The Scribings Omnibus

For the past five years, the Greater Portland Scribists writing group has been independently publishing their fiction in annual anthologies. This Omnibus edition combines almost every story we've published. Ten of our current and previous members have contributed a total of 44 stories to this collection. From our inaugural volume to this year's volume, Inversions, the stories contained in this Omnibus Edition span nearly every speculative fiction subgenre there is--fantasy, horror, science fiction, paranormal, and more. The Scribings Omnibus contains stories from the following volumes: - Scribings, Vol 1 - Scribings, Vol 2: Lost Civilizations * - Scribings, Vol 3: Metamorphosis - Scribings, Vol 4: Miscreations - Scribings, Vol 5: Inversions * Christopher L. Weston's story from Lost Civilizations, Ordovicia, will remain exclusive to the original ebook

The Greater Portland Scribists writing group first formed in July 2010 and published their first anthology the following June. Since then, they have been publishing an anthology every summer. After the publication of their fifth volume in 2015, they decided it would be fun to look back over the years and choose the best stories from each author. With the help of fans in autumn 2015, they have selected one story each from current and previous members. This collection is a great sampler of work spanning the years that we've been working together. Stories contained in this volume: - What Time Is Our Torture Session? by Lee Patterson (from Vol 1) - In the Business of Rotting by Cynthia Ravinski (from Vol 1) - Secret Under the Sand by Jamie Alan Belanger (from Vol 2: Lost Civilizations) - Otherkin by Steven Inman (from Vol 3: Metamorphosis) - Breed by Timothy Lynch (from Vol 4: Miscreations) - The Joke by Richard Veysey (from Vol 4: Miscreations) - Sand Fleas by D.L. Harvey (from Vol 5: Inversions) - Wolf and Raven by Shelli-Jo Pelletier (from Vol 5: Inversions) - Repurposed by Matthew Stephen D. (from Vol 5: Inversions) - Better Alive Than Dead by Robin Hansen (an all-new story exclusive to this volume)

For as long as our species has existed, humans have always been social creatures. We gather around campfires and tables, sharing meals and stories. Somewhere inside this greater narrative lies a long string of tales that come full circle. People meet, and part, and then at some point they meet again. It seems inevitable, as if this conjunction of lives was always meant to be. In this volume, the Greater Portland Scribists explore these bonds. Whether trying to save a childhood retreat from corporate interests, reuniting with old friends, returning home for a final goodbye, or trying to cope with a dear one who won't depart, these tales are about the twisting journeys of our relationships. Location, context, and pasts are irrelevant--it's the people with whom we connect who help shape our experience on this world.

It is the near future. Most people have a cranial implant for connecting directly to the Net, brain-first. When people die, all of their thoughts, hopes, dreams, and memories are extracted via this interface and encoded in the Soul Bank. Every person is stored indefinitely and made available for anyone to visit. Many partake of this opportunity to learn from the lives and mistakes of others. But the memories are just data stored in a computer system, and one day a hacker learns how to steal those memories. Implanting them into the brains of interested buyers is just as easy, and quite profitable. Meet Jeremiah Jones: visionary, entrepreneur, sociopath. Name your dream. Name your price.

Journey into lands long lost with the Greater Portland Scribists. Delve into an Egyptian pyramid in a peculiar location. See what a Viking boy does when handed the executioner's ax. Find out why sometimes it's too late to learn from your mistakes. Watch a bookbinder as he achieves his dreams. See a civilization vanish through the eyes of a young girl. Scribings Vol 2: Lost Civilizations features eight exciting stories that will take you on a trip through time and space and even through the fabric of reality itself. Scribings Vol 2 features stories from trusted veterans Richard Veysey, Cynthia Ravinski, and Jamie Alan Belanger; as well as stories from new members Christopher L. Weston and Timothy Lynch.

This is the untold political history of television's formative era. The author, an historian, goes behind the scenes of early television programming, revealing that producers, sponsors, and scriptwriters had far more in mind than simply entertaining (and selling products). Long before the age of PBS, leaders from business, philanthropy, and social reform movements as well as public intellectuals were all obsessively concerned with TV's potential to mold the right kind of citizen. After World War II, inspired by the perceived threats of Soviet communism, class war, and racial violence, members of what was then known as "the Establishment" were drawn together by a shared conviction that television broadcasting could be a useful tool for governing. The men of Du Pont, the AFL-CIO, the Advertising Council, the Ford Foundation, the Fund for the Republic, and other organizations interested in shaping (according to American philosopher Mortimer Adler) "the ideas that should be in every citizen's mind," turned to TV as a tool for reaching those people they thought of as the masses. Based on years of archival work, this work sheds new light on the place of television in the postwar American political landscape. At a time when TV broadcasting is in a state of crisis, and when a new political movement for media reform has ascended the political stage, here is a new history of the ideas and assumptions that have profoundly shaped not only television, but our political culture itself.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1843.