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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Robinson Crusoe 1,000,000 A.D.
a novel
by John T. Cullen
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12.
One day he grew angry.
The very air around him seemed charged, as with some hormonal injection. He must get out! It was time to be born from the outer womb, now that he had been born in the inner womb of the tank. He rampaged through the upper galleries, throwing rocks, breaking stalagmites. He ran back down into the birthing gallery—and stopped.
The half-creature was gone. A trail of slime and wet ran up the corridors where it had crawled, propelled by instinct. And the same instinct forced him to follow to where the animals outside roared.
Leaving all that he knew behind, abandoning safety, Alex groped his way along through the darkness, uphill, toward the smell that was so good. He knew it almost before he saw it: Outside. He smelled the green of the trees, heard the low stately back and forth of fresh wind sighing in heavy tree crowns, heard the twittering of so many birds, and smelled the very sap flowing in the branches. He could almost already feel the warmth of the sun as it beamed down on the smooth brown skin of the trees.
He ignored his own fears as he pressed forward. Somewhere out there was Maryan Shurey, and he must get to her.
Sometimes he thought he could hear the half-creature slithering along, pulling itself by one hand, pushing with its leg. Perhaps its half-head was turned toward the light as it followed some plant-like phototropic impulse.
Already, a faint bluish glimmer was visible far ahead. The walls began to glisten with a hard new light. At the same time, Alex began to feel odd little crumbling somethings on the walls as his fingertips crept along ahead...and then the something began to feel more like...veins...He frowned, looking closely. He rubbed his fingers over the uneven stone surface. He felt the relative smoothness of cool stone underneath, but on top he felt strings of sandpapery material.
As he pressed forward, the ground leveled off. He smelled water again. He smelled a tinge of rot and yet a freshness on top, as if the wind were blowing over stagnant water.
Not once yet had he glimpsed a single evidence of human artifice. There was not a shred of evidence that mankind had ever existed. That struck him suddenly, in this unlikely place, at this unexpected moment, as he stood in the first glimmering of contact with the world outside his cave.
The nearby roar of a huge animal startled him out of his thoughts.
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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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