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The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories
English GT Nobel Văn Học
Rudyard Kipling
CHAPTERS 6 VIEWS 7721
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The Complete Short Stories of Jack London
English
Jack London
CHAPTERS 197 VIEWS 258892
I AM a retired captain of the upper sea. That is to say, when I was a younger man (which is not so long ago) I was an aeronaut and navigated that aerial ocean which is all around about us and above us. Naturally it is a hazardous profession, and naturally I have had many thrilling experiences, the most thrilling, or at least the most nerve-racking, being the one I am about to relate.
It happened before I went in for hydrogen gas balloons, all of varnished silk, doubled and lined, and all that, and fit for voyages of days instead of mere hours. The Little Nassau (named after the Great Nassau of many years back) was the balloon I was making ascents in at the time. It was a fair-sized, hot-air affair, of single thickness, good for an hour's flight or so and capable of attaining an altitude of a mile or more. It answered my purpose, for my act at the time was making half-mile parachute jumps at recreation parks and country fairs. I was in Oakland, a California town, filling a summer's engagement with a street railway company. The company owned a large park outside the city, and of course it was to its interest to provide attractions which would send the townspeople over its line when they went out to get a whiff of country air. My contract called for two ascensions weekly, and my act was an especially taking feature, for it was on my days that the largest crowds were drawn. -
Chi Pheo and Other Stories
English
Nam Cao
CHAPTERS 9 VIEWS 6245
He swore while walking. It was his habit to swear after drinking. He cursed Heaven. Never mind.
Heaven belongs to nobody. Then he cursed life. That is of no importance. Life means everybody but no one in particular. He raged against the whole population of Vu Dai village. But people said to themselves: "May be he spares me !" Nobody answered him. How vexing indeed ! Vexing enough to make you fume ! Sons of bitches, those who did not answer him ! No reply. Gang of asses ! Had he drunk for nothing ? Isn't it a great pity for him ? Who is that idiot who fathered him so that he was so Unhappy ? Ah ! He had got it ! Let him come, the rascal who begot him ! He ground his teeth and insulted the scoundrel who sired Chi Pheo. God knows who he was ! Chi Pheo himself did not know and in Vu Dai village nobody knew either... -
A Story For Lovers
English VH Miền Nam Trước 75
Nhã Ca
VIEWS 8733
In 1976 both Nha Ca and her husband were placed in re-education camps by the Communists. After nine months Nha Ca was freed, but her husband remains in confinement as of this writing. Nha Ca returned to Ho Chi Minh City to be with her children.
The following story takes place in the city of Hue at the time of the 1968 Communist offensive. It begins as a typical New Year's celebration-with ceremonies and prayers for the ancestors, games and visits with relatives, young love, and dreams of the future. Then the war comes and changes all these things forever. -
The Invisible Man
English Sci-Fi
H. G. Wells
CHAPTERS 29 VIEWS 10918
The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to the burden he carried. He staggered into the "Coach and Horses" more dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried, "in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table, he took up his quarters in the inn.
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The Island of Dr. Moreau
English Sci-Fi
H. G. Wells
CHAPTERS 22 VIEWS 9369
On January the Fifth, 1888—that is eleven months and four days after—my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5° 3′ S. and longitude 101° W. in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha. He gave such a strange account of himself that he was supposed demented. Subsequently he alleged that his mind was a blank from the moment of his escape from the Lady Vain. His case was discussed among psychologists at the time as a curious instance of the lapse of memory consequent upon physical and mental stress. The following narrative was found among his papers by the undersigned, his nephew and heir, but unaccompanied by any definite request for publication.
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The War of the World
English Sci-Fi
H. G. Wells
CHAPTERS 27 VIEWS 10488
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.