There is so much cool old stuff that you just cannot find from publishers, or on the shelves of bookstores anymore. True, some of it has held up better than others but these things are still the basic blocks upon which the new, the wild and the now have been built.
One thing that is cool about the internet is that these things are not truly lost anymore, but they are out there hiding in the shadowed corners waiting to be found and enjoyed again. From time to time, from here on out, I am going to point you in the direct of some of these lost classics that I am pretty sure that you haven't read before. If you have, that's great. If you haven't, though, you are going to be exposed to some writings that I consider to be interesting, if not seminal.
A lot of this stuff is going to be stories that can be related to your role-playing games.
Classics Corner: The Green Eyes of Bâst, by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER I
I SEE THE EYES
'Good evening, sir. A bit gusty?'
'Very much so, sergeant,' I replied. 'I think I will step into your hut for a moment and light my pipe if I may.'
'Certainly, sir. Matches are too scarce nowadays to take risks with 'em. But it looks as if the storm had blown over.'
'I'm not sorry,' said I, entering the little hut like a sentry-box which stands at the entrance to this old village high street for accommodation of the officer on point duty at that spot. 'I have a longish walk before me.'
'Yes. Your place is right off the beat, isn't it?' mused my acquaintance, as sheltered from the keen wind I began to load my briar. 'Very inconvenient I've always thought it for a gentleman who gets about as much as you do.'
'That's why I like it,' I explained. 'If I lived anywhere accessible I should never get a moment's peace, you see. At the same time I have to be within an hour's journey of Fleet Street.'
I often stopped for a chat at this point and I was acquainted with most of the men of P. division on whom the duty devolved from time to time. It was a lonely spot at night when the residents in the neighborhood had retired, so that the darkened houses seemed to withdraw yet farther into the gardens separating them from the highroad. A relic of the days when trains and motor-buses were not, dusk restored something of an old-world atmosphere to the village street, disguising the red brick and stucco which in many cases had displaced the half-timbered houses of the past. Yet it was possible in still weather to hear the muted bombilation of the sleepless city and when the wind was in the north to count the hammer-strokes of the great bell of St. Paul's.
Standing in the shelter of the little hut, I listened to the rain dripping from over-reaching branches and to the gurgling of a turgid little stream which flowed along the gutter near my feet whilst now and again swift gusts of the expiring tempest would set tossing the branches of the trees which lined the way.
'It's much cooler to-night,' said the sergeant.
I nodded, being in the act of lighting my pipe. The storm had interrupted a spell of that tropical weather which sometimes in July and August brings the breath of Africa to London, and this coolness resulting from the storm was very welcome. Then:
'Well, good night,' I said, and was about to pursue my way when the telephone bell in the police-hut rang sharply.
'Hullo,' called the sergeant.
I paused, idly curious concerning the message, and:
'The Red House,' continued the sergeant, 'in College Road? Yes, I know it. It's on Bolton's beat, and he is due here now. Very good; I'll tell him.'
