many other characters. Welcome to the age of gods and goddesses, of heroes and oracles. Have a safe trip, and watch for that dark figure with the staff and disk-like petasus hat who seems to always be following at your back among the ruins on a quest of his own... read the whole book free....
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The Christmas Clock: In the tradition of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol--a modern update, in a dark vein, with cellphone toting temp agency genies and a contemporary scroogitarian named Arthur Latchloose. Latchloose is a self-made millionaire who lost connection with all his loved ones along the way. A collector of priceless antiques, he buys a fabulous Ottoman grandfather clock from a distressed Army Major Jarlid. The clock comes with its resident genie named Cuphandle, who has been outsourced from abroad. Now Arthur Latchloose faces a terrible choice. He is granted a single wish. He can restart his entire life as a new man, but he will forever lose the memories of those who had been dear to him once. That seems okay, until he begins meeting their spirits. The great clock strikes the hours, one by one, and on the Twelfth Hour, Arthur must either sink or swim. He is a cantankerous but canny old snort, and he has the sweating, distressed Cuphandle constantly pacing up and down while talking with his distant temp agency on the cell phone. What will Arthur Latchloose decide? Will the story have a happy or sad ending? Or will there be nothing? Read on and find out... read the whole book free....
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Fantasy
