25 November: Poul Anderson

25 November is the birthday of the science fiction author, Poul Anderson. Here are some quotes:

1. The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organisation which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.
2. I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
3. Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.
4. A man isn't really alive till he has something bigger than himself and his own little happiness, for which he'd gladly die.
5. A fanatic is a man who, when he's lost sight of his purpose, redoubles his effort.
6. Let us settle down to the serious business of getting drunk.
7. He had seen too much of the cosmos to have any great faith in man's ability to understand it.
8. A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.
9. What else is life but always bidding farewell?
10. Time is the bridge that always burns behind us.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

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