Ancient Short Stories

A brilliant new short story from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Madeline Miller—her first new work of fiction since the publication of Circe—that vibrantly reimagines the powerful and forgotten myth of Mestra. A cursed father, a gifted daughter Mestra, daughter of the King of...

THE EXPERIMENT THAT ATE THE WORLD. A twelve-year-old fell in the plaza. One of the Watchers jumped forty-two feet from a balcony and fused the bone with six-tenths of one percent of his remaining eternity. The boy stood up. Showed his friend. Pressed the other boy's fingers against the ridge of new tissue and said: look what I have now. The boy's tissue carried the bridge natively. A hybrid generation could hold the knowledge across centuries instead of losing it every forty years. The math was clean. He ran it twice. He walked to the weapons chief's office. Seven beings voted unanimously ...

Many stories have stood the test of time, but this selection have entranced audiences for thousands of years and remain as fresh today as they were when first told. A fascinating collection which gives vivid insights into lives in ancient times and the issues that occupied the people of the day.

This reissue of the 1919 classic combines the immortal stories from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into one glorious saga of heroism and magical adventure. Beloved by generations, Padraic Colum's masterful retelling of these epic adventures is remarkably fresh, consistently spellbinding, and unmatched for its richness and poetry.

The Ancient: Night Root is a short story with a chilling blend of science fiction and ancient folklore. Some things do not die; they seed themselves in the earth. Buried in the red clay, something ancient waits. A hunger older than memory, and patient as the dark itself. When a scientist perfects the art of resurrecting extinct species, her work is meant to be a triumph of science. Then, deep in the university’s archives, she discovers a bone fragment that defies every genetic record. It is not from any known species… and not entirely dead. What begins as an experiment in genetic ...

The Merchant of Rome A Zombie Horror Short Story by James Bachman Rome burns. The dead march. And a grain merchant holds the key to the Empire’s doom. Marcus Brutus Calvus isn’t a hero. He’s a hustler, a dealmaker—a survivor. But when a cursed box arrives from Alexandria, he opens it, and unleashes an ancient Egyptian plague that reanimates the dead. As the infection spreads through the Eternal City, the dead form ranks, march in legions, and slaughter with chilling precision. Senators vanish. Temples fall. The gods go silent. Fast-paced, brutal, and dripping with dark irony, The ...

An ancient tomb. A deadly secret. A brotherhood that kills to protect it. When professional treasure hunter Porter Pursley receives an urgent call from his archaeologist friend George Jackson, he drops everything to fly to the Egyptian desert. The team has discovered the tomb of Bek-rah, a master sculptor from the nineteenth dynasty—but the magnificent chamber is completely empty. Porter specializes in solving the puzzles that technology can't crack, reading the minds of ancient architects who built elaborate deceptions to protect their greatest treasures. But as he investigates the ...

Before there were churches. Before there were kings. Before there were names. There were the first gods. Across the British Isles lie ancient places older than memory — stone circles raised to unknown powers, burial mounds sealed with dread, moors that whisper in forgotten tongues, and forests that do not welcome trespassers. The land remembers what humanity has tried to forget. In The First Gods of the Isles, Adrian Cave delivers twenty chilling tales of folk horror and ancient evil rooted deep in Britain’s sacred and cursed ground. Archaeologists unearth what should have remained ...

Are you brave enough to enter a world where the line between reality and nightmare is impossibly thin? The Horror Files beckons you into a realm where legends stir from the past, and every corner hides a terror waiting to strike. This is no ordinary collection, it's a descent into darkness, where fear takes on many faces, and no secret stays buried for long. Ancient myths claw their way into the present. Unsolved mysteries evolve into chilling realities. Brutal horrors of today collide with the restless whispers of forgotten legends. With 18 heart-pounding stories, The Horror Files will ...

A variety of work from one of the most quotable of all twentieth-century authors—the inimitable Dorothy Parker Author, poet, screenwriter and outstanding member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker was known for her quick wit, keen observations, and remarkable insight into...

5 SHORT STORY GEMS is a compendium of short stories written by New Zealand author Lance Morcan and published by Sterling Gate Books in 2019/2020. The stories, which have also been released as standalone Kindle ebooks, are aimed at lovers of thrillers, adventure, romance and historical fiction. Details follow… ONCE WERE BROTHERS – Life will never be the same for young Benjamin Thomas after disaffected Maoris abduct his identical twin brother in this moving short story adventure set in Nineteenth Century New Zealand. Mr. 100% – When New York defense lawyer Madison ‘Mr. 100%’ Harley ...

Seven mind-bending tales that will reshape your understanding of humanity's place in the universe. From the dusty excavation sites of ancient Mesopotamia to the far reaches of interstellar space, Whispers From The Cosmos delivers seven interconnected stories that blur the line between science fiction and cosmic horror. When archaeologist Dr. Leyla Hanan discovers an ancient Sumerian tablet pointing to coordinates in deep space, she unwittingly triggers a chain of events that will forever alter the course of human civilization. Journey through realities where: · A teenage boy discovers his ...

A collection of supernatural short tales about ghosts, witches, a persistent banshee, werewolves, vampires, a haunted circus, an ancient Egyptian malevolent mummy come back to life, and a demon-filled woods. A story of a ghost and revenge. Short stories meant to amaze and scare you and lure you into the dark realm. Written over a lifetime of my writing, I offer them to you. Read them on a rainy fall night around Halloween, if you dare. Also, two bonus REAL ghost stories from my life.

Embark on a gripping journey to the edges of the known universe with "The Prometheus Protocol." When the starship Astarte arrives at Kepler-186f, Captain Zara Vega and her team find more than an alien landscape—they discover a mysterious artifact pulsing with otherworldly energy. As they delve into its secrets, the artifact unlocks a power that transforms one crew member and forces them to confront the boundaries of human morality, knowledge, and survival. Racing against time, the crew faces a pivotal choice: harness the artifact’s power to elevate humanity or risk annihilation. In this...

Subject 734 isn’t a man. He is a thesis.Dr. Katrin Vane deals in hard data. As the university’s leading Anomalous Biologist, she knows that the thing floating in the amber vat in the sub-basement isn’t a folklore legend. He is a biological specimen. A career-maker. A set of variables to be measured, cataloged, and ignored.Until the cooling system fails.When a facility-wide lockdown seals Katrin inside the lab with the specimen, the variables change. The ice melts. The heartbeat returns. And Valeric wakes up with a hunger that has been building for five hundred years.He is ancient, ...

"He who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose." – Anne Bronte The blooming of the rare and mysterious blue rose heralds great change, for when the buds open to full blossom enemies become lovers. Some fear this omen, some desire it. All respect it. Discover the power--and the promise--of the blue rose for yourself. When the murderer of her brother is welcomed into her castle as a friend, Lady Ella Rames vows to make his life as miserable as hers and to avenge her brother. Struggling to fulfill an oath and find the elusive blue rose, Sir Graden Dumount’s final hope rests ...

In the dead of night, a faceless enemy hacks into the Smithsonian Institution’s network of servers, but it is only the first strike masking a larger attack. To rescue a biologist trapped in the National Museum of Natural History and to discover the true intent behind an assault that grows...

Where the Shadows Feed: Short Tales of Horror - Volume I Are you brave enough to confront the darkness that lurks within? Joe Ippolito invites you on a chilling descent into the macabre with Where the Shadows Feed, a collection of short horror stories that will haunt your dreams. More than just jump scares, these tales delve into the psychological landscapes of fear, exploring the lingering echoes of trauma, the corrosive power of guilt, and the terrifying realization that we are not always in control of our own destinies. From the depths of the Amazonian jungle, where a research expedition...

When ancient Mesopotamian code becomes the blueprint for humanity's future, one hacker must decode the past to save the present. In the neon-drenched sprawl of Neo-Babylon, elite hacker Zara discovers something impossible: a corporate encryption system built on four-thousand-year-old Sumerian cuneiform. But these aren't just historical artifacts—they're executable code, functional algorithms written in clay by a civilization that shouldn't have possessed such knowledge. Teaming with disgraced archaeologist Dr. Roya Tehrani, Zara awakens a planetary management AI that has slumbered for ...

In this action-romance short story, dashing Greek gladiator Leonidas promises his true love he’ll buy her freedom if he wins his own in the Colosseum of Ancient Rome. First he must defeat an opponent he knows he cannot kill. The year is 83AD and it’s nine years since Roman soldiers killed a young Leonidas’s family in their farmhouse outside Athens and consigned him to the life of a gladiator at Ludus Magnus, one of the biggest and best ludi gladiatori, or gladiator schools, in Rome. Since then, he remains undefeated after twenty-five fights and has risen to the top of the gladiator ...