Leyel Forska, in Orson Scott Card's wonderful story, "The Originist", is a serious scholar. He works at home alone, researching the origins of humanity (there is speculation that humans all came from one planet, but many originists such as Leyel think this is unlikely). Of course, there is a wealth of historical material to support his electronic research - but most of it has been damaged in the thousands of years since the Galactic Empire was formed (yes, this takes place in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" world.)

So, he is stumped. And he's tired of younger scholars re-hashing the same material, sloppily attacking the logic of his publications. Well, one day his wife suggests she have the librarians she works with index his thoughts, his questions, his ideas. He's skeptical, because he thinks he's at a dead-end... but he agrees.

And when he shows up a few days later to work with the index these librarians create... he is stunned. They've indexed everything! Even words such as "the" and "a" contain links - whatever thoughts popped into the mind of the indexer at the time... pure association. They've linked to fairy tales, and historical documents, nursery rhymes, and news. He is so deeply drawn in among these threads that it is three weeks before he emerges... hungry, exhausted, and with a new theory about the role of story in the evolution of humans.

In the spirit of that index, these links are designed to share the stories beneath the ideas on each page. Enjoy!