“ The old clock tower stands tall, but the bulk of the uppermost storey is crumbling and unsafe, with gaping cracks in the walls. The metal struts and girders supporting the great bronze bells are still intact, though, and the bells survive. The grotesque gargoyles and arabesques which decorated the original design have either fallen into the street (once or twice a year more bricks fall from the tower, prompting calls for its demolition) or have been defaced, but the main doors to the clock tower are still intact and show signs of being kept in working order. This is the home of The Captains, clad in raggedy clothes, with sooty faces, and perpetually runny noses. But behind each set of eyes is the look of a survivor. They live to stick together and make it through each day. Older than their years in many ways, the friendship they share with each other and Wims ghost keeps the core of a childs innocence and hope alive in each. But they are still very suspicious of outsiders. They are a group of street children who live in the clock tower. Some are orphans, some runaways, and some nomads who occasionally return to their homes. But they're all poor, dirty and perpetually hungry, as well as being wily, unscrupulous and mischievous in a fairly brutal way. Enough of them have suffered at the hands of adults for all of them to be wary of any grown-ups, particularly ones who ask too many questions, although with hard work and a lot of food it might be possible to win the confidence or even the trust of a few of them.”
“ hey im new to this site but was here years ago w/ another name. anyways dont remember so im newbie by default.
Firstly, I am a sci-fi reader and I hope to meet success with my writing.
My favorite series of books are Larry Nivens RINGWORLD tetralogy (Ringworld, RingWorld Engineers, The RingWorld Throne, and RingWorlds Children)
For those that havnt read the ring world is the greatest artificial structere ever discovered.
A ring, its circumference equal to earths orbit, it is built around a sol-like star. Shadow squares halfway betwwn the ring and the sun provide 15 hours of night in a thirty hour day. 70 days equals one falan (one full rotation of ring world. The inner surface-the one exposed to the sun, is terraformed and is one millionkmwide cntrifugal force provides gravity, and rim walls 1000km high keep the atmosphere in. Population of RNH(ringworld native hominids)
estimated in the trillions.
The origins of who built it and why are too sticky to get into. But the ringworld , millions of years ago, was populated bt A race called Pak Protectors. Protectors are ancestors of all homo sapiens. they populated ringworld with homo erectus, but left no predators in the ecology. hence, hominids evolved into every ecological niche. (Vampires, Carrion Eaters, Giant Herbivores, Small Carnivores, some built great technologies and went interstellar. Oh, and ringworld is 300 million times the surface area of earth. post if youre interested, Ill elabortae on native species and alien vistors”
“ A man is arrested for mass murder and found to be insane. Piles of corpses were found on his property, neatly stacked torsos with the skin peeled off and the limbs removed. The man readily admits the work is his, though he claims he was only chopping down trees, removing their branches, debarking them, and then stacking them to season.
The man may have swung the axe but it was a Druid who caused the delusion. This Druid is still on the loose and likely to repeat the crime. In time he may get more creative in his 'punishments.'”