RUDELY awakened by the strident alarm that reverberated on the bare metal walls of his cubicle, Captain Zachary "Zap" McGregor did not even bother to open his eyes: with a reflex that he had acquired the hard way in his fifteen years of service as a Space Ranger in the most dangerous sectors of the Galaxy, he automatically stretched his good arm in the dark towards the nook above his head where he kept his sixty-megajoule antiproton gun and his antique traveler's clock, resolutely pressed the snooze button, and buried his face back into the pillow.


IT WAS a dark and stormy night that, when Cadet Spiff finally succeeded in opening the recalcitrant door of his landing capsule, filled him with confusion at first, then with alarm, then with utter despair; for he knew that Vulhkcann, the planet where he was supposed to land for his first assignment at the SX-33 Advanced Space Patrol Base, was bone-dry and had perpetual daylight thank to the three suns it orbited around --- which meant that he must have misspelled the planet's name on the capsule launcher's panel, again.


WITH a few steps, heart pounding, Ted Montana climbed the rocky crest and slowly scanned the valley where he grew up, savoring with his eyes all the things that he treasured in his memory but had not seen for fifteen years: the river meandering among the rocks, the sparse bushes scattered over the slopes, his brother's ranch, the dusty footpath on the other side leading to the cottage of his sweetheart Maggie, whose face he realized that he could no longer remember... and then he shouted to the dark-suited man who was waiting impatiently below, his wares spread out on a folding table: "Five bucks, you said? I'll take them, I should have got new glasses long time ago."

"ONE cannot easily shake off old habits," was all that retired Detective Tim O'Hara could say when, after rifling throught the dead old man's pockets (which, as he expected, were all empty), inspeting his throat, and forcing open his cold, stiff hand to get his fingerprints, he was gently but firmly pulled away from the coffin by his brother Harry and piloted out of the parlor under the perplexed stares of uncle Mel's friends and relatives.

IT is not to please you with entertaining or instructive tales, Gentle Reader, that I am putting pen to paper (yes, I am sort of a Luddite, so there), nor to consign my fading memories to posterity, and neither to denounce or to advocate; but for revenge, cold and cruel, against M., that wretched bastard who, when he gets to the end of this book, will deservedly feel the loss, anger, and frustration that I felt when, after reading five hundred pages of his book and struggling to follow a plot that became ever more intricated and puzzling, was finally served a stupid ending that made no sense at all.

, while muttering an expletive that, shouted to the wrong person and at the worst possible moment, had once deprived him a long-overdue promotion


 as aide to Major Yamato