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    State of Disorder
    State of Disorder
    State of Disorder
    Ebook36 pages

    State of Disorder

    By Douglas Smith

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Aurora Award Finalist

    Year's Best Fantasy & Horror Honorable Mention

     

    When James Mackaby, respected scholar, husband and father, accepts a dinner invitation from an old rival who has fallen on hard times, he has no idea that revenge is on the menu.

     

    During this singular evening, three very separate and very different dinners will take place, all at the same time, all in the same place, all with the same guests.

     

    And by the end of the last course, no one's life will ever be the same again.

     

    Science fiction, time travel (short story)

     

    "Another standout is the masterful "State of Disorder," which contemplates the flexibility and fluidity of time." —Ideomancer Magazine

     

    "A neat twist on time travel and quantum physics." —Publishers Weekly

     

    "The claustrophobic atmosphere of this tale heightens its devilish suspense and draws favorable comparisons to Poe's tales of trapped, desperate protagonists." —Tangent Online

     

    "A chilling story of three dinners in the same place and time, and a very satisfying ending made this another A++ story [in Chimerascope]." —Fantasy Book Critic

     

    "A stunning piece of work." —Amazing Stories

     

    "Smith invokes both Stephen Hawking and Edgar Allan Poe ... a successful marriage of bold imagination and finely-crafted details, which results in a chilling page-turner." —Rainbow Dragon Recommends

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDouglas Smith
    Release dateJun 1, 2011
    ISBN9781928048121
    State of Disorder
    Author

    Douglas Smith

    Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of Rasputin and Former People, which was a bestseller in the U.K. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives with his family in Seattle.

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      Book preview

      State of Disorder - Douglas Smith

      State of Disorder

      by Douglas Smith

      Aurora Award Finalist

      When James Mackaby, respected scholar, husband and father, accepts a dinner invitation from an old rival who has fallen on hard times, he has no idea that revenge is on the menu. During this singular evening, three very separate and very different dinners will take place, all at the same time, all in the same place, all with the same guests. And by the end of the last course, no one’s life will ever be the same again.

      ~~

      Another standout is the masterful State of Disorder, which contemplates the flexibility and fluidity of time.

      —Ideomancer Magazine

      A neat twist on time travel and quantum physics.

      —Publishers Weekly

      The claustrophobic atmosphere of this tale heightens its devilish suspense and draws favorable comparisons to Poe’s tales of trapped, desperate protagonists.

      —Tangent Online

      A chilling story of three dinners in the same place and time, and a very satisfying ending made this another A++ story [in Chimerascope].

      —Fantasy Book Critic

      A stunning piece of work.

      —Kim Mohan, editor, Amazing Stories

      Table of Contents

      DESCRIPTION

      STATE OF DISORDER

      ABOUT THE STORY

      A REQUEST

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      ALSO BY DOUGLAS SMITH

      THE HOLLOW BOYS

      THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD

      COPYRIGHT

      STATE OF DISORDER

      And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

      —Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

      TICK.

      In the banquet hall of a sprawling castle of a house, the woman looks up, startled. The dishes of the night’s dinner still litter the long table before her. At the evening’s outset, the table had been so clean, its settings so precise. She tries to recall each step in its journey from order to chaos but fails.

      Tick.

      She jumps again at the sound. A man’s wristwatch lies at the table’s far end. He has left it, forgotten or unwanted. Or for another reason. The watch is old with a broken strap; the woman young with a broken heart. The watch lies face down, but she knows it is the old-fashioned kind with hands. A date will show in a little window. A date from a time long ago. Two lives ago. It will be today’s date. She wonders how

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