Showing results by author "Robert Butler" in All Categories

Carcosa is a fictional land that first appeared in Bierce’s 1886 story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” (included in this collection), and later is appeared Robert W. Chambers’s The King in Yellow. It has since been used by many other fantasy and horror writers and poets. This collection explores Carcosa and other fictional cities found in nineteenth-century poetry and short stories. The works of these classic and innovative writers are given new life, and a new generation of listeners will have the chance to voyage to Carcosa … and beyond.

What happens to people's lives during times of battle and strife? From the American Revolution to the ongoing war in Iraq, the subject of this collection is how people cope with the dramatic shifts that come with war. Before Independence, a slave fights for freedom by taking up arms for the British; in World War I, a mother goes to the front lines to see her son; and in our time, a teenager in Oregon waits for e-mail from his father in the Middle East.

Christopher Marlowe Cobb ("Kit"), the swashbuckling early 20th-century American newspaper war correspondent, travels to Mexico in April and May of 1914, during that country’s civil war and the American invasion of Vera Cruz. But covering the war in enemy territory and in sweltering heat isn't enough of a challenge for Cobb. Soon, he's falling in love with a young Mexican laundress, Luisa, who may not be as innocent as she seems, and he's witnessing the inexplicable attempted sniper assassination of a priest (miraculously, the bullet rebounds off the cross around his neck, leaving him unharmed).

A wonderful selection of classic Christmas poetry from G. K. Chesterton, Henry Vaughan, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Burns, Lord Tennyson, and many more.

Nephew of the Emperor, the Firstborn Son of Terror's Mother, the next in line for the throne of the Jabarian Empire, victorious general, unbeatable warrior.. Gottfried Jabara has all that one could want in life despite being barely a man's age... everything that is... except a choice about what to do with his life. Iris Vansi Valoisin is a slave. The daughter of a once noble house which committed treason against the Jabarian Empire. And yet deprived of all choice, she has her cunning and her iron will. Conspiracy, treason, and terror in the heart of the Empire clash against desire, family, ...

Losing everything is a chance to start again, having nothing is a chance to build something. An exile from his home, and an exile within her own tribe, Archos and Ayente stand at a great crossroads in both their lives. When your own betray you, there is no choice but to place your trust in the strangest of strangers and hope for the best.

One simple trip. Just take some xaxa fruit from point A to point B, sell it this cheap stuff at the nearest spaceport where they pay a premium for fresh food, then restock the bar of the Red Spark and move on. But for Captain Bonny Red and her crew, life can just never be that simple. Taking a shortcut to reach their destination, they encounter some zenti raiders, and some most unexpected people who will take the merry band of dlamisan space pirates on yet another misadventure that will end with their plans ruined...and an unexpected treasure along the way.

How does a former dlamisan military scout, a sailor of the void, go from a soldier class, to a merchant class...to a pirate class? There's only one way. Encountering humans and finding out about pirate movies...video games... and liquor, lots...and lots... of liquor. Herein lies the record of the rise of Bonny Red, Captain of the Red Spark, Pirate Queen of the endless void, and where her legend began... Set in the universe of 'Adopted By Humans'

Robert Quinlan is a 70-year-old historian, teaching at Florida State University, where his wife Darla is also tenured. Their marriage, forged in the fervor of anti-Vietnam War protests, now bears the fractures of time, both personal and historical, with the couple trapped in an existence of morning coffee and solitary jogging and separate offices. For Robert and Darla, the cracks remain under the surface, whereas the divisions in Robert's own family are more apparent: he has almost no relationship with his brother Jimmy.

In The Empire of Night, it is 1915, and President Woodrow Wilson is still assessing the war's threat to the United States. After proving himself during the Lusitania mission, Kit is now a full-blown spy, working undercover in a castle on the Kentish coast owned by a suspected British government mole named Sir Albert Stockman. And Kit is again thrown together with a female spy - his own mother, the beautiful and mercurial Isabel Cobb, who also happens to be a world-famous stage actress.

For Speranzi Jadara, the paladin archer and Commander of the Black Quiver mercenary company, it was supposed to be a simple job. Escort a merchant on his journey into a neighboring region, ensure his safety, and come home alive. But for the devotee of the gods of mankind and veteran of the war against the Demon God, Damaxa, nothing ever goes as planned. After encountering Skana, a bold brigand made hard bitten by her life as a peasant, and razor sharp by her life disguising herself as a man to hide her identity from her teachers among the raiders, Speranzi Jadara's whole world turns upside ...

Fiction, poetry, and music come together to create something new: Verb. Original stories and poems you won't find anywhere else, by the best writers in the country, brought to you in an innovative format. Verb is the ancient oral tradition and the venerable literary magazine combined into a fresh new package: the audioquarterly.

The first World War is underway; Germany has allied with the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish caliphs have declared jihad on the British Empire. Meanwhile, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson hesitates to enter the fray. Aboard the passenger liner Lusitania, war correspondent and American spy Kit Cobb has been assigned to shadow a German intellectual and possible covert agent who is believed to have information vital to the war effort. During the voyage Cobb is smitten with famed actress Selene Bourgani, who inexplicably seems to be working for the Germans.

Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time, A Small Hotel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hayes, who have decided to separate after 20 years of marriage. The book begins on the day that the Hays are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due to be in court, but instead she drives to New Orleans and checks into the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some 20 years earlier.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler tells a magical and humorous contemporary fable that captures the state of humanity at the cusp of a new millennium - as seen through the uniquely sensitive perspective of an empathetic extraterrestrial. An audible.com audio exclusive!

A simple mission for Agent U-235, one of the finest spies of the Dlamisan Empire, that's what it was supposed to be. Just plant a listening device in the atmosphere of a planet suspected of sending out secret communications to hostile powers, alerting them to shipping targets and military maneuvers. Just one atmosphere walk for a few hours and then it would be done. Till he crashed into a human undertaking the same mission, and the two of them crash landed on the planet down below. Now forced to work together to survive and to succeed, rival predators might find that they have a lot more in...

Albaer has nothing good in his life, and a whole lot of bad. An outcast in his home town, regarded as 'the seed of evil' because of his father's selfishness and greed, nobody seems to care what is done to him. Indifferent teachers, bullies who think of him only as an easy target for his passive unwillingness to fight back in his desperate attempt to prove his fundamental goodness, the one thing that lets him endure is a video game. The only thing, that is, until an angel and a demon appear in his room, confused, lost, and afraid... their attempt to summon his video game character into their...

This is the ideal collection for all lovers of first-rate erotic literature. Edited by Susie Bright, whom the Utne Reader calls "one of the leading thinkers and visionaries of our time", this fourth annual edition of a best-selling series brings together the most outstanding erotic writing of the year, including peculiarly dark and dangerous takes, as well as cutting-edge forays into the world of cybersex.

The turn of the 20th century saw radical developments in all art forms and particularly in poetry. The first volume of this series features the work of nine significant poets whose careers cover the period from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

All Bonny Red wanted to do was land on a world, harvest some fruit to ferment it into alcohol, and be on her way. That... and just walk around and stretch her legs on a planet instead of her ship for a little while. She wasn't 'supposed' to get stuck on the planet. She wasn't supposed to land off course. She wasn't supposed to get caught up in an iron age massacre. She certainly wasn't supposed to take a side, let alone lend a hand. But faced with the desperation of a dying people, the fierce former scout turned pirate Captain cannot turn away. Which is a pity... for the wrong side that is,...