Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

A solar powered girl. A ballerina vigilante. A boy with an alien sharing his brain. A girl with a black hole for her heart. And a werewolf with confidence issues. This is the next generation of heroes Doc Silence has gathered together, a random collection of amazing kids he hopes to train to make the world a better place. But Silence isn't the only one collecting super-powered teenagers.

Cormac and Amelia take a job at a quaint Victorian mountain lodge: Keep an eye on the famous psychic there to judge whether the place is haunted. Simple, right? Three problems: The blizzard that snows everyone in for the weekend, the murdered body that shows up in the morning, and the fact that everyone is sure Cormac did it. So much for the nice mountain getaway.

In The Dinosaur Tourist, Caitlín R. Kiernan’s 15th collection of short fiction, 19 tales of the unexpected and the uncanny explore that treacherous gulf between what we suppose the world to be and what might actually be waiting out beyond the edges of our day-to-day experience. A mirror may be a window into another time. A cat may be our salvation. Your lover may be a fabulous being. And a hitchhiker may turn out to be anyone at all. 

Don’t be intimidated by Shakespeare! These popular guides make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.

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.

This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different.

Their work complete, Kyle and his guild leave Tolsa. The rebellion against Arndale is spreading, the economy is destroyed. They took everyone with them when they fled the doomed world, including their new allies the M-Wolves. Kyle wants to begin his final missions: rescue his familiar, meet Motaki’s mech challenge, and save the Denti homeworld. Yet, Kyle is nowhere near ready, and he knows it. They must upgrade and train every possible second, or everything will be lost. Arndale has other plans, and attacks the orphans on Cinna forcing Kyle to reverse course. 

When the supernatural rears its head in Miami, the sleuthing's usually up to me, Cisco Suarez, resident necromancer and all-around hard case. All I ask is to kick back in paradise once in a while, spend some quality time with my girl, and maybe even find that special moment to pop the question. But life doesn't always play fair, and neither do monsters. Turns out, old grudges die hard. So come after me. Maybe I deserve it. But going after my family crosses the line.

Ignatius Lohman longs to make his mark, to be someone. But in a world populated entirely by superpowered beings, he’s nothing but a powerless white-collar civilian. Iggy’s plight is not helped by the fact that his father, General Lancelot Lohman of the defense agency PEERLESS, is one of the most powerful men on the planet. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, Iggy finds himself in the crosshairs of Erle P. Van Owen, a megalomaniacal corporate overlord with the astonishing ability to neutralize any superpower.

I'm Cisco Suarez: necromancer, shadow charmer, black magic outlaw. Sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? It was, right until I woke up half dead in a dumpster. Did I say half dead? Because I meant 100% dead. Full on. I don't do things halfway. So here I am, alive for some reason, just another sunny day in Miami. It's a perfect paradise, except I'm into something bad. Wanted by police, drenched in the stink of dark magic, nether creatures coming out of the woodwork, and don't get me started on the Haitian voodoo gang.

Raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and frustrated with their parents' repressive rules, Bryan and David Freeman rebelled as teenagers. Encouraged by an acquaintance he met while institutionalized at a reform school, Bryan became a neo-Nazi. Bryan then indoctrinated David, and their flair for defiance took a dark turn. After callously murdering their father, mother, and younger brother, the skinhead brothers took flight across America, with police from three states in hot pursuit.

The game was something Viktor was starting to dread more and more. Things didn't go according to plan, people were swayed by a sweet promise of power and quickly changed allegiances, leaving his back open to attack. Still, not everything was so bleak. Taking the reins over one's future is the only way to survive in such a mad world, and no matter how much he thinks he can trust others, Viktor is proven wrong over and over again.

In Caitlín R. Kiernan’s The Ammonite Violin & Others, one of contemporary dark fantasy’s most bewitching and distinctive voices is back with another banquet of the weird and unexpected. Within this book, you’ll discover a dazzling suite of stories situated on the borderlands between the unspeakable and the erotic, the grotesque and the sublime.

When Mark Ryder's latest mission turns into a bloodbath, he'll find himself alone on the shores of an alien moon hunted by insects the size of skyscrapers. Now, if he wants to get off this rock alive, he'll have to cut a bloody swathe through the bug queen's elite army, rendezvous with the all-female Artemis squad, and blow the whole thing to Kingdom Come without getting killed.

I'm Cisco Suarez and this is the end of the line. I've been beaten, shackled, killed once or twice, but hey, who's counting? I put my foot down at being lit up like a candle at my daughter's tenth birthday party. Some things you take personal. Revenge won't be easy. The Miami voodoo underground turned on me. An uppity wizard cartel is creeping into my business. And I keep seeing the same damn black cat everywhere. None of it matters. I've got laser focus on my archenemy, a jinn with a knack for fire. Connor Hatch is going down, even if I have to drag him to hell myself.

Cisco Suarez versus an entire Caribbean drug cartel. Round one. Fight. Okay, not exactly the most even championship match, but it's the one I drew. If you told me months ago I'd be robbing drug dealers, I would've committed you myself. Who needs that kind of trouble, right? The good news is I'm only after one man: Connor Hatch. The bad news is he's the new Pablo Escobar, a primal being, and all but untouchable.

It was supposed to be just another Sunday night fantasy role-playing session between friends.... But after years of playing, the game had become so real to David, Tyrone, Scott, and Melanie that all their creations now had existences of their own. And when the four outside players decide to end their game, the characters inside the game world - warriors, scholars, and the few remaining wielders of magic - band together to keep their land from vanishing.  

Even in the 21st century, the popular image of a scientist is a reclusive genius in a lab coat, mixing formulas or working out equations inaccessible to all but the initiated few. The idea that scientists are somehow smarter than the rest of us is a common yet dangerous misconception, getting us off the hook for not knowing or caring how the world works.

It's all-out war between the players and characters in a role-playing game that has taken on a life of its own. The fighter Delrael, the sorcerer Bryl, as well as famed scientists Verne and Frankenstein, use every trick in the Book of Rules to keep the world of Hexworld intact while the outside group of players does everything possible to destroy it. The end is here. Or will it be a new beginning?

Over the past two years, a group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all came alive. Now, there is an odd connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine the fate of the Game itself, and both the inside and the outside worlds. One thing is for certain. Hexworld will never be the same.