Doyne Farmer and Alletta Belin, 1992　　There are many people, including myself, who are quite queasy about the consequences of this technology for the future.　K. Eric Drexler, 1992　　Introduction　Artificial Evolution in the Twenty-first Century　　The notion that the world around us is continuously evolving is a platitude; we rarely grasp its full implications. We do not ordinarily think, for example, of an epidemic disease changing its character as the epidemic spreads. Nor do we think of evolution in plants and animals as occurring in a matter of days or weeks, though it does. And we do not ordinarily imagine the green world around us as a scene of constant, sophisticated chemical warfare, w　

　　 In the Court of the Fountain the sun of March shone through young leaves of ash and elm, and water leapt and fell through shadow and clear light. About that roofless court stood four high walls of stone. Behind those were rooms and courts, passages, corridors, towers, and at last the heavy outmost walls of the Great House of Roke, which would stand any assault of war or earthquake or the sea itself, being built not only of stone, but of incontestable magic. For Roke is the Isle of the Wise, where the art magic is taught; and the Great House is the school and central place of wizardry; and the central place of the House is that small court far within the walls, where the fountain plays an　

　　　In what felt to him like the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire.　　　It was a high place where he searched, a lifeless, wind-scoured place, a rough, forbidding shelf of black and splintered rock. Snow, driven by squalls of frigid air, streamed across the black rock in white powder, making shifting veils of white over layers of gray ancient ice that was almost as hard as the rock itself. Dawn was in the sky, but still hundreds of kilometers away, as distant as the tiny sawteeth of the horizon to the northwest. The snowfields and icefields along that far edge of the world were beginning to glow with a reflected pink.　　　Ignoring cold and wind, and mumbling to himself, the sea　

Anne McCaffreyIntroductionOurs not to ponder what were fair in Life,But, finding what may be,Make it fair up to our means.　　When mankind first discovered Pern, third planet of the sun Rukbat, in the Sagittarian Sector, they paid little attention to the eccentric orbit of another satellite in the system.　　Settling the new planet, adjusting to its differences, the colonists spread out across the southern, most hospitable continent. Then disaster struck in the form of a rain of mycorrhizoid organisms, which voraciously devoured all but stone, metal, and water. The initial losses were staggering. But fortunately for the young colony, "Thread," as the settlers called the devastating showers, was　

The Fortunes of Oliver Hornby F. Hopkinson SmithI DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF"THE MAN OF ALL OTHERS ABOUT KENNEDYSQUARE MOST BELOVED, AND THE MAN OF ALLOTHERS LEAST UNDERSTOODRICHARD HORN,THE DISTINGUISHED INVENTOR."F.H.S.CHAPTER ITHE OLD HOUSE IN KENNEDY SQUAREKennedy Square, in the late fifties, was a place of birds and trees and flowers; of rude stone benches, sagging arbors smothered in vines, and cool dirt-paths bordered by sweet-smelling box. Giant magnolias filled the air with their fragrance, and climbing roses played hide and seek among the railings of the rotting fence. Along the shaded walks laughing boys and girls romped all day, with hoop and ball, attended by old black　

Two Poetsby Honore de BalzacTranslated by Ellen MarriageDEDICATIONTo Monsieur Victor Hugo,It was your birthright to be, like a Rafael or a Pitt, a great poet at an age when other men are children; it was your fate, the fate of Chateaubriand and of every man of genius, to struggle against jealousy skulking behind the columns of a newspaper, or crouching in the subterranean places of journalism. For this reason I desired that your victorious name should help to win a victory for this work that I inscribe to you, a work which, if some persons are to be believed, is an act of courage as well as a veracious history. If there had been journalists in the time of Moliere, who can 　

CARMENCARMENby PROSPER MERIMEE1- Page 2-CARMENCHAPTER II had always suspected the geographical authorities did not know whatthey were talking about when they located the battlefield of Munda in thecounty of the Bastuli-Poeni, close to the modern Monda, some twoleagues north of Marbella.According to my own surmise, founded on the text of the anonymousauthor of the /Bellum Hispaniense/, and on certain information culled...　

The Pursuit of the House-Boatby John Kendrick BangsCHAPTER I: THE ASSOCIATED SHADES TAKE ACTIONThe House-boat of the Associated Shades, formerly located upon the River Styx, as the reader may possibly remember, had been torn from its moorings and navigated out into unknown seas by that vengeful pirate Captain Kidd, aided and abetted by some of the most ruffianly inhabitants of Hades. Like a thief in the night had they come, and for no better reason than that the Captain had been unanimously voted a shade too shady to associate with self-respecting spirits had they made off with the happy floating club-house of their betters; and worst of all, with them, by force of circumstances over whic　

Chapter VI of Volume III (Chap. 48)THE whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him. His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent, but at such a time they had hoped for exertion. They were forced to conclude that he had no pleasing intelligence to send, but even of that they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off.When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant information of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting, to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbour　

THE BEEIt was Maeterlinck who introduced me to the bee. I mean, inthe psychical and in the poetical way. I had had a businessintroduction earlier. It was when I was a boy. It is strangethat I should remember a formality like that so long; it must benearly sixty years.Bee scientists always speak of the bee as she. It isbecause all the important bees are of that sex. In the hivethere is one married bee, called the queen; she has fiftythousand children; of these, about one hundred are sons; the restare daughters. Some of the daughters are young maids, some areold maids, and all are virgins and remain so.Every spring the queen comes out of the hive and flies away...　

Worldly Ways and BywaysWorldly Ways andBywaysEliot Gregory1- Page 2-Worldly Ways and BywaysTo the ReaderTHERE existed formerly, in diplomatic circles, a curious custom,since fallen into disuse, entitled the Pele Mele, contrived doubtless bysome distracted Master of Ceremonies to quell the endless jealousies andquarrels for precedence between courtiers and diplomatists of contendingpretensions. Under this rule no rank was recognized, each person being...　

　Aletheia Vaune Preston　And　Isaac Jerome Preston　　Acknowledgements　There is one person above all others who must be thanked for the existence of this novel, and that is my good friend the inestimable Forrest Fenn-collector, scholar, and publisher. I will never forget that lunch of ours, many years ago in the Dragon Room of the Pink Adobe, when you told me a curious story-and thereby gave me the idea for this novel. I hope you feel I have done the idea justice.　Having mentioned Forrest, I feel it necessary to make one thing clear: My character Maxwell Broadbent is a plete and total fictional creation. In terms of personality, ethics, character, and family values, the two men could not be mor