Showing results by narrator "Rob Goll" in All Categories

Assassin-for-hire Vyder Ironstone is on a mission for the King of Wendurlund. While the pay's good, the odds are not, since the task requires him to travel deep into enemy territory. But first, there's the little problem of his death to overcome, not to mention a malcontent travelling companion with no love for humanity and a deadly purpose of his own. Vyder had better find a way to deal with both, and quickly, because, controlled by an unseen power, hordes of giant spiders have attacked the capital. Facing vast numbers, Commander Tork of the King's Own and his small troop of elite soldiers won't be able to hold the walls for long. Vyder's quest is vital: He must not fail, or the empire will fall.

An anthology of writings for the Christmas season from the pen of Charles Dickens.

The Cricket on the Hearth, published in 1845, is the third in Charles Dickens' series of "Christmas Books." The story centers around the hearth and home of the good-hearted carrier, John Peerybingle, and his young wife Mary—affectionately called Dot by her husband. Their baby boy is cared for by a clumsy nanny, Tilly Slowboy. The household is completed by Boxer the dog and the cricket on the hearth, who acts as a guardian angel to the family. When disaster looms following the arrival of an elderly stranger, the cricket appears in fairy form to save the day.

Soldiers from varying eras and vastly different backgrounds, including the IX Legion of Rome, are snatched away from Earth at the moment of their passing and transported to the far side of the galaxy. Thinking they have been granted a reprieve, their relief turns to horror when they discover they face a stark ultimatum: Fight or die.

I left her when she was eight. Just a child. Too young to be alone. I killed myself because I could never atone for the things he made me do. There is something wrong with my family, you see. A fear runs through us, through our blood. A fear that circles above us, shredding the sky and clawing at our hearts, and now, from a deathless realm, I am forced to watch as my lonely daughter is tortured by the life I gave her to endure....

Fresh off his victory at The Battle of Lodi, Napoleon is planning to enjoy his lunch when a lieutenant arrives with the bad news that the dispatches he had been carrying were stolen. Infuriated, Napoleon threatens him with being court-martialed unless he can recover them. A woman appears who claims to know about the theft. Unconvinced of her story, Napoleon and the woman enter into a battle of wits in true Shaw style. Will the conqueror of worlds end up conquered by a woman? 

The art of dragon killing: Dragons have been eating humans for centuries. Now heroes throughout history stalk their legendary foe. Learn how to hunt, kill, and eat the wild dragon. Never before has revenge tasted so good. A literary feast for the bloody-minded. In Janet Morris' anthology on the art of dragon killing, 17 writers bring you so close to dragons, you can smell their fetid breath.

Having barely escaped from the Plains of Fire with her life, Auri follows the pleas of her father and sets out for the safety and knowledge of the Dragon Masters. Once there, she hopes to immerse herself in their training and become the decisive edge that Terradin needs to stop Obsidian and his Rebels. But before her journey has even truly begun, someone dear to her is ripped away from her. Reeling from the loss, and with Terradin growing ever darker around her, she is forced to make a terrible decision that will have lasting repercussions.

A prophecy of murder. An elf hunted by dragons. One man who risks everything to save her. Nachal is a human that should not be having prophetic Dragon Dreams. But he does. Every night he dreams of an elf running through flames, trying in vain to outrun the Rebel Dragon Obsidian. Every night he sees her fall. Sees her eyes close. Feels her heart as it slows, and then stops. Every night, through the connection of the dream, he dies with her.

After he is found adrift in the Arctic by Captain Fredrick Walton, a gravely ill Victor Frankenstein recounts the story of his life up to his discovery. He tells how his obsession with science led to the creation of an abomination who, to his horror and shame, he abandoned. The creature's quest for both revenge and understanding from his creator leaves a violent trail of devastation in Victor’s life that affects all those he holds dear. Frankenstein is a powerful story of love and ambition, of friendship and morality, and of horror and violence. 

John Keats (1795-1821) was one of the foremost English Romantic poets. Despite his early death from tuberculosis at the age of 25 he had a considerable poetic output, the majority of his best-known works being written in the year 1819. The six odes composed during this year are among his most famous and well-regarded poems. The first five were composed during the spring of 1819, while 'To Autumn' was composed in September. The exact order of composition of the first five is unknown.

Francis Raven awakens on the eve of his birthday, frightened by the appearance of a woman attempting to murder him. He is continually haunted by this woman and years later marries Alicia Warlock, who looks strikingly identical to the figure from his dream. Is this Dream Woman simply an apparition or will her attempts to kill Francis become reality? Also known as The Ostler in earlier versions, The Dream Woman is another of Collins' finest detective stories.

A House of Pomegranates is a collection of four fairy tales, published in 1891, as a follow on collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888). Written in the form of parables with strong evidence of a Christian tone, Oscar Wilde again revisits the themes of suffering and sacrifice, in a collection which he once claimed was ‘intended neither for the British child nor the British public.’ “Of what use is my soul to me? I cannot see it. I may not touch it. I do not know it” 

This is a short story about two people in love at the end of the world and the beginning of another. It was written on the last day of the year 2014.

Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel takes place over the course of a single June day in the lives of some very different Londoners: wealthy society hostess Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing for a party; her old friend Peter Walsh, recently returned from India, whose proposal of marriage Clarissa rejected years ago; Septimus Warren Smith, a WWI veteran suffering from shell shock; and his Italian-born wife, Rezia, who is trying to care for him as best she can. Woolf's beautiful prose captures the minds and souls of these vivid characters.

The Frozen Deep was originally written as a play by Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens. With Dickens himself gracing the stage as Wardour, the play was met with success, drawing audiences to tears night after night, and even performing for Queen Victoria herself. Drawing on reports of the real-life Franklin expedition of 1845, in which a crew had set out from England to discover the North Passage and disappeared without a trace, Collins and Dickens recreated the events of the ill-fated journey.

Tasked with a mission in Iraq, an Australian SAS patrol deploy deep behind enemy lines. But when they activate a time portal, the soldiers find themselves in 10th century Viking Denmark, a place far more dangerous and lawless than modern Iraq. The soldiers have no way back. Join the SAS patrol on this action-adventure and journey into the depths of a hostile land, far from the support of the Allied front line. Step into another world...another time.

This extended moralistic fable, Oscar Wilde's longest work of fiction, was first published in 1890. It may be described as a tragedy of manners, in which a wealthy young man, endowed with great powers of physical and personal attractiveness, embarks on a hectic course of life which brings destruction to many around him, and ultimately to himself.

Scientifically minded Edward Prendick is shipwrecked in the southern Pacific and rescued by a passing ship. Aboard he meets Montgomery whose destination is an island belonging to Dr. Moreau. Moreau, formerly an eminent physiologist in London whose gruesome experiments in vivisection had been publicly exposed, had fled England as a result of his exposure. Edward tries to understand and survive among Dr. Moreau's gruesome 'beast-folk' and tries to return to civilization.

The first novel written by Charlotte Bronte, The Professor follows a young man named William Crimsworth on his teaching career in Brussels as well as the relationships he forms while residing there. At the behest of the headmistress, Zoraide Reuter, William tutors fellow teacher Frances Henri in English and finds himself falling in love with her. Jealousy drives Zoraide to dismiss Frances from the school as well as refusing to assist William in discovering her whereabouts.