title: Loose Cannons: Devastating Dish from the World's Wildest Women
author:  Autumn Stephens 
description: In her snappy compendium <a href="/exec/obidos/ISBN=0943233364/${0}"><i>Wild Women</I></a>, Autumn Stephens showed what a good punchy quote can do to enliven a dull day. Whether you're looking for ammunition to aim between a rival's ears or just fishing for pithy phrases to amuse yourself, her collection <i>Loose Cannons</i> should supply you with several statements you wouldn't mind tattooing on a prominent spot. Questioning whether endless dieting is really the route to self-esteem? &quot;You're not fat, you're in the wrong country,&quot; plus-size model Denise Walker says flatly. Looking for the brighter side of a romance gone south? &quot;It's like magic,&quot; marvels humorist Merrill Markoe. &quot;When you live by yourself, all your annoying habits are gone.&quot; Wondering what happened to your ship? &quot;I rang for ice, but this is ridiculous,&quot; a <i>Titanic</i> survivor is reputed to have said in a quote that is surely apocryphal. Annoyingly arch references to the women quoted take away some of the fun, but the book is a hoot overall.
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  ![Cover](images/clock.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Prehistoric Clock
  
  
    
  
  
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  _( Steam Clock - 1 )_
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Robert Appleton
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Robert Appleton
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Prehistoric Clock
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 1
  
  
  
  
  
  Red Fire, White Steam, Blue Ocean
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  1908\. Somewhere over the English Channel…
  
  
  Verity collapsed her brass telescope and winced as the pyre of yet another
  British airship blazed on the rough waves. The odds of surviving this suicidal
  folly dwindled with each crimson flash. She shielded her face from the sting
  of lateral rain. All around her, metal warped and canvas groaned as the storm
  gathered fury. What she wouldn’t give to be back in Angola right now, even in
  that godforsaken heat she was famous for griping about. Anywhere but here!
  Gusts battered the Empress Matilda’s bullet-shaped, hydrogen-filled envelopes
  like a flurry of fists, swinging the deck and veering the airship away from
  the line of buoys below. Verity lurched against the taffrail