Philip E. High

Humankind survives a nuclear apocalypse, only to find the radiation has made the planet uninhabitable to the worlds brain trust orbiting the planet above.

There had been one war scare too many and so the human race had used genetic sorcery to delete the aggressive tendencies from its heredity. But now mankind was faced with an alien enemy so superior, so ruthless, that it was flight or be wiped out...and the humans could not fight. They couldn't even give orders for their robots to produce weapons. The only possibility was to call up and bring back to life a museum exhibit, the submarine Euphrates and its battle-trained crew. The ship had been sunk a thousand years before and had been preserved to show the decadence of violence — violence which was the only hope against an enemy to whom the living space was all-important and human life was entirely superfluous.

A self-confessed murderer recounts the events that led up to an apparently unprovoked attack; a gruesome murder scene holds nasty surprises for the investigating officers; a man makes what amounts to a deal with the devil - and pays the price; caught up in events beyond his control, a bit-part player in a wider drama has his guardian angel to thank for his survival ... These, and other stories of the strange and unaccountable, make up this collection from author Philip E. High.

In his second collection of poems, Adam Kirsch examines the world we live in now, a world in which the dangers of history have invaded the pleasures of private life. His connected poems use traditional forms to create a free, contemporary music amidst the omens of the post-September 11 world.