Showing results by narrator "Kevin T Collins" in All Categories

San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic "Baghdad by the Bay". In this superb collection, virtuosos of the genre meet up with the best of SF’s literary fiction community to chart a unique psycho-geography for a dark landscape. From inner city boroughs to the outlands, each contributor offers an original story based in a distinct neighborhood.

From the introduction by David L. Ulin: "For me, Cape Cod is a repository of memory: forty summers in the same house will do that to you. But it is also a landscape of hidden tensions, which rise up when we least anticipate. In part, this has to do with social aspiration, which is one of the things that brought my family, like many others, to the Cape. In part, it has to do with social division, which has been a factor since at least the end of the nineteenth century, when then summer trade began."

In this powerful personal narrative, Gregory Dybec recounts his short yet eventful trip to South Africa during the 2010 FIFA World Cup where he encountered a series of unforgettable situations, from a memorable collection of new friends, to life-threatening car rides, to an image of violence impossible to shake. This gripping nonfiction narrative examines a country, its people, and the complexities of life under the festive backdrop of one of the world's largest sporting events.

Earth is a dead cinder beyond the dense clouds. On a terraformed Venus, the land is ruled by savage plants and the even more savage beasts that prey on them, while monsters out of nightmare swim though the globe-girdling seas. Mankind huddles in domed underwater Keeps, living a purposeless static existence - dedicated to pleasure but destined for oblivion later if not sooner. Only the Free Companions, the mercenaries who fight proxy wars for the Keeps, live on the surface of Venus.

Two years after the devastation of mass human extinctions in kill zones, mankind is still grasping for survival. An oppressive union of government and big business controls an exhausted America, which is divided between walled-in Protectorates and the unpoliced Outlands.

It's Prohibition. It's Philadelphia. And Jersey Leo doesn't fit in. Jersey is an albino of mixed race. Known as "Snowball" on the street, he tends bar at a speakeasy the locals call the Ink Well. There, he's considered a hero for having saved the life of a young boy. But when his old grade school buddy, Aaron Garvey, calls from death row and asks for one last favor, all hell breaks loose. Jersey finds himself running from a band of crooked cop and hiding an escaped convict in the Ink Well....

Critical Mass is a treasure trove of sparkling, spiky prose and a fascinating portrait of our lives and cultural times over the past decades. In an age where a great deal of back scratching and softball pitching pass for criticism, James Wolcott’s fearless essays and reviews offer a bracing taste of the real critical thing.

The 12-year solstice has come. And with it, a sinister carnival brings a new sense of terror and wonder to a small coastal town. An enormous shoe is washed up on the shore...a tiny man disguises himself as a mouse...a crow provides eyes for a blind innkeeper...and three curious adventures discover the gateway to the Land of Dreams - where you don't always get what you want, you get what you deserve....

Bleys Ahrens is now a political power on the planet Association, home of the Friendlies. His people - his Others, not Dorsai or Friendly or Exotic, but hybrids - are in place on all the new worlds, and are ready to take his message to the greater human public. But within his inner circle is Henry McLean, Soldier of God, and a True Faith-Holder. Henry fears for the soul of his nephew Bleys, and while he guards, he also watches, and judges.

Russia, 1940. Fifteen-year-old Misha’s life is about to transform when his father is offered a job in Stalin’s inner circle. They move into a luxurious apartment in the Kremlin, but doubts about the glorious new Russia quickly surface. Misha realizes that the secret police can do whatever they like. His own mother is arrested and sent to prison, but Misha and his father daren’t complain. Then as German troops advance on Moscow, the atmosphere in the Kremlin ignites.

Set in vaudeville in the early 20th century, Jonah Man is a gripping and ultimately heartbreaking novel that reveals the often tragic lives of performers struggling to make it to the big time. Told from the perspectives of multiple characters, including a one-handed juggler who moonlights as a drug trafficker, a talented young boy who longs to escape the shadow of his abusive father, and a police inspector whose bumbling attempts to solve a murder result in a series of calamitous missteps, Jonah Man explores the dark side of life behind the curtain.

Just after noon on a spring day in 2006, aspiring singer-songwriter Hilary Williams and her sister Holly - the granddaughters of country legend Hank Williams and daughters of country music star Hank Williams, Jr. - were driving through Mississippi down a rural stretch of Route 61 on their way to their grandfather’s funeral. Suddenly, the front wheel of the truck became caught in one of the many deep ruts and gravel lining the road, causing the vehicle and its passengers to flip over several times, crushing steel and breaking fragile bones as it crashed.

A movie star on a meteoric rise, young James Dean was already being hailed as one of America's finest actors when he died in a high-speed car accident in 1955. In one terrible instant a luminous future glowing with extraordinary promise was snuffed out forever. But what if it wasn't? With The Rebel, acclaimed award-winning author Jack Dann pulls James Dean from the twisted wreckage and offers him a second chance to make an indelible mark on his art, his culture, and his time in an era of profound change and devastating social upheaval.

Seventy baseball seasons ago, on a May afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio lined a hard single to left field. It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.

In this brilliant mix of literary satire and crime caper, Frankie Abandonato, a small-time con man on the run, finds refuge by posing as V. S. Mohle - a famously reclusive writer - and teaching in a prestigious writing program somewhere in Texas. Streetwise and semiliterate, Frankie finds that being treated as a genius agrees with him. The program has been funded by Rex Schoeninger, the world’s richest novelist, who is dying. Buzzards are circling, angling for the remains of Rex’s fortune, and Frankie quickly realizes that he has been presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.

This book contains everything you need to know to be a man. Everything. It will prepare you for every situation you can imagine, from the office to the bedroom. It will improve your life no matter what you're doing...whether you're in a bar, in a fight, in a wedding, in an argument, at a game, at work, or in a stranger's bed. It's time to be a man. Listen to this book.

The Man Who Melted is a warning for the future. It is the Brave New World and 1984 for our time, for it gives us a glimpse into our own future - a future ruled by corporations that control deadly and powerful forms of mass manipulation. It is a prediction of what could happen... tomorrow. It examines how technology affects us and changes our morality, and it questions how we might remain human in an inhuman world. Will the future disenfranchise or empower the individual? Here you'll find new forms of sexuality, new perversions, new epiphanies, and an entirely new form of consciousness.

This novel represents the first appearance of Lawrence Sanders' most famous character, Edward X. Delaney, and the masterpiece of murder and suspense that launched Sanders' career. This suspenseful classic is brought to life by a full cast, including L. J. Ganser, Marc Vietor, Mark Boyett, Zoe Hunter, Gabra Zackman, Lauren Fortgang, Kevin T. Collins, Josh Hurley and Peter Ganim.

The apocalypse just got worse. When remorse drives Cyrus to abandon his hidden compound he doesn't realize what new dangers lurk in the undead world. He knows he must wade through the vilest remains of humanity and hordes of zombies to settle scores and find the one person who might understand him. But this time, it won't be so easy. Zombies and unpleasant survivors aren't the only thing Cyrus has to worry about. Not anymore.

Dr. Gideon Box, world-famous surgeon, is extremely good at his job. He’s never lost a patient…but he has issues. He’s antisocial. Doesn’t mix well with others. Breaks into people’s homes and assumes their identities. Occasionally kills other doctor’s patients. He’s had bad luck with women his entire life. Big surprise, right? His psychiatrist tells him to join a dating service. Tells him to seek women from small towns. Says they’ll possess basic core values, be less shallow and self-centered than the hookers and strippers he’s been dating.