Reading and Writing: Generes

Action/Adventure:  

An adventure is an event or series of events that happens outside the course of the protagonist's ordinary life, usually accompanied by danger, often by physical action. Adventure stories almost always move quickly, and the pace of the plot is at least as important as characterization, setting and other elements of a creative work.
-Critic Don D'Ammassa, Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction,

“ It’s still a great time for adventurers. ”
― Tim Lebbon, Predator: Incursion

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.'
I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit or There and Back Again

WHAT IS ADVENTURE? First of all, it’s a big idea: On some level, everybody wants their lives to be one. The spirit of adventure makes us want to explore the world, take some risks, and have rich, surprising, memorable experiences.
John Rasmus The New Age of Adventure (2009) . National Geographic Society. Kindle Edition.

Modern Day Adventure: “Where do we go from here?”
Kippmann motioned Pitt into the car.
“Disneyland” he said solemnly, “to stop a double murder.”
-_-__--
Next to the cleverly engineered apparitions in the Disneyland Haunted House, The Pirates of the Caribbean is the most popular attraction in the world-famous park. Constructed on two underground levels that occupy nearly two acres, the quarter-of-a-mile boat ride carries awed passengers through a maze of tunnels and vast rooms decorated as roving pirate ships and pillaged seaside towns, manned by almost a hundred lifelike figures that not only match the best of Madam Tussaud’s, but who also sing, dance and loot.
Pitt moved to the center of the arched bridge over the canal and joined in the singing amid three merry buccaneers who sat with their legs dangling over the fake stone parapet, swirling their cutlasses around in circles in tune with the songfest. Pitt in his Big Bad Wolf suit and the frolicking pirates presented a strange sight to the people in the boat as they waved and sang the famous old seafaring ditty. The children, a girl about ten and a boy, Pitt guessed, no more than seven, soon recognized him as the three-dimensional cartoon character and began waving back.
Castile and De Croix also laughed and then saluted him in Spanish, pointing and joking to themselves while the tall bald assassin and his accomplice, the broad-shouldered brute, sat stony-faced, unmoved by the performance. It occurred to Pitt that he was on thin ice, on which not merely a false move, but the tiniest miscalculation of any detail could spell death to the men, woman and children who sat innocently enjoying his antics.
-Clive Cussler, Iceberg

Real Life Adventurer:
Almost any animal is dangerous when aroused. In 1926 I came close to being killed by a tapir, the meekest of animals. As I slapped that fistful of ointment over the tapir’s spine he started running. I followed as best I could, with my hand over his back like a bareback rider preparing to leap aboard his charger. Suddenly the animal whirled around, dropped back a few feet and charged straight at me, burying his head in my stomach and knocking the wind out of me as his six hundred pounds sent me sprawling on my back. I had hardly hit the ground when the Meekest of Animals jumped on me, his front feet bearing down on my chest, his hind feet on the ground.
-Frank Buck, Bring ’Em Back Alive: The Best of Frank Buck

I pulled the map from my back pocket. It was wet and crumpled, the lines I had traced to highlight my route now faded. I stared at my markings, hoping that they might lead me out of the Amazon, rather than deeper into it. The letter Z was still visible in the center of the map. Yet it seemed less like a signpost than like a taunt, another testament to my folly. I had always considered myself a disinterested reporter who did not get involved personally in his stories. While others often seemed to succumb to their mad dreams and obsessions, I tried to be the invisible witness. And I had convinced myself that that was why I had traveled more than ten thousand miles, from New York to London to the Xingu River, one of the longest tributaries of the Amazon, why I had spent months poring over hundreds of pages of Victorian diaries and letters, and why I had left behind my wife and one-year-old son and taken out an extra insurance policy on my life.
I told myself that I had come simply to record how generations of scientists and adventurers became fatally obsessed with solving what has often been described as “the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century”—the whereabouts of the lost City of Z. The ancient city, with its network of roads and bridges and temples, was believed to be hidden in the Amazon, the largest jungle in the world. In an age of airplanes and satellites, the area remains one of the last blank spaces on the map. For hundreds of years, it has haunted geographers, archaeologists, empire builders, treasure hunters, and philosophers. When Europeans first arrived in South America, around the turn of the sixteenth century, they were convinced that the jungle contained the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands died looking for it. In more recent times, many scientists have concluded that no complex civilization could have emerged in so hostile an environment, where the soil is agriculturally poor, mosquitoes carry lethal diseases, and predators lurk in the forest canopy.
-David Grann, The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

Classic Adventure:

Tarzan of the Apes needed no interpreter to translate the story of those distant shots. With Jane Porter's kisses still warm upon his lips he was swinging with incredible rapidity through the forest trees straight toward the village of Mbonga.

He was not interested in the location of the encounter, for he judged that that would soon be over. Those who were killed he could not aid, those who escaped would not need his assistance.
It was to those who had neither been killed or escaped that he hastened. And he knew that he would find them by the great post in the center of Mbonga village.

Many times had Tarzan seen Mbonga's raiding parties return from the northward with prisoners, and always were the same scenes enacted about that grim stake, beneath the flaring light of many fires.
He knew, too, that they seldom lost much time before consummating the fiendish purpose of their captures. He doubted that he would arrive in time to do more than avenge.

On he sped. Night had fallen and he traveled high along the upper terrace where the gorgeous tropic moon lighted the dizzy pathway through the gently undulating branches of the tree tops.

In a few minutes more Tarzan swung into the trees above Mbonga's village. Ah, he was not quite too late! Or, was he? He could not tell. The figure at the stake was very still, yet the warriors were but pricking it.
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes

“It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

"No animal had a chance with me anymore. That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct. Instinct is no match for reason. When I thought of this it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you."

Rainsford leaned across the table, absorbed in what his host was saying.

"It came to me as an inspiration what I must do," the general went on.

"And that was?"

The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and surmounted it with success. "I had to invent a new animal to hunt," he said.

"A new animal? You're joking."

"Not at all," said the general. "I never joke about hunting. I needed a new animal. I found one. So I bought this island built this house, and here I do my hunting. The island is perfect for my purposes--there are jungles with a maze of traits in them, hills, swamps--"

"But the animal, General Zaroff?"

"Oh," said the general, "it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I can match my wits."

Rainsford's bewilderment showed in his face.

"I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, `What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course, `It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason."'

"But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford.

"My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can."

"But you can't mean--" gasped Rainsford.

"And why not?
― Richard Connell, The Most Dangerous Game


Nautical Adventure:
“We are motionless. The sea is polished. There is no sky but only a hot whiteness that descends like a curtain in every side, dropping, as it were, even below the horizon and so diminishing the circle of the ocean that is visible to us. The circle itself is of a light an luminescent blue. Now and then some sea creature will shatter the surface and the silence by leaping through it. Yet even when nothing leaps there is a constant shuddering, random twitches and vibrations of the surface, as if the water were not only the home and haunt of all sea creatures but the skin of a living thing, a creature vaster than Leviathan.”
― William Golding, Rites of Passage

NOT EVERY THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL IS ACCUSED OF MURDER, brought to trial, and found guilty. But I was just such a girl, and my story is worth relating even if it did happen years ago. Be warned, however, this is no Story of a Bad Boy, no What Katy Did. If strong ideas and action offend you, read no more. Find another companion to share your idle hours. For my part I intend to tell the truth as I lived it.

I was given a volume of blank pages—how typical of my father!—and instructed to keep a daily journal of my voyage across the ocean so that the writing of it should prove of educational value to me. Indeed, my father warned me that not only would he read the journal and comment upon it, but he would pay particular attention to spelling—not my strongest suit. Keeping that journal then is what enables me to relate now in perfect detail everything that transpired during that fateful voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in the summer of 1832.
-Avi, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle


Spy Adventures: THERE ARE moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service.
― Ian Fleming, Live and Let Die 

 “He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.”
― Ian Fleming, Casino Royale


“I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that's me—Cammie the Chameleon. But I'm luckier than most because, at my school, that's considered cool.

I go to a school for spies.”

Of course, technically, the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a school for geniuses—not spies—and we’re free to pursue any career that befits our exceptional educations. But when a school tells you that, and then teaches you things like advanced encryption and fourteen different languages, it’s kind of like big tobacco telling kids not to smoke; so all of us Gallagher Girls know lip service when we hear it. Even my mom rolls her eyes but doesn’t correct me when I call it spy school, and she’s the headmistress. Of course, she’s also a retired CIA operative, and it was her idea for me to write this, my first Covert Operations Report, to summarize what happened last semester. She’s always telling us that the worst part of the spy life isn’t the danger—it’s the paperwork. After all, when you’re on a plane home from Istanbul with a nuclear warhead in a hatbox, the last thing you want to do is write a report about it. So that’s why I’m writing this—for the practice.
― Ally Carter, I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Swashbuckler Adventure
The word “swashbuckler” conjures up an indelible image: a hero who’s a bit of a rogue but has his own code of honor, an adventurer with laughter on his lips and a flashing sword in his hand. This larger-than-life figure is regularly declared passé, but the swashbuckler is too appealing to ever really die. Who wouldn’t want to face deadly danger with confidence and élan? Who can deny the thrill of clashing blades, hairbreadth escapes, and daring rescues, of facing vile treachery with dauntless courage and passionate devotion? Sign me up, please.
-Lawrence Ellsworth,   The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure: Classic Tales of Dashing Heroes, Dastardly Villains, and Daring Escapes   

What diabolical villainy you have performed here,” said Porthos, when the officer had rejoined his companions and the four friends found themselves alone.
“Well, I am in a maze,” said Porthos; “do YOU approve of what d’Artagnan has done?”
“PARBLEU! Indeed I do,” said Athos; “I not only approve of what he has done, but I congratulate him upon it.”
“And now, gentlemen,” said d’Artagnan, without stopping to explain his conduct to Porthos, “All for one, one for all--that is our motto, is it not?”
“And yet--” said Porthos.
“Hold out your hand and swear!” cried Athos and Aramis at once.
Overcome by example, grumbling to himself, nevertheless, Porthos stretched out his hand, and the four friends repeated with one voice the formula dictated by d’Artagnan:
“All for one, one for all.”
“That’s well! Now let us everyone retire to his own home,” said d’Artagnan, as if he had done nothing but command all his life; “and attention! For from this moment we are at feud with the cardinal.”― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

"Señor Zorro, eh?" Gonzales cried in a terrible voice.  "Is it my fate always to hear that name?  Señor Zorro, eh?  Mr. Fox, in other words!  He imagines, I take it, that he is as cunning as one.  By the saints, he raises as much stench!"
Gonzales gulped, turned to face them squarely, and continued his tirade. 
"He runs up and down the length of El Camino Real like a goat of the high hills!  He wears a mask, and he flashes a pretty blade, they tell me.  He uses the point of it to carve his hated letter 'Z' on the cheek of his foe!  Ha!  The Mark of Zorro they are calling it!  A pretty blade he has, in truth!  But I cannot swear as to the blade – I never have seen it.  He will not do me the honor of letting me see it!  Señor Zorro's depredations never occur in the vicinity of Sergeant Pedro Gonzales!  Perhaps this Señor Zorro can tell us the reason for that?  Ha!" He glared at the men before him, drew back his upper lip, and let the ends of his great black mustache bristle. 
Johnston McCulley, Mark of Zorro   
http://swashbucklingadventure.net/books/the-big-book-of-swashbuckling-adventure/

Animals

Non-Fictional Natural Animals: “Beavers, the animal that doubles as an ecosystem, are ecological and hydrological Swiss Army knives, capable, in the right circumstances, of tackling just about any landscape-scale problem you might confront. Trying to mitigate floods or improve water quality? There’s a beaver for that. Hoping to capture more water for agriculture in the face of climate change? Add a beaver. Concerned about sedimentation, salmon populations, wildfire? Take two families of beaver and check back in a year.
― Ben Goldfarb, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

Non-Fictional Animal Stories: THEY DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING about this in the books, I thought, as the snow blew in through the gaping doorway and settled on my naked back. I lay face down on the cobbled floor in a pool of nameless muck, my arm deep inside the straining cow, my feet scrabbling for a toe hold between the stones. I was stripped to the waist and the snow mingled with the dirt and the dried blood on my body. I could see nothing outside the circle of flickering light thrown by the smoky oil lamp which the farmer held over me. No, there wasn’t a word in the books about searching for your ropes and instruments in the shadows; about trying to keep clean in a half bucket of tepid water; about the cobbles digging into your chest. Nor about the slow numbing of the arms, the creeping paralysis of the muscles as the fingers tried to work against the cow’s powerful expulsive efforts. There was no mention anywhere of the gradual exhaustion, the feeling of futility and the little far-off voice of panic.
James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small 

Fictional Dogs : “Then suddenly there was a flash, and thunder pealed. Lassie hesitated and whined in a quick, querulous tone. She was frightened. It is little use to blame a dog for having fear. A dog has so many braveries that its few fears do not cancel them out. And truth to tell, there are few collies that can stand thunder and lightning.”
― Eric Knight, Lassie Come-Home

Fictional Horses: Well, my dear,” she said, “how do you like him?”
“He is exactly what John said,” he replied; “a pleasanter creature I never wish to mount. What shall we call him?”
“Would you like Ebony?” said she; “he is as black as ebony.”
“No, not Ebony.”
“Will you call him Blackbird, like your uncle's old horse?”
“No, he is far handsomer than old Blackbird ever was.”
“Yes,” she said, “he is really quite a beauty, and he has such a sweet, good-tempered face, and such a fine, intelligent eye—what do you say to calling him Black Beauty?”
“Black Beauty—why, yes, I think that is a very good name. If you like it shall be his name;” and so it was.
When John went into the stable he told James that master and mistress had chosen a good, sensible English name for me, that meant something; not like Marengo, or Pegasus, or Abdallah. They both laughed, and James said, “If it was not for bringing back the past, I should have named him Rob Roy, for I never saw two horses more alike.”
― Anna Sewell , Black Beauty

Animal Fantasy: "There—is—an—underground—passage," said the Badger, impressively, "that leads from the river-bank, quite near here, right up into the middle of Toad Hall."

"O, nonsense! Badger," said Toad, rather airily. "You've been listening to some of the yarns they spin in the public-houses about here. I know every inch of Toad Hall, inside and out. Nothing of the sort, I do assure you!"

"My young friend," said the Badger, with great severity, "your father, who was a worthy animal—a lot worthier than some others I know—was a particular friend of mine, and told me a great deal he wouldn't have dreamt   of telling you. He discovered that passage—he didn't make it, of course; that was done hundreds of years before he ever came to live there—and he repaired it and cleaned it out, because he thought it might come in useful some day, in case of trouble or danger; and he showed it to me. 'Don't let my son know about it,' he said. 'He's a good boy, but very light and volatile in character, and simply cannot hold his tongue. If he's ever in a real fix, and it would be of use to him, you may tell him about the secret passage; but not before.'"

The other animals looked hard at Toad to see how he would take it. Toad was inclined to be sulky at first; but he brightened up immediately, like the good fellow he was.

"Well, well," (Toad)  said; "perhaps I am a bit of a talker. A popular fellow such as I am—my friends get round me—we chaff, we sparkle, we tell witty stories—and somehow my tongue gets wagging. I have the gift of conversation. I've been told I ought to have a salon, whatever that may be. Never mind. Go on, Badger. How's this passage of yours going to help us?"

"I've found out a thing or two lately," continued the Badger. "I got Otter to disguise himself as a sweep and call at the back-door with brushes over his shoulder, asking for a job. There's going to be a big banquet to-morrow night. It's somebody's birthday—the Chief Weasel's, I believe—and all the weasels will be gathered together in the dining-hall, eating and drinking and laughing and carrying on, suspecting nothing. No guns, no swords, no sticks, no arms of any sort whatever!"

"But the sentinels will be posted as usual," remarked the Rat.

"Exactly," said the Badger; "that is my point. The weasels will trust entirely to their excellent sentinels. And that is where the passage comes in. That very useful tunnel leads right up under the butler's pantry, next to the dining-hall!"

"Aha! that squeaky board in the butler's pantry!" said Toad. "Now I understand it!"

"We shall creep out quietly into the butler's pantry—" cried the Mole.

"—with our pistols and swords and sticks—" shouted the Rat.  

"—and rush in upon them," said the Badger.

"—and whack 'em, and whack 'em, and whack 'em!" cried the Toad in ecstasy, running round and round the room, and jumping over the chairs.

"Very well, then," said the Badger, resuming his usual dry manner, "our plan is settled, and there's nothing more for you to argue and squabble about. So, as it's getting very late, all of you go right off to bed at once. We will make all the necessary arrangements in the course of the morning to-morrow."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

“But we have received a sign, Edith - a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm... in the middle of the web there were the words 'Some Pig'... we have no ordinary pig."

"Well", said Mrs. Zuckerman, "it seems to me you're a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.”
― E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

Mythic Animals: “The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.”
― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

Cryptozoology: To most persons familiar with the term, cryptozoology is seen as the study of such spectacular and disputed creatures as Sasquatch, the Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster. These legendary beasts do interest cryptozoologists, but such “cryptids” (as cryptozoologists call them) comprise only a fraction of the hidden, uncatalogued, or out-of-place animals that have intrigued and frustrated cryptozoologists before cryptozoology as such existed.
-Loren Coleman, Cryptozoology A To Z: The Encyclopedia Of Loch Monsters Sasquatch Chupacabras And Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature

Extinct Animals: Muldoon drove slowly toward the river, moving closer to the tyrannosaur. “But those are all mammals. We know a lot about handling mammals, because zoos are built around the big mammalian attractions—lions, tigers, bears, elephants. We know a lot less about reptiles. And nobody knows anything about dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are new animals.” “You consider them reptiles?” Gennaro said. “No,” Muldoon said, shifting gears. “Dinosaurs don’t fit existing categories.” He swerved to avoid a rock. “Actually, what we find is, the dinosaurs were as variable as mammals are today. Some dinos are tame and cute, and some are mean and nasty. Some of them see well, and some of them don’t. Some of them are stupid, and some of them are very, very intelligent.” “Like the raptors?” Gennaro said. Muldoon nodded. “Raptors are smart. Very smart. Believe me, all the problems we have so far,” he said, “are nothing compared with what we’d have if the raptors ever got out of their holding pen.
-Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

Amish/Christian

The world of the Amish is ripe for mystery, romance, horror, drama, and possibly comedy. It is true life time travel. You leave the advanced world of today and step into the past of the present. The Amish are a peculiar people with their own society, culture and customs and a landscape ready for any story you may throw at it.
- Mark Wilson

Amish Non-Fiction: “To air dry clothes by choice is countercultural. And who, more than any other group in twenty-first-century America, is both countercultural and committed to air drying clothes? Has intact families? Healthy communities? Gardens, home-cooked meals, and uncluttered homes? Restrained use of technology, strong local economies, and almost nonexistent debt? Most of all, what group has kept simplicity, service, and faith at the center of all they say and do? The Amish! All of which led to my epiphany: few of us can become Amish, but all of us can become almost Amish.”
― Nancy Sleeth, Almost Amish: One Woman's Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life

Amish Fiction: The strangers were coming, as they did every Thursday night, to bring a burst of color into our plain home. I circled the dining room, checking each lantern to be sure there was enough fuel inside. June sunlight streamed through the windows, but by the end of dinner we’d need the lanterns to brighten the room and help the guests find their way back to their cars, parked in a crooked row on the lawn behind our buggy.

I tried to settle my jittery limbs as I folded a napkin beside each plate. My head was filled with thoughts about what the strangers would look like and how many holes would be in their earlobes and how many colors would streak through their hair. My mother always scolded me that these guests were coming to dine on a simple Amish meal and take a peek at our lives. She didn’t want me to be peeking at theirs. They live in their world and we live in ours, she would say, as though that would satisfy my curiosity.

I’d often thought about what it would be like to meet English teenagers. In my imaginings I would strike up clever conversations with them, and they’d tell me about music and movies and dancing. But now they were here, and I was awkward and tongue-tied.

 “We may not have computers or telephones or television, but we have books and conversations. And we talk to each other in person, not through e-mails and texts.”
― Nancy Grossman, A World Away

Amish Memoir: The Old Order Amish are a pretty exclusive group. And there really aren’t that many around. By latest official count, right at a quarter million worldwide. It just seems as if there are a lot more, because, well, the Amish are so different. So visible. So quaint and old fashioned. And so ideal. At least from the outside. It’s not their fault that English society finds them endlessly fascinating. Mostly, they just prefer to be left alone. A few defining factors must exist for one to be considered Old Order. First, and most critical, no cars. Horse and buggy only for local transportation. Second, no electricity. Not in the house or in the outbuildings. Third, no telephones in the house. Old Order Amish fiercely and jealously defend these boundaries.
-Ira Wagler, Growing Up Amish: A Memoir 

Amish Fantastic: I was no stranger to death. We Amish lived close to the earth, under the watchful
watchful eye of God and all of his kingdom. I had helped with the butchering of pigs, mourned the loss of dogs at my kennel in whelping. I had stood at the bedsides of my grandparents when they died. I’d held my mother’s last child, a stillborn, and witnessed a neighbor die during childbirth. Those things had happened in normal life. But when life stopped and God’s kingdom fell into shadow, I saw death in an entirely different fashion. I had dressed the bodies of women in my community for burial, only to be forced to cut their heads off before daylight’s fingers of sunshine had left them. I had seen children torn asunder, reduced to unrecognizable smears on a ceiling. I had slain men who were once like brothers to me, impaled them, and burned them. I had seen too much. I had seen true Darkness.
-Laura Bickle, The Outside (The Hallowed Ones Book 2)  

Children’s

“I had been reading children's books all my life and saw them not as minor amusements but as part of the whole literary mainstream; not as "juveniles" or "kiddie lit," one of the most demeaning terms in the scholastic jargon.
My belief was, and is, that the child's book is a unique and valid art form; a means of dealing with things which cannot be dealt with quite as well in any other way. There is, I'm convinced, no inner, qualitative difference between writing for adults and writing for children. The raw materials are the same for both: the human condition and our response to it.”
― Lloyd Alexander

“The prime function of the children's book writer is to write a book that is so absorbing, exciting, funny, fast and beautiful that the child will fall in love with it. And that first love affair between the young child and the young book will lead hopefully to other loves for other books and when that happens the battle is probably won. The child will have found a crock of gold. He will also have gained something that will help to carry him most marvelously through the tangles of his later years.
Roald Dahl”
― Roald dahl

 “Many adults feel that every children's book has to teach them something.... My theory is a children's book... can be just for fun.”
― R.L. Stine

Children’s Classics: “There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Children’s Fantasy: “As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool—not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others—a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

Children’s Non-Fantasy: “How about mud?” Alan asked Billy. “You wouldn’t eat a bite of mud.”
Alan argued a lot, small knobby-kneed, nervous, gnawing at his thumbnail, his face smudged, his red hair mussed, shirttail hanging out, shoelaces untied.
“Sure I would,” Billy said. “Mud. What’s mud? Just kirt with a little water in it. My father says everyone eats a pound of dirt every year anyway.”
“How about worms?” Alan asked Billy.
“Sure,” said Billy. “Why not? Worms are just dirt.”
“Yeah, but they bleed.”
“So you’d have to cook them. Cows bleed.”
“I bet a hundred dollars you wouldn’t really eat a worm. You talk big now, but you wouldn’t if you were sitting at the dinner table with a worm on your plate.”
“I bet I would. I’d eat fifteen worms if somebody’d bet me a hundred dollars.”
“You really want to bet? I’ll bet you fifty dollars you can’t eat fifteen worms. I really will.”
-Thomas Rockwell, How to Eat Fried Worms 

Classic Lit: 

“Atticus said to Jem one day, "I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father’s right," she said. "Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.”
― Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.”
― J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Comic Books/Graphic Novels/Magna

Comic Books:
For years they had lurked in the shadowy corners of popular culture, quietly pursuing their niche interests among themselves, keeping their heads down to avoid the inquisitive, judgmental gaze of the wider world. They called themselves fans, experts, otaku. Everyone else, of course, called them nerds. Nerds had spent decades creating and policing carefully wrought self-identities around their strictly specialized interests: comic books, computers, science fiction, video games, Dungeons & Dragons. What truly united them, however, were not the specific objects of their enthusiasm but the nature of their enthusiasm itself—the all-consuming degree to which they rejected the reflexive irony their peers prized. Instead, these fans blithely surrendered themselves to their passion. The rise of the Internet would fuel this passion by connecting them to others who shared it. In only a handful of years, their particular species of enthusiasm—“nerding out”—would supplant irony to become the dominant mode in which we engage with each other and with the culture around us.
-Glen Weldon, The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture 

About Comic Books: “Simon's walls were covered in what looked like pages ripped from a comic book, but when I squinted, I realized they were hand drawn. Some were black-and-white, but most were in full color,
everything from character sketches to splash panels to full pages, done in a style that wasn't quite manga, wasn't quite comic book.”
― Kelley Armstrong, The Summoning

Reading classic and contemporary superhero comic books now, with the benefit of a Ph.D. in physics, I have found many examples of the correct description and application of physics concepts. Of course, nearly without exception, the use of superpowers themselves involves direct violations of the known laws of physics, requiring a deliberate and willful suspension of disbelief. However, many comics needed only a single “miracle exception”—one extraordinary thing you have to buy into—and the rest that follows as the hero and villain square off would be consistent with the principles of science. While the intent of these stories has always primarily been to entertain, if at the same time the reader was also educated, either deliberately or accidentally, this was a happy bonus.
-James Kakalios, The Physics of Superheroes

The pleasure of reading a story and wondering what will come next for the hero is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and, I think, will always be with us.
-Stan Lee


“Socrates should have written comics.”
― Mark Waid

 “Nowadays I’m really cranky about comics. Because most of them are just really, really poorly written soft-core. And I miss good old storytelling. And you know what else I miss? Super powers. Why is it now that everybody’s like “I can reverse the polarity of your ions!” Like in one big flash everybody’s Doctor Strange. I like the guys that can stick to walls and change into sand and stuff. I don’t understand anything anymore. And all the girls are wearing nothing, and they all look like they have implants. Well, I sound like a very old man, and a cranky one, but it’s true.”
― Joss Whedon

Comic Book Characters:
LEGEND HAS IT THAT SUPERMAN was born under a fiery red sun on the futuristic planet of Krypton, in a crystal tower overlooking the Jewel Mountains and the Scarlet Jungle. But the legend has it wrong. In fact, Superman was born under a hazy yellow sun in a gritty Jewish precinct of Cleveland, two blocks from the Hebrew Orthodox Old Age Home and down the street from Glenville High. Just ask Jerry Siegel. He’s the one who brought him to life there in the throes of the Great Depression.
-Larry Tye,  Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero

 “The world of full of exceptional people. The people in the world who do kindness, or search for the truth despite their lives being at risk. The engineers, the teachers, the doctors, and adoptive parents, the scholars and the firemen, and yes, the journalists. People who risk everything for the sake of others and those who simply try to help those whose needed be greater than their own. Those people inspire me, not the other way around.” -Superman, Strange Attractors

“Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it's a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe”
― Lex Luthor

Marvel’s colorful creations—the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange—built the groundwork for a self-contained fictional construct called “The Marvel Universe,” in which all heroes’ adventures were intertwined with great complexity. Soon their rapidly expanding world also included the likes of the X-Men, a gang of ostracized mutant schoolchildren whose struggle against discrimination paralleled the civil rights movement, and Daredevil, a blind lawyer whose other senses were heightened to inhuman levels. The Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Silver Surfer, and countless others followed. For twelve cents an issue, Marvel Comics delivered fascinatingly dysfunctional protagonists, literary flourishes, and eye-popping images to little kids, Ivy Leaguers, and hippies alike.
-Sean Howe, Marvel Comics :The Untold Story

Sauron: With the DNA we liberated from the grave desecration you call a museum, I have perfected the saurianization process. You rice paper puppets will be given forms befitting Earth's dominant species.

Spider-Man: You can rewrite DNA on the fly, and you're using it to turn people into dinosaurs? But with tech like that, you could cure cancer!

Sauron: But I don't want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs.

-Spider-Man and the X-Men Vol 1 2



Graphic Novel: “Every time you look up at the stars, it’s like opening a door. You could be anyone, anywhere. You could be yourself at any moment in your life. You open that door and you realize you’re the same person under the same stars. Camping out in the backyard with your best friend, eleven years old. Sixteen, driving alone, stopping at the edge of the city, looking up at the same stars. Walking a wooded path, kissing in the moonlight, look up and you’re eleven again. Chasing cats in a tiny town, you’re eleven again, you’re sixteen again. You’re in a rowboat. You’re staring out the back of a car. Out here where the world begins and ends, it’s like nothing ever stops happening.”
― Bryan Lee O'Malley, Lost at Sea

“That pompous phrase (graphic novel) was thought up by some idiot in the marketing department of DC. I prefer to call them Big Expensive Comics.”
― Alan Moore

“To die a martyr is to inject blood into the veins of society”
― Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis

Manga:  
Manga refers to Japanese comic books, the series of which are often made into Japanese cartoons, or anime. The word is pronounced maw-nnnnn-gah. In Japanese, it is actually three syllables, although the middle "N" is spoken very quickly. Americans have a habit of pronouncing it "man-gah," but that is not actually correct.

The word manga can be translated as “humorous pictures.” The style became very popular in the mid-20th century when laws prohibiting the publication of those kinds of items were lifted. It has since become a huge part of Japanese culture. Unlike in America, manga is read by most people in the country in weekly comics. The artists and writers of manga are well respected for their work, much like the writers of literature in America. -Aaron Albert

“I like black for clothes, small items, and jewelry. It's a color that can't be violated by any other colors. A color that simply keeps being itself. A color that sinks more somberly than any other color, yet asserts itself more than all other colors. It's a passionate gallant color. Anything is wonderful if it transcends things rather than being halfway...” ― Yana Toboso, Black Butler, Vol. 1

Comic Strips:  
About Comic Strips:

 “In the midst of the vagaries of life, they provide us a trip to the land of goodness and fairies, of imaginations and possibilities. A childhood that wasn't spent watching cartoons or reading comic strips, no wonder, seems too dull to imagine.”
― Sanhita Baruah

“I love those dark moments in Peanuts. I love that they're in there, that Charles Schulz put the sad lonely bits of himself into the comic. I love the silliness too, the dancing Snoopy strips. The little boy Rerun drawing "basement" comics about Tarzan fighting Daffy Duck in a helicopter. Those are the bits that keep me reading. The funny parts! The fun parts. The silly bits that don't make any sense. And when I get to the sad lonely Peppermint Patty standing in a field wondering why nobody shook hands and said "good game," well, it works because that's not all she was. I try to think that way about everything. That's the kind of person I want to be.”
― Joey Comeau, We all got it coming

If you want to see a comic strip, you should see me in the shower.
-Groucho Marx

The world of a comic strip ought to be a special place with its own logic and life... I don't want the issue of Hobbes's reality settled by a doll manufacturer.
-Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

When my priest Fr. John wants a quick illustration of philosophical wit and whimsy wrapped in a laugh and a smile for his homilies, he always turns to the comic strips for inspirational material. The imaginative brilliance of little kids, a lazy fat cat or a boy and his talking tiger never fails to provide him with material for the Daily or Sunday Masses. – Mark Wilson

Comic Strip Characters:
Dilbert stands with a coffee cup behind Dogbert who wags his tail and types at his computer.

Dilbert: "What's your new management book about?"
Dogbert:  "It's a bunch of obvious advice packaged with quotes from famous dead people."
Dilbert: “Did Gandhi really say "Get that #!% dessert cart off my foot!"?"
Dogbert: He might have.
-Scott Adams, Dilbert

The best break anybody ever gets is in bein' alive in the first place. An' you don't unnerstan' what a perfect deal it is until you realizes that you ain't gone be stuck with it forever, either.
-Walt Kelly , Pogo

 [Calvin and Hobbes are playing Scrabble]
Calvin: Ha! I've got a great word and it's on a "Double word score" box!
Hobbes: "ZQFMGB" isn't a word! It doesn't even have a vowel!
Calvin: It is so a word! It's a worm found in New Guinea! Everyone knows that!
Hobbes: I'm looking it up.
 Calvin: You do, and I'll look up that 12-letter word you played with all the Xs and Js!
Hobbes: What's your score for ZQFMGB?
Calvin: 957.
― Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Fan Fiction

About FF:

“Fanfiction isn't copying - it's a celebration. One long party, from the first capital letter to the last full stop!”
― Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

“Fanfiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.”
― Lev Grossman

 “Before the modern era of copyright and intellectual property, stories were things held in common, to be passed from hand to hand and narrator to narrator.”
― Anne Jamison, Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World

“Writing and reading fanfiction isn’t just something you do; it’s a way of thinking critically about the media you consume, of being aware of all the implicit assumptions that a canonical work carries with it, and of considering the possibility that those assumptions might not be the only way things have to be.”
― Anne Jamison, Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World

“The difference between fanfic and a "real" novel is that fanfic is honest about its inspiration.”
― Mary Robinette Kowal

“When I was still in One Direction, fans would write stories based on me and the other lads and publish them online, it's crazy to think that we inspired so many different stories and the opportunity for so much creativity from so many people all over the world.”
― Zayn Malik, Zayn: The Official Autobiography

“Keep in mind that in the whole long tradition of storytelling, from Greek myths through Shakespeare through King Arthur and Robin Hood, this whole notion that you can't tell stories about certain characters because someone else owns them is a very modern one - and to my mind, a very strange one.”
― Michael Montoure, Slices

“But I don't want to write my own fiction,' Cath said, as emphatically as she could. 'I don't want to write my own characters or my own worlds -- I don't care about them. . . . I'd rather pour myself into a world I love and understand than try to make something up out of nothing.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

Some FF:
"If he remains here, his death is certain. If Kal-el remains here, he will surely die; just as the rest of us will. Sending him away is his only chance for survival; the only chance for the surivial of the Kryptonian race."
This eased her apprehension slightly, as Jor-el began to pace. He clearly did not like the idea of this anymore than Lara did. Yet, it was the only hope. There was nothing more that could be done. As much as he did not like this plan, he knew he must carry it out. They must.
"Where would we send him," Lara finally asked, breaking a long silence.
"Tatooine," was Jor-el's soft response?
"Tatooine?" Lara questioned alarmingly.
Before she could continue her protest, Jor-el broke in. "It is his best chance for survival. The planet's surface is very similar to that of Krypton. The inhabitants breathe the same type of air. Kal-el would thrive on Krypton. Plus, Ben is there. We may be able to get a message to him to ask him to watch over the child."
gjacklombardo, Superman: A New Hope

As he stepped though the doorway, Truman stepped into pitch-black darkness so think he feared for a moment that he had gone blind. He glanced back, but the light still shone from the soundstage.
The soundstage.. his world had been the set of a television show. He turned away from that phony light and walked into the darkness. He put his hands out before him, feeling hisway around, feeling for walls or other obstacles.

His eyes adjusted to the blackness. He made out shapes in the shadows: trucks for hauling large set pieces or what have you, piles of lumber and other things he couldn’t identify. He roped around them, trying to find a door out.
-Matrix Refugee, The Truman Show II: Through the Door in the Sky

 “Hermione looked at him, not blinking. It was a moment before she replied, “I know that you served your time on Azkaban Station.” She looked out the porthole into the inky blackness of space, twirling her fork between her fingers. “Everyone here is hoping for a clean slate when they reach Alpha Centauri, but that will only happen if we all agree to forget and forgive the past. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve earned your redemption.”
― Refictionista, Alpha Centauri

Extended Universe

“Star Trek?” I asked her. “Really?”
“What?” she demanded, bending unnaturally black eyebrows together.
“There are two kinds of people in the universe, Molly,” I said. “Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans. This is shocking.”
She sniffed. “This is the post-nerd-closet world, Harry. It’s okay to like both.”
“Blasphemy and lies,” I said.”
― Jim Butcher, Ghost Story

Dr. Who: The Time Lord was late. He was in trouble, and he’d been summoned to the Convocation of Oblivion to account for his actions. His august peers had gathered in a tall tower in a tall city to hear one of his tall stories. ‘He’s going to say he saved the universe again,’ huffed one to another, running a finger around his stiff collar. ‘It’s still where we left it, isn’t it?’ his friend sneered. He’d been a junior archivist for three thousand years, and, in his experience, the universe continued much as it always had done. These were the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey and they were the most powerful creatures ever to exist.
A light stabbed down onto the stage, and a figure staggered into the beam, pinned there like a butterfly. A Zero Nun left her seat in the front row, striding up to the Renegade, and bowed to him with exaggerated courtesy. ‘Have you anything to say for yourself?’
‘All right,’ I told her. ‘But in order to do so, I need to teach you about fear.’
‘Fear?’ she blinked. That got her.
‘Yes.’ I addressed the entire chamber. ‘You see, even the Time Lords are afraid of something. And tonight, I’m going to show you what that is. Are you sitting comfortably? Of course you are. And I’m rather afraid that’s the problem …’
-Tom Baker, Doctor Who: Scratchman 

So if you can bend space and time, then what if time could be curled back around on itself so far as to allow travel into the past? Physicists refer to such temporal loops as “closed timelike curves.” And it turned out that there was nothing in general relativity to prevent them.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
There’s a good case for regeneration being the most important aspect of Doctor Who. How many other fictional dramas have managed to maintain the same central character so cleverly for over 40 years? The concept has also been combined with the shows other trademark element-time travel-to bring about a number of adentures in which two or more of the Doctor’s incarnations have met. Regeneration made all that possible, but could it work for real?
-Paul Parson, The Science of Doctor Who

“Actually, using the Daleks would be a masterstroke. Everyone loves Doctor Who - who wouldn't be thrilled by the sight of a real-life Dalek squadron rolling down the high street, glinting in the sun? The sheer excitement would genuinely make the accompanying loss of liberty seem worthwhile. To liven things up even more, our rasping pepperpot overlords would be colour-coded. Blue Daleks would deal with minor infractions, and would spend most of their time issuing warnings and administering minor shocks - but they'd also be chummy and approachable, and willing to pose for photographs with your nephew. Red Daleks, on the other hand, would be emotionless killing machines. Imagine the atmosphere outside a pub on a hot summer's day: a Red Dalek trundles past, and the convivial hubbub suddenly fades to a whisper. Everyone stiffens. And then he turns the corner and a communal sigh of relief goes up, and the drinking continues and the jukebox plays louder and louder... community spirit lives again. Admit it: it'd be fantastic.”
― Charlie Brooker, Dawn of the Dumb: Dispatches from the Idiotic Frontline 20

Star Trek:
The ingenious writers of Star Trek, on whom you depend, have not yet invented inertial dampers, which they will introduce sometime later in the series. You have been defeated by nothing more exotic than Isaac Newton’s laws of motion—the very first things one can forget about high school physics. OK, I know some trekkers out there are saying to themselves, “How lame! Don’t give me Newton. Tell me things I really want to know, like ‘How does warp drive work?’ or ‘What is the flash before going to warp speed—is it like a sonic boom?’ or ‘What is a dilithium crystal anyway?’” All I can say is that we will get there eventually. Travel in the Star Trek universe involves some of the most exotic concepts in physics. But many different aspects come together before we can really address everyone’s most fundamental question about Star Trek: “Is any of this really possible, and if so, how?”
-Lawrence M Krauss, The Physics of Star Trek 

Jim Kirk sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge and watched as Spacedock gradually grew larger, rotating slowly on its axis like some gigantic burnished metal top. Beyond it, suspended in the void of space, hung a sphere of marbled blue-white: Earth. The Enterprise was coming home. Impossible not to feel a tug of nostalgia at the sight: it had been no fewer than five years since he last stood on Earth, five years since he last witnessed this very sight—only then, Earth and Spacedock had been receding as the Enterprise moved away toward the unknown reaches of space.
-J.M. Dillard, The Lost Years (Star Trek: The Original Series)  

“These tunnels are where they found Data’s head a few years back.”
“Assuming you are referring to Lieutenant Commander Data of the Starship Enterprise, I was under the impression that his head has remained attached to his person.”
“This was his head from the past. He went back in time, it got knocked off, gathered dust here for five hundred years, and got put back on.”
She frowned. “So his head’s twenty times older than the rest of him. I wonder what that does to the warranty.”
“According to the records, that was a ‘prank’ on the part of some cadets from Starfleet Academy—another of your emotional representations.”
Katie grinned. “That’s the official story. Of course, time-travel evidence gets classified. Too dangerous, you know. Imagine the havoc someone could cause if they knew how to go back and mess around with the past.”
-Star Trek: Corps of Engineers: Aftermath (Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers Book 8) . 

Star Wars:
Star Wars is primarily set in a region of space referred to as “the galaxy.” Images of this region show it as a spiral galaxy (much like the Milky Way) divided into regions like the core, inner rim, outer rim, etc. The galactic core is home to the governing center of Coruscant, whereas the outer rim has planets such as Tatooine, run by gangsters and outlaws. Characters frequently refer to various “systems” or “star systems” (rather than solar systems) in the galaxy, then use a planet name when identifying a specific system (e.g., the Hoth system). This would be like calling our solar system the Earth system rather than the Sun system. This makes sense if most travel is to/from one planet within a system, but it might make the galaxy seem smaller than it really is. Does the number of planets/systems identified in Star Wars make sense for one galaxy? Is the layout of these systems realistic?
-Patrick Johnson, The Physics of Star Wars: The Science Behind a Galaxy Far, Far Away 

“I'm just saying --' He pointed the way that Han appeared to be favoring. '--this doesn't feel right'

'Yeah, well, we're on a Star Destroyer being chased by the living dead. NONE of this feels right”
― Joe Schreiber, Death Troopers

In the dead of night, he was jolted awake a second time by a mechanical arm prodding his access compartment. He squealed, swinging his body around to dislodge the thing poking him. The silver-and-blue droid stood before him, caught in the act of sabotage, his pincer appendage dangling in the air. He whimpered a sad apology.
The red droid bleated indignation. Sorry for sabotaging me? Or sorry you were caught?
Yes, the other replied. Then he introduced himself: I’m R2-D2, and I’m on an important mission. The red droid stared. Obviously, the excitement of capture and restraint had overrun the R2 unit’s circuits. Still, he chose to respond in kind.
I’m R5-D4. No mission—that I know of. My memory was wiped four years ago. R2-D2 continued as if he hadn’t heard.
I must be sold tomorrow. I have to escape this sandcrawler. The fate of the galaxy depends on it. What a strange droid. Is that why your pincer was deep in my access compartment? he asked. You were sabotaging your competition?
Yes. Please, the Rebellion needs your help. The word Rebellion triggered something—the phantom of a memory. An imprint on his circuits that no wipe could touch. Or maybe he was simply moved by R2-D2’s sincerity. Whatever it was, he almost believed. But the superior programming of R2 units made them capable of deception in certain circumstances; everyone knew that. He couldn’t trust a single word the blue droid said.
-Renée Ahdieh, From a Certain Point of View (Star Wars) 

Fantasy

“Fantasy, if it's really convincing, can't become dated, for the simple reason that it represents a flight into a dimension that lies beyond the reach of time.”
― Walt Disney

Once upon a time, I thought faeries lived only in books, old folktales, and the past. That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant, luminous beings, permeating my art and my everyday existence, causing glorious havoc.
-Brian Froud

Fantasy encompasses a wide, wide spectrum of writing. We have beast fables, we have gothics, we have tales of vampires and werewolves, and we have sword and sorcery; we have epics from Homer, and there is just so much out there that we put under the umbrella of 'fantasy.'
- Robin Hobb

But does a fantasy story actually require magic and the supernatural to be a fantasy? It would seem so at first, but then there are books such as the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik that don’t have any magic in them at all but do have dragons fighting in the Napoleonic War. Then there’s Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series, which is not found in the fantasy section of the bookstore despite the fact that the books involve characters in an alternate world that can travel into books and meet the characters that live there. Most people would definitely assume that a series involving people spending time in other books a fantasy novel! Then you have Terry Goodkind and his Sword of Truth series; he writes what would be considered traditional fantasy, but, as he says, he isn’t writing fantasy at all.2 Who is right? It’s hard to say.
-Gabrielle Lissauer, The Tropes of Fantasy Fiction 

“If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.”
― Patrick Rothfuss

I want to see people flying around on dragons, in steam ships built by gnomes, and on newfangled contraptions that could blow up at any moment and often do! – I want to see people sailing about on ships and in hot air balloons and even in chariots that zip about on rudimentary roads and while getting broken wheels constantly! – I want to see people popping into the room via spell or teleportation gate or portal of some sort, and I want them to do so with style and panache and the wherewithal to make it appear like they’re not fazzled. – I want all of those things you see, because this is fantasy fiction and that’s what’s been promised to me.  Or is that not the premise we’re talking about when we say fantasy? Maybe your idea of fantasy is a little different from mine. Maybe it’s in the here and now with cars and trains and even planes, and maybe characters do travel about like you and I. Not in my world, bub, not at all.
-Greg Strandberg, How to Write Fantasy


“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape? . . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Classic Fantasy: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit or There and Back Again

Contemporary Fantasy: BY now, you must have guessed just how far Artemis Fowl was prepared to go in order to achieve his goal. But what exactly was this goal? What outlandish scheme would involve the blackmailing of an alcohol-addicted sprite? The answer was gold. He immersed himself in the lore of the People until he had compiled a huge database on their characteristics. But it wasn’t enough. So Artemis put out a call on the Web: Irish businessman will pay large amount of U.S. dollars to meet a fairy, sprite, leprechaun, pixie. The responses had been mostly fraudulent, but Ho Chi Minh City had finally paid off. Artemis was perhaps the only person alive who could take full advantage of his recent acquisition. He still retained a childlike belief in magic, tempered by an adult determination to exploit it. If there was anybody capable of relieving the fairies of some of their magical gold, it was Artemis Fowl the Second.
-Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

Fairy Tales: “Once upon a time' These are the most magical words our world has ever known and the gateway to the greatest stories ever told. They're an immediate calling to anyone who hears them-a calling into a world where everyone is welcome and anything can happen. Mice can become men, maids can become princesses, and they can teach valuable lessons in the process.”
― Chris Colfer, The Wishing Spell

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

Harry Potter: “A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley...He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

What philosophically literate reader doesn’t hear an echo of Nietzsche in Voldemort’s words that there is no good or evil, only power and those too weak to use it? Or imagine that, if Aristotle ran Hogwarts, he’d act a lot like Dumbledore? Or see the parallel between Harry’s invisibility cloak and Plato’s Ring of Gyges?
-David Baggett,  Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts 

And, at the ever-expanding horizon of scientific knowledge, new questions, puzzles and mysteries will continue to emerge as surely as existing mysteries are solved. Let’s get off to a flying start and reveal what the somewhat magical-sounding fields of antigravity, wormholes and quantum teleportation have to say about wizard transport, whether by broomstick, Floo powder or that muddy old footwear that turns out to be a Portkey to another place, time or dimension. As the great Albus Dumbledore would say, tuck in.
-Roger Highfield, The Science of Harry Potter

The reason to embrace and celebrate these novels as the countercultural event that they are is due largely to the subliminal messages delivered by Harry and friends in their stolen wheelbarrows. Readers walk away, maybe a little softer on the occult than they were, but with story-embedded messages: the importance of a pure soul; love's power even over death; about sacrifice and loyalty; a host of images and shadows about Christ and how essential 'right belief' is for personal transformation and victory over internal and external evils.”
― John Granger, The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains the Final Harry Potter Adventure

“CUSTOMER: Which was the first Harry Potter book?
BOOKSELLER: The Philosopher’s Stone.
CUSTOMER: And the second?
BOOKSELLER: The Chamber of Secrets.
CUSTOMER: I’l take The Chamber of Secrets. I don’t want The Philosopher’s Stone.
BOOKSELLER: Have you already read that one?
CUSTOMER: No, but with series of books I always find they take a while to really get going. I don’t want to waste my time with the useless introductory stuff at the beginning.
BOOKSELLER: The story in Harry Potter actually starts right away. Personally, I do recommend that you start with the first book – and it’s very good.
CUSTOMER: Are you working on commission?
BOOKSELLER: No.
CUSTOMER: Right. How many books are there in total?
BOOKSELLER: Seven.
CUSTOMER: Exactly. I’m not going to waste my money on the first book when there are so many others to buy. I’l take the second one.
BOOKSELLER: . . . If you’re sure.
(One week later, the customer returns)
BOOKSELLER: Hi, did you want to buy a copy of The Prisoner of Azkaban?
CUSTOMER: What’s that?
BOOKSELLER: It’s the book after The Chamber of Secrets.
CUSTOMER: Oh, no, definitely not. I found that book far too confusing. I ask you, how on earth are children supposed to understand it if I can’t? I mean, who the heck is that Voldemort guy anyway? No. I’m not going to bother with the rest.
BOOKSELLER: . . .”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

On the steps of number 23232323.32 Privy drive, Somewhere in England, (land of Shakespeare, British accents, and saying crisps when you mean chips) a baby left in an asparagus crate on a doorstep screamed and screamed. His survival was another such miracle, given how many people wanted him dead. Or at least severely hurt. The asparagus seller probably would have settled for getting his crate back, since all of his little asparaguses were currently rolling about helplessly on the floor. But the incredibly evil bad guy planning to take over the world definitely wanted him dead. It was in his job description.
-Valerie Frankel , Henry Potty and the Pet Rock . sci-fi-cafe.com

Urban Fantasy: “The Nightside CSI is only one man, pleasant enough, calm and easy going, and very professional. It probably helps that he has multiple personality disorder with a sub-personality for every specialty and discipline in his profession. One to handle fingerprints, another to examine blood splatter or look for magical residues...He's really quite good at his job though he does tend to argue with himself.
Between himself he knows everything he needs to know. Each sub-personality has a different voice. Some of them are women. I've never asked.”
― Simon R. Green, A Hard Day's Knight

General Fiction

About Fiction:
“I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself. --From the Introduction”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
― Tom Clancy

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
― Stephen King

"General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else."
— Marvin Minsky

“That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death! Listen to them!”
― Connie Willis, Passage

Some General Fiction:

“I hadn't been out to the hives before, so to start off she gave me a lesson in what she called 'bee yard etiquette'. She reminded me that the world was really one bee yard, and the same rules work fine in both places. Don't be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you. Still, don't be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants. Don't swat. Don't even think about swatting. If you feel angry, whistle. Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee's temper. Act like you know what you're doing, even if you don't. Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees


 “When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coloring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

Harold thought of all the things in life he’d let go. The small smiles. The offers of a beer. The people he had passed over and over again, in the brewery car park, or on the street, without lifting his head. The neighbors whose forwarding addresses he had never kept. Worse: the son who didn’t speak to him and the wife he had betrayed. He remembered his father in the nursing home, and his mother’s suitcase by the door. And now here was a woman who twenty years ago had proved herself a friend. Was this how it went? That just at the moment when he wanted to do something, it was too late? That all the pieces of a life must eventually be surrendered, as if in truth they amounted to nothing? The knowledge of his helplessness pressed down on him so heavily he felt weak. It wasn’t enough to send a letter. There must be a way to make a difference.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
He pictured Queenie dozing at one end of England and himself in a phone booth at the other, with things in between that he didn’t know and could only imagine: roads, fields, rivers, woods, moors, peaks and valleys, and so many people. He would meet and pass them all. There was no deliberation, no reasoning. The decision came in the same moment as the idea. He was laughing at the simplicity of it. “Tell her Harold Fry is on his way. All she has to do is wait. Because I am going to save her, you see. I will keep walking and she must keep living. Will you say that?” The voice said she would. Was there anything else? Did he know visiting hours, for instance? Parking restrictions? He repeated, “I’m not in a car. I want her to live.” “I’m sorry. Did you say something about your car?” “I’m coming by foot. From South Devon all the way up to Berwick-upon-Tweed.” The voice gave an exasperated sigh. “It’s a terrible line. What are you doing?” “I’m walking,” he shouted. “I see,” said the voice slowly, as if she had picked up a pen and was jotting this down. “Walking. I’ll tell her. Should I say anything else?” “I’m setting off right now. As long as I walk, she must live. Please tell her this time I won’t let her down.”
-Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Horror

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...”
― Stephen King

“Merrin stood up and prayed reverently: “ ‘God, Creator and defender of the human race, look down in pity on this your servant, Regan Teresa MacNeil, now trapped in the coils of man’s ancient enemy, sworn foe of our race, who…’ ” Karras glanced up as he heard Regan hissing, saw her sitting erect with the whites of her eyes exposed, while her tongue flicked in and out rapidly, her head weaving slowly back and forth like a cobra’s, and once again he had that feeling of disquiet. He looked down at his text. “ ‘Save your servant,’ ” prayed Merrin, standing and reading from the Ritual. “ ‘Who trusts in you, my God,’ ” answered Karras. “ ‘Let her find in you, Lord, a fortified tower.’ ” “ ‘In the face of the enemy.’ ” As Merrin continued with the next line—“Let the enemy have no power over her”—Karras heard a gasp from Sharon behind him, and turning quickly around, he saw her looking stupefied”
― William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist

Mystery

About Mystery:

“There are two kinds of folks who sit around thinking about how to kill people:
psychopaths and mystery writers.”
― Richard Castle

Ed McBain (author of the 87th Precinct series) once said in an interview that we read mysteries because they “reconfirm our faith that a society of laws can work.” Indeed, they do that.
-James N Frey, How to Write a Damn Good Mystery.

Verisimilitude: this is a big word that you should know. It means, the appearance of something that is true or real. The steps in how your mystery or thriller character proceeds, the details of his investigation, and the statements that he makes regarding a criminal case must ring true. There are too many experts out in reader-land, and if you try to fudge or write something that doesn’t seem believable, you’ve lost your credibility as a writer, but just as important, you’ve probably lost readers. Faux pas in writing are indelible—they are inscribed in ink on paper or as digital text in e-readers, and, unlike a misstep in a conversation that you can apologize for, errors are there for the lifetime of your publication.- Andrea Campbell
-Sherry Ellis, Now Write! Mysteries (Now Write! Series)

“As far as I'm concerned, you can't beat a good whodunnit: the twists and turns, the clues and the red herrings and then, finally, the satisfaction of having everything explained to you in a way that makes you kick yourself because you hadn't seen it from the start.”
― Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders

Our surrogate, the smarter, wittier, and more doggedly determined version of ourselves: the detective hero. Whether a street wise cop like Popeye Doyle in the French Connection, a sloppy homicide detective like TV’s Columbo, or a tea-drinking, sweater-knitting old lady like Miss Marple, we want this one thing from our mystery protagonist above all others: we want order restored.
- Dennis Palumbo, Taking the Mystery Out of Writing Mysteries
The Mysteries We read:

Actual Mystery:

“The oth­ers went up­stairs, a slow unwilling pro­ces­sion. If this had been an old house, with creak­ing wood, and dark shad­ows, and heav­ily pan­elled walls, there might have been an eerie feel­ing. But this house was the essence of moder­ni­ty. There were no dark corners - no pos­si­ble slid­ing pan­els - it was flood­ed with elec­tric light - every­thing was new and bright and shining. There was noth­ing hid­den in this house, noth­ing con­cealed. It had no at­mo­sphere about it. Some­how, that was the most fright­en­ing thing of all. They ex­changed good- nights on the up­per land­ing. Each of them went in­to his or her own room, and each of them automatical­ly, al­most with­out con­scious thought, locked the door....”
― Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None

“Where does a wise man hide a pebble?"
And the tall man answered in a low voice: "On the beach."
The small man nodded, and after a short silence said: "Where does a wise man hide a leaf?"
And the other answered: "In the forest.
But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.”
― G K Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

 “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

'But what I should like to know,' pursued Miss Barton, refusing to be diverted, 'is whether this dilettante gentleman does anything, outside his hobbies of detecting crimes and collecting books, and, I believe, playing cricket in his off-time.' Harriet, who had been congratulating herself upon the way in which she was keeping her temper, was seized with irritation. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Does it matter? Why should he do anything else? Catching murderers isn't a soft job, or a sheltered job. It takes a lot of time and energy, and you may very easily get injured or killed. I dare say he does it for fun, but at any rate, he does do it. Scores of people must have as much reason to thank him as I have. You can't call that nothing.'
-Dorothy L Sayers, Gaudy Night

“There are supposed to be endorphins or whatever that make you feel great when you exercise. I don't think I have any, because I only feel great when I'm lying on the sofa reading a book, possibly while simultaneously eating biscuits.”
― Judith Flanders, A Murder of Magpies

LGBT:

“Did you just tell us you're gay?" asks Nick.
"Yes."
"Okay," he says. Abby swats him. "What?"
"That's all you're going to say? Okay?"
"He said not to make a big deal out of it," Nick says. "What am I supposed to say?"
"Say something supportive. I don't know. Or awkwardly hold his hand like I did. Anything."
Nick and I look at each other.
"I'm not holding your hand," I tell him, smiling a little.
"All right" --he nods-- "but know that I would.”
― Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

“I wanted to tell them that I'd never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. Until Dante. I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren't meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. And that somehow it felt like it was Dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things and yet I didn't have the words. So I just stupidly repeated myself. "Dante's my friend.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Intimate same-sex friendships are important (because) they can help us be more centered in our sexual identities as a woman or a man. I definitely don’t believe that all queer people experience insecurity in their gender identity. I’ve always liked being a girl. But for those who do experience this insecurity, close same-sex friendships can be immensely healing. I’ve had friends tell me that they were profoundly moved and changed by the love they received from (straight, in most cases) same-sex friends, which filled needs for intimacy they hadn’t even acknowledged. For at least one friend, filling this need for same-sex love sharply reduced the desire for same-sex sex.  I don’t think that happens with everyone-my closet friendships are with women, and yet I am still pretty intensely gay-and “curing homosexuality” is one of the purposes of friendship anyway. But I do think many gay people have a need for same-sex love, which can be fulfilled even if their sexual desires go unfulfilled; friendship offers the love and beauty without the sin.
-Eve Tushnet, Gay and Catholic

Picture Books

“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”
― Judith Viorst, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader's imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book.
- Anthony Browne

Let's put it this way: if you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it and you wind up with a 200,000 word novel. We, picture-book people, or at least I, start out with 200,000 words and I reduce it to 20
-Eric Carle

“And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

For children: I'm writing a picture book about the Big Dipper and a novel about a cricket, a firefly and a vole. For grownups: I'm writing poems.
-Kate DiCamillo

A picture book is a small door to the enormous world of the visual arts, and they're often the first art a young person sees.
-Tomie dePaola

Remember picture books are the closest form of writing to a poem. Even though they don't have to rhyme, they must be poetic. They must be written so the worst actress can read with comfort and expression.
-Kirby Larson

Carrying a small notebook with you always, in your pocket or purse, along with a reliable ballpoint pen will enable you to jot down spot observations and quick character sketches before the first sharp impressions fade away. You'll need all kinds of story actors, because even picture books can include a wide range of ages, relationships, occupations, and nationalities. Learn to observe and analyze swiftly, wherever you are.
-Lee Wyndham

 “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw. When he’s finished, he’ll ask you for a napkin.”

 “Then he’ll want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn’t have a milk mustache.”

 “When he looks in the mirror, he might notice his hair needs a trim. So he’ll probably ask for a pair of nail scissors.”

 “When he’s finished giving himself a trim, he’ll want a broom to sweep it up. He’ll start sweeping. He might get carried away and sweep every room in the house. He may even end up washing the floors as well!
― Laura Numero, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

Public Domain

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

So, I feel terrible for poor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen and Lewis Carroll, who must be spinning in their graves since they have no rights to their own works of fiction anymore. I'm all for readers being able to read books for free once and only when the deceased author's copyright eventually ends. Still though, did Doyle ever think in a million years that his wonderful characters would be dragged through the mud of every pervy fanfiction that the sick internet geek can think of to create? Did Carroll ever suspect that Alice and the Hatter would become freakish clown-like goth caricatures in Tim Burton's CGI-infested films? Would Austen really want her writing to be sold as badly-formatted ebooks?

The sharing of this Public Domain content isn't really an issue. Stories are meant to be told, meant to echo onward forever. That's what makes them magical. That being said, in the Information Age, there's a real lack of respect towards the creators of this original content. If, when I've been dead for 70 years and I then no longer have the rights to my novels, somebody gets the bright idea of doing anything funny with any of those novels, my ghost is going to rise from the grave and do some serious ass-kicking.”
― Rebecca McNutt


Da Vinci’s final notebook, the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s last airplane, the civilization of Atlantis—none of these long-lost items holds more value for the student of history than the famed “battered tin dispatch-box” in which Dr. John H. Watson claimed to have stored the records of a number of cases he shared with Sherlock Holmes and never published. Surely it is there that we will find the shocking particulars of the adventure of the giant rat of Sumatra, “a story for which the world is not yet prepared,”

Before I begin my narrative, I feel that it is my duty to set the reader straight upon a number of erroneous statements made recently regarding the events therein described. I refer in particular to a spurious monograph which has enjoyed a certain amount of popularity since it first appeared some four months ago, authored by an Irishman by the name of Bram Stoker, and entitled Dracula. To begin with, the book, which purports to be a collection of letters and journals written by some of the principal figures involved, completely ignores the part which Sherlock Holmes (and, to a lesser extent, myself) played in bringing that affair to its successful conclusion among the snow-capped peaks of Transylvania.

Although Holmes does not agree, it is my belief that Professor Van Helsing induced Stoker to deliberately falsify the facts where our line of investigation transected his, in order to build up his own reputation as a supernatural detective, and to invent entire episodes to explain the discrepancies. That I do not make these charges lightly will be borne out by what follows.
-Loren D.  Estleman, The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Vs. Dracula .

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."
— Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, #1))

“Oh!” Alice’s Adventures Underground? What sort of title was that? And why was her name misspelled? She had told Dodgson how to correctly spell her name, had even written it out for him. “By Lewis Carroll?” she read with growing concern. “I thought it would be more festive than saying it was by a reverend.” Festive? She had told him little that was festive. Concern was fast turning to alarm, but she swallowed it. What mattered was that he had faithfully recorded her history in Wonderland as she remembered it. She turned to the first chapter and immediately felt as if her insides had been scooped out, like the half grapefruits Dean Liddell ate for breakfast every morning, after which only raw, pulpy hollows remained. Down a rabbit hole? Where had the worrisome White Rabbit come from? “Alice, is something wrong?” She skipped ahead, turned page after page. The Pool of Tears, the caterpillar, her aunt Redd: It had all been twisted into nonsense. “I admit that I took a few liberties with your story,” Dodgson explained,
-Frank Beddor. The Looking Glass Wars 

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or, the Whale

Romance

“I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.
"Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?"
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth.”
― Janet Evanovich

“Just because sandcastles are temporary, it never stopped me from making them as beautiful as possible.”
― Bella Forrest, A Shade of Blood

“She understood now why her friend Elizabeth, with her near-genius, analytical mind gave wide berth to murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, and horror stories, and read only romance novels. Because when a woman picked up one of those steamy books, she had a firm guarantee that there would be a Happily-Ever-After. That though the world outside those covers could bring such sorrow and disappointment and loneliness, between those covers, the world was a splendid place to be.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Darkfever

“About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn’t know how potent that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”
― Stephenie Meyer, Twilight

“Halfway down the aisle, Jamie suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she caught her breath...It was, I remembered thinking, the most difficult walk anyone ever had to make. In every way, a walk to remember.”
― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember (My Favorite Novel)

“Choosing a husband was much like choosing a good baguette. One looked for a strong outer shell, a tender interior, and most importantly, a tractability of dough to hold whatever shape the baker deemed appropriate. Abigail needed a good baguette by the end of the weeek”
― Karen Witemeyer, More Than Words Can Say

Sci-Fi:

All fiction is really science fiction.

I mean, despite its apparent realism, the political thriller ‘House of Cards’ is really an alternate universe story where someone other than John Major became prime minister after Margaret Thatcher, right?

Every single work of fiction takes place in a universe where history unfolded in a different way than it did in this one (sometimes with different laws of nature as well).

Even apparently realistic stories are about alternate universes with alternate histories.

So . . . everyone's a science fiction fan whether they realize it or not.
 -Jimmy Akin

Aliens: “Where are you originally from?”
“The planet Lorien, three hundred million miles away.”
“Must have been a long trip, John Smith.”
“Took almost a year. Next time I’m bringing a book.”
― Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six

Alternate History/Steampunk: Stonewall Jackson survived Chancellorsville.  England broke the Union’s naval blockade, and formally recognized the Confederate States of America.  Atlanta never burned.
It is 1880. The American Civil War has raged for nearly two decades, driving technology in strange and terrible directions. Combat dirigibles skulk across the sky and armored vehicles crawl along the land.  Military scientists twist the laws of man and nature, and barter their souls for weapons powered by light, fire, and steam.
But life struggles forward for soldiers and ordinary citizens.  The fractured nation is dotted with stricken towns and epic scenes of devastation—some manmade, and some more mysterious.  In the western territories cities are swallowed by gas and walled away to rot while the frontiers are strip-mined for resources.  On the borders between North and South, spies scour and scheme, and smugglers build economies more stable than their governments.
This is the Clockwork Century.
It is dark here, and different.
Tanglefoot (A Story of the Clockwork Century) by Cherie Priest

Historical Sci-Fi: In the year of grace 1345, Well I remember the day. I was out on an errand. The weather had turned sunny after rain, the town street was ankle-deep in mud. I picked my way through the aimless crowds of soldiery, nodding to such as I knew. All at once a great cry arose. I lifted my head like the others. Lo! It was as a miracle! Down through the sky, seeming to swell monstrously with the speed of its descent, came a ship all of metal. So dazzling was the sunlight off its polished sides that I could not see its form clearly. A huge cylinder, I thought, easily two thousand feet long. Save for the whistle of wind, it moved noiseless.
“Hold fast!” I cried. “Be not afraid! Have faith and hold fast!” My feeble pipings went unheard. Then Red John Hameward, the captain of the longbowmen, leaped up beside me. A merry giant, with hair like spun copper and fierce blue eyes, he had been my friend since he arrived here.
“I know not what yon thing is,” he bellowed. His voice rolled over the general babble, which died away.
“Mayhap some French trick. Or it may be friendly, which would make our fear look all the sillier. Follow me, every soldier, to meet it when it lands!”
“Magic!” cried an old man. “‘Tis sorcery, and we are undone!”
“Not so,” I told him. “Sorcery cannot harm good Christians.”
“But I am a miserable sinner,” he wailed.
“St. George and King Edward!”
Red John sprang off the tube and dashed down the street. I tucked up my robe and panted after him, trying to remember the formulas of exorcism.
-Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

Robots:
“The Three Laws of Robotics:
1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;

2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;

3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;

― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot

Spaceships: “I couldn’t see the end of the corridor, so I stared at the entrance. The ship was a magnificent piece of living technology. Third Fish was a Miri 12, a type of ship closely related to a shrimp. Miri 12s were stable calm creatures with natural exoskeletons that could withstand the harshness of space. They were genetically enhanced to grow three breathing chambers within their bodies. Scientists planted rapidly growing plants within these three enormous rooms that not only produced oxygen from the CO2 directed in from other parts of the ship, but also absorbed benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene. This was some of the most amazing technology I’d ever read about. Once settled on the ship, I was determined to convince someone to let me see one of these amazing rooms. But at the moment, I wasn’t thinking about the technology of the ship. I was on the threshold now, between home and my future.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, Binti

Superheroes(NOT DC/MARVEL/COMICS):

“It’s good for you to think of this, son. Ponder. Worry. Stay up nights, frightened for the casualties of your ideology. It will do you good to realize the price of fighting. “I need to warn you of something, however. There aren’t any answers to be found. There are no good choices. Submissiveness to a tyrant or chaos and suffering. In the end I chose the second, though it flays my soul to do so. If we don’t fight, humankind is finished. We slowly become sheep to the Epics, slaves and servants—stagnant.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Steelheart

Cape (plural capes): literally, a sleeveless garment hanging from the neck over the back and shoulders; figuratively, a superhuman who has chosen to act as a superhero. Synonyms: hero, mask, super, superhero. Connotations: 'cape' is used as both a familiar and derogatory term for superheroes, who often casually refer to themselves as capes but generally consider it a demeaning term when applied to them by the press. Barlow's Guide to Superhumans
-Marion G Harmon, Wearing the Cape: The Beginning (Wearing the Cape Series Book 1) 

Space Travel: “Dress yourself in heavy fishing waders, put on an overcoat and boxing gloves and a bucket over your head, then have somebody strap two sacks of cement across your shoulders and you will know what a space suit feels like under one gravity.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit-Will Travel

Time Travel: THEY buried him on a gray morning, unseasonably cold, threatening rain. The mourners were few, easily constraining their grief for a man who had traditionally kept his acquaintances at a distance. The preacher was white-haired, feeble, himself near the end, and Dave wondered what he was thinking as the wind rattled the pages of his prayer book. “Ashes to ashes—” Shel had been the first time traveler. Well, the second, really. His father had been first. But of all the people assembled at the funeral, only Dave was aware of any of that.

Dave already missed Shel’s voice, his sardonic view of the world, his amused cynicism. He sighed. The world was a cruel and painful place. Enjoy life while you can. He remembered his grandfather once commenting that he should live life to the fullest. “While you can,” he’d said, his intense sea-blue eyes locked on Dave. “You only get a few decades in the daylight. Assuming you’re lucky.”
He got out of the car, went inside, and locked up. He didn’t usually drink alone, but today he was willing to make an exception. He poured a brandy and stared out the window. The sky, finally, was clearing. It would be a pleasant evening. In back somewhere, something moved. It might have been a branch, but it sounded inside the house.

He dismissed it. It had been a long day, and he was tired. He sank into a chair and closed his eyes. It came again. A floorboard, maybe. Not much more than a whisper. He took down a golf club, went into the hallway, looked up the staircase and along the upper level. Glanced toward the kitchen. Wood creaked. Upstairs. A hinge, maybe. He started up, as quietly as he could. He was about halfway when the closed door to the middle bedroom clicked. Someone was turning the knob. Dave froze. The door opened. And Shel appeared. “Hi, Dave,” he said.
-Jack McDevitt, Time Travelers Never Die 

Sci Fi Writing:
“...You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you're right, because in many ways this is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honor when they applaud the tale you tell.”
― Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science fiction is the literature of ideas? Sure it is—on a tightly rationed basis! The truth is, most writers of science fiction and fantasy are naturally stingy. We tend to hoard ideas, like the dragon Smaug lying on his treasure. We parcel them out in dribs and drabs. One notion per story. Maybe two High Concepts per novel.
-Paul Di Filippo, How To Write Science Fiction (A Maximalist And Recomplicated Travel Into Sci-Fi)

Within your texts nobody, be he slave or king, philosopher or lunatic, can consider a thought or experience a feeling without your say so. Without your specification, no one within your texts has any thoughts or feelings, or any existence at all. Writers of realistic fiction use this power sparingly, but it has no limitations of its own; a writer of fantastic fictions can easily overstep the bounds of actual existence. Within your texts, anything can happen; all you have to do is say so. If the crippled boy requires a miracle before he can walk again, you can work it simply by saying “and then he got up and walked.” If you want God to descend from His Heaven to bow down before the child in question and apologize for putting him in the wheelchair in the first place all you have to do is write it down. Within your story, even God is only one more character (or not, if you care to rule Him out); the power of Creation rests entirely in your hands. Within your story, not a sparrow will fall without your taking the trouble to record its fall, and if you do not want sparrows to fall at all you can save the entire species from that inconvenience with a single sentence. Writing might be unalloyed joy, were it not for the fact that power is always shadowed by responsibility. Thankfully, the absolute power that writers have is not weighted down with absolute responsibility. It can neither be suppressed nor diminished, except by choice. All writers know, however, that the joy to be obtained from creativity is not a product of the writing process—actual writing is hard work, more taxing in some respects than manual labor—but a matter of looking back at something written and taking pride in the accomplishment.
-Brian Stableford, Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

Over the last decade the hard bright lines of genre have disappeared. You can lay the blame on the reduction in physical bookstores, literary cross-genre courageousness, or the alignment of planets—but the effect is real. The labels sci-fi, horror, and fantasy have shifted and blurred so that it is difficult to tell where the lines are anymore. Margaret Atwood refuses to label The Handmaid’s Tale as science fiction, but instead calls it speculative fiction. Is PAN’S LABYRINTH fantasy, horror, magical realism, or something else entirely? Hard science fiction, once the domain of two-dimensional characters, is now littered with fully realized personalities. You can find high fantasy written in clear journalistic prose, and horror concerns itself not just with fighting the zombies, but with offering a plausible explanation for how the zombies came to be. The need for the term dark fantasy to describe works such as the Dark Tower series and Imajica is itself a testament to the way these genre lines have bled into each other. The blurring of genre creates readers who want something they’ve never seen before. Despite there only being two (or seven, or thirty-six) “fundamental” plots, we can still satisfy the reader’s needs by having a new combination of ideas and creating an emotional core for all your characters.
-Laurie Lamson, Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (Now Write! Series

“I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?


“Loads of children read books about dinosaurs, underwater monsters, dragons, witches, aliens, and robots. Essentially, the people who read SF, fantasy and horror haven't grown out of enjoying the strange and weird.”
― China Miéville

Sports

“Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game.”
― W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination.”
– Nelson Mandela

“Basketball Rule #1
In this game of life
your family is the court
and the ball is your heart.
No matter how good you are,
no matter how down you get,
always leave
your heart
on the court.”
― Kwame Alexander, The Crossover

Thriller

 “(He ran) toward the small pond that he had seen before. The walls of fire ended there. An instant later the remains of the cottage exploded. He ducked and rolled again from the concussive force, almost pitching into the right side of the wall of fire. He rose and redoubled his efforts, thinking that he would reach the water. Water was a great antidote to fire. But as he neared the edge of the pond, something struck him. No scum. No algae on the surface although the ground around was full of it. What could kill green scum? And why was he being forced to run right toward the one thing that could possibly save him? Robie tossed his gun over the top of the wall of flames, pulled off his jacket, covered his head and hands with it, and threw himself through the wall of flames on the left side.”
― David Baldacci, The Hit

Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. There are all kinds. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. The list goes on and on, with new variations constantly being invented. In fact, this openness to expansion is one of the genre's most enduring characteristics. But what gives the variety of thrillers a common ground is the intensity of emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness, all designed to generate that all-important thrill. By definition, if a thriller doesn't thrill, it's not doing its job.
— James Patterson, June 2006, "Introduction," Thriller

“If there's one thing I've learned in all my time working with children, if I could whittle those years down to a single revelation, it's this: They are extraordinarily resilient. They can withstand neglect; they can survive abuse; they can endure, even thrive, where adults would collapse like umbrellas.”
― A.J. Finn, The Woman in the Window

War

Revolutionary War: “How old are you Johnny" she asked.
Sixteen."
And what's that-a boy or a man?"
He laughed. "A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

I’D LIKE TO START at the beginning—believe me—but the problem is I don’t know when it began and I don’t know when it will end. I only know the middle, which is now, or more specifically ten minutes ago, when someone shot General George Washington stone-cold dead. And today is Christmas Day.
-David Potter, The Left Behinds: The iPhone that Saved George Washington 

Civil War: “To be a good soldier you must love the army. But to be a good officer you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love. That is … a very hard thing to do. No other profession requires it. That is one reason why there are so very few good officers. Although there are many good men.”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels

By the time everyone converged, mug in hand, on Rhoodie’s shelter, he had
his pot back over the fire. With his free hand, he passed each Confederate officer a small, flat packet. Rhoodie said, “Tear it, open and pour it into the bottom of your cup.” FOLGER’S INSTANT COFFEE, Lee read on the packet. Below that, in much smaller print, was something he could not make out. He put on his glasses. The words came clear: MADE IN U.S.A. He returned the glasses to his pocket, thinking he should have been able to guess that without reading it. As Rhoodie had directed, he poured the contents of the packet into his cup. The stuff did not look like ground coffee.
--------------
“I wonder how much the Bureau of Ordnance is paying for these—what did he call them?” “AK-47s,” Lee supplied. “Whatever the price, it may well mark the difference between our liberty and suppression. It would be difficult to set that price too high.” “Yes, sir.” Venable hesitated, then went on, “May I ask, sir, what you think of Mr. Rhoodie?” “Well, I certainly think a good deal better of him now that I know for a fact he is not a solitary charlatan with a solitary, if marvelous, carbine,” Lee said at once.
Harry Turtledove, The Guns of the South 

WW1: “They fight a war and they don't know what for. Isn't that crazy? How can one man kill another and not really know the reason why he does it, except that the other man wears a different color uniform and speaks a different language?”
― Michael Morpurgo, War Horse

"How did it start?" he asks, and he does not sound like he especially wants to know but I tell him anyway because into every life, a little rain must fall.
"It is a student called Princip. He shoots the archduke. He shoots the archduchess. There is politics. A war ensues."
He looks at me, looks at my look, looks at his bag, opens his bag, looks in his bag, takes out a gun. He does not look as if he is about to use it.
Instead, he breaks it open. "Look!" he says, and I am looking already. "It hasn't been fired! How can Princip have laid his hands on another gun so quickly? The car went by thirty seconds after I stole this from his pocket.
He didn't have time! How is it possible?"
"May I ask," I asks, asking, "what you are trying to do with your time traveling and what you do when you have traveled time? Your motives are obscure, your methods abstruse, your results intangible."
"I'm trying to make things better. Isn't it obvious? I've tried to prevent the First World War.  "
-Jonathan L. Howard, “A Small Diversion on the Road to Hell” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2015

WW2: “I came across an account of a young man named Kim Malthe-Bruun, who was eventually captured and executed by the Nazis when he was only twenty-one years old. I read his story as I had read many others, turning the pages, skimming here and there: this sabotage, that tactic, this capture, that escape. After a while even courage becomes routine to the reader. Then, quite unprepared, I turned the page and faced a photograph of Kim Malthe-Bruun. He wore a turtleneck sweater, and his thick, light hair was windblown. His eyes looked out at me, unwavering on the page. Seeing him there, so terribly young, broke my heart.”
― Lois Lowry, Number the Stars

September 20 - Of course the first thing I looked for was the fire watch stone. And of course it wasn't there yet. It wasn't dedicated until 1951, accompanying speech by the Very Reverend Dean Walter Matthews, and this is only 1940. I knew that. I went to see the fire watch stone only yesterday, with some kind of misplaced notion that seeing the scene of the crime would somehow help. It didn't.
The only things that would have helped were a crash course in London during the Blitz and a little more time. I had not gotten either.

"Traveling in time is not like taking the tube, Mr Bartholomew," the esteemed Dunworthy had said, blinking at me through those antique spectacles of his. "Either you report on the twentieth or you don't go at all."

"But I'm not ready," I'd said. "Look, it too me four years to get ready to travel with St Paul. St Paul. Not St Paul's. You can't expect me to get ready for London in the Blitz in two days."

"Yes," Dunworthy had said. "We can." End of conversation.
-Connie Willis, Fire Watch

Vietnam: “In the American Civil War it was a matter of principle that a good officer rode his horse as little as possible. There were sound reasons for this. If you are riding and your soldiers are marching, how can you judge how tired they are, how thirsty, how heavy their packs weigh on their shoulders? I applied the same philosophy in Vietnam, where every battalion commander had his own command-and-control helicopter. Some commanders used their helicopter as their personal mount. I never believed in that. You had to get on the ground with your troops to see and hear what was happening. You have to soak up firsthand information for your instincts to operate accurately. Besides, it’s too easy to be crisp, cool, and detached at 1, 500 feet; too easy to demand the impossible of your troops; too easy to make mistakes that are fatal only to those souls far below in the mud, the blood, and the confusion.”
― Harold G. Moore, We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang-The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam

"We have someone replace you. "
"What?" he said again.
"Replace you. We can have someone go into the Army in your place, using your name. "
"Never heard of that. " Tom had heard of guys gaining fifty pounds or getting braces, plenty of other tricks.
"You're not supposed to know about it. Nobody in 1969 is supposed to know about it. These men come from the future, a couple hundred years from now. It's a better time, with no more wars. You have to believe that; it really can happen. " Her words had the fire of belief, like the Movement people.
Men had walked on the moon, and that was supposed to be science fiction. With nothing left to lose and no other options, Tom was ready to try it. "Why?" he asked.
"They want to be heroes. They think war brings glory and makes them men. I think they're crazy. Our society up then thinks they're crazier than your society thinks you are. Sending them down now is a compromise, a way to let them do what they want to do, without hurting anyone up then. We hope they learn how bad war really is. "
-Jeff Hecht, “Draft Dodgers Rag” Analog, Mar 2004

Western

The beauty of fiction—well, one beauty, at least—is that it springs from personal imagination. Over time, as you shall see, Western fiction has been set in every state and territory from colonial New York to California and beyond. Tom Mix, the renowned cowboy star of 315 Hollywood films made between 1909 and 1935, once said, “The Old West is not a certain place in a certain time, it’s a state of mind. It’s whatever you want it to be.” In short, the possibilities are endless.
-Mike Newton, Writing Westerns: How to Craft Novels that Evoke the Spirit of the West .

Typical Western:  “He saw his enemies stealthily darting from rock to tree, and tree to bush, creeping through the brush, and slipping closer and closer every moment. On three sides were his hated foes and on the remaining side—the abyss. Without a moment's hesitation the intrepid Major spurred his horse at the precipice. Never shall I forget that thrilling moment. The three hundred savages were silent as they realized the Major's intention. Those in the fort watched with staring eyes. A few bounds and the noble steed reared high on his hind legs. Outlined by the clear blue sky the magnificent animal stood for one brief instant, his black mane flying in the wind, his head thrown up and his front hoofs pawing the air like Marcus Curtius' mailed steed of old, and then down with a crash, a cloud of dust, and the crackling of pine limbs.”
― Zane Grey, Betty Zane

“People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.”
― Charles Portis, True Grit

Pioneer Western:  “As I squat to pee I look upward at the billions of stars and planets in the heavens and somehow my own insignificance no longer terrifies me as it once did, but comforts me, makes me feel a part, however tiny, of the whole complete and perfect universe. . . and when I die the wind will still blow and the stars still shine, for the place I occupy on earth is no more permanent than the water I now make, absorbed by the the sandy soil, dried instantly by the constant prairie wind . . .”
― Jim Fergus, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

Weird West: Sacramento, California, 1851

 “Did you say you’re from Neptune?” said Caleb.
“Yep,” said the old man, and coughed. “The dark side.”
Caleb drew back the hammer of the rifle. “What? Where is Neptune?” said Crane, looking from the old slow man to Caleb and back to the man. “What is that?”
“It’s a planet,” said Caleb, gesturing heavenward with the barrel of the gun.
 “But this man ain’t from there. He’s from a drunk tank or an alleyway. He’s a tramp and a thief.”
 “No, sir,” said the old man. “I’m from Neptune, like I said. And I got a proposition for ya.”
-Ben H. Winters, The Old Slow Man and His Gold Gun From Space: Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West 


“In the Far West there is one thing which is more fabulously valuable then gold, even. And that is a story, whether it be truth or good, true-sounding fiction. Stories”
― Max Brand, The Max Brand Megapack

“William Frederick ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody, hunter, Indian-fighter and showman, joined the Pony Express – the West’s legendary mail service – at the age of fourteen, in response to an ad which ran: ‘WANTED young skinny wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 a week.”
― John Lloyd, The Noticeably Stouter Book of General Ignorance