Gathan had lived in the Shadowed Land all his life, but he longed to see the places and things that his grandfather had told him about in the stories. The tall trees and the green seas of grass on the plains, the purple blue skies and the far off mountains and the deep dark blanket of night covering the land. But Gathan had no hope of ever seeing these things because his people had lived under the ground since before he was born. But when Gathan begins to dream of a beautiful girl who calls him to leave his home to find her, he realizes that his life will never be the same. So now he must choose to leave the only life he knows and the people he loves to follow a shadowy uncertain future or to stay home and ignore the will of the Goddess who has called him.

Updated periodically. The Doktor's Spyglass is fantasy noir. It has elements of steampunk, epic fantasy, and classic detective fiction--think of it as Sherlock Holmes meets Locke Lamora. ***************************************************************************** When an eccentric inventor is reported dead, consulting detective Irik Thijis is called in to investigate. He soon discovers that Doktor Keynish Helg is not as dead as he seems, and that something much stranger than simple murder is afoot. The Inspection Service of the holy city of Oridos is about as useful as a horseless carriage when it comes to solving crimes, and Thijis is used to sorting out their cases for them. But what he discovers lurking in the Doktor's mansion soon finds them all out of their depth. As Thijis probes deeper into his strangest case yet, he realizes that blood and death are only the opening gambit in a play that may cost him not only his livelihood, but his life.

Evangeline Holmes is an 18 year old Junior Inspector Detective, who only answers to Holmes; her arch nemesis is Detective Inspector Blake Morse, a fellow detective who likes to push her to her very limits, forcing her to be very unethical, and violent towards him. He does this only because he is madly in love with her, and she hates his very being. When she is asked to solve a new case involving the murder of a Professor who thinks he has found the cure for cancer, Morse steps in and tries to steal it from her, getting her into a lot of trouble with her boss. However, Holmes is too good and bright to be pulled out from the case, and begins to unearth evidence much faster and much more efficiently then Morse ever could, making him like her that bit more, and he will stop at nothing to give her the love life she so rightly deserves. But when she finds out the truth about the murder, and who the murderer is, will she want to turn them in, or keep it a secret, as this person knows too many secrets about her past life. Suddenly murders begin to disperse to many people close to the Professor, as they admit to Holmes that they were told how he could cure the deadly disease. People start to get suspicious of Holmes and the killer may unearth some very scary skeletons from her own private closet.

Sometimes, a certain combination of numbers you encounter in everyday life intrigue you, because they seem too much of a coincidence. In this case the numbers are 8.15. What's 8.15 got to do with anything? 8:15, August 15th, Are these numbers cursed or blessed? It all starts with a long distance call to a public phone near a Navajo reservation in Arizona from Tokyo. A university student gets stabbed to death in his apartment in Tokyo. His close friend goes missing and becomes a suspect. An alcoholic, washed-up detective gets a second chance and starts investigating. He's intrigued with numbers 815 as well. Will he able to connect the dots?