THE Right Honorable Edward Junius Carsington, Earl of Hargate, had five sons, which was three more than he needed.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. It was the future, and everything sucked.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

The family landed in the Western Hemisphere in the person of Roger Blake Wolfe, who arrived with a price on his head.

They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that's not how it happened for me.

Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston.

I know what you want to hear, doctor, but I'm sorry, you're not going to pry some sordid confession out of me.

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

When you've been struck by lightning as many times as I have, you start to expect the worst pretty much all the time.

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

The truly revolutionary promise of our nation's founding document is the freedom to pursue happiness-with-a-capital-H.

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.

There once was a woman named Story Easton who couldn't decide if she should kill herself, or eat a double cheeseburger.

Midnight was closing in, the one-legged woman was grievously burned, and the Mumbai police were coming for Abdul and his father.

If you want vampires and werewolves, faeries, fallen angels or zombies, you won't find them here. I know a real-life monster.