Showing results by narrator "Christian Rummel" in All Categories

Mia Reynolds isn't interested in relationships. She refuses to follow the same troubled path her codependent mother traveled. Now that she has graduated from college and found a real job, paying her loads of money, the world is hers for the plucking. She doesn't need a man at her side, keeping her from having fun. Especially Regi, whose brandy-brown eyes and gravelly voice have haunted her since high school. Together they're gunpowder and fire, explosive but dangerous. She's only willing to give him her body, but never her heart.

A rich man and a poor man are found dead of gunshot wounds outside a seedy bar on Barrington Street. The police declare it a murder-suicide, but bluesman/lawyer Monty Collins suspects it's a double murder. Helped by his friend, Father Brennan Burke, and hindered by his femme fatale law partner, Felicia Morgan, Monty explores the dark side of Halifax society: hookers, drug addicts, boozers, gamblers and people desperate to cover up a series of parties that got way out of hand.

The High Rollers are falling apart. Billy is leading them into war against the wishes of Laura, who is intent on living in peace. Unbeknownst to them, one among them holds the cure that could save all mankind, and there are two powerful enemies that want it. Everything has been leading up to this, and the members of this fragile family are going to have to go through hell if they're going to survive. No one is safe as the end draws near.

Former star pilot Titus Quinn loves The Entire, but now he must risk annihilating it by destroying the fortress of Ahnenhoon. To sustain a faltering Entire, Ahnenhoon's great engine will soon reach through the brane separating the universes and consume our own universe in a concentrated ball of fire.

Jolene "Jo" Miller has been panting over her crush for years. He's everything she wants: a gentle giant with kick-ass ambition and a rock-hard body that she's dying to ride. The problem is, she's stuck in his friend zone due to one embarrassing reason - she's untouched. Jo's crush has no interest in popping her cherry. She'll need to take some drastic measures to get her crush's attention, and Jo has the perfect candidate to punch her v-card.

When spray-painted graffiti appears on the wall of Christy Burke's pub, indicating that there's a killer on the premises, Burke's grandson, Father Brennan Burke, is asked to investigate the vandalism. Though not at all keen on probing into the lives of the bar's clientele, he has little choice once a body is found on the property. Issuing orders from a cell in Mountjoy Prison, the pub's current owner wants the problem solved without the police anywhere near his building.

After beholding the destruction of the Well-Built City, physiognomist Cley is now a simple healer seeking peace and atonement in the happy village of survivors. When the town falls into a deadly sleeping sickness, Cley must make a dangerous trip to the ruins of Citynow beset by mechanical birds and werewolves to seek out an antidote. The evil Master Below is still alive, but an accidental exposure to the sickness that he created has put him into a coma.

Speed: the most demonized - and misunderstood - drug in the land. Deprived of the ingrained romantic mysticism of the opiate or the cosmopolitan chic of cocaine or the mundane tolerance of marijuana, there is no sympathy for this devil. Yet speed - crystal meth, amphetamines, Dexedrine, Benzedrine, Adderall; crank, spizz, chickenscratch, oblivious marching powder, the go-fast - is the most American of drugs: twice the productivity at half the cost, and equal opportunity for all.

The third and final chapter of Cley's strange life journey dispatches him to the inconceivable ends of his world - and strands him in the perilous heart of a sentient wilderness.

Finally in control of the Ascendancy, Titus Quinn has styled himself Regent of the Entire. But his command is fragile. He rules an empire with a technology beyond human understanding; spies lurk in the ancient Magisterium; the Tarig overlords are hamstrung but still malevolent. Worse, his daughter Sen Ni opposes him for control, believing the Earth and its Rose universe must die to sustain the failing Entire.

On this stage unfolds a mighty struggle for dominance between two universes. Titus Quinn has forged an unstable peace with the Tarig lords. The ruinous capability of the nanotech surge weapon he possesses ensures detente. But it is a sham. In what the godwoman Zhiya calls a fit of moral goodness, he's thrown the weapon into the space-folding waters of the Nigh. This clears the way for an enemy he could have never foreseen: the people of the Rose.

Lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins is used to defending murderers - and occasionally investigating murders himself - but he's never come up against anything like the case of Reinhold Schellenberg, a world-renowned German theologian who has been found dead on the altar of an old church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saint Cecilia's Day. The controversial priest, once a top insider in the Vatican, was known to provoke strong feelings in Catholics, and now those feelings have overflowed with horrifying results.

Twelve science fiction stories about the oncoming future, each of them representing a possible glimpse of what could be just around the corner... or much further down the corridor. These stories previously appeared in places like Clarkesworld Magazine, The Year's Best SF, Subterranean Magazine, and in various anthologies. They deal with the future of war, our climate, and technology's effect on our lives.

The city of Mera is a fortress hidden from the rest of humanity, a sanctuary for the diverse group of people rescued from death by the Oraclethat rules the city. The Oracle has brought together the citizens of Merafrom every land and every time period, protecting them from the ravages oftime, death and the evil demon forces that howl outside the city at night.

Brand-new stories from David Housewright, Steve Thayer, Judith Guest, Mary Logue, Bruce Rubenstein, K.J. Erickson, William Kent Krueger, Ellen Hart, Brad Zellar, Mary Sharratt, Pete Hautman, Larry Millett, Quinton Skinner, Gary Bush, and Chris Everheart.

Angela Watts loved being the life of a party. Until one night changed everything. Now, she just wants a fresh start. With one semester left of college, she's intent on finishing it and moving on. That means no more distractions and no more boys. Especially womanizers like Jackson. His cocky smile and mesmerizing eyes ignite her like none other. Which is exactly why she vows to stay away from him. Except he's always there when she needs him. His hungry kisses and fiery touch inflame her. She hadn't wanted a relationship, but in his arms, she is safe again.

For alcoholic former actress Leigh Baker, the moment will always be suspended in time: Seeing her daughter plunge to her death from the terrace of a sixth-floor apartment. Months later, the man responsible is convicted by a jury of his peers. Four years after that, he is out on parole. And one by one, those whose testimony helped put James Delancey away meet violent ends. Manhattan doyenne Oona Aldridge is the first. She is found in the dressing room of a trendy Manhattan boutique, her throat slashed.

Caribbean born novelist Tobias Buckell established himself as a gifted new voice in science fiction with his stunning first novel Crystal Rain. Now, in his first collection, Buckell demonstrates his strengths in the short form, offering readers a collection of stories that are compelling, smart, wonderfully imagined, and entertaining. Tides from the New Worlds contains 19 stories that range from multicultural science fiction to magical realism, some in print for the first time.

This short story is from the anthology Mitigated Futures. Twelve science fiction stories about the oncoming future, each of them representing a possible glimpse of what could be just around the corner... or much further down the corridor. These stories previously appeared in places like Clarkesworld Magazine, The Year's Best SF, Subterranean Magazine, and in various anthologies. They deal with the future of war, our climate, and technology's effect on our lives.

Growing up in Virginia's Allegheny Mountains, 11-year-old Charlie York lives at the foot of an endless peak called Angel's Rest, a place his momma told him angels rested before coming down to help folks. In 1967 his town was a poor boy's paradise...until a shotgun blast killed Charlie's father and put his mother on trial for murder.