Showing results by narrator "Michael A. Smith" in All Categories

"Work Sets You Free" by David Barnett is an original short story featuring the protagonist of the forthcoming novel Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl. Gideon is a young fisherman in Yorkshire, England, in an alternate 1890, who embarks on a journey to find Captain Lucian Trigger, the famed Hero of the Empire, to deal with a mystery plaguing his home village.

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.

Several baronies have disappeared, as if swallowed by the Earth. Strange disturbances lead Kane and the others to a giant sinkhole in a remote and wild area of Mexico, where reality merges with an ancient culture of sorcery. Here, a beautiful, mysterious guerilla leader wages war against a terrifying army of demons spiriting humans into the subterranean netherworld. Joining the fight, the Cerberus rebels invade the cavernous chambers of a hidden world, and confront a self-styled warlord using predark nuclear tech to rule the depths of the planet.

On a travel story about Benedict Arnold, freelance reporter Jack McMorrow traces the route of the infamous historical figure up the Kennebec River into Quebec, Canada. When a man fails to rejoin his bus tour in the Northern Maine town of Scanesett, Jack makes a pit stop there to help authorities find him and soon finds himself entangled with a bunch of lethal small-town hoods who make bad sport of the weak and defenseless. Threatened, beaten up, and forced into a terrifying game of redneck hide-and-seek, McMorrow faces his most ruthless criminals yet.

He was 15 when he killed his first man. Before his murderous ways ended, Hardin killed 42 men in cold blood - one, the legend goes, because he snored too loudly. From then on, John Wesley Hardin stayed true to his calling, killing man after man after man, spending most of his life being pursued by both local lawmen and federal troops.

Sheriff Jess Carey and his oddball band of sidekicks have pulled off the impossible, taming Hell’s Half Acre, the most lawless town in Texas, infamous for murder, mayhem, prostitution, and every random act of bloodshed imaginable. Now the no-good politicians in Austin have decided it’s cheaper to dump hordes of criminals on Jess Carey’s town than hanging ‘em. In one dreadful week, it seems as if the gates of Hell have burst open.

In this, the latest installment of the popular Jack McMorrow mystery series, veteran author Gerry Boyle takes his readers into territory all-too-familiar from the daily headlines: illegal gun sales, culture clashes between old and new, cyberbullying, and the random acts of violence that pose a real threat to even the closest of communities. Prosperity, Maine is no longer the refuge from the real world that it once was, and Jack, and his wife, Roxanne, will be forced to face their most destructive enemies yet each other.

On the night of the new moon, the demons rise in force, seeking the deaths of two men both of whom have the potential to become the fabled Deliverer, the man prophesied to reunite the scattered remnants of humanity in a final push to destroy the demon corelings once and for all. Arlen Bales was once an ordinary man, but now he has become something more - the Warded Man, tattooed with eldritch wards so powerful they make him a match for any demon. Arlen denies he is the Deliverer at every turn, but the more he tries to be one with the common folk, the more fervently they believe.

Abandoned by her allies, the Republic of Venice holds out as the last beacon of resistance against the hobgoblin armies. Armed with new weapons the Southern Horde drives upon the floating city by land and sea. The Northern Horde drives deep into the heart of Europa and all fall before it. The Horde is vast beyond measure. Assassin daggers lurk in every shadow. Necrotic evil seeps and infects.

The Action Bible: The Books of the Law presents 54 fast-paced episodes in chronological order, making it easy to follow the Bible’s historical flow of the books referred to as The Law of Moses, from Creation through the beginning of Joshua’s tenure as leader of the Children of Israel. Every episode sparks excitement to explore God’s Word and know Him personally. Listeners will witness God’s active presence in the world through stories from the life of Jesus and great heroes of the faith.

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.

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 is brave, tough as leather, and has left behind a trail of deadly enemies - outlaws he's hunted down or killed with the cold heart of a man used to violence. A feared bounty hunter and the scourge of bad men everywhere, Flintlock carries an ancient Hawken muzzle-loader, handed down to him from the mountain man who raised him. He stands as the towering hero of a new Johnstone saga.

Twenty years ago, a toxic spill in the small southwest Texas town of Exile poisoned residents with permanent rage. The feds' response? Quarantine. Only residents who pass the feds' 4-S test can escape Exile's heavily fortified borders. Heidi Palermo, unwilling medic to her family of bloodthirsty street warriors, has taken the test repeatedly, trying to prove she's smart, strong, sterile, and sane. Three out of four ain't bad, but the feds don't grade on a curve.

For Lawson, the horrors that stalked the Civil War battlefield at Shiloh were more than just those of war. After being forcibly given the gift of undeath by the mysterious vampire Queen LaRouge, Lawson chose to cling to what remained of his humanity and fought his way free of the Dark Society's clutches. In the decades since, he has roamed late 19th-century America, doing what good he can as he travels by night, combating evils mundane and supernatural, and always seeking the key to regaining a mortal life.

Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, a collection of narratives written between 1387 and 1400, tells of a group of 30 people from all layers of society who pass the time along their pilgrimage to Canterbury by telling stories to one another, their interaction mediated (at times) by the affable host - Chaucer himself. Naxos AudioBooks’ third volume presents the tales of six people, here in an unabridged modern verse translation (by Frank Ernest Hill, 1935).

Like a murderous plague, a band of cutthroats and criminals, led by prison escapees from New Mexico, rages through West Texas. They're slaughtering everyone in their path: men, women, and children. They struck at Saragosa. Now they've taken over the town of Boracho. The Dallas newspapers call them the Kingdom Come Gang. In Chugwater, Wyoming, Duff McCallister calls them his enemy. Because one of their victims was family.

Most of the human race believes in a life beyond the here-and-now. Religious writings have put such beliefs into words - often esoteric, mysterious words - for thousands of years. Among such writings are those which form the Christian Bible: the 66 books commonly called the Old and New Testaments. Strangely, the Bible doesn't say much about what the life which lies beyond is like - that is, how it is actually lived.

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Nietzsche is a profound and influential philosophical work that follows the journey of Zarathustra, a sage who retreats into the mountains for solitude and enlightenment. After years of contemplation, Zarathustra returns to share his insights with humanity. Through a series of parables, discourses, and aphorisms, Zarathustra explores complex themes such as the death of God, the will to power, and the concept of the Übermensch, or superman.

Mountain man Joe Fox reluctantly led a group of settlers through the Rockies and into the clutches of Max Starbeau, who traveled with the party until he was able to commit theft and murder and kidnap Joe's girl. Now, Joe Fox is forging a new trail of vengeance!