Gatherer of Souls and Outland Sorrows

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Gatherer of Souls and Outland Sorrows is a collection of science fiction short stories in PDF format by Scot Noel. In these 10 tales (over 60,000 words), the focus is on wayward voyagers and lost souls, men and women who find themselves under trial when civilizations fail and human experience itself approaches an end. Here there are neither empires nor heroes, neither interstellar fleets nor promising futures. What remains are the souls and sorrows that, in all ages, bring the universe to life Read a Sample

The Gatherer of Souls.  Artwork Copyright © 2007 by Scot Noel, based on a photograph by Lois Yeager (Click art to view larger image)

Table of Contents

Gatherer of Souls Fire and Ice Anamnesis Sentinels Restorations Daughter of the Long Cold Snows of Darkness The Other Splinters of Faith Walker in Leaves

pages 3 to 34 pages 35 to 64 pages 65 to 90 pages 91 to 99 pages 100 to 139 pages 140 to 170 pages 171 to 184 pages 185 to 214 pages 215 to 250 pages 251 to 265

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Story Synopses

In Gatherer of Souls, a pilot seeks out new, commercial trade routes between the stars. In the tightest of prespace tunnels Christine could not be more at ease, but the danger lies in the emotional walls she has built up against human contact. Ahead of her lie a call for help, a painful memory, and an alien who has no use for unpredictable, human souls

Fire and Ice.  Preserving indigenous life is not often a concern for frontiersman. On a world of ice, an endangered species is hunted to extinction, deliberately, before ecologically minded off-worlders can interfere.

Anamnesis.  Invasion from outer space is unlikely to be one of our problems, but what if we are the recipients of a devastating kindness? With the best of intentions, those who try to save us from ourselves may end by leaving the dregs of our civilization behind.

Sentinels is a tribute to the toys of our youth.  They are set to outlive us in the end, and in them the secrets of our imaginations may live on.

In Restorations, an art restorer works to bring an ancient, alien temple back to life, but runs afoul of conflicting cultural and political agendas, including a fanaticism that could cost her life

Two stories in this collection involve the destruction of the world by nano-technology, including the onset of an ice-age and the evolution of “undead” forms of life. In Daughter of the Long Cold, humanity as we know it is gone, and the survival of humans as a species may not be worth the price.

Snows of Darkness is the second of our nano-disaster stories. In this tale, undying devotion takes on a whole new meaning.

The Other. It may not be humanity’s fate to remain a proud and independent species. What conquers us most often is pride, hatred, and the delusion that the nature and will of God are ours to understand. When The Other takes over, it could be saving us from ourselves.

In Splinters of Faith, political and social ills are redressed by a revolution of singular intolerance. It is important to note that no existing religion is depicted in this tale, only the hatred and hypocrisy that can poison the greatest of civilizations.

In Walker in Leaves, the last human consciousness gives comfort to a grieving progenitor of the race to come.

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Gatherer of Souls and Outland Sorrows
by Scot Noel

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Gatherer of Souls and Outland Sorrows
Copyright © 2007 by Scot Noel

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