Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

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.

New Babylon is the capital of the mighty Second Empire. Dirigibles drift over the city, steam trains race down its tracks, and the factory chimneys never stop billowing smoke, even for a moment. The hegemony of science is unquestioned, and yet magic hasn't disappeared from the world. It remains dissolved in the blood of those who are called Illustrious. Hardline reductionists find that hard to accept, but it is not in their power to change the longstanding status quo.

A solar powered girl. A ballerina vigilante. A boy with an alien sharing his brain. A girl with a black hole for her heart. And a werewolf with confidence issues. This is the next generation of heroes Doc Silence has gathered together, a random collection of amazing kids he hopes to train to make the world a better place. But Silence isn't the only one collecting super-powered teenagers.

During the pandemic, our homes and apartments have transported us to new places, different experiences, and changed our understanding of ourselves and others. This collection of 12 tales explores those journeys through the lens of fantasy and science fiction, accentuating the strange and unexpected to reveal the relatable, human dimensions of our continuing migration from what’s normal to a new normal...or even paranormal.

Eric McCaffrey has come face-to-face with the developers of Battlegrounds Online. They have shown up at his doorstep. He's used to seeing those faces in the game, not inside his apartment. He knew the game had been physically affecting him. Turns out he was right, and Hastech wants to run some tests. Battlegrounds Online was designed as a training simulator for the military. They want to know why Eric is being affected.

What exactly is the difference between a love letter and a suicide note? Is there really any difference at all? These might be the questions posed by Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan’s 14th collection of short fiction, comprising 28 uncollected and impossible-to-find stories. Here are 28 tales of apocalypse and rebirth, of miraculous transformation and utter annihilation. Here is the place where professing your undying devotion might be precisely the same thing as signing your own death warrant or worse.

In The Dinosaur Tourist, Caitlín R. Kiernan’s 15th collection of short fiction, 19 tales of the unexpected and the uncanny explore that treacherous gulf between what we suppose the world to be and what might actually be waiting out beyond the edges of our day-to-day experience. A mirror may be a window into another time. A cat may be our salvation. Your lover may be a fabulous being. And a hitchhiker may turn out to be anyone at all.

When Mark Ryder's latest mission turns into a bloodbath, he'll find himself alone on the shores of an alien moon hunted by insects the size of skyscrapers. Now, if he wants to get off this rock alive, he'll have to cut a bloody swathe through the bug queen's elite army, rendezvous with the all-female Artemis squad, and blow the whole thing to Kingdom Come without getting killed.

In 1929, Raymond Geist went to Berlin as a consul, and he handled visas for emigrants to the US. Geist expedited the exit of Albert Einstein just before Hitler came to power. Once the Nazis began to oppress Jews and others, Geist's role became vitally important. It was Geist who extricated Sigmund Freud from Vienna and Geist who understood the scale and urgency of the humanitarian crisis. Even while hiding his homosexual relationship with a German, Geist fearlessly challenged the Nazi police state whenever it abused Americans in Germany or threatened US interests.

In search of Hugo and a reincarnated monk, Nick Barnette and company make their way to the Island Kingdom of Jonang. At least that’s the plan. Their ship is attacked, leading to an epic fight that separates Nick's party. Things only get more complicated once they arrive on the island and find that a newly crowned emperor has wreaked havoc on the natives, an emperor Nick is intimately familiar with.

Get both audiobooks in the Road to Empire series in a single volume! Book 1: The grand experiment of a democratic Commonwealth of Star Nations has failed. There’s now a power vacuum but no shortage of ruthless egos looking to fill that vacuum. Will it be the Republic of Corona, the most prosperous and populous colony world, or a resurgent Earth under a messianic leader or perhaps a power-hungry interstellar corporation? Book 2: The 10-year-old Tau Ceti Empire is at a critical junction.

You can’t have a good tale of monster hunting without monsters. And sometimes the monsters don’t need to be hunted. Sometimes it’s fun sitting back at minimum safe distance and watching the mayhem.

As the barriers between worlds start to crumble, a superhero must battle his greatest enemy yet… After a summer spent protecting the vulnerable from natural disasters, Ted Finley couldn’t be happier to return home for his senior year of high school. While he dreams of fighting back-to-back with his protector, Erica LaPlante, a new and powerful enemy threatens to end their mission for good… As if that weren’t enough, Ted and the gang must face down a cunning presidential candidate, a disgruntled gatekeeper between realms, and two familiar villains if they want to keep a deadly army at bay. If they fail, the people they know and love will find themselves on a planet-wide battlefield… The Candidate is the third novel in The Viral Superhero Series, a saga of heroes, villains, and high school. If you like action-packed fight scenes, witty banter, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then you’ll love Bryan Cohen & Casey Lane’s epic third installment.

Black magic gets a bad rap. Trust me. When people see me, they don't see Cisco Suarez, they see a rogue. A shadow charmer. A black magic outlaw. Maybe they're right. Maybe everything I touch withers and dies. But that doesn't give the SWAT team a right to come in with guns blazing.

Vidu, a used-car dealer and d-bag extraordinaire, had been aimlessly wandering the streets of Chicago with only one thing on his mind… and that was before he got turned into a zombie. Just when you thought you had seen the last of him, now you can find out what happened to Vidu after he left his friends behind during the pandemonium of Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse… One Beer at a Time. Humor, action, zombies, hangovers, gratuitous insults, and more Vidu!

Evidence at a fiery car crash leads K-9 officer Nelson Rivers and his accelerant-detection dog, Diesel, to Mia Turner—a woman previously accused of arson. But when a gunman targets Mia during their first meeting, Nelson suspects she might actually be innocent. Only Mia’s hiding something, and Nelson’s been burned before

Over the past two years, a group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all came alive. Now, there is an odd connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine the fate of the Game itself, and both the inside and the outside worlds. One thing is for certain. Hexworld will never be the same.

Princess Alaris found her home in the middle realm, after the actions of her father caused her to flee Volonia. But it was time for her to come home. So they sent him - the Warrior of Volonia.

Dorian Lake spent years cornering the Baltimore hex-crafting market, using his skills at the hermetic arts to exact karmic justice for those whom the system has failed. He keeps his magic clean and free of soul-corrupting Netherwork, thus avoiding both the karmic blow-back of his practice and the notice of the Presidium, a powerful cabal of practitioners that polices the esoteric arts in America.

I'm Cisco Suarez, and a week ago I was dead. Cursed into serving a clandestine shadow group, I have a lot of blood on my hands. Good thing I also have a juvenile problem with authority. I'm not taking orders anymore, and the first thing on my bucket list is bringing them down. If I'm good at anything, it's looking in dark places. But I've got shadows of my own. Horrific deeds coming back to haunt me, and not the metaphorical kind of haunting, either. I'm talking ghosts, mages, and that thing with the glowing red eyes.