David Manning

This collection of imaginative short fiction by David Manning is gleaned from a lifetime afflicted with creativity, including selections from his inventive 1970s "Blurbs" column, excerpts from a novel-in-progress set at Duke University in 1968, a metaphysical carnival of short stories, and multi-media formats ranging from radio to stage to film to song lyrics.

Bandit's Honor is a thrilling novel by David Manning that takes readers on an action-packed journey through the Wild West. The story follows the life of a notorious bandit named Jack Bowdre, who has spent years robbing banks and trains with his gang of outlaws. However, when he falls in love with a beautiful woman named Anna, he begins to question his criminal ways and wonders if he can ever leave his past behind. As Jack tries to start a new life with Anna, he quickly discovers that his past is not so easily forgotten. His former gang members are still out there, looking for revenge, and the law is hot on his trail. To make matters worse, a rival gang is also after him, and they will stop at nothing to take him down. As Jack fights to protect Anna and stay alive, he must confront his own demons and decide what kind of man he wants to be. Will he continue down the path of violence and crime, or will he find the courage to turn his life around and become an honorable man? Bandit's Honor is a gripping tale of love, redemption, and the struggle between good and evil. Manning's vivid descriptions of the Wild West landscape and his complex, multi-dimensional characters make this book a must-read for fans of Western fiction and anyone who loves a good adventure. This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Forthcoming.

This collection of published and unpublished creative non-fiction essays represents the lifelong reflections of a creatively afflicted mind, from humorous to serious, extraordinary to ordinary, biographical to metaphysical and other alliterations lurking between the lines, all organized into thematic topics including Homefront, Internal and External Travels, the title section, Politics, and an eclectic Addendum.

Sylvia Solo is a seventh-grade student at an ultra-expensive private school that she attends by virtue of a violin scholarship. As part of a class assignment, Sylvia visits the Metropolitan Museum's ancient Egyptian collection. While there in Perneb's tomb, the lights go out. As she begins playing her violin, a guard investigates, and his flashlight reveals ancient symbols carved into the stone walls that look to Sylvia like musical notes. She plays the notes and finds herself transported back to the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt. There, she meets Da'av and his cat Teekay, who guide her on a brief romp into the underworld. Da'av is a protege of Imhapknum, a priest trying to save the spiritual soul of the kingdom from the ambitious Niphut, right-hand lady to the aging Pharaoh. A young adult fantasy, the book can be enjoyed by adults of any age with active imaginations.

Two homeless beggars meet on the streets of New York in the winter of 1870. One is a handicapped Irish Civil War veteran with a low self-esteem trying to find something in life to hang on to; the other a confident, well-educated former slave trying to make the most of his considerable potential as an accomplished chef. An exploration of the two men's lives is augmented by images brought to life through the magic of the ex-slave's cooking. During the course of this exploration, and subsequent events, it becomes apparent that the veteran has emerged from the war half slave and the slave only half free. Rather than a historic drama, the play comments on the present (often in humorous or absurd tones) through parallels between the 1870s and current issues: homelessness, growing extremes of wealth and poverty, corporate greed, a recent controversial war, and racial/ethnic prejudices.

David Manning wrote A Brief History of the Recent Future in the mid 1970s with the idea of satirizing the present by forecasting the most bizarre imaginable future. The result was a "verbally animated cartoon" tracing the evolution of an apocalyptic conflict between proponents of ganic garbage vs those advocating ficial garbage as civilization's final energy resource. Along the way, the tale introduces such absurdities as a credit-system economy; the Bronx Sanitation Air Force; a 3,000-acre rubber-raft island named Carabia; a news toaster that burns headlines onto breakfast bread; and people metabolically transformed by Mango Tango, the core building block of the artificial ecosystem. Resurrected from the past, the book remains, after 35-plus years, a satiric fantasy, now looking back at the odd events nobody knows transpired but brought us to our increasingly dystopian state. Once the harbinger of a future too ridiculous to contemplate, the original bizarre predictions resonate more every day.

Labor Day 1989: Duncan Twist's sleazy client, Nick Varnish, has loaned him a cottage overlooking the salt marshes of Dusktide Beach, a barrier island in southeast North Carolina. Just to the south lies Lorn Island, which is deserted, except for one ethereal resident: the Kindred Spirit. Duncan accidentally encounters a former lover, Tendency Specter, who introduces him to the Kindred Spirit. In turn, the Kindred Spirit introduces him to an unnamed person who has mysteriously disappeared. Intrigued as much by their rekindling relationship as they are by the missing person, Duncan and Tendency begin investigating. As they grapple with both the growing mystery and each other, curious events continue to interrupt both interests. A skeleton half-buried in the sand seems to indicate murder... or maybe not. Or are there two skeletons? Is the skeleton a murder victim or has it been there since the Civil War? Only the Kindred Spirit knows the answers, and it's not talking.