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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The Sibyl's Urn
a novel
by John T. Cullen
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XXVII. DINNER AT A TABERNA
The next day, you and Darwin walk down into the city once again. It’s like the American shopping experience—you can never get enough of the crowds, the wine and food, the music, the laughter, the exotic performers on the streets. If you are a beer lover, you can’t quite get your lager export, but you can get a thick, flavorful Egyptian, a malty Mesopotamian, or a bitter, heady Celtic, either warm from a clay vat in the sun, or chilled from a cellar that seems to forever keep a little patch of winter in its dark heart. The Romans love their wine, too, and you can get the best vintages here.
The sky darkens as you finish your tour of the Forum. You stop at a taberna (tavern) for a bit of supper with diluted and honeyed wine. Afterward, you walk through torch-lit alleys, past the echoing baths, to a small and exclusive odium—not odium (‘yuk’), but a place where odes (‘tralala’) are sung—where you hear a recital of Greek classic poetry by torchlight on a wooden stage. As in traditional Japanese Noh theater, no women are allowed, so men play all the parts. The recital is accompanied at intervals by a man playing a harp, another man playing a kind of water organ, and a third man playing a curving horn resembling a huge French horn, called a cornu. It’s all very strange and almost unearthly, and more than ever you sense that this is not just an easily digestible past—this is a lost world. You still have that haunted, otherworldly feeling as you start thinking about returning to your own world—leaving Meteor’s body behind (he’ll wake up and probably sleep on a grain boat that will take him from Transtiberim back down to Ostia where he’ll show up well rested but still footsore for work at the horrea tomorrow).
Alas, things aren’t meant to be that easy.
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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 ggreatly enhanced their experience. Preorders start Spring 2008.
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. Don't miss it! Preorders start Spring 2008.
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