In assembling this collection of narrative prose, both novellas and stories from various novels, I have attempted to provide readers with a broad selection of styles and voices, as well as an extensive range of characters, situations, and geographies. My writing over the years tends to cast a wide net, and in this case, we taste the joys and sorrows of life in Paris, in 1922, the madness of Prague, 1968, when the Soviet tanks rolled in, and beyond-all landscapes that I lived in and imagined.The collection is bookmarked by two novellas, Bones of the Amazon and The Night of the Cougar, which are set in the dark corners and hidden canyons of Silicon Valley, where I have been living and working for the better part of a quarter century. The sampling of work that falls in between those bookmarks is drawn from my larger and more expansive novels, including most notably Grok and Entanglement. The unifying thread, at once thematic and structural, is the Feminine Principle, the experience of women who must overcome strange and unpredictable obstacles in life, women who, ultimately, have to confront the perils of the unknown and make strong choices to survive. The women depicted in these narratives are probably all anima types, willful and defiant, sure of themselves, warriors to the end. Here's whom we meet: Lulu Petite is a food critic for the local Palo Alto Sentinel who loves good cooking and makes a point of reviewing every restaurant in the Valley wearing a disguise to ensure she is served the same food as any of her readers would be served. As the heroine of Bones of the Amazon, she is a woman in her early forties with a lot of moxie and all the curiosity of a feral tomcat. Marie-Claire Hoffmann is a French journalist living in Prague 1968, as the city is laid to waste and ruin by the Soviet invasion, who helps finds a lost Kafka manuscript and smuggle it out to the West. Anja K. is a young gymnast and acrobat who comes to America from Prague, and finds herself confronting dark forces that threaten to take over her life.Anna Becker is a young woman coming to Paris in 1922 to study piano, who meets and has an affair with James Joyce (among many affairs) and is inspired by Gertrude Stein and Marsa, a Maltese woman, as she changes her identity from Anna to Andie to Zandie.Melissa Eddington is a photojournalist from Cambridge, England, brave and somewhat arrogant who falls in love with Zandie's son, Grok, when they each visit the gravesite of James Joyce in Zurich.Megan Wynn is a tree hugger who meets a homeless man named Scully, who is one hundred years old and who takes her on a quest to find Methuselah, the oldest living tree on the planet.Xuan Chen is a Professor of Computer Science from Beijing University, who plots her daring escape from the clutches of the master spy and Illuminati disciple, Richard Maltby.Lisa Ross-Dougherty is the inheritor of all things rich and beautiful, living on a vast estate in the canyons of Silicon Valley who meets up with Clay Swann, a man of questionable character who snaps one night and commits some horrible acts before a mountain lion takes revenge on his crimes.These were the most interesting choices in creating and building a story collection. Perhaps readers will prove me wrong, if they have their own favorites from the dozen or so novels I've written to date and wished that I had included those. If so, don't hesitate to let me know.