John T. Cullen has authored over 20 books, including The Generals of October (Simon & Schuster, 2004)—pulse-pounding political-military suspense fiction set in a near-future U.S. Constitutional crisis.
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John T. Cullen also writes screenplays, including one for Nebula Express (adapted from his SF novel) and the violent, darkly glistening, utterly strange tale of a serial killer in Scorpion.
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Mars the Divine
a novel
by John T. Cullen
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19: Whitechapel Combat
Surprisingly, when we parted company at the London Transfer, we had only known the two men for about two weeks, barely enough time for Tatnall's Victorian neighbors to become nosy about two very attractive young women in mannish clothing who came and went with a lack of demurity that placed them definitely outside the social corset of the middle class. The neighbors, mostly upper middle class doctors and lawyers, and industrialists like Tatty living along these wide, tree-lined avenues, had long since stopped being curious about the hammering and the blow torches. They were used to that. They were curious about how a lower class upstart like Tatnall managed to suddenly be domiciled with not one but two self-sufficient and and self-contained yet friendly women. More curious they must have found the fact that Trini and Sindi did not fit exactly into any one of the rigid molds of this class-conscious society. In the end, some neighbors apparently wrote them off as American frontier women because of their accents and tanned, 'coarse' appearance.
The neighbors would have been more astonished at this story. We five had been to dinner late at a restaurant (where women were socially permitted though not near the bar). We were walking through Whitechapel on a foggy night when no hansom could be had (yes, the area where, just six years ago in the late 1880s, Jack the Ripper had operated), we were accosted by several ragged young men (street arabs) who demanded our money at knifepoint. Tatnall and I were handy with our fists, and Wells was a scrappy little fellow, but the two women took care of the situation. The five or six young men were not expecting what happened. Under the light of a single gaslamp reflected on damp cobblestones and diffused in the fog like cotton, they moved in on us like ghosts. Trini, usually the leader of the two women, said softly to us: "Dance with me." What she meant became clear. As she moved to the side, so did we in a block, until the street lamp was behind us and shining in the lads' eyes. After we all circled like wolves for two or three minutes, the boys came wading in. They went right past the two women, a mistake, for they walked into a classic encirclement. As the boys confronted us three men, the women launched a rattling series of kicks from behind that smashed kidneys and broke knee joints. A knife is a knife. You threaten someone with a knife, the assumption is you're going to kill with the knife. This calls for a total response. The two priestesses delivered that in a half minute. Our assailants ran or hobbled away as best they could. What would the neighbors have said at this unlady-like behavior? Ha! Anyway, it was time for us to go. Wells had made clear that he intended never to reveal the time machine to the world, for fear of seeing it grabbed by militarists and industrialists (the irony not lost on Tatnall) to destroy mankind. Wells had long ago dreamed up some vague idea for a tale about a time traveler, or Chrononaut, and now he had his material.
We said goodbye to Wells and Tatnall in the curiously quiet and clean, but dangerous, world ruled by the Future Alien Rulers And Oppressors (FARAOs, or in the popular idiom, the Faraos).
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If you like what you're reading, please send at least two other avid readers to this website.
—Thank you! …Your grateful author, John T. Cullen.
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Other gripping books by the author:
Copyright © 2005 by John T. Cullen. All Rights Reserved.
John T. Cullen has been a pioneer in digital publishing since 1996. He is listed by digital publishing historian Karen Wiesner as the sixth digital publisher in history, and the second person to publish serialized chapters on line (starting 1996). His web magazine Deep Outside SFFH was the first to be listed along with the professional pulps in Writer's Market (1999) and was at one time the oldest professional SFFH magazine in the world. John T. Cullen continues to explore new ways to adapt the primordial power of storytelling to emerging new digital opportunities as the Third Millennium springs to light.
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A Walk in Ancient Rome John T. Cullen (Simon&Schuster May 2005) innovative, acclaimed walking & teaching tour—explore every corner of the Imperial capital at its zenith almost 2000 years ago; learn its history—smell and taste the very air of Classical Rome.
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= Summer 2008 =
A Walk in Ancient Rome, Second Edition John T. Cullen (Clocktower Books 2008)—New! Many new maps; images from the unique scale model of AndréCaron of Quebec. Read this innovative book, with its acclaimed walking & teaching tour. Explore every corner of the Imperial capital at its zenith almost 2000 years ago; learn its history. Smell and taste the very air of Classical Rome. The new edition is bigger, like an atlas. Some people have carried the 1st edition with them to Rome, and found it greatly enhanced their experience.
Dead Move: Kate Morgan and the Haunting Mystery of Coronado, 2nd Ed. John T. Cullen (Clocktower Books, San Diego, Summer 2008). John T. Cullen has tackled the mystery of the ghost at the Hotel del Coronado. He has assembled a dramatic new theory about how and why she violently died on the back steps of the hotel in 1892. A first-class ghost story and whodunit wrapped in one.
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