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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If you like what you read here, please send at least two other avid readers here so a growing readership can enjoy these books. That would be a great, painless, easy way to provide a huge assist. If you'd like to do more...click.
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Robinson Crusoe 1,000,000 A.D.
a novel
by John T. Cullen
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57.
Within a few days, he hunted a few smaller animals by hurling rocks at them.
Alex and Maryan dared not make fire, but ate the bleeding, greasy meat cold right off the bone, like animals. As humans, they did not make good carnivores, and they retched up some of it, but enough stayed to keep them in protein and fat.
Alex used the intestines to fashion several bowstrings. Soon, he was armed with a light bow and some arrows sharpened by rubbing on boulders that they passed. The boulders looked as they might have eons ago, light green in various shades of lichen on top, and dark, mossy green on the downward facing facets.
One time, from some heights, they did see a solitary ripper in the distance, but it was traveling laterally from them, west, as if tracking some game, and they didn’t make its acquaintance. “They can’t go back to their valley,” Maryan said with a sigh.
They’d had this conversation a thousand times. They could go back, and perhaps nobody would bother them for a while, but it would be suicide in the long run—Kogran was now presumably chieftain, or Omas if he had killed Kogran—and they’d be cruising back in their boats looking not just for revenge, but for some way to wring or torture a new sphere out of them.
Never once did they pass any sign of past civilization. That always amazed him. A million years could wipe out all traces of humanity. A dozen or so ice ages could scrape Manhattan clean of everything from skyscrapers to subway tunnels. He’d bet not even the contours of their cities could be seen anymore from a plane or from space. They must have gone 200 miles west when a longing made them turn north along a wide river—a child of the Mississippi? This far north? No signs of civilization here. That told him much—this world had more than one intelligent species now, but they had not spread very far. Which left a lot of wilderness for them to hide in.
They became nomads—new Native Americans, carrying their few possessions as they went. They made a few simple bowls out of wood, and knives out of stone and bone. He made stronger bows and arrows, and on one occasion had to kill a ripper and her cub. He’d stumbled on the cub, and the mother attacked—no choice there. They had enough hides to make a shelter at night, and they were not afraid to light a small fire. They knew how to make their fire as little smoky as possibly—burn very dry wood, cook fast, put the fire out, and bury it.
Then the days started getting shorter, and they began to think about winter. They had only one place to go, and that was their home in ripper valley. He hoped the Siirk did not travel much in winter.
It was time for them to go home.
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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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