Gaius Julius Caesar was intelligent, courageous, and connected. For the majority of his adult life, though, he took little advantage of his gifts. Then, in his early forties, he came into his own as an orator, politician, general, writer, and statesman. Caesar dedicated himself to a singular mission: building Rome into an empire over which he would rule. As he realized his grand vision, the world he had created crashed down on him. Friends and foes alike turned against him. A group of cons...

Nothing in history sounds grander than a trade route, one of those thick bold lines on the statistical maps by which people have exchanged the products of their hands, minds, and sporadically, even hearts. Some of the routes have shaped history, rather than merely reflecting it. Primary among them is the Silk Road, the overland route across Asia that endured for more than 1,000 years as a crossroad from East to West. Here, in this essay by historian David Grace is the story of one of the g...

Long forgotten by mankind the world "Fane" lies on the outer reaches of explored space. The planet's peculiar electromagnetic fields slowly destroy electronic devices but in compensation they enhance psychic abilities. Over the centuries humans and the aliens with whom they share the planet have evolved into clans of wizards and masters, dullards and incompetents.Grantin, the nephew of a powerful but harsh magician, seems bound for failure in the magical arts. In a last ditch effor...

When eight immigrants arrived at the Baltimore Federal Courthouse to be sworn in as citizens they didn't give a thought to the trial next door of five terrorists charged with blowing up a federal building. Baltimore Sun Reporter Mark Shrader did care about that trial. His wife and unborn child had been killed in that explosion, but in spite of his pleas to cover the case he was instead ordered to write a Sunday Supplement article on the new citizens.Then the terrorists escaped thei...

Veteran Homicide Detective James "Big Jim" Donegan and his partner, Detective Chris Hunter, have been called to scene of their latest case, a strangled call girl who has been put halfway through a wood chipper that was left unattended in one of the city's parks.Since he was eight years old Chris Hunter has looked up to Big Jim Donegan not merely as a mentor but also as a father-figure. Today Big Jim intends to use this case, like every other crime that they have worked together, as...

"Revenge and justice burn across Texas in this gripping, grisly shootout" -- KIRKUS REVIEWS (02-10-12)Jubal Dark has been the Sheriff of Francine County, Texas for twenty years, but Dark's enemy, Texas Ranger Buck Nevins, has convinced a Houston homicide detective to run against him.Dark's failure to solve a two-year-old rape and murder, coupled with his approaching sixtieth birthday, have led many voters to decide that Jubal should be replaced.Four years earlier Da...

Big things always start small. Big steps can surely take an individual further ahead on the path of success, but it's the small steps that count – those were the steps that put the individual on the path in the first place. This is the ideology that has been discussed in this book. The author has studied ants most of his life and has always been fascinated by their relentless effort, never giving up to achieve what they want. He believes there is a lot to be learned from our little friends...

This book contains twenty Science Fiction stories totaling approximately 130,000 words. The first three stories follow Harry Dondero, the first officer of the tramp star freighter, Orion. The topics for these twenty stories cover aliens, time travel, rogue technology and more.Five of the stories were novelettes originally published in Analog Magazine.Three of the stories were written by Hayford Peirce and David Grace (then writing under the "David Alexander" name).

At the end of WW II revolutionary technology seized from Nazi slave-labor labs in central Europe was consigned to the Forbidden List to be kept secret forever.When Deputy Assistant Undersecretary of Defense Daniel Rivers stumbled across it he plotted to make a fortune from its release. Rivers' scheme was discovered and everyone relaxed when he was quietly silenced with a commitment to the Wheaton Fields Psychiatric Clinic as a paranoid schizophrenic. Relaxed that is until it was di...

Young J.T. Trainer was about to be killed for the life insurance money that would pay off his father's gambling debts. J.T.'s only friend, sixteen-year-old Hannah McGuire, discovered the plan and managed to get J.T. on a bus out of town before luring the killers in the other direction. J.T.'s last, fleeting glimpse of Hannah was of her racing off into the night with the gambler's enforcers hot on her trail.Now, twenty years later, San Diego Homicide Detective J.T. Trainer is still ...

Secretary of State Randall Tanner was shocked to discover that the President was a traitor.After three agonizing days he decided that the only possible course of action was that President had to die. Tanner initiated a plot to have President assassinated in a way that would make his death look like an accident. Because Hoskins' mistress, Sarah, knew too much she had to die as well.Five years later Sarah's alcoholic husband finds her diary which eventually falls into the han...

Raphael LaFontaine's parents were hoodoo practitioners who sold potions, infusions, vapors, and spells. While she was pregnant with him Rafael's mother ingested the herbs and roots that were her and her husband's stock and trade.From early childhood Raphael was afflicted with strange visions and fever dreams and found that he was often able to see into other people's emotions and personalities. Both a curse and a gift, these talents have served Rafe well, first as a Baltimore polic...