Showing results by narrator "Richard James" in All Categories

Smoke Jensen has seen the worst that men can do on the lawless frontier. But even the mountain man is not prepared for the outlaw band that strikes Smoke’s ranch, kidnapping Sally and the daughter of Smoke’s neighbor. Now, the women are gone and a ranch hand and his young daughter are dead.

They called him fastest gun alive, but Smoke Jensen is determined to stay on the right side of the law. That is, until he's jumped by six low-life robbers who steal his shirt - and his identity. Smoke's tried for robbery and murder, and sentenced to hang in morning. Someone's out to frame the Mountain Man...someone who's made a big mistake. Barely managing to escape on the morning of his hanging, Smoke's going after the desperados who've set him up.

Lewis Deathstalker and his beloved Jesamine Flowers are fugitives from the Empire, and fate has assembled a bizarre company of companions for them. Brett Random, a scoundrel claiming to be descended from Owen Deathstalker’s comrades Jack Random and Ruby Journey, Rose Constantine, a psychopathic female gladiator from the Arenas, and Saturday, an eight-foot tall reptilian alien, have attached themselves to the reluctant rebels, who have determined to carry out their own quest to find the long-lost Owen Deathstalker, deemed the only one who can save humanity from the coming Terror.

It was a virgin land of vast horizons...a land of dreams and dust and blood, where men sought glory and hope died hard. But for Jamie Ian MacCallister, who'd grown to manhood among Indians and fought at the Alamo, war and wilderness were home...and survival was a way of life. From the battlegrounds of Texas to the Colorado Rockies and the goldfields of California, Jamie MacCallister was one of a handful of daring pioneers blazing trails in the American West.

Notes from the author: The following is a short story I wrote in the Elantris world back in January of 2006. There were always a few holes in Elantris where I decided not to include viewpoints or sections of explanation in the name of streamlining, particularly at the end. In the back of my mind, I knew what happened. This story talks about one of those holes; it is meant to be heard after you’ve finished the novel and takes place during the events of the climax.

In this raw, brutal world ruled by the strongest and the most vicious, an unseen player is manipulating Ryan and his band, luring him across an unseen battle line drawn in the dust outside Tucson, Arizona. Here, a local barony becomes the staging ground for a battle unlike any other, against a foe whose ties to pre-Dark society present a new and incalculable threat to a fragile world. Ryan Cawdor is the only man living who stands between this adversary's glory...and the prize he seeks.

Buckskin, Nevada, was once a boomtown, then died a peaceful death. But when a fresh vein of silver is struck, Frank Morgan lets himself get pinned with a tin badge at the worst possible time. It's not the petty swindlers, or the stray murderer or two that will give Morgan problems. Instead, Buckskin is heating up from a miners strike, industrial sabotage, a hostile state militia, and an outlaw gang that decides the time is ripe for an all-out assault on the town.

The bear seems harmless—at first. Just a lost and confused grizzly poking around Big Rock. Then the killings begin. A horse wrangler is mangled. A rancher mauled. Then a bartender in the heart of town is found clawed to a bloody pulp. Now every man in Big Rock is taking up arms to hunt down the beast before it strikes again—which worries the local sheriff. He’s afraid this amateur hunting party could turn into a mass funeral real fast. So he asks Smoke Jensen to help keep everyone calm and contain the panic. Unfortunately, it’s too late. The panic is out of control. And the hunt is on.

Life is precarious in post-apocalyptic America, threatened by the toxic environment and the return to savagery. Born into this bleak reality, Ryan Cawdor roams the hell trails of Deathlands with his band of warrior survivalists. All they know is to endure and seize whatever chance they get for a better tomorrow. In the sands of California's Guadalupe desert, Ryan and companions fear that they have crossed time lines when they stumble upon a settlement straight out of fabled Egypt.

No gun. No horse. No water or food. And worse yet: No idea how he ended up in the middle of a desert with a bullet in his leg and a bump on his head. That’s the sorry situation Matt Jensen wakes up to — dazed and confused — until he slowly pieces together what happened. The last thing he remembers: He agreed to help out a friend of Duff MacCallister’s. A pretty lady and her husband at a horse ranch. He also recalls their cross-country trip through hell to deliver the horses safely to market. That’s when the outlaws showed up. That’s when the shooting began.

Across the flat plains of the Dakotas, an iron horse shrieks and rumbles across refurbished tracks. Inside the boxcars, Ryan Cawdor and his companions face trouble unlike any other. Jak is missing, Krysty is dying, and the train is loaded with sec men, whitecoats, and a horrifying experiment — a baron with psionic abilities using stolen children to fuel his mad dream for mind control of every living soul in Deathlands.

Some people don't know when to leave bad enough alone. Just when it seemed that Smoke Jensen's life had settled down to something resembling normal, he'd all but forgotten the vicious young gunfighter who called himself Sundance. Smoke had hoped to teach that twisted kid a lesson by shooting off his ear. But the lesson didn't take. Now, after years on the run, Sundance's hunger for revenge has pushed him over the edge.

The legacy of the 20th century was the world-wasting nuclear firestorm that destroyed a way of life forever. Civilization is in ruins, its pitiful remnants perverted by brute force, and mankind is less at home on the planet than ever before. Yet in the desolation that is the Deathlands, an intrepid group of wayfarers continues that determined fight for survival and a better future. Leaving a western ville besieged by desert pirates in search of the legendary cities of the Spanish conquistadors, Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists enter a hidden valley untouched by civilization.

Twelve years ago, newspaperman John Bryce saved an innocent man from the hangman's noose. That man was Matt Jensen. In gratitude, Matt gave Bryce four gold nuggets and told him, "If there's ever anything I can do, just let me know." Now, that day has come. As editor of the Fullerton Defender, Bryce has become the target of a powerful - and ruthless - English lord. A feared master duelist, his aim is fixed on the Dakota Territories.

Jamie Ian and Kate MacCallister are together now, buried side by side on a ridge overlooking the huge Colorado valley they had settled and the town they had founded. It’s up to their children now to carry on the MacCallister legacy. Falcon MacCallister is more than willing to take on that task. He’s the spitting image of his father, Jamie. He stands six foot three and is heavy with muscle. Just like his father, Falcon literally doesn’t know his own strength. And like his father, Falcon is quick on the shoot. Lightning quick.

Desperately short of supplies, Ryan and his companions are forced to seek help at the prosperous-looking ville of Amity Springs. Hired on to retrieve a stolen relic, they quickly become caught up in an escalating power struggle between two strong-willed lady barons. Each woman covets the cache of predark goods buried in the ville's backyard. But they are not alone in their desire. And all that stands between a motherlode of buried bounty and the destructive power of unchecked greed is Ryan's grim determination to survive another day.

Sometimes, it’s bad to be good. That’s what happens when Scratch Morton and Bo Creel are rewarded with a gold mine for saving a rich man’s bacon. The catch: This mine is a magnet for marauding Mexican banditos. Budding capitalists, Scratch and Bo fight back. That’s when they discover that the thieves aren’t who they thought they were, some really bad guys are on the way, and a beautiful woman might just be the most dangerous bandit of all — the kind that can steal your heart.

For Smoke and Sally Jensen, the Sugarloaf Ranch is the American Dream come true. A glorious stretch of untamed land near the Colorado-Kansas border, it’s the perfect place to stake their claim, raise some cattle, and start a new family. But when a man claiming to be an army colonel arrives in Big Rock—with a well-armed militia—the Jensens’ dream becomes a living nightmare. This stranger calls himself Colonel Lamar Talbot. He’s come to warn them about a looming war with the Cheyenne Indians. And only he can save them from a bloody massacre—by launching a counterattack that’s even bloodier.

Hunted across the southwestern desert, Ryan doesn't know who wants him dead badly enough to slaughter innocents as a way of luring him into the open. But the advanced tech his pursuers are using is unknown in Deathlands, created by the most brilliant minds of 20th-century America. Now evil is alive and stalking the warrior group. His name is Delphi and he's prepared to reclaim the one man who understands with brutal certainty how time can be controlled, manipulated, remapped.

Esmay Suiza wasn't a member of a great Navy family like the Serranos. She'd had to make her way on grit alone, which meant it wasn't likely she'd ever make admiral and "hoist her own flag." Well, that was fine with her: all Esmay wanted was a secure berth where she could be part of something greater than herself, and otherwise just live her life in peace.