Showing results by narrator "Kevin T Collins" in All Categories

Philip and his girlfriend Beth were seniors in high school when they chose adoption for their son. Now, years later, Beth has moved to Palo Alto - and on with her life - but Philip still lives in town. He works a job he hates so he can be near Olaf, who knows him as “uncle”. On the morning of Olaf’s 14th birthday party, Philip hears his neighbor Zali’s dog, Sinai, barking on the other side of the fence. Philip scales the fence and finds the dog tied to a tree with a belt, hungry and scared.

UFOs are a myth, says David J. Halperin, but myths are real. The power and fascination of the UFO has nothing to do with space travel or life on other planets. It’s about us, our longings and terrors, especially the greatest terror of all: the end of our existence. This is a book about UFOs that goes beyond believing in them or debunking them, to a fresh understanding of what they tell us about ourselves as individuals, as a culture, as a species.

According to studies, we all work for the same thing--and it's not just money. It's meaning. Through our work, we seek a sense of purpose, contribution, connection, value, and hope. Digging down to the meaning of work taps our resilience in hard times and our passion in good times. That's the simple but profound premise behind this groundbreaking book by renowned management expert Dave Ulrich and psychologist Wendy Ulrich.

Beset by the angry remnants of the Department of the Interior, challenged at every turn by opportunists on their new homeworld of Surebleak, and somewhat low on funds, Clan Korval desperately needs to reestablish its position as one of the top trading clans in known space. To this end, Master Trader Shan yos'Galan, aboard Korval's premier trade ship, Dutiful Passage, is on a mission to establish new business associations and to build a strong primary route that links well with existing Loops and secondary routes.

A city equal parts darkness and hope. A scarred city. An often violent one. But a resilient city, too. That's our Memphis. Like many cities we have a namesake - in Egypt, Men-nefer became Menfe became Memphis, enduring and beautiful, on the banks of the Nile. Centuries later, another continent, another people, another river: Memphis, Tennessee, the soul of the Mississippi Delta, was formed.

Mac Montgomery spent two years watching his father play matchmaker for his brothers and their wives, and as the last Montgomery standing, he knew it wouldn't be long until all eyes would be on him. While he couldn't deny that things had worked out well for his siblings, the last thing that Mac wanted was to get married and settle down.

Americans today are frustrated and anxious. Our economy is sluggish and leaves workers insecure. Income inequality, cultural divisions, and political polarization increasingly pull us apart. Our governing institutions often seem paralyzed. And our politics has failed to rise to these challenges. No wonder, then, that Americans - and the politicians who represent them - are overwhelmingly nostalgic for a better time.

Dr. Gideon Box, world-famous surgeon, is extremely good at his job. He’s never lost a patient…but he has issues. He’s antisocial. Doesn’t mix well with others. Breaks into people’s homes and assumes their identities. Occasionally kills other doctor’s patients. He’s had bad luck with women his entire life. Big surprise, right? His psychiatrist tells him to join a dating service. Tells him to seek women from small towns. Says they’ll possess basic core values, be less shallow and self-centered than the hookers and strippers he’s been dating.

Silicon Valley scion Captain Don Donogue is dead under mysterious circumstances. In fact, he might’ve well have been murdered. Just ask Captain Don himself. He’s been sending messages about his suspicious death from beyond the grave. Yep, he’s been tweeting from the afterlife. Or so it seems.

Santana Sokolov - John "Dick" Chambers' client and a woman he wouldn't mind getting to know much better. Well, if her opinion of him wasn't already so low, it had to look up to see the bottom of her boots. His case is moving forward, but for every two steps forward, it seems someone is trying to kill him. That gets annoying after a while. Make a little head-way, dodge bullets, get into a fight, run for your life. Wash, rinse, repeat. Atlantica isn't giving up her secrets easily, and others are now playing in the game.

See the rain forests...northern beauty, misted nights. Come to Lighthouse Island.... In the coming centuries, the world's population has exploded and covered the Earth with endless cities. Animals are nearly all gone. Drought plagues the land and cloudy water is issued by the quart. There are no maps, no borders, no numbered years. On this urban planet the only relief from the overcrowding, the petty informers, and the harsh rule of the big Agencies is the television in every living space, offering dreams of vanished waterfalls and the promise of virtual vacations in green spaces for the lucky few.

I'm your average girl at your average high school, trying to figure out my place in life. After catching my now ex-boyfriend messing around with my now ex-best friend, I've made some big changes. No more band, no more backstabbing friends and no more boring old life. Now I have new friends, a new job and new interests. But there's a certain someone who's interested in me, and I don't get it. Jordan Tuttle could have anyone he wants. He's the most popular boy in school.

"Something Passed By", a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in his short fiction collection Blue World and was selected for inclusion in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Third Annual Collection.

Brand-new stories by: G. M. Ford, Skye Moody, R. Barri Flowers, Thomas P. Hopp, Patricia Harrington, Bharti Kirchner, Kathleen Alcalá, Simon Wood, Brian Thornton, Lou Kemp, Curt Colbert, Robert Lopresti, Paul S. Piper, and Stephan Magcosta. Early Seattle was a hardscrabble seaport filled with merchant sailors, longshoremen, lumberjacks, rowdy saloons, and a rough-and-tumble police force not immune to corruption and graft.

From the introduction to Philadelphia Noir: "America's first great city, first capital, and first industrial metropolis contained from the beginning the mix of poor workers and elite culture, of ethnic enclaves and religious intolerance, of easy skullduggery and flesh-pot possibilities, that led Lincoln Steffens in 1903 to famously rule it 'corrupt and contented'."

From the introduction by David L. Ulin: "For me, Cape Cod is a repository of memory: forty summers in the same house will do that to you. But it is also a landscape of hidden tensions, which rise up when we least anticipate. In part, this has to do with social aspiration, which is one of the things that brought my family, like many others, to the Cape. In part, it has to do with social division, which has been a factor since at least the end of the nineteenth century, when then summer trade began."

Epic in scope, Macrolife opens in the year 2021. The Bulero family owns one of Earth's richest corporations. As the Buleros gather for a reunion at the family mansion, an industrial accident plunges the corporation into crisis, which eventually brings the world around them to the brink of disaster. Vilified, the Buleros flee to a space colony where young Richard Bulero gradually realizes that the only hope for humanity lies in macrolife - mobile, self-reproducing space habitats.

Back in Washington, DC for the funeral of his college roommate, Mac Callahan reluctantly agrees to spend one night in Senator Price Redding’s apartment before flying home to Alabama. But when a dead, naked woman falls from the closet of Redding’s secret bachelor pad and into Mac’s arms, someone must atone for the sins of the sitting senator. The perfect setup for murder will lead to an immaculate warrant for the arrest of former FBI agent Mac Callahan. But the scandal he stumbled into wasn’t meant for him.

Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right.

In five years, little green men are going to invade Earth - and the only man who knows is Professor Emil Vlasov. Is Vlasov crazy? Or is something actually watching the Earth... waiting...