A soldier shoved him forward, said, Stand right there and don’t fucking move. Why? We have to inspect you. For what? Shut the fuck up.
Everything seems scarier at night. It's just an illusion. A trick the darkness plays on us.
We numb our minds to sleep on all manner of screens and HD entertainment, the meaning of life, of our existence and purpose, becomes lost.
We get so set in our ways, so entrenched in those grooves, we stop seeing our loved ones for who they are. But tonight, right now, I see you again, like the first time we met, when the sound of your v...
Was a brilliant ache in his optic nerve, and a steady, painless throbbing at the base of his skull—the distant thunder of an approaching migraine. He rolled onto his side and pushed up into a sitting...
Understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together a...
Pantry, another a storage space for gas, bottled water, and a substantial coil of rope. Besides, I’d have heard him banging around in the dark. I walked out of his bedroom.
One of those twinges of surreal nostalgia that make you acutely aware of all the living you’ve done and how the choices you’ve made have led to this moment of introspection.
His undergraduate degrees in English and creative writing from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, publishing his first two novels within five years of graduation. Since then he has publishe...
Foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the m...
Colors and the picket-fenced lawns and the shoppes we spell the olde English way and the sweet smell of the river running through. Parking spaces are plentiful in the off-season. They choose a spot in...
Bustling. Now Abandon looms listless before him in the gloom of late afternoon, streets empty, snow banked high against the unshoveled plank sidewalks, no tracks as far as he can see. The cabins scatt...
And fully capable of taking you apart piece by piece. This is not about torture. It’s about me knowing in my heart that you’re telling the truth. Isaiah, just listen.
A.m. It was still raining, still pitch-black inside the tent. The sound of Scott unzipping the sleeping bag had woken her, and now he was crawling out of it. What are you doing? Abigail whispered. I p...
Your sensitivity is overwhelming, Ethan said. Someday remind me to explain to you what empathy is.
You're saying that, out of an infinite number of realities, I intentionally picked this shithole?
YESTERDAY IS HISTORY. TOMORROW IS A MYSTERY. TODAY IS A GIFT. THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED THE PRESENT. WORK HARD, BE HAPPY, AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE IN WAYWARD PINES!
Which brings me back to Michael Crichton. He didn’t just play with big ideas in his books. He used those ideas to explore questions that felt immediate, meaningful, emotionally powerful—to everyone. Y...
When you’re a scientist, your late twenties are so critical. If you don’t publish something big by thirty, they put you out to pasture.
What’s the demographic? Men. Women. Children. High-velocity GSWs?