Bøger af Stephen Donald Huff

Every day, we confront ourselves in mirrors of various shapes and sizes. We stare into them and our reflection stares back. Within these visions, everything about our reflection is backward, opposite, and reversed. Laws of physics prevent one side from emerging into the other, but we all wonder how far those renditions of reality might go. We wonder about life on the other side. How far does our mirror's reflection imitate reality? If we could crossover to the other side, what might happen when in the twain we and our reflections meet?

A city viewed from a jet liner is eerily indistinguishable from a vast, sprawling anthill. Both are industrious mounds riddled with innumerable burrows and endless trails, which endlessly crawl with toiling creatures, all bound from one mysterious errand to another. Amid the daily crush, a hapless drone occasionally awakens to question the drudgery of its existence. Within the hive, none can help him differentiate himself, man from ant.

If you listen long enough, you may be convinced of anything. Provided the voice you heed is sufficiently provocative... provided you are prepared to ponder its lies or truths... provided it gets to you early enough. What are the origins of human evil? Is it guaranteed from birth, or is it visited upon us via infantile nightmares?

Love is a powerful human emotion. The apex of its ideal uplifts the human condition and is called 'inspiration'. Its nadir degrades the soul and is called 'fanaticism'. When the devil walks the Earth in patent leather pumps, a short skirt and all the lacy things a simple man craves, countless lives go awry and evil prospers. One man will do anything for her. Ever for her. The devil is a femme fatale. What is the price of a soul? What is the currency of its purchase?

This particular corporal served all four years of the bloodiest war in European history, many of them as a message runner - one of the most dangerous and elite jobs of trench-bound combat. By all accounts, he was a strange young man with many strange ideas. He loved the war and thought it the best time of his life. To be sure, he would survive when so many around him perished, but how? He should have died a thousand times, but nobody could kill him. Only he could do that for himself.

Through all the green, growing places of the world, water flows. It is a force of destruction and the gift of life. Without it, nothing could thrive despite the fact that it sometimes also destroys. Listen to this music of the Earth, for constant is the sound. It is the incessant symphony of life, the raucous discord of biology. In its chaotic rhythms, our heartbeats.

On the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the eleventh holy epoch, he killed God. First, you're probably asking, "Why eleven?" Second you're probably asking, "God with a capital 'G'?" Of the first question, the killer would only say "because". It's what the Big Guy wanted. Of the second question, the killer would answer "yes". God with a capital 'G'. Some say God is sleeping. Some say God is dead. In this story, the protagonist kills God with his bare hands.

Isolated by rumors of adultery and murder, 'Cat Lady Cassie' has long lived alone amid Florida's sprawling Everglades. Although she is the reluctant caretaker of thirty-one felines, she loathes cats - especially the vermin-ridden feral strays that seek shelter around her island homestead.Like the climbing fern, hydrilla and nutria - and much like herself - the cats are an invasive species. They are all foreign intruders, lost yet thriving among formerly pristine swamplands. Lately, an eerie silence rules the hollows and basins that surround her porch. Even the largest alligators have gone missing. Clearly, a ravenous new invader has arrived to trouble paradise.

Wealthy and bored, this unique human being has discovered an unusual way to pass the time of day. His story will both amuse and disturb you, for you might at one time or another become the victim of his elaborate pranks. This is the story of an ordeal he calls his "Dumping Game". As its name implies, it begins with garbage and ends with garbage, but its ultimate goal is the destruction of human lives and the dismantlement of otherwise happy families. Depending upon your own disposition, you will love him or hate him. One thing is certain, however... he loathes you! Follow along as the "Dumping Game" progresses from an apparently harmless prank to a human journey into madness and mayhem. Your guide along the way is a misanthropic eccentric with nothing better to do. Have any strange packages arrived on your front porch lately?

And I open my mind, I say what needs to be said, I tell all I am bid tell, omit nothing, for here is your meat, and here your drink; dine in halls with daddy deceit as children seated along a long table, all fidgeting in your chairs, all wishing not to hear what must be heard. And I open my eyes I see what remains to be seen, I relate everything relative, save nothing for myself, I feed you from the cupboards of my mind and grin as you consume, your children's faces all smiles and happy, your eyes wide with wonder. And I open my mouth, I speak of nightfalls to come, warn of depravities yet done, linger over moot points of gesture while your bellies grumble and your anxious wounds fester.Poetry is often at its best when it represents naivety's screed. That is, when we hear it in the wounded howls of inexperienced youth, the indignant cries of misplaced hopelessness, the scolding hisses of childish hypocrisy, or the airy boasting of arrogant fools.

On a lonely plot of land in the middle of a desolate night, a forlorn man sits drinking and smoking on his porch as he watches a sinister shadow slowly, intrepidly crossing the abandoned rows of a forgotten farm. While a damaged siphon pump works rhythmically in the distance, he ponders the nature of destiny and fate. Will he survive the evening? Something black and terrifying crosses fallow rows, bound for your porch lamp in the darkness. Welcome or no, fate never knocks.

Klis would be their first failure and it would mark the end of their conquest. When the first Mongol envoy entered its city walls, he offered its citizens the same thing Mongols offered every conquest - tribute or extermination. Its city inhabitants would refuse the former to brave the latter and they would survive. Mongol hordes once marched from the Far East into Europe. There, they encountered their first breaking point at the fortified city of Klis.

He was an enigma and a genius. He was perhaps the greatest chess strategist of all time. Unable to relate to his fellow human beings, he relied upon his pieces in rank and file for all his companionship and comfort. Though their friendship is decidedly one-sided, his long-suffering assistant tells how his mad genius would lead the nation out of the most costly and deadly war ever waged between men. The bloodiest conflict in history was in an endless state of stalemate. Only a mad genius could save humankind from itself, but the price for victory might be too high to pay.

They are the outcast, forgotten, overlooked refuse of the world. Nothing matters to them, and they matter to no-one. He retains a zest for life despite its futility, but she has decided to stop the train and step off. He will watch her go without a word, but she will take his heart with her. Sunset over the water and the two of them standing at the center of a high bridge. One must make the hardest choice of a lifetime.

He found a side trail to avoid the bullies of his new neighborhood. It is a lost way through a forgotten cemetery and not even the bravest of his tormentors will walk there. For him, the shortcut is a form of salvation from unwarranted attacks, but for his mother and stepfather it is an excruciating mystery, when through the 'Meadows he goes. Take the shortcut home. You might never arrive.

On Friday, October 13th of 1307, the Knights Templar ceased to exist. Imprisoned, tortured and executed, in a single day, every soldier of that once-powerful order became a capital offender with no hope for reprieve. Fabulously wealthy at the time, the Templars owned vast estates that safeguarded legendary caches of treasure. Though their enemies seized much of their property, rumors of lost hordes echo through history to the present day. Having survived the disastrous purge of 1307, a Templar sergeant and chaplain flee to the relative safety of Portugal, where they learn the fate of the order's most sacred talisman. Not every legend is a lie.

I heard the call, the tone of it teasing, a broadcast chorus of incessant singing amid devilish choirs of insidious patter, the dry rasping of scales and portentous matter to cast shadows of sounds among us that must listen, beyond maddened distraction, inaudible vision. For I heard the call, the lies of it pleasing, then I followed it blindly where it would lead me. Beyond death and disaster through ranges of never, I learned listening is ruin and blindness is error. I cursed blackness of bruises, I despised the tender of capital expenditures and I as the lender. I heard the call, and I hated its message, for pipedream pursuits earn the wickedest of blessings, and the laziest among us are perhaps the smartest. The happiest of our number is the unhappy artist; they too quickly learned how nothing is of matter - not the singers, not the choir, not the subject of the patter.Often, the most popular modern poetry demonstrates a determined morbidity, and many of our most beloved poets perished by their own hands. Doing so, they left behind countless keepsakes of grief, but I will not label their passage as 'tragic'. I believe a martyr's suffering demands happy witness. Otherwise, why hang upon a cross?

Pyatak, in Russian, means "slash five". It is the last stop for the most violent and incorrigible prisoners in the modern Russian penal system. Famously, it is said to have two ways in and only one way out. Inmates enter its cages via a dilapidated, one-hundred-year-old foot bridge or an aging boat. The only way they leave is via their grave. Lately, however, many of its worst have gone missing from their cells, although they never escaped its walls. Something ancient and evil has alighted in Pyatak. A mysterious entity, it is both vicious and insatiable. No one is safe.

In the distant future of humankind, an unscrupulous government has embarked on a program of colonization, sending one moon-sized transport after another careening into the cosmic gulf, each utterly dependent upon the one gone before. The hapless voyagers of Brigantine are first in the line and tragedy has befallen them. Stranded far from home, their starship must rise from the ashes of a terrible conflagration, and he must lead them from beyond the threshold of a fiery grave. Billions of lives depend upon his success.

Born to the street and abandoned by his paranoid, drug-addicted mother, a young boy struggles to evade vicious predators, who hope to exploit him, and insistent authorities, who hope to save him. His only ally is his extreme natural intelligence, and his only home is the public library. Daily, the noose tightens after his mother, his last link to childhood, goes missing. His future seems as bleak as the cold, hard streets. Then he meets Longbow. In a gritty, existential world rife with threats, a young boy fights to survive. One man has the power to save him.

The lumps on Tuggle Imp's head will soon converge atop his dented skull. After eons of review, he suspects this merger will correspond to a portentous lunar alignment. Such coincidence has happened from time to time throughout his centuries-long interment in hell, but Tuggle believes this particular conjunction will mark the location of a redeeming auspice hidden somewhere among purgatory's endless acres. Provided that he stands in the right spot at the right time, of course, so the two lumps conjoin within the divot's cup to complete an obvious triangulation.Yet trials of perdition are never simple or easy. During the final desperate hours of his quest, Tuggle must confront the amorous pursuit of Toad Woman and her relentless guide, little-dog. Each in their own way, both are dedicated to his torment. To avoid descending into a lower level of the underworld, he must overcome his infernal nature to embrace a detested change of character. Somehow, Tuggle Imp must learn to love!

This home has a history as unforgettable as it is undeniable. Many generations have lived and died within its walls and many of those who died linger beyond the grave to dwell there still. Stop in for a weekend of mystery and fun. Thrill to the unexplained thumps, taps and footsteps. Marvel at the passing cold in the heat of a southern summer. Is it your imagination? Or is it the Immaculate?

He recently returned from an uneventful patrol through the near space of his solar system. Though he recalls nothing odd about the voyage, something has gone terribly wrong. Standing before a mirror in his home, he realizes he has somehow found himself on the wrong side of backwards. Left to right. Right to left. Everyone knows that mirrors reflect everything backwards. Right?

God's second son. Humankind's second sin. His crime, the first crime. Therefore, the greatest. After he murdered his brother, the bloody stone tumbled from his left hand, and he covered his youthful victim with earth. This, a tale told endlessly throughout eons of human existence. Yet history has always told it wrong, for his is a story without end. A fallen angel or a cursed man, one incarnate immortal soul walks among humankind through endless centuries of history. He is as irredeemable as he is unrepentant.

Raised in an automated environment maintained within a mysterious spacecraft, they know their unseen caretaker as Dangy, which manifests itself before them as an ethereal pair of hands. Can they survive a long and perilous journey across the cosmos to arrive at a paradise that they are engineered to re-populate? They are the last hope of a doomed world. Dangy's hands will keep them comfortable and safe during their long voyage to sanctuary.

He hates clowns. His wife thinks they're cute. When they unexpectedly inherit an unimaginable fortune complete with fast cars, fine furnishings, and multiple large houses, they learn nothing comes free. The one catch to their apparent good fortune is a clockworks harlequin. Animated and entertaining, the life-size doll initially appears to be nothing more than yet another of his estranged uncle's bizarre idiosyncrasies. Nothing could be further from the truth. No need to wind it. It doesn't require batteries. This life-size clown runs on the power of black magic!

At the last stop for provisions before they make their climb into the snowy mountains of Colorado, the locals tease these teenaged tourists about their lack of preparation for such a cold and unforgiving frontier. Though they scoff, these unfortunate youths will soon learn why the old-timers claim that the mountains sometimes keep their dead. When they put out the 'TIRE CHAINS' signs, beware. It's not just the ice, it's the snow, too.

Lost in the anonymity of a big city, he dreams of faraway places that languish beneath broad, cloudless skies. He dreams of endless horizons and expansive landscapes. He dreams of Texas - somehow, he will get there, no matter the cost. It's a long, hot walk. Start now to get there later.

She takes her job seriously. Whether it be unruly school children or an armed madman, she tolerates no mischief aboard her school bus. When confronted by her worst nightmare, this bus driver will pull out all the stops to make certain her young passengers get home safely. When a crazed gunman boards a bus full of small children, it makes for a bad day at school. This bus driver will make certain its most deserving passenger boarded with a one-way ticket.

In this version of the future, science has learned how to identify a propensity for violence within the human mind before it manifests as action, and the violent ones have become targets for extermination. This is a humane, disciplined and well-intended social program, and civilization expects its unfortunate recipients to make dutiful sacrifices. Unfortunately, this sort of person is not likely to go without a fight. In the not-so-distant future, violence among humankind is on its way out. Almost.