Showing results by narrator "Christian Rummel" in All Categories

A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery.

The first body is found in a hamper in the woods. Her feet were tied with a leather belt. There are traces of incense on her dismembered body, candle wax on her skin, and strange crumbs on her lips. As more butchered adolescent corpses turn up - the victims of a serial killer whose signature is the communion wafer left in each one's mouth - the evidence leads NYPD lieutenant Vince Cardozo into the sacred and moneyed world of Manhattan's exclusive parishes.

Earth is no longer the center of the universe. After the invention of the faster-than-light jump drive, humanity is rapidly establishing new colonies. But the vast distances of space mean that the old order of protection and interstellar law offered by Earth has ceased to exist. When a nearby world attacks, the new colony of Glenlyon turns to Robert Geary, a young former junior fleet officer, and Mele Darcy, a onetime enlisted marine.

Two Syndicate World star systems have fallen prey to a mysterious fleet of warships - a fleet controlled entirely by artificial intelligence - that is now targeting Alliance space. The warships are no mystery to Geary. They were developed by his government to ensure security, but malfunctioned. If the Syndics learn the truth, the war with the Alliance will resume with a vengeance.

In 1984, at the age of 20, Duff McKagan left his native Seattle - partly to pursue music, but mainly to get away from a host of heroin overdoses then-decimating his closest group of friends in the local punk scene. In LA only a few weeks and still living in his car, he answered a want ad for a bass player placed by someone who identified himself only as "Slash." Soon after, the most dangerous band in the world was born. Guns N' Roses went on to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.

In the three years since former fleet officer Rob Geary and former marine Mele Darcy led improvised forces to repel attacks on the newly settled world of Glenlyon, tensions have only gotten worse. When one of Glenlyon's warships is blown apart trying to break the blockade that has isolated the world from the rest of human-colonized space, only the destroyer Saber remains to defend it from another attack. Geary's decision to take Saber to the nearby star Kosatka to safeguard a diplomatic mission is a risky interpretation of his orders, to say the least.

They say love and hate are the same feelings experienced under different circumstances, and it's true. The man who comes to me in my dreams also haunts me in my nightmares. He is a brilliant lawyer. A skilled criminal. A beautiful liar. A bully and a savior, a monster and a lover. Ten years ago, he made me run away from the small town where we lived. Now, he came for me in New York, and he isn't leaving until he takes me with him.

Geary and the crew of the Dauntless have managed to safely escort important alien representatives to Earth. But before they can make tracks for home, two of Geary’s key lieutenants vanish. The search for his missing men leads Geary on a far-flung chase, ultimately ending at the one spot in space from which all humans have been banned: The moon Europa. Any ship that lands there must stay or be destroyed—leaving Geary to face the most profound moral dilemma of his life.

Lee Harden is out of options, and out of time. Inside the city, Sam Ryder is trapped behind enemy lines, and Acting President Briggs still maintains his stranglehold on the country - and Lee’s destiny. Choices. We are made by choices. And they make us. Choices are being made by every individual swept up in this conflict. Abby - Sam - Abe - Brinly - Angela - all of them making choices, with irreversible consequences. And all of those consequences fall on Lee. 

Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut – wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.

Ten years after the collapse, Huxley has built a good life again. He has a loving wife, a farm with fields of golden barley, and a daughter with a strange and wonderful gift. Then the slavers come. Working out in the fields during the attack, Huxley returns too late. His daughter has been taken, and his wife is bleeding out, her last whispered words about a man with a scorpion tattoo on his neck. Where do the slavers go? Huxley has no idea. He knows only that they head east, and so will he, setting out on foot across the desert of the Wastelands.

Admiral Geary's First Fleet of the Alliance has survived the journey deep into unexplored interstellar space, a voyage that led to the discovery of new alien species, including a new enemy and a possible ally. Now Geary's mission is to ensure the safety of the Midway Star System, which has revolted against the Syndicate Worlds empire - an empire that is on the brink of collapse.

Admiral John "Black Jack" Geary earned his rank after being revived from cryogenic sleep to lead the Alliance to victory against the Syndicate Worlds. But his superiors question his loyalty to the regime. Now in command of the First Fleet, Geary is tasked with exploring the frontier beyond Syndic space, a mission he fears deliberately puts the fleet--and himself--in harm's way. An encounter with the alien enigmas confirms Geary's fears.

Tom Reed is a crime reporter with The San Francisco Star whose superb journalistic skills earned him a Pulitzer nomination. But years later Reed's life is coming apart. His editor wants him fired. His wife has left him to wrestle with his demons. Alone, Reed is tormented by the fear he may have caused the suicide of an innocent man suspected of murdering a two-year-old girl.

The first book of best-selling sci-fi author Jack Campbell’s new series Beyond the Frontier returns to find Captain John “Black Jack" Geary, the hero of the Lost Fleet series, awoken from cryogenic sleep to take command of the fleet. Geary’s legendary exploits have earned him the adoration of the people—and the enmity of politicians convinced that a living hero can be a very inconvenient thing.

Joe De Sena has one ultimate goal: to help improve everyone’s physical and emotional health by teaching them the tenets of Spartan living from ancient Greece: simple eating, smart training, mastering resilience, and an all-out commitment to achieving a goal.   

It’s been three years since Lee Harden emerged from his bunker into a world gone mad. Governments have fallen. And new ones have taken their place. In the United Eastern States, Lee and his team of battle-hardened operatives walk a tightrope of survival, keeping their fledgling society safe from the creatures beyond their gates - and from the enemies within. Then, an ambush in hostile territory reveals a traitor in their midst - and leaves Lee barely clinging to life. Wounded and on the run, Lee and his team race to uncover the leak before it’s too late.

In a steel-and-lead-encased bunker 20 feet below the basement level of his house, a soldier waits for his final orders. On the surface, a plague ravages the planet, infecting over 90% of the populace. The bacterium burrows through the brain, destroying all signs of humanity and leaving behind little more than base, prehistoric instincts. The infected turn into hyper-aggressive predators, with an insatiable desire to kill and feed. Someday soon, the soldier will have to open the hatch to his bunker, and step out into this new wasteland, to complete his mission....

A personal message written in human blood is left for crime reporter Molly Wilson at the murder scene of her boyfriend, San Francisco Homicide Inspector Cliff Hooper. The horrific death of a revered cop shocks the San Francisco Police Department's Homicide Detail. Shaken to the core, his grieving fellow detectives go flat out to find his killer under the glare of the city's news media.

Luna Rexroth is everyone’s favorite wallflower. Underneath the meek, tomboy exterior everyone loves (yet pities) is a girl who knows exactly what, and who, she wants - namely, the boy from the tree house who taught her how to curse in sign language. Who taught her how to laugh. To live. To love. Knight Cole is everyone’s favorite football hero. This daredevil hell-raiser could knock you up with his gaze alone, but he only has eyes for the girl across the street: Luna. But Luna is not who she used to be. She doesn’t need his protection anymore.