The Unconquerable (19)
By:
November 6, 2014
HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize Helen MacInnes’s 1944 novel The Unconquerable (later reissued as While We Still Live), an espionage adventure that pits an innocent English woman against both Nazis and resistance fighters in occupied Poland. MacInnes, it’s worth noting, was married to a British intelligence agent, which may explain what one hears is the amazing accuracy of her story’s details. Under the editorship of HILOBROW’s Joshua Glenn, the Save the Adventure book club will reissue The Unconquerable as an e-book for the first time ever. Enjoy!
For some strange reason the Germans postponed an immediate entry into Warsaw. Perhaps they were afraid of a city where there was no water, no light, no food; where there were graves along the public streets and bodies still buried under piles of rubble; where buildings still collapsed with a sigh as if they were glad that the mockery of their hollow walls was at last ended.
Sheila argued the point: whether the Germans were afraid of looking at the chaos they had created, or whether they were afraid of being torn apart by angry hands in dark streets.
Russell Stevens supported the latter view. “These boys aren’t squeamish over destruction,” he pointed out. “If they were they wouldn’t have trained so enthusiastically for ‘battles of annihilation.’ The term is theirs: they invented both it and ‘total war.’ God, I hope I see the day when they learn the meaning of these phrases.”
“Sometimes I wonder ——” Sheila’s voice faltered.
“Wonder what?”
“Whether any of us here will be alive… then.”
Steve said quickly, “That’s the first time you’ve said a thing like that. And it’s the last.”
“Sorry. I think it’s this waiting. Have you heard from Olszak?”
“No. After all, it’s only two days since the meeting.”
“Two days.” Two months, two years. She forced herself free from this paralysing gloom. She said, with a pretence of light-heartedness, “How is your new home with Schlott’s friends? I feel I’m as bad as a Nazi, the way I’ve taken over your flat.”
“Oh, that’s all right. You and Madame Aleksander and Casimir will just about fill it. There wasn’t going to be much room for Schlott and me. Or Bill.”
“Have you seen Bill since… ?” She paused, tactfully.
“Since that dust-up two nights ago? No.” Steve’s face took on his stubborn look.
“I’m sorry,” Sheila said.
“Guess all our tempers were a bit frayed by the end of the siege. Bill will come round to seeing it my way: when he stops drinking he will know he shouldn’t have brought that girl round here.”
“After all,” Sheila said, “if I am here I expect Bill saw nothing wrong in bringing Lilli too. I was sorry for the girl.”
They were both silent, remembering Bill’s noisy entrance with his arm round a large-eyed girl, his voice repeating in English, “Come on in, Lilli, Liberty Hall. Come on in. Liberty Hall.” The girl hadn’t understood, but Bill’s confident arm had pulled her into the middle of the room. Even then the girl had sensed that something wasn’t right. She had looked at Sheila and then at Casimir teaching the dog to walk on its hind-legs, and then at Schlott’s brick-red face. Only Bill was oblivious to the sensation he was causing. “Liberty Hall,” he kept repeating rather thickly and determinedly. When the girl had tried to leave Sheila had risen and said, “Do come in.” The smile she gave the girl only caused Lilli’s embarrassment to deepen.
“No room,” Schlott had said, with an angry glare at the impercipient Bill.
“Nuts to that,” Bill said.
Steve had spoken, awkwardly, worriedly. “Sorry, Bill. No room.”
And then Bill’s temper had flared. There was the beginning of a first-class fight, for Schlott was equally aroused. Steve got between them in time, and the girl had seized the chance to back out of the room. Bill decided to abandon the fight and follow the retreating girl. His good-natured face was puckered with anger as he gave his last opinion of them. And then they had heard him calling, “Lilli. Hey! Wait! Lilli!” as his feet slipped and stumbled on the stairs.
Stevens now broke their silence. “Pity it ever had to happen,” he said. “Bill should have had more sense.”
“I was sorry for the girl. Perhaps she had no place to go.”
“Perhaps.” Steve half smiled. “I wonder what’s keeping Madame Aleksander. She should be here by this time.” He glanced at his watch with a frown. He was regaining the old habit along with his new clothes. During the siege time had meant nothing.
“Smart suiting, Mr Stevens,” Sheila said gravely. “Are the big shops open?”
“Not yet. Those that weren’t destroyed are being kept closed by German orders. I got this from a friend of Schlott’s who knew some one who knew some one. There’s a lot of sidewalk trading starting.”
“I wonder why they aren’t open? The large shops, I mean.”
“Loot for the master race. First pickings for them,” Steve said bitterly. Sheila looked down at her dress which no amount of sewing or brushing would make decent. She sighed.
“You always look fine. Don’t worry,” Steve said, paying her the most maddening compliment that man can pay a woman. You always look fine, as if that were going to make her stop feeling like a scarecrow.
“Before Madame Aleksander and the professor arrive I’d like to get one point cleared up,” Steve said. He was nervous in spite of his quiet voice.
Sheila braced herself. She hoped it wasn’t going to be what she thought it might be. I hope he keeps off that subject, she thought miserably. Like Bill’s visit the other night, it would be better if the point were never brought up. She was very fond of Steve, and then she groaned inwardly at the damning phrase. He was what he himself would call a swell guy. But she wasn’t in love with him. He probably only thought he was in love with her. The strain of the siege had made most people more urgent in their emotions, had quickened the tempo of all human relationships. Acquaintances became friends overnight. Marriages had increased in terrific numbers. People felt they had to get the best out of life before they died so soon. She looked at Steve, and her eyes said, “Please, Steve, don’t. You’ll be hurt, and I’ll be miserable. Please don’t.”
“I want you to leave here. Not to go back to England. I want you to come to Switzerland with me. That’s where Olszakis sending me to meet one of your countrymen who’s waiting for me in Geneva. Then the people out there will have an idea of what is being done in here, and they can plan to help us fully.” His eyes hadn’t left hers. He was walking slowly towards her.
“Will you come too?”
She was silent, searching for something to say which wouldn’t hurt him, wouldn’t sound banal, wouldn’t embarrass her still more.
He had sensed something of the conflict inside her, and judged it part of her wide-eyed innocence. “Will you?” he repeated.
“I must stay here,” she said in desperation. “Madame Aleksander…”
“Look,” he said, “I’m trying to get past that little glacier wall of yours and tell you that I’m in love with you.”
Still she couldn’t bear to say to him, “But, Steve, I don’t love you. Not enough. Not the way I want to feel. I shouldn’t be able to reason with you like this if I were in love with you.” Instead, she clung to the excuse of Madame Aleksander. “I must stay here,” she repeated. “I can’t leave yet.”
“Why?” His clever eyes narrowed. “And don’t say Madame Aleksander again.” His mouth had an angry line to it. “Has Wisniewski something to do with this?”
“Steve!” She was suddenly angry, too, and startled that she could be roused like this. “Steve, don’t be stupid, don’t be a complete ——”
And then the door opened. Korytowski’s voice was saying gently. “Here we are, Teresa. See — they are waiting for us.” He urged his sister into the room as if she were a child.
Stevens relaxed his grip on Sheila’s arm. Together they stared at Madame Aleksander. Her white face was so thin, so quiet. The curve of high cheek-bones was accentuated, the wide-set blue eyes were ringed with deep shadows. There was a straight line to the pale lips, a droop in the thin shoulders, a feeling of complete exhaustion in the slow movements. Her face, so taut, so smoothly moulded and expressionless, was a death-mask of human emotions.
Sheila went towards her. The words which she had worried over just wouldn’t come out. Silently she took Madame Aleksander’s hand. It was cold and thin and lifeless. As she led Madame Aleksander towards the bedroom she looked at Stevens. He turned quickly away. Now, he was thinking, I’ll never be able to persuade Sheila to leave. He had seen her choice in that last look. Yet as be accepted the decision he resented it. If a girl loved a man nothing would stop her from being with him if she got the chance. Sheila wouldn’t say yes unless she was positively sure. That was the reason just as much as Madame Aleksander. But why the hell wasn’t she sure? He stared at Professor Korytowski, who was finishing an interminable sentence.
“Yes,” Russell Stevens said in complete agreement, and hardly noticed the surprised look which passed over Korytowski’s face.
When Sheila returned from the other room, where she had left Madame Aleksander lying motionless on the bed pretending to sleep so that there might be no need to talk, Stevens was gone. Professor Korytowski found her responses to his efforts at conversation as peculiar as Stevens’ had been. She pulled herself guiltily away from her thoughts to listen to his news.
“… several attempts to break through the German circle and fight their way out,” he was finishing.
“Any good?”
“Only as a diversion. Two nights ago Wisniewski and five men made their escape through the German lines to coincide with such an attempt. Last night half a dozen other officers left. So Wisniewski’s group is the first in our movement to start action.” There was quiet satisfaction in his voice.
Sheila’s interest quickened. There was the beginning of a smile, of a light in her eyes. “So we’ve made a start,” she said. Wisniewski and his men had got through the German lines. She smiled happily. “We’ve made a start,” she repeated. The depression of the last two days unwreathed its cold mists. She began to feel and see clearly again.
But the sight of Korytowski’s sad face and stooping shoulders as he turned towards the door brought her back to the reality of Warsaw, of waiting in a slaughter-house for the butchers to enter.
“I’m sorry I…” she began.
“Sorry about what?” Korytowski paused at the door and looked affectionately at the girl’s worried face.
“Uncle Edward…”
“Yes?”
“Uncle Edward, is it wrong to worry about one’s own emotions or even to let oneself think of them when there are so many more important things to worry about?”
He closed the door and came back into the room. He stood facing Sheila and placed his scarred hands on her shoulders so that she had to look at him. “As long as people are human they will always have personal emotions. There are two parts to a full life: the thoughts which belong to the outside world, of which we are a part, and the thoughts which belong to us ourselves. And if we couldn’t smile now then the Germans would have a total victory. If we can still keep some private emotions which they can’t forbid then it is a defeat to their purpose. There must be some moments of private happiness to help us live through so much misery.”
He moved once more towards the door, and as she still said nothing he halted and added with one of his warmest smiles, “Because you see so much to make you sad, that doesn’t mean it is your duty to be unhappy. It isn’t heartless to say that, for none of us are ever going to forget those who have been killed or who have suffered. It is only those who forget who are heartless. But I don’t think anyone who has lived through these four weeks is going to forget. Ever.”
Sheila nodded. No one is going to forget, ever, she thought. Every life had been changed by these last four weeks, and these changes would remain throughout each life. For the major changes were not in the loss of possessions or in health; the major changes were in the mind. When men have suffered they see more clearly and less arrogantly what they want from life.
“Does that answer your question, Sheila?”
“Yes.”
The worried look left Korytowski’s face. “I didn’t choose my words for your benefit, Sheila. I believe them myself. I am glad if they helped. For I can never thank you enough for what you have done.” He glanced towards the bedroom, and then the door shut quietly behind him. His slow steps diminished.
Now she was glad she had persisted in staying. His last words filled her with a strange happiness. And then she wondered why Uncle Edward had never married. What a fool some woman was not to have fallen in love with him. And then she thought of Andrew. And she thought of herself and knew she was just such a fool.
She moved quietly to the bedroom door. Madame Aleksander’s pretence had become a reality. In sleep the lines of her face had softened, and its peace had returned.
Sheila turned back to the living-room. The typewriter would be too noisy. Anyway, she had practised enough on it. She picked up Baedeker’s Guide to Southern Germany, and found Section 46: “Munich and Environs.”
Sheila listened to the footsteps. Not Steve. Not Schlott. Not Bill. Not Casimir. Not even Uncle Edward coming back to tell her something he might have forgotten. She rose, remembering to stuff the Baedeker into the depths of Madame Knast’s knitting wools in her work-basket, and hurried to the door. The man was already in the hall. In its darkness she made a guess that this was some kind of a workman. Something in his voice touched her memory, but the question he asked about the owner of the apartment was matter-of-fact and harmless.
“Madame Knast?” she answered. “No I’m afraid I don’t know where she is. We think something must have happened to her.”
“Who’s responsible, then?”
“Mr Stevens, I suppose. But he isn’t here at the moment. He rented the two front rooms.”
“Have to see what repairs are needed.”
“Oh.” How very prompt, Sheila thought. Did that mean some Germans were going to be billeted here? “You’d better make your inspection, then,” she said worriedly.
“You live here?”
“At present. I am a — refugee. There are others, too. One is sleeping in the front bedroom. Please go very quietly there. She is ill.”
Sheila re-entered the living-room, still worried. If Germans took this block of flats what was going to happen to the people that lived here? (Later she would have smiled at her naïveté. What happened to the dispossessed was no concern of the Germans.) And then she was aware that the workman had followed her. He was behind her, closing the door. She turned in surprise. The surprise became fear. God, she was saying to herself, dear God. Her legs couldn’t move. All she could do was to stand there, her heart thumping so heavily that the man surely must have heard it, her lips dry, her throat unable to swallow. God, she said again in her heart, dear God help me. For the test had come. The man moved forward, smiling and now unlimping. For all his workman’s clothes and his younger appearance, the man was Henryk.
“Surprised?” he asked mockingly in German.
She put a finger to her lips and pointed to the bedroom door. With a quick easy stride he crossed over to the door, looked inside briefly, and nodded. “Asleep,” he said.
“She has been restless. Quiet. She may wake.” Sheila answered him in German.
“Who is she?”
“Madame Aleksander.”
“Ah, your late hostess.” He looked round the room. “You’ve been luckier than some of us. This isn’t too bad. How do you feel now? Better?”
“I — I don’t like this waiting.”
“It will soon be over. The first of October will see the occupation begin. The sixth is the date set for the parade before the Führer. The Poles have to clear away the litter from the main avenues before then. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”
Sheila nodded. Gradually she was becoming more calm. The first panic had passed without disaster. She could even look at the man with interest. It was incredible how he was still Henryk and yet not Henryk.
“What are you staring at?” he asked, and sat on the edge of the table.
“You,” Sheila said frankly. “You are so much younger than I thought.”
That didn’t displease him. “You look better yourself. You were almost a corpse that last night in Czacki Street.”
“But they didn’t get us,” Sheila said slowly. Danger zone again, she thought.
“They got Lisa.”
“Lisa?” She widened her eyes. She remembered in time that Lisa was Elzbieta’s true name.
“Yes. Shot. She wasn’t so lucky as you. Well get the men who did it, though. I have them listed.”
Sheila said nothing. She hoped he would think she was being sad about Lisa.
“How did you manage it?” the quick voice asked.
“Lisa had been unconscious.” Danger zone, she thought.
The man nodded.
“But of course you knew that, for I saw you in the shadows,” Sheila said. She watched Henryk’s expression with some satisfaction. “I was afraid that the policemen would see you too. It was a bad moment for me.”
Henryk only smiled approvingly. He was waiting for the rest of her story.
“Inside the police building, Lisa recovered. She suddenly broke away and tried to escape. She ran down the hall, and just then a bomb fell near-by. The man who held me tried to stop Lisa as she passed us. The lights were dimmed. I tugged myself free just as he grabbed Lisa, and stepped into a doorway. It was an empty room. I saw another doorway. It took me into a small passage. Another doorway. And then the street. It was unlighted, but I rushed on. I heard yells from the passage-way I had just left. And round the corner was a fire which the bomb had started, and I lost myself among the fire-fighters and air-raid wardens and people who had come to help. In the main street I found a cab. I took it to the French Embassy. Then I walked here. I wanted to make sure I shouldn’t be traced to the American’s flat. And I thought the police wouldn’t look for me in an American’s rooms.”
“What story did you tell him?”
“That I was in danger from some German spies. That no one must know I was here.”
“And he believed that?”
“I decided him by fainting. And I was ill. He noticed that. I was in bed for nearly three weeks, and only the Aleksanders knew I was here. Barbara Aleksander came to nurse me. I think the Aleksanders persuaded him my story could be true. They were always talking of German spies.”
“Why didn’t you go to Nalewki instead of here? Why didn’t you let us know where you were?”
Nalewki. Nalewki. The Jewish quarter. Was that where Henryk and his friends had been in hiding? She looked squarely at the man. He was asking too many questions. He had no right to do this, she suddenly realized; she was under Hofmeyer’s orders, not under Henryk’s. She said coldly, “I didn’t go to Nalewki for fear I had been allowed to escape so that I could be followed. And I didn’t let you know, because I was ill. I didn’t even know if you had been arrested or not. When I was well enough I got a message through to Hofmeyer. That was all I needed to do.”
The man nodded slowly as if he accepted that explanation.
Sheila drew a deep breath. Olszak had been right. He had said that once you start defending your life and your friends you learned how to use your wits. He had said ideas came quickly, surprisingly. He had been right. Her confidence grew. She was actually smiling at the man. It wasn’t one of her friendliest smiles, but it was sufficiently assured.
“When did you see Hofmeyer?” he asked very casually.
What was this man trying to do, anyway? Had he been given one story by Hofmeyer, and now wanted to compare her version?
“He will tell you,” she said, with a show of temper. “I’m under his orders. And just what are you doing here to-day, anyway? Does Hofmeyer know?”
“What’s Hofmeyer to you?” he asked, his eyes veiled.
“What’s that to you?”
‘Temper, temper.” He shook his head mockingly, but he was now on the defensive. He stopped his questions. He said, “Hofmeyer may not always be so powerful as you think, Anna.”
Sheila thought over that. She didn’t like it, just as she didn’t like the man’s way of watching her. She drew her ankles out of sight and covered her legs carelessly with her skirt.
“Hofmeyer won’t like to hear that,” she said, and almost shuddered at her temerity.
“But you won’t tell him.” Henryk’s voice was soft as silk. His assurance was unbounded. “What I can’t believe is that you should have lived in London so long without Bracht’s discovering you. It had to be Hofmeyer!”
“Switzerland suited my complexion better than London. Bracht should have met me there.”
Henryk laughed. He had a fine set of teeth. Like a bear-trap, Sheila thought.
“Why did you come here?” she asked again. “Did Hofmeyer tell you my address?”
“I followed you two days ago. You were walking back from the centre of the town with the American. You’ve got him neatly under control. There’s nothing like a pair of pretty eyes, unless it is a pair of pretty legs. I wager Hofmeyer doesn’t know your value.”
“He has given me his orders. I am quite satisfied.”
“And loyal, too. Brains, beauty, and loyalty. You’ll go far. With the right boss.” There was a coarse huskiness to his voice which irritated her.
Sheila suddenly thought, I can’t bear much more of this. I can’t bear it. I could take off my shoes to smash in these mocking, knowing eyes. She pretended to listen. “Thought I heard Madame Aleksander,” she said, and lowered her voice. “Quiet!”
“The old girl’s dead-beat,” Henryk said.
“Why did you come here? Have you news for me? Or is this just a social call?” She rose wearily and walked to the window. People were out there, people who were her friends and this man’s enemies.
“Purely social.” He was laughing again. Then, with his voice very smooth again and the hoarseness quite gone, he added quietly, “Used to know Munich. Was stationed there in 1932. Were you there then? I wager you used to pass along outside the Brown House in pigtails, and look at the men standing guard outside. I used to be one of them.”
“Yes, I saw them. But probably not you. I left Munich in 1932. Fräulein Leigh must have heard you were coming to town.” She turned once more to the window. There were two policemen now in sight. If she leaned out of the window and called down for help she could have Henryk arrested. The Germans weren’t in full control here yet. Not until the first of October.
“Who was Fräulein Leigh?” His voice was too gentle.
“She brought me up.” If I could dash out of this door and lock it, Sheila thought, if I could tell the policemen that this man was a spy they would know what to do with him quite unofficially but effectively. One spy less. One spy with his account rendered and paid.
“An orphan?” he murmured sympathetically.
“My father was killed on the Western Front. My mother was — I’m sorry. I must be boring you.”
“Not at all. Your mother Lotte Braun, was… ?”
“My mother, Frieda Braun, was in Cologne.”
“What’s so interesting in the street? Come and sit down over here. Did you ever meet Bracht in London?”
Sheila said, “I was keeping watch for the boy Casimir. He is entering the house now. He’s another refugee that Herr Stevens is sheltering.”
Casimir’s clatter ended abruptly in the doorway. Henryk was standing before a cracked wall, prodding the loose plaster most expertly. Sheila had picked up a magazine.
“Quietly, Casimir,” Sheila said. “Madame Aleksander is sleeping next door. What have you brought for supper? Wonderful! Would you fill the pot from the water-bucket in the kitchen, Casimir? I’ll be with you in a minute as soon as this man leaves.”
“Who’s he?” Casimir asked curiously. The dog was pawing Sheila’s knee to attract attention. Me too, it seemed to say. She rubbed its head and replied, “Some workman or other. He’s just finished inspecting the damage.”
Casimir went towards the kitchen with a last curious look at the man. The dog followed him, his nose surely pointed towards the food.
“Time to be going,’ Sheila said in a low voice to Henryk. She was surprised when he obeyed.
“Just routine check-up, ma’am,” he said in Polish, loud enough for Casimir to hear. And then he added out of the side of his mouth, “Quite the friend of the Poles, aren’t you?”
“Those were my instructions.”
“What are your plans?”
“Waiting further instructions.”
He looked down at her, his eyes so impenetrable that Sheila wondered in alarm if she had betrayed herself. She was left with that unsatisfactory question unanswered, for Henryk was already moving into the hall. He was whistling. She remembered that early morning in Uncle Edward’s flat and the sound of water as the hot dust was hosed off the pavement under her window. Again she echoed her thoughts of that morning: What has he to be happy about? But this time she knew the answer.
She stood at the window until she saw Henryk enter the street. Another workman, loitering in a near-by doorway, joined him. Together they strode away, their feet keeping perfect rhythm. If she had called the policemen she might have caught Henryk, but she would have endangered Hofmeyer. She took a deep breath. Now that she was safely alone, without a phrase or expression to betray her and threaten her friends, she suddenly felt terribly afraid.
From the kitchen Casimir’s voice called cheerily.
She roused herself. “Coming, Casimir,” she said, and placed the magazine slowly back in place. She wished this man Henryk weren’t so ambitious. She wished he weren’t jealous of Hofmeyer. She knew she had good reason to be afraid.
RADIUM AGE SCIENCE FICTION: “Radium Age” is HILOBROW’s name for the 1904–33 era, which saw the discovery of radioactivity, the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. This era also saw the publication of genre-shattering writing by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sax Rohmer, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Jack London, Arthur Conan Doyle, Aldous Huxley, Olaf Stapledon, Karel Čapek, H.P. Lovecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Philip Gordon Wylie, and other pioneers of post-Verne/Wells, pre-Golden Age “science fiction.” More info here.
READ GORGEOUS PAPERBACKS: HiLoBooks has reissued the following 10 obscure but amazing Radium Age science fiction novels in beautiful print editions: Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague, Rudyard Kipling’s With the Night Mail (and “As Easy as A.B.C.”), Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt, H. Rider Haggard’s When the World Shook, Edward Shanks’ The People of the Ruins, William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land, J.D. Beresford’s Goslings, E.V. Odle’s The Clockwork Man, Cicely Hamilton’s Theodore Savage, and Muriel Jaeger’s The Man with Six Senses. For more information, visit the HiLoBooks homepage.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague | Rudyard Kipling’s With the Night Mail (and “As Easy as A.B.C.”) | Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt | H. Rider Haggard’s When the World Shook | Edward Shanks’ The People of the Ruins | William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land | J.D. Beresford’s Goslings | E.V. Odle’s The Clockwork Man | Cicely Hamilton’s Theodore Savage | Muriel Jaeger’s The Man With Six Senses | Jack London’s “The Red One” | Philip Francis Nowlan’s Armageddon 2419 A.D. | Homer Eon Flint’s The Devolutionist | W.E.B. DuBois’s “The Comet” | Edgar Rice Burroughs’s The Moon Men | Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland | Sax Rohmer’s “The Zayat Kiss” | Eimar O’Duffy’s King Goshawk and the Birds | Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Lost Prince | Morley Roberts’s The Fugitives | Helen MacInnes’s The Unconquerable | Geoffrey Household’s Watcher in the Shadows | William Haggard’s The High Wire | Hammond Innes’s Air Bridge | James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen | John Buchan’s “No Man’s Land” | John Russell’s “The Fourth Man” | E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” | John Buchan’s Huntingtower | Arthur Conan Doyle’s When the World Screamed | Victor Bridges’ A Rogue By Compulsion | Jack London’s The Iron Heel | H. De Vere Stacpoole’s The Man Who Lost Himself | P.G. Wodehouse’s Leave It to Psmith | Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” | Houdini and Lovecraft’s “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” | Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Sussex Vampire.”
ORIGINAL FICTION: HILOBROW has serialized three novels: James Parker’s The Ballad of Cocky The Fox (“a proof-of-concept that serialization can work on the Internet” — The Atlantic); Karinne Keithley Syers’s Linda Linda Linda (which includes original music); and Robert Waldron’s roman à clef The School on the Fens. We also publish original stories and comics. These include: Matthew Battles’s stories “Gita Nova“, “Makes the Man,” “Imago,” “Camera Lucida,” “A Simple Message”, “Children of the Volcano”, “The Gnomon”, “Billable Memories”, “For Provisional Description of Superficial Features”, “The Dogs in the Trees”, “The Sovereignties of Invention”, and “Survivor: The Island of Dr. Moreau”; several of these later appeared in the collection The Sovereignties of Invention | Peggy Nelson’s “Mood Indigo“, “Top Kill Fail“, and “Mercerism” | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Flourish Klink’s Star Trek fanfic “Conference Comms” | Charlie Mitchell’s “A Fantasy Land” | Charlie Mitchell’s “Sentinels” | Joshua Glenn’s “The Lawless One”, and the mashup story “Zarathustra vs. Swamp Thing” | Adam McGovern and Paolo Leandri’s Idoru Jones comics | John Holbo’s “Sugarplum Squeampunk” | “Another Corporate Death” (1) and “Another Corporate Death” (2) by Mike Fleisch | Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer and Frank Fiorentino’s graphic novel “The Song of Otto” (excerpt) | John Holbo’s graphic novel On Beyond Zarathustra (excerpt) | “Manoj” and “Josh” by Vijay Balakrishnan | “Verge” by Chris Rossi, and his audio novel Low Priority Hero | EPIC WINS: THE ILIAD (1.408-415) by Flourish Klink | EPIC WINS: THE KALEVALA (3.1-278) by James Parker | EPIC WINS: THE ARGONAUTICA (2.815-834) by Joshua Glenn | EPIC WINS: THE MYTH OF THE ELK by Matthew Battles | TROUBLED SUPERHUMAN CONTEST: Charles Pappas, “The Law” | CATASTROPHE CONTEST: Timothy Raymond, “Hem and the Flood” | TELEPATHY CONTEST: Rachel Ellis Adams, “Fatima, Can You Hear Me?” | OIL SPILL CONTEST: A.E. Smith, “Sound Thinking | LITTLE NEMO CAPTION CONTEST: Joe Lyons, “Necronomicon” | SPOOKY-KOOKY CONTEST: Tucker Cummings, “Well Marbled” | INVENT-A-HERO CONTEST: TG Gibbon, “The Firefly” | FANFICTION CONTEST: Lyette Mercier’s “Sex and the Single Superhero”