Showing results by narrator "Paul Hikari" in All Categories

Young Jacob Smith is viewed as an outcast by his schoolmates, and following an attack by bullies, his family is forced to make a choice that will change his life forever. As the years pass and the Almaden Quicksilver Mining Establishment industrializes the town, Jacob feels a strong connection to the land, until one day he meets an ancient Native who reveals a mystic secret.

Yesterday, Seth was a star engineering student. Today, he roams the halls of a state mental hospital. His only crime is having Asperger’s syndrome, which colors his world brilliant but people dull. The university he attends experienced a deadly bombing a year ago, and the community is still reeling from the shock of what they experienced. When one student misinterprets something Seth says and reports him to the administration, it sets off a series of events that threatens to ruin his life.

In book two of The Colony Ship Conestoga series, Jerome and Cammarry, the adventurers from Earth, are trapped on the wrecked derelict of the once-enormous generational ship. It is in orbit around a mysterious and unknown planet, but most of its systems have failed, and life is barely managing to survive. Cammarry and Jerome, along with Sandie, their artificial intelligence system, work to investigate the wreck. What will they discover? What dangers await?

In Jerusalem's Old City a young priest and a dominatrix converse in the dying light; on Oregon's windswept coast a fragile woman discovers a body washed up on the beach after a storm; and in postwar Japan a young protege watches his master's corpse burn, with bitter thoughts blazing in his mind. Jerusalem Ablaze: Stories of Love and Other Obsessions collects 13 eclectic works of dark fiction, taking the reader from Los Angeles to the eastern townships of Quebec, and from Tokyo to Jerusalem. Ortega-Medina's characters are flawed, broken individuals struggling with sexuality, death, obsession, and religion.

Nitara Desai has spent her life negotiating international agreements, easing points of conflict, and averting disasters. Worst-case scenarios belong in her nightmares, not the IEC’s daily reports. On a calm day, being a director at the International Energy Consortium only requires fixing CarbonCon translators for flustered Brazilian delegates. A thankless job, but the world is still drowning in CO2—there’s no choice but to keep treading.

Harper Rawls struggles to come to grips with her parents’ deaths, but it’s not going well. Accompanying her guilt and inadequacy, she’s somehow gained the attention of an anti-cloning extremist organization. Out of “respect for her father”, they now watch her every move. Ordell Bentley, a genetically-altered clone, flees violence at the hands of the same group. Death stalks him through the nascent jungles of League City, Texas as he makes his way to his lover’s house to warn her, only to find Harper instead.

The Whirl Wind Man is told through oldest brother Jimmy Huey's vantage point and eyes. Several decades pass over two small-town brothers' seemly endless games, one of which lasts and leads to the discovery of the first time travel vessel, a fleeting space-time travel meeting, and befriending an alien being. Conflict endures between family and brothers over keeping a secret and outgrowing the first time travel vessel.

Akemi’s job on the Public Utilities Commission has its own daily disasters—making sure the infrastructure of civilization keeps running is the most thankless job on the planet. When a double event hits—heatwave plus viral breakout—keeping the power on is an all-out battle. It doesn’t help that he’s distracted by his elderly father, who was struck down and neuro-compromised by the same virus that killed his mother the year before.

Sandor, a peaceful but deadly martial artist, has learned the ways of Native American spirituality and shape-shifting. While learning shape-shifting, Sandor learns to project his chi power, which becomes multiplied while he is in animal forms. Combining these strengths is the only hope to defeat an evil force that could bring about the demise of humanity.