Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

Orphans of deep space... They're outlaws now. Created to serve a function grown obsolete, haunted by the holographic ghost of their father, Ubu and Maria have lived their entire lives skating along the edge of extinction. Now they and their ship, Runaway, are in flight both from the law and from a predatory clan of competitors. They're going to come back rich or not at all. But what they find in the depths of space isn't wealth, but a secret so startling that Ubu and Maria will need every last reserve of guile, cunning, and intelligence just to survive.

I've met Magnus, the man who instigated the attack on my guild, and rather than fighting him, I’m helping him. He’s shown me the truth about Nexus and left me reeling. Now, to return home and see Eris again, I'll have to complete the hardest job I've ever considered. Journey to Aldrust and steal their most prized possession.

Micah fought the Third Prince of Elsewhere once. He was defeated more thoroughly than he had ever thought possible. Even when he fled from his failure through time itself, the prince pursued him, dogged and unwilling to give up on an injured quarry. The gods gave him a quest: gather the artifacts needed so that he could contend with an evil capable of devouring existence itself. He fought and bled, finally acquiring the tools he thought he would need for the climactic battle waiting for him when he returned home. Unfortunately, his adventures didn't prepare him for one simple truth.

After escaping with the information they needed, Kyle and his team must plan their next move. While working hard to discover many things about himself, his shipmates, and his denti body, Kyle finds not one...but three stowaways. An exotic female Kiain who helps him unlock his Kenosi potential, and a deadly Sitha mother protecting her young son. He doesn’t throw them out of the airlock, but pirate and monster infested space isn’t exactly the safest place to be raising a child.

To save his best friend, he must defeat the best of the best. Despite his heroic efforts, Glenn Graybreaker’s only chance to resurrect his best friend is now to compete, and win, in the prestigious Sandsea Cup. If he and Becka can place highly in this tournament of duels, mazes, and monster battles, Glenn can reach level 15 at the rate the gods demand. Meanwhile, Junior Blazers Leo and Sara remained captives of the mysterious Teacher, a man who is convinced that those who cease to level will face a dark afterlife.

Graeme only wanted a pint.\ He'd even have taken one of those fruity craft beers in a pinch, but it seemed Fate had other plans...which is strange, because as it turns out, Graeme is possibly the only being in the universe unaffected by the otherwise divine and tangible force of destiny. Immune to its machinations, he is Fateless.

Eric McCaffrey has been playing Zag in the VR-MMOFPS Battlegrounds Online for a while now. The more he plays, the more entrenched into the game he gets. It hardly even feels like a game anymore. Zag, now one of the commandos for the Knights of the Tactical Operations Group, is tasked with freeing Punta del Muerta from the terrorist group Wyvern. Along with the rest of the Knights, Zag will dive deep into the jungles, war-torn cities, and concrete bunkers, but will he be able to complete all the missions in time?

The stories in this anthology range from quietly strange to ambitiously speculative. Humans transform into cosmic energy or sentient algae. A man wakes up in a new body in a world with continents cut out, months absent from the calendar year, and souls misplaced. Students at a high school regularly vanish without a trace. A woman descends into the depths of the ocean and encounters all-knowing creatures who may have the answers to her deepest questions.

Everything is falling apart. Magnus is hunting Eris, and even the gods fear him. As if that weren’t enough, our criminal dealings have finally caught up with us. The Merchants Guild are coming to settle all accounts, and we’re deep in the red.

Eric McCaffrey has come face-to-face with the developers of Battlegrounds Online. They have shown up at his doorstep. He's used to seeing those faces in the game, not inside his apartment. He knew the game had been physically affecting him. Turns out he was right, and Hastech wants to run some tests. Battlegrounds Online was designed as a training simulator for the military. They want to know why Eric is being affected.

In search of Hugo and a reincarnated monk, Nick Barnette and company make their way to the Island Kingdom of Jonang. At least that’s the plan. Their ship is attacked, leading to an epic fight that separates Nick's party. Things only get more complicated once they arrive on the island and find that a newly crowned emperor has wreaked havoc on the natives, an emperor Nick is intimately familiar with.

Upon escaping the city of Nagchu, Nick and his companions barely manage to survive a surprise attack from an incredibly powerful being, one clearly not of their world. And that isn’t the only thing after them. With Lhandon’s monastery under siege, Nick’s group must head toward the Darkhan Mountains, to the snow lion village of Dornod, in search of training and to officially reset the Path of the Divine.

Two families. Two faces of America. An act of violence with far-reaching consequences. Gus Voorhees is a pioneer in the advancement of women's reproductive rights and a controversial abortion provider in the American Midwest. One morning as he arrives at his clinic, he is ambushed by a hardline Christian, Luther Dunphy, and shot dead. The killing leaves in its wake two fatherless families: the Voorheeses, who are affluent, highly educated, secular and pro-choice, and the Dunphys, their opposite on all counts.

On the run from a shadowy cabal of the world's most powerful men, ex-Navy Seal Michael Gannon heads to the safest place he can think of: his war buddy's ranch in the wilds of Utah. But when his friend's brother is found dead in the rocky mountains, Gannon realises he can't stay off grid. Is the death connected to a string of grisly murders occurring in national parks...or something even more sinister? Flushed from cover, Gannon finds himself sucked into a lethal conspiracy that has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government.

Fenrir the wolf howls. Bifrost beckons. And Wes answers. The enigmatic Australian SAS commando awakens into a maelstrom of death and destruction, his memory in tatters, and his former friend and companion dead. In his hunt for answers, Wes uncovers much more than he was searching for, and enters a war which could see the entire planet destroyed as beasts of ice and perils from outside our realm of reality threaten humanity's very existence.

Kyle and the crew have one chance to win the war on Tolsa. They are constantly moving between battlefields and helping the rebels in a desperate bid to find parts that they need, only ever staying a single step ahead of Motaki. One slip-up, and Kyle's team will be surrounded on all sides. With no respawn facilities - and trapped by bounty hunters - Kyle and his crew are torn between their own safety and doing the right thing. Cure a dying species, or snatch the finest mech they've ever seen.

In this world, science took the place of magic. Meanwhile, the transition from the era of steam to the epoch of Sublime Electricity is already underway. But magic hasn't simply disappeared without a trace. It still exists, concealed in the blood of the illustrious. Detective constable Leopold Orso of the metropolitan police counts himself among their number. He was bestowed a talent that allows him to bring others' fears to life. Leopold didn't go looking for trouble.

With his tribe freshly formed, and freshly Fateless, all he wants to do is prepare, research, and have a quiet drink or three before saving Angus, and in doing so, the world. Ironically, Fate has other plans....

Los Angeles, 1962. Jimmy Dean, bit part actor befriends famed actress Marilyn Monroe. When Marilyn is found dead in her LA home, the ruling is suicide, but Jimmy thinks otherwise. As he starts digging, he comes up against those who wish to stop him from uncovering the truth. Realizing that he's in over his head, Jimmy calls former business partner, Mississippi truck driver Elvis Presley. As Jimmy and Elvis search deeper, they uncover a potential link between Marilyn's death and the highest office in the land.

It’s George and Mara Spencer’s 25th wedding anniversary, and the Spencer daughters are finally back under the same roof again: Lottie, the youngest, Mara’s adored only child, and Lottie’s two older half-sisters, Dinah and Vaughan, the daughters of George’s first marriage - a marriage that ended in a terrible tragedy, with the death of his beautiful young wife. In the years since, their father has found happiness again...but on this hot summer day in Birch Bend, when catastrophe strikes at the anniversary party.