The Bio Park is the ultimate playground. A fully functioning ecological system almost a mile underground--later converted to an amusement park--it took years to build and hundreds of millions to develop. Unfortunately, it is losing money, so Linked Corporation has decided to seal the thirty foot doors with thousands of tons of blasted earth until the park has accrued in value.The closing party drew a huge crowd of sightseers, thrill seekers, and partiers, even at a thousand dollars ...

My latest trip to South East Asia differed from other trips in that I was older, my traveling companion was younger, and Thailand had changed. I didn't plan to return to the country, but my friend had taken a teaching practicum in Bangkok, and we both thought we would enjoy exploring the north of the country before her term began. We laid our plans a few months in advance, but like most trips, it didn't turn out exactly as we had planned. We learned to manage each other's foibles and annoy...

My forty-day trip involved both Silvio and the Canary Islands. The outside world was still struggling with Covid, but the Canaries were a kind of haven. We moved in a complacent bubble through historical villages and freshly painted hotels and poolside bars. We traveled to lush and beautiful La Palma and more rustic and traditional La Gomera, but mainly we spent our days on Tenerife. As we had on the other islands, we drove every road and path on Tenerife, returning to favourite spots unti...

This annotated edition of H. G. Wells' first and justly most famous novel, The Time Machine, is meant to encourage the pursuits of scholars who are either encountering Wells' influential classic for the first time or are returning to it in order to delve more deeply into its antecedents and influences.In a story that continues to have resonance for the modern reader, Wells imagined his future world deeply divided along class lines which had split the human species into two: the Morl...

This annotated edition of H. G. Wells' second novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau, is meant to encourage the pursuits of scholars who are either encountering Wells' influential classic for the first time or are returning to it in order to delve more deeply into its antecedents and influences. In the novel, Prendick, an aimless gentleman naturalist, becomes shipwrecked on the island where Moreau is creating bestial humans by a cruel and scientifically questionable application of vivisection ...

This annotated edition of World Brain is meant to stimulate scholars to return to this giant intellect, a writer who, with only microfiche to inspire his understanding of the possibilities of communications technology, imagined a connected and coordinated world sharing a huge knowledge base.Wells was inspired by the needs of a world teetering on the brink of global war, and eagerly met with Stalin and Roosevelt to learn what they knew of the peace process. When he found them without...

With his retirement looming and the sea his only goal, Sam could finally buy a boat. He would combine his pension and his dream to sail around the world. But when he begins to troll through the boatyards and docks he begins to rethink his imagined future.Perhaps his wish to disappear at sea is a result of his background of loss, for his past failures come roaring in upon him the more he tries to escape.The boat life is not what he imagined, and he is once again casting around...

Thirty years have passed since I went to the Cook Islands and Fiji, and although the original record of my voyage has long been lost, when I sifted through my memories of that most seminal time in my life, the entire trip was still there waiting for me. My first time overseas, teaching, and living with a family, I found that what I'd been taught about people from other countries was vague and largely untrue. Instead, the tapestry of the Islanders' way of life was much more complex, subtle,...

When I was holding the sword in my hand again, I could only guess where it had been. Its faded, cracked sheath and rusty blade told a story of neglect, but beyond that was another tale of how it had disappeared, how its absence had been explained, and how its return undermined that version of events. When I told my friends the story about the sword's disappearance, they consistently pled that it was merely a material item and its absence shouldn't matter. They needed background.Inva...

When discussing morality, people typically focus on the big questions and ignore the decisions we make at nearly every moment of our lives. We are not often asked to choose between a baby's life and an animal, whether to cheat on a loved one or betray a friend, but we are constantly bombarded by opportunities to act either ethically or merely self-serving.The stories in this collection are more concerned with the everyday events which try our values, the choices we are faced with on...

The stories of Winnipeg are as varied as the city itself. Caught in the middle of the continent by the amber of its past glory and its current penury, Winnipeg occupies a rare and beautiful place in the Canadian landscape. Winnipeg is defined by its main road, which merely circles the city, and its tottering buildings sitting on pylons driven deep into the mud of the ancient lake-bed. The principal streets crook across the flat prairie following the ancient whims of cattle and the people m...

Having the time to think, to react, and to frantically plan, is worse in some ways than gut-wrenching terror and desperate action. A sudden attack or viral overload is horrifying. They are wrapped in tales of societal niceties disappearing and ravening beasts tearing from suburban homes to feed on the offal of a collapsed society. The movies minutely describe the people who scream from buildings in the city, how hundreds gutter in gas attacks or die when shrapnel shreds their town, but the...