Around the Bend

by Darrell Bain
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Publish Date: October 04, 2004
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Overview

An eclectic, erotic and fun collection of science fiction, fantasy, humor and non-fiction by Darrell Bain, author of the best selling science fiction novel The Sex Gates. Includes the short novella God vs Boilerroom McScam. With an introduction by Deron Douglas. |||This book is sold in the US by Sony Electronics Inc. |||This book is sold in Canada by Sony Electronics Inc.

Author Information

Darrell Bain

Over the last several years, Darrell Bain has become one of the top best selling authors in the world in the realm of electronic publishing. Most of Bain's books are also in print. He produces a monthly newsletter, discoursing on various subjects brought up by fans or by his own voracious reading habit, written in an informal, narrative style. It is available around the first of each month from his web site at www.darrellbain.com

Darrell is the author of more than two dozen books in many genres, running the gamut from humor to mystery and science fiction to non-fiction. For the last several years he has concentrated on science fiction and suspense/thrillers, with an occasional foray into humor and short stories. Some of his most memorable titles are The Sex Gates, Savage Survival, Alien Infection, The Melanin Apocalypse, Strange Valley, The Pet Plague trilogy and the Williard Brothers series.

Darrell served 13 years in the military and his two stints in Vietnam formed the basis for his first published novel, Medics Wild, and the sequels featuring the zany Williard brothers, where the latest book has brought them up to their present day exploits. Darrell has been writing off and on all his life but really got serious about it only after the advent of computers. He purchased his first one in 1989 and has been writing furiously ever since.

While Darrell was working as a lab manager at a hospital in Texas, he met his wife Betty. He trapped her under a mistletoe sprig and they were married a year later. Darrell and Betty operated a Christmas tree farm in East Texas for many years, which became the subject and backdrop for many of his humorous stories and books.

The Bain family consists of he and his wife Betty and their dachshunds, Tonto and Susie, along with Velcro the cat. They still live on the site of their Christmas tree farm, though it is no longer in business. Darrell is a full time writer now and Betty is retired. They spend most of their leisure time reading.

Mail to Darrell Bain can be addressed to him from his web site, www.darrellbain.com

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Product Details

Published by

Double Dragon Publishing
Publish Date

October 04, 2004
Print ISBN

1413736785
eBook ISBN

9781554040360
Imprint

Double Dragon Publishing
Filesize

486.84 KB
Number of Print Pages*

149

* Number of eBook pages may differ. Click here for more information.

Excerpt from Around the Bend by Darrell Bain

SHARKS PLAY NO FAVORITES

Sharks Play No Favorites was Bain's first published story. It appeared in The Testament of Lael, a chapbook anthology with a theological theme (loosely speaking). Bain has always admired the short-short story form as exemplified by Fredrick Brown, an acknowledged master of that genre and one of Bain's favorite authors. He decided to see if he could write in that format. They don't come much shorter than this one, but you will have to be the judge of its worth.

Once upon a time an odd friendship developed between an atheist and a preacher. They loved to argue, in a friendly sort of way, even though they could never agree on anything.

"Jesus could walk on water," the preacher remarked one day as they were strolling together along a beach. "It has been written in the Bible."

"No way," the atheist disclaimed. "He was only a man. He couldn't have walked on water."

"Nonsense," the preacher said. "Why, even I could walk on water if I had enough faith, even as our Lord Jesus did."

"Prove your faith, then," the atheist dared. "Here is the ocean; walk on it for me, just as you say Jesus did."

The preacher hesitated for a long moment, then abruptly came to a decision. He knelt and prayed. Resolutely, he then rose and walked confidently out into the foam, the surf, the breakers, and on up onto the top of the rolling waves.

The atheist watched and wondered, but he did not kneel, nor did he pray. "It must be mind over matter," he thought. He hesitated also, but he was no less resolute than the preacher. Determinedly, he steeled his mind and walked forthrightly into the foam, the surf, the breakers, and on up onto the top of the rolling waves.

Salt spray soaked the both of them as still they continued to argue.

"This truly shows the power of faith," the preacher proclaimed ecstatically, gliding ever farther from the shore.

"It's simply mind over matter," the atheist insisted stoically, matching the preacher stride for stride.

Their argument might have gone on and on, but at that moment the waves around them turned into a bloody, churning froth from their lacerated bodies. Just before they died, the preacher and the atheist finally agreed on one thing: whether walking on water was a matter of faith or a state of mind, it should never be attempted in shark infested waters.