Showing results by narrator "Eric Messner" in All Categories

There’s nothing particularly unusual for a legendary gunman to be summoned to the lawless, bullet-riddled territory of Arizona. But when Frank Morgan, a.k.a. the Last Gunfighter, rides into Tucson, he finds himself ambushed and kidnapped by ruthless Mexican bandit Ramirez’s army of thugs. The only way out is for Frank’s son, Conrad Browning, heir to the vast Browning fortune, to ransom his father free. But Conrad isn’t giving up one cent. He’s got a far deadlier currency in mind.

Lady Cecelia is to mysteries what a pack of foxhounds is to a fox...and her interference brings her to disaster. But Captain Serrano isn't about to let her employer - and now her friend - be destroyed. With the help of Lady Cecelia's nephew and his friends, including Lord Thornbuckle's adventurous daughter, Heris plots a rescue, while trying to rebalance her own life and recover relationships with some of her former crew. In the process, she and Lady Cecelia bring down a government.

A collection of short stories gathered from the far reaches of the Space Team Universe.

Kylar Stern has rejected the assassin's life. The Godking's successful coup has left Kylar's master, Durzo and his best friend, Logan, dead. He is starting over: new city, new friends and new profession. But when he learns that Logan might actually be alive and in hiding, Kylar is faced with an agonizing choice: will he give up the way of shadows forever and live in peace with his new family, or will he risk everything by taking on the ultimate hit?

A masked vigilante known only as "X" dispenses justice without mercy to the criminals who rule the decaying city of Arcadia. When muckraking blogger Leigh Ferguson snoops down the wrong alley, she gets swept into X's bloody war with a politically powerful crime lord.

Smoke Jensen drives a herd of longhorns to Dodge City, and finds a town in the grip of terror - its only lawman outgunned by a cutthroat gang led by the West's most notorious outlaw. His name is "Bloody Bill" Anderson, a Confederate guerrilla whose violent career as a gunhawk has earned him a deadly reputation. Now he's found his match in the Mountain Man - and it's time for an all-out war.

Retired lawman Jason Storm sets up a new life for himself as a rancher in Paradise Valley. But when a gang of outlaws invade the town, Storm straps on his gunbelt one more time....

Considered by the author to be his finest work yet, this is a novel of realistic detail, heartfelt emotion, and dazzling imagination that builds a world listeners won't want to leave and spins a tale they won't want to end. In a town of amazing magicks, where the real and the imagined live side by side and the Faerie of legend know the automatons of the future, Time sees all - but even he cannot escape the prophecy of James Hart's return, which can only mean the death of Shadows Fall.

The sun is setting on humanity. The night now belongs to voracious demons that prey upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind half-forgotten symbols of power. Legends tell of a Deliverer: a general who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. But is the return of the Deliverer just another myth? Perhaps not. Out of the desert rides Ahmann Jardir, who has forged the desert tribes into a demon-killing army. He has proclaimed himself Shar’Dama Ka, the Deliverer and he carries ancient weapons - a spear and a crown - that give credence to his claim.

Alcatraz Smedry has successfully defeated the army of Evil Librarians and saved the kingdom of Mokia. Too bad he managed to break the Smedry Talents in the process. Even worse, his father is trying to enact a scheme that could ruin the world, and his friend, Bastille, is in a coma. To revive her, Alcatraz must infiltrate the Highbrary - known as The Library of Congress to Hushlanders - the seat of Evil Librarian power. Without his Talent to draw upon, can Alcatraz figure out a way to save Bastille and defeat the Evil Librarians once and for all?

Billy Bane is a prophet who got it all wrong, and the galaxy has been burning ever since. All he wants is to waste away in the darkest corner of space with his best pal Dust, a supercharged Fuq bot. But when a new prophet comes calling, Billy is summoned to save the galaxy he's at least partially responsible for destroying. Too bad he couldn't care less.

Young Lerris yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. In Recluce, this means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond. Many do not survive. Lerris chooses dangergeld. Lerris will need magic in the lands beyond, where the power of the Chaos Wizards reigns unchecked, and he must learn to use his powers in an orderly way before his wanderjahr, or fall prey to Chaos.

In the bustling streets of St. Louis, two cousins have a dream: to travel west with a wagon train of supplies and make a fortune in trade. Preacher needs a job and is heading west anyway. But he doesn't bargain on the beautiful woman who sneaks her way into the wagon train and the trouble she brings on board.

Esmay Suiza wasn't a member of a great Navy family like the Serranos. She'd had to make her way on grit alone, which meant it wasn't likely she'd ever make admiral and "hoist her own flag". Well, that was fine with her: All Esmay wanted was a secure berth where she could be part of something greater than herself, and otherwise just live her life in peace. But what we want or think we want from life and what we get are seldom the same - and one day, Esmay found herself in the middle of a space battle, and the senior surviving officer in a mutiny against a traitorous captain.

Mankind has ceded the night to the corelings, demons that rise up out of the ground each day at dusk, killing and destroying at will until dawn, when the sun banishes them back to the Core. As darkness falls, the world’s few surviving humans hide behind magical wards, praying the magic can see them through another night. As years pass, the distances between each tiny village seem longer and longer. It seems nothing can harm the corelings, or bring humanity back together.

The sun is setting on humanity. The night now belongs to voracious demons that prey upon a dwindling population forced to cower behind half-forgotten symbols of power. Legends tell of a Deliverer: a general who once bound all mankind into a single force that defeated the demons. But is the return of the Deliverer just another myth? Perhaps not. Out of the desert rides Ahmann Jardir, who has forged the desert tribes into a demon-killing army.

In the depth of a cruel High Lonesome winter comes a cryptic message for Smoke Jensen. The letter tells of skullduggery by gold barons, railroad magnates, and Chinese tongs in San Francisco. Smoke knows only one person in the city by the bay: the well-rounded, open-natured Francie, mistress of one of the town's most notorious pleasure palaces.

The game’s afoot once more as the long-suffering Dr. John Watson and a partially decomposed Warlock Holmes (though he’s getting better) face off against Moriarty’s gang, the Pinkertons, flesh-eating horses, a parliament of imps, boredom, Surrey, a succubus, an overly Canadian aristocrat, a tricycle-fight to the death and the dreaded Pumpcrow. Oh, and a hell-hound, one assumes.

Outlaws have again taken Frank Morgan's son and the Drifter is fortunate to get some help from an unexpected source. But just as Morgan gets close to the men he's hunting, he comes upon a ghost town nestled into a Rocky Mountain valley. For Morgan, the mystery of what happened to the town and of a deadly spirit that haunts it, has to take second fiddle to what's brought him this far. Determined to free his son, he'll face his enemies in this godforsaken place, where amidst the ghosts, the gunfighters, and the gunsmoke, he'll make sure the killing is real.

As they blunder towards doom, Warlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson find themselves inconvenienced by a variety of eldritch beings. Christmas brings a goose that doesn't let being cooked slow it down; they meet an electricity demon, discover why being a redhead is even trickier than one might imagine, and Holmes attempts an Irish accent. And, naturally, Moriarty is hanging around...in some form or other.