Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

Eric McCaffrey has been playing Zag in the VR-MMOFPS Battlegrounds Online for a while now. The more he plays, the more entrenched into the game he gets. It hardly even feels like a game anymore. Zag, now one of the commandos for the Knights of the Tactical Operations Group, is tasked with freeing Punta del Muerta from the terrorist group Wyvern. Along with the rest of the Knights, Zag will dive deep into the jungles, war-torn cities, and concrete bunkers, but will he be able to complete all the missions in time?

Horsetooth Reservoir is an artificial body of water in land-locked Colorado. So how did a mermaid end up there? Cormac, former bounty hunter turned supernatural problem solver, doesn't much care how she got there. But he's determined to get her home, no matter who tries to stop him. And a surprising number of people are trying to stop him.

Outcast and exiled, the demon Tarrik Nal-Valim has long been forgotten by the world of humans. At least, so he thinks. But when he is summoned as a last resort by a desperate sorcerer, it seems as though his past has caught up with him. The sorcerer is Serenity “Ren” Branwen, the daughter of Tarrik’s former master - and friend. Though she seems cold, driven, and ruthless, Tarrik can tell Ren has her back against a wall, and he is compelled by ferocious powers to obey her.

Angie is awakened by a midnight call from an officer with the Boise Police Department and thinks there must be a misunderstanding. The officer tells her that her husband was involved in a shooting at a local bar, but how can that be when her husband is sleeping right next to her? But when she turns to wake him, he isn’t there. Tessa is the 23-year-old bartender who escapes to a backroom storage closet during the shooting. When it comes to light that five people were killed, she is burdened with the question of why she survived.

In Weird Earth: Debunking Strange Ideas About Our Planet, Donald R. Prothero demystifies these conspiracies and offers answers to some of humanity's most outlandish questions. Applying his extensive scientific knowledge, Prothero corrects misinformation that con artists and quacks use to hoodwink others about geology - hollow earth, expanding earth, and bizarre earthquakes-and mystical and paranormal happenings - healing crystals, alien landings, and the gates of hell.

I'm Cisco Suarez: necromancer, shadow charmer, black magic outlaw. Sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? It was, right until I woke up half dead in a dumpster. Did I say half dead? Because I meant 100% dead. Full on. I don't do things halfway. So here I am, alive for some reason, just another sunny day in Miami. It's a perfect paradise, except I'm into something bad. Wanted by police, drenched in the stink of dark magic, nether creatures coming out of the woodwork, and don't get me started on the Haitian voodoo gang.

When Glenn’s old friend, Zack Silverstone, and the fugitive Soulseer, Anna Bronzelight, uncover an ancient threat that could destroy Wolfpine, Rebecca Coldbreaker and her fellow Blazers are called to action once more. Circumstances arranged by the Gods will set Glenn, Zack, and the Blazers on a path that may end up costing all of them their lives. Even if they manage to save Wolfpine, none will ever be the same... and some may not survive.

The only thing worse than an assassin is a zombie assassin. And this killer is no ordinary zombie, and Cisco Suarez, the Miami Police Department's resident supernatural consultant and a practicing necromancer, has to untangle his story and solve the case.

Jarl Beckström has done the impossible. He has changed his class, leveled up, and joined the most elite warband in Norvaask. But in the aftermath of the battle with the draugr, chaos reigns. The Clan Lord has been usurped by his own brother, and the clanhold's armies have been all but devastated. Leadership is needed now more than ever. A change in fortune places Jarl in a position of power, and he struggles beneath the weight of his newfound responsibly.

Still heading east, but now with two new companions, Jack Jupiter's goals have changed. Not only does he crave revenge against the one-eyed man, he now aims to save his brother from the clutches of the District. But Norm has been brainwashed into becoming the Overlord's second-in-command, and with every passing minute, the District grows stronger while our heroes grow weaker.

Madness and incantations in the nightmares of poets. Vicious ancient cults in the mountains and swamps. A corpse city rising in the sea. After Professor Angell meets a sudden and mysterious end, Francis Thurston, while sorting through his uncle's papers, makes a fateful discovery that ties these malignant manifestations together.

Team Grendel is out of options. With a mysterious enemy destroying their refuges, the crew of the Beowulf III is forced to seek sanctuary on an island that wants nothing more than to kill them all, an island that is pure death and evil. While Ballantine struggles to find them a less deadly option, Team Grendel must risk their lives to help a teammate. Something is wrong with Darby and an answer must be found before it is too late. But finding that answer may mean not all of them will make it out. Fear! Death! Terror! Blood!

The Mage-Emperor has another chance at life. He failed before, he will not fail again. An 80-year-old Mage-Emperor is murdered by his closest companions because of his own vanity and thirst for power. He is reborn into a fantasy Japan-like world as a baby. Using his vast knowledge of magic and strategy from his previous life, he aims to become this new world's most powerful warrior: the Kensei.

The sleeping mind is a mysterious backdrop that science is just beginning to shed light on. It was only some 60 years ago that researchers discovered REM, the rapid-eye-movement cycle that's associated with dreams. In Nightmareland, Lex "Lonehood" Nover travels into the eerie borderlands where the unconscious, dreams, and strange entities intermingle under the cover of night, revealing wider and hidden aspects of ourselves, from the savage and frightening to the astounding and sublime.

Charles Ward, even as a child, had always wandered the streets of ancient Providence, drawn inexorably to its domes and spires, its hills and homes, its history and its haunts. His antiquarian habits were always just so: an innocent preoccupation with the city and its wonders. Yet, when the discovery of a shadowy ancestor exposes an eldritch malevolence long thought to be contained, Charles must resist the dark grip of his fascination, before it consumes him, and his world, completely.

The stories in this anthology range from quietly strange to ambitiously speculative. Humans transform into cosmic energy or sentient algae. A man wakes up in a new body in a world with continents cut out, months absent from the calendar year, and souls misplaced. Students at a high school regularly vanish without a trace. A woman descends into the depths of the ocean and encounters all-knowing creatures who may have the answers to her deepest questions.

Kyle Tait, having survived the harrowing, cross-country journey home to his family, must now struggle for existence in a post-EMP world that no one could have imagined just three short months prior. Each day brings new challenges - how to fight the bitter cold, where to scavenge food for the table, and how to best fend off intruders and keep their community safe. As the cold, dark days of winter begin the slow transition to spring, the Tait family is faced with a challenge that dwarfs all others.

From revolutionary to Cold War adversary, Fidel Castro was one of the world's most controversial leaders and perhaps its most enduring. As Cuba's president for nearly 50 years, Castro's influential leadership captivated allies and enemies alike. By virtue of passionate oration and committed sense of purpose - good or bad - Castro kept the Cuban people devoted and the world enthralled.

It’s George and Mara Spencer’s 25th wedding anniversary, and the Spencer daughters are finally back under the same roof again: Lottie, the youngest, Mara’s adored only child, and Lottie’s two older half-sisters, Dinah and Vaughan, the daughters of George’s first marriage - a marriage that ended in a terrible tragedy, with the death of his beautiful young wife. In the years since, their father has found happiness again...but on this hot summer day in Birch Bend, when catastrophe strikes at the anniversary party.

A bounty hunting survivor. A Galactic dark elf. A woman who has given up her humanity to become something more. These stories and more are available in the first short story anthology for the System Apocalypse, covering year one on Earth. When the world ends, humanity steps up, finding new ways to survive in a world with classes, magic, and monsters. The anthology features exciting, new stories by five new writers and a new, never publicly released short story by Tao Wong.