Showing results by narrator "Ralph Lister" in All Categories

"The Other Side of the Sky" was first published in the September/October 1957 issue of Infinity Science Fiction Magazine. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Several thousand years from now, advanced humanoids known as the Makers will implant clockwork devices into our heads. At the cost of a certain amount of agency, these devices will permit us to move unhindered through time and space, and to live complacent, well-regulated lives. However, when one of these devices goes awry, a "clockwork man" appears accidentally in the 1920s, at a cricket match in a small English village. Comical yet mind-blowing hijinks ensue.

My character has been shaped by two opposing forces; the pressure to conform to social norms, and the pressure to be true to myself. To be honest with you, these forces have really torn me apart. They've pulled me one way and then the other. At times, they've left me questioning my entire existence. But please don't think that I'm angry or morose. I'm not. Because through adversity comes knowledge. I've suffered, it's true. But I've learned from my pain. I've become a better person.

On Crow Island, people whispered, real magic lurked just below the surface. But Annie Mason never expected her enigmatic new neighbour to be a witch. When she witnesses a confrontation between her best friend, Bea, and the infamous Emmeline Delacroix at one of Emmeline's extravagantly illicit parties, Annie is drawn into a glittering haunted world. A world where magic can buy what money cannot; a world where the consequence of a forbidden blood bargain might be death.

When the lucky survivors of the world’s most infamous maritime disaster were plucked out of the freezing ocean by the passenger steamship Carpathia, they thought their problems were over. But something is sleeping in the darkest recesses of their rescue ship. Something old. Something hungry.

When a blood-stained effigy of body parts is found in a central London park, D.I. Daniel Graves must set about trying to discover what it could mean and find the person responsible. Symbols at the crime scene suggest the occult. Who would leave a murder victim in such a way, and why? As Graves and partner D.I. Charlie Palmer begin to investigate the ritual and the act of human sacrifice, they enlist the help of Charlotte Gooding, a talented professor specializing in the subject. They hope to narrow down a motive—could the killer believe in the supernatural? Witchcraft, even?

D.I. Graves is back on the case to face his toughest challenge yet: a case with no motive and no suspect, nothing at all that could explain why someone would kill innocent people and then take parts from the bodies. Then the next victims are discovered: another pair of bodies, new body parts taken, and again in their own home. Someone is breaking into houses across the city at night, leaving horror in their wake. It seems to Graves that this could be two serial killers, working together. But how are they choosing their victims? Is any house in London a target? Is anyone safe?

As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle - the creator of Sherlock Holmes - studied under the pioneering forensic investigator Dr. Joseph Bell. Critically acclaimed author David Pirie has created an engrossing series of novels that pairs the two as partners in criminal investigations in the dark underworlds of Victorian England. The Night Calls chronicles a most frightening and disturbing case: their encounter with the man who prefigures Holmes's arch-nemesis Moriarty.

Few historians end up as historical actors in their own right, but Bernard Lewis has both witnessed and participated in some of the key events of the last century. When we think of the Middle East, we see it in terms that he defined and articulated.In this exceptional memoir he shares stories of his wartime service in London and Cairo, decrypting intercepts for MI6, with sometimes unexpected consequences. After the war, he was the first Western scholar ever invited into the Ottoman archives in Istanbul.

The year is 1191. The place is the Holy Land, where the knights of Christ are embroiled in a war with the armies of Islam. The prize is the holy city of Jerusalem. Led by Richard the Lionheart, the armies of the West are conducting a Crusade against the sultan Saladin. In Cyprus, the king's mother, Eleanor, has struck a devil's bargain to grant Richard victory at any cost. Only Sinan the sorcerer knows that victory will cost the king his immortal soul.

50 Things Every Young Gentleman Should Know is a young man’s guide to becoming the type of guy that people respect and enjoy. He knows how to shake hands. He knows how to be a good sport. He knows how to give a genuine compliment and how to speak his mind without being offensive. His friends listen to what he has to say, and he returns the favor. Becoming a gentleman doesn’t happen in an instant; it’s a lifelong exercise in refining etiquette, social interaction, and personal discipline. It all begins here.

When a bloody corpse is discovered in a North London park, Detective Inspector Daniel Graves is the man tasked with finding the killer. However, with no clues and no suspects, the case seems like a dead end. Then another body turns up—and this time, it looks like it could be Graves’s fault. Has his investigation caused the murderer to strike again? As the case gets ever more complicated, a report comes in of another suspicious death—but this is nothing like any other Graves has dealt with. All involved are convinced that something supernatural is to blame: a demon.

Florence Maybrick was the first American woman to be sentenced to death in England - for murdering her husband, a crime she almost certainly didn't commit. Her 1889 trial was presided over by an openly misogynist judge who was later declared incompetent and died in an asylum. Hours before she was to be hanged, Queen Victoria reluctantly commuted her sentence to life in prison. In her opinion, a woman who would commit adultery, as Maybrick had admitted, would also kill her husband. Her children were taken from her; she never saw them again. Her mother worked for years to clear her name.

When Thomas Rose first spots the girl concealed in a ditch outside his rural village, she looks as drab as a lark, blending with the English countryside. Only her bright-red kerchief gives her away. Yet French Hélène, who goes by “Ling”  -  for the year is 1757, and England and France are at war - is no ordinary bird. She is tiny and agile, with huge dark eyes and hair as black as plums. Ling enchants Thomas with tales of the circus, where she danced atop Belladonna, a pure-white horse with a tail the color of barley. But the leader of the troupe has sold Belladonna....

Will's a nice guy. So when he takes a shortcut to the tube station after a few beers with his mates from work, he steps out of the way of the fellow who's staggering towards him. But he—deliberately—moves back into his path. They knock each other as they pass. Moments later, one man is dead and another's life is changed forever. Or is it? There are no CCTV cameras. There was no one else in the out-of-the-way alley. Maybe the world doesn't have to end for Will after all. But there's always someone watching, and Will's life is about to implode.

Yazid Valerion is alone with the truth, but his warnings fall on deaf ears. Eons ago, the Dead God promised a world of ash, and the time of that prophecy is now at hand. His only hope is to cross the sea with his few followers in search of ancient enemies, the Meites, and pray he can sway them to his cause. But the Meites are no mere mortals; they are powerful sorcerers prone to outbursts of destructive terror. Even if he can find them, there's no guarantee they won't slaughter him and his men upon first sight.

In 1968 Mick Jagger couldn't understand why the Rolling Stones were broke. The man he asked for help was a German prince, a merchant banker. They forged an unlikely alliance which re-invented the business of rock 'n' roll. As a youthquake shook the Establishment, Prince Rupert Loewenstein thrived in both worlds, never relinquishing his elegance or decorum. Coolly impartial and dryly humorous, this is a refreshingly different take on the rock 'n' roll world from within its inner sanctum.

This is the story of a place that never was: the kingdom of Prester John, the utopia described by an anonymous, 12th-century document which captured the imagination of the medieval world and drove hundreds of lost souls to seek out its secrets, inspiring explorers, missionaries, and kings. But what if it were all true? What if there was such a place, and a poor, broken priest once stumbled past its borders, discovering, not a Christian paradise, but a country where everything is possible....

After the liberation of the Greenreef islands, Elias has returned to the mainland of Lonwick, a new purpose burning in his heart: hunting down and killing the Felle general who murdered his love and purging the land of the scourge that is the Felle. When he returns, he finds that the war brewing to the south is on the verge of erupting, and his allies back home have found themselves in dire situations.

Frank has been in a serious car accident and he’s missing memories - of the people around him, of the history they share, and of how he came to be in the crash. All he remembers is that he is a lawyer who specializes in fine print, and as he narrates his story, he applies this expertise in the form of footnotes. Everyone keeps telling Frank that he was fine before the accident, "just a bit overwhelmed", but as he begins to reclaim his memories, they don’t quite jibe with what everyone is telling him.