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Nobody knew where it came from. Nobody knew why it came. When an eight-foot-tall man made of stone appears in the middle of a busy city center one July afternoon, two-bit (and antisocial) reporter Andy Pointer assumes it's just a publicity stunt. Indeed, so does everyone else...until the Stone Man begins to walk, heading silently through the wall of the nearest building, flattening it, and killing several people inside as a result.
The afterlife doesn't come with a manual. In fact, Hart and Bowler (two ordinary but dead men) have had to work out the rules of their new existence for themselves. It's that fact (along with being unable to leave the boundaries of their city center, unable to communicate with the other lost souls, unable to rest in case The Beast catches up with them) that makes getting out of their situation a priority. But Hart and Bowler don't know why they're there in the first place; if they ever want to leave, they will have to find all the answers to be able to understand the physics of the dead.
In a day that starts with amnesia, mysterious old men, and a scrawled, barely-legible note that says only "DON'T TRUST HIM", follow Tom as he tries to piece together not only his memories of the day before, but the answer to the question... what happens when you never let go of the ones you love?
There are hangovers, there are bad hangovers, and then there's waking up inside someone else's head. Bartender Charlie Wilkes is faced with this exact dilemma when he wakes to find himself trapped inside The Black Room: a space consisting of impenetrable darkness and a huge, ethereal screen floating in its center. It is through this screen that Charlie sees the world of Minnie - his unwitting and unwilling host - while he undergoes an out-of-body experience like no other.
From the author of the international best seller The Stone Man, short-listed for Audible UK's Book of the Year Award 2015. Here are the rules. Method: you can't use a gun. You can't use explosives. You can't use poison. It has to be up close and personal. You don't have to worry about leaving evidence; that will be taken care of. Victim: no one suicidal. No one over the age of 65. No one with a terminal illness. Choose your method. Choose your victim.
Joe Mandel is a perfectly ordinary guy from a perfectly ordinary town - a college student and community volunteer who dreams of one day publishing a novel. When a series of strange intuitions leads him to a crime in progress, Joe jumps headlong into danger without hesitation. In the aftermath, he wonders about the uncanny impulse that suddenly swept over him. Until new friend Portia Montclair, the strangely wise daughter of the local police chief, explains to him what sent him ricocheting around town like a crazy pinball.
Nobody knew where it came from. Nobody knew why it came. When an eight-foot-tall man made of stone appears in the middle of a busy city center one July afternoon, two-bit (and antisocial) reporter Andy Pointer assumes it's just a publicity stunt. Indeed, so does everyone else...until the Stone Man begins to walk, heading silently through the wall of the nearest building, flattening it, and killing several people inside as a result.
The afterlife doesn't come with a manual. In fact, Hart and Bowler (two ordinary but dead men) have had to work out the rules of their new existence for themselves. It's that fact (along with being unable to leave the boundaries of their city center, unable to communicate with the other lost souls, unable to rest in case The Beast catches up with them) that makes getting out of their situation a priority. But Hart and Bowler don't know why they're there in the first place; if they ever want to leave, they will have to find all the answers to be able to understand the physics of the dead.
In a day that starts with amnesia, mysterious old men, and a scrawled, barely-legible note that says only "DON'T TRUST HIM", follow Tom as he tries to piece together not only his memories of the day before, but the answer to the question... what happens when you never let go of the ones you love?
There are hangovers, there are bad hangovers, and then there's waking up inside someone else's head. Bartender Charlie Wilkes is faced with this exact dilemma when he wakes to find himself trapped inside The Black Room: a space consisting of impenetrable darkness and a huge, ethereal screen floating in its center. It is through this screen that Charlie sees the world of Minnie - his unwitting and unwilling host - while he undergoes an out-of-body experience like no other.
From the author of the international best seller The Stone Man, short-listed for Audible UK's Book of the Year Award 2015. Here are the rules. Method: you can't use a gun. You can't use explosives. You can't use poison. It has to be up close and personal. You don't have to worry about leaving evidence; that will be taken care of. Victim: no one suicidal. No one over the age of 65. No one with a terminal illness. Choose your method. Choose your victim.
Joe Mandel is a perfectly ordinary guy from a perfectly ordinary town - a college student and community volunteer who dreams of one day publishing a novel. When a series of strange intuitions leads him to a crime in progress, Joe jumps headlong into danger without hesitation. In the aftermath, he wonders about the uncanny impulse that suddenly swept over him. Until new friend Portia Montclair, the strangely wise daughter of the local police chief, explains to him what sent him ricocheting around town like a crazy pinball.
From the author of Audible #1 bestsellers In The Darkness, That's Where I'll Know You, The Physics of the Dead, and The Stone Man (shortlisted for the Audible Audiobook of the Year award 2015). Ever wished the world would revolve around you? Be careful what you wish for... Martin Hogan feels like he's being watched by everyone and everything, and doesn't know why. Even his pets are acting strangely. Each night he sees animals gathering outside his house in the darkness, staring up at his windows with glittering eyes.
From the author of the Audible #1 bestsellers The Stone Man, The Physics of the Dead, and In the Darkness, That's Where I'll Know You. Five more stories from Luke Smitherd to keep you intrigued, shocked, and asking what you would do...
Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.
Matrona lives in an isolated village, where her life is centered on pleasing her parents. She's diligent in her chores and has agreed to marry a man of their choosing. But a visit to Slava, the local tradesman, threatens to upend her entire life. Entering his empty house, Matrona discovers a strange collection of painted nesting dolls - one for every villager.
I don't know what the humans are so cranky about. Their enclosures are large, they ingest over 1,000 calories per day, and they're allowed to mate. Plus, they have me: an Autonomous Servile Unit, housed in a mobile/bipedal chassis. I do my job well: keep the humans healthy and happy.
Nothing ever changes in Sanders. The town's still got a video store, for God's sake. So why doesn't Eli Teague want to leave? Not that he'd ever admit it, but maybe he's been waiting - waiting for the traveler to come back. The one who's roared into his life twice before, pausing just long enough to drop tantalizing clues before disappearing in a cloud of gunfire and a squeal of tires. The one who's a walking anachronism, with her tricorne hat, flintlock rifle, and steampunked Model A Ford.
The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi.
Just outside Los Angeles, a prisoner hidden away for 70 years sits up, gets off the bed and disappears through a solid wall. In Australia, a magician impresses audiences by producing real elephants. Nobody realizes it's not an illusion. Across the world, individuals and organizations with supernatural power suddenly detect the presence of something even they can't understand. At the center of it all, Seb Varden, a 32-year old musician with a secret in his past, slits his wrists, is shot dead and run over on the freeway.
Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.
Se7en meets The Silence of the Lambs in this dark and twisting novel from the author Jeffery Deaver called "a talented writer with a delightfully devious mind". For over five years, the Four Monkey Killer has terrorized the residents of Chicago. When his body is found, the police quickly realize he was on his way to deliver one final message, one that proves he has taken another victim, who may still be alive.
The folks in Mike Erikson's small New England town would say he's just your average, everyday guy. And that's exactly how Mike likes it. Sure, the life he's chosen isn't much of a challenge to someone with his unique gifts, but he's content with his quiet and peaceful existence. That is, until an old friend presents him with an irresistible mystery, one that Mike is uniquely qualified to solve.
It's 1998. The Internet age is still in its infancy. Google has just been founded. Eighteen-year-old supermarket shelf-stacker Nigel Carmelite has decided that he's going to become a vigilante. There are a few problems: how is he going to even find crime to fight on the streets of Derbyshire? How will he create a superhero costume - and an arsenal of crime-fighting weaponry - on a shoestring budget?
It's a story that he hasn't told anyone for fifty years. A secret that he's kept ever since he grew tired of the disbelieving faces and doctors' reports advising medication. He's been careful. He hasn't even touched a single drop of booze since that one, fateful evening.
This is why his decision on this day - the decision to have three drinks - will change the life of bright young waitress Lisa Willoughby forever. For today, the Man on Table Ten has decided that he wants to share his incredible tale.
Lisa's been around old drunks before. She's heard her fair share of unlikely urban legends and creepy stories; tall bar room tales of science fiction that made her roll her eyes while wearing a plastered-on smile. But today is different. The Man on Table Ten is different. True, this mysterious stranger's story of psychic abilities and supernatural creatures is straight out of The Twilight Zone... but there is something about his impossibly blue eyes that Lisa just cannot ignore.
This was the first story I read by this author and it left me with a sick feeling in my stomach, just wondering, "What if..." The queasy feeling came from knowing that if it was a true story (which it hopefully isn't), there would be absolutely nothing I could do about it.
It's like people who are afraid of flying and would rather drive, even though there is a much greater chance of death while driving. People don't like the sense of not being in control that flying brings and that is exactly what this story makes you think about--not really being in control of your life.
The story itself is very eerie and and disturbing. As mentioned above, it makes you think about fate and destiny and who or what is really in control of our lives. You feel for The Man on Table Ten and what he has lived through, but you also worry about him--a lot.
The waitress in the story is really a stand-in for the reader. She learns the story as we learn it and my emotions were pretty much the same as hers as she listened to the man. "Is this man crazy?" "Is he telling the truth?" "Do I really want to know?"
Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
What a treat! A short story that delights without beating you over the head with messages. Just sit back and enjoy this one.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Very enjoyable story and narration. Kept me sane on my commute. Looking forward to more!
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
The Man at Table Ten is a fantastic short story by a very talented author. Luke Smithered seems to have a talent for inspiring a kind of optimistic nihilism in the reader by putting mostly ordinary people directly in the path of unfathomable horror.
Check out his novel, The Stone Man, if you enjoy this story. I always appreciate it when an author narrates their own works, and other than a few minor hiccups with the editing, Smithered does a great job.
Didn't know what to expect from this, but after listening to a couple of epic length novels, I rather fancied something shorter and without a ridiculous number of character names to remember. This fitted the bill perfectly.
A couple of small errors, in the recording, led to two sentences being repeated (I didn't note the times though, sorry). Nevertheless, they didn't spoil the story for me.
Would listen to more by this author / narrator.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Despite being short it is filled with things that make you think. I really like books that make you reflect on the characters and events that happen and how you might deal with that situation if you were in it. This is one that had me thinking about it for ages!
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Man on Table Ten?
When it dawns on you partway through his story why he was acting so strangely at the beginning and realising how he must have been feeling.
What does Luke Smitherd bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
I really like it when authors narrate their own books, you then know how things are supposed to be said or expressed that can be ambiguous in the text. You get much more of a feel of exactly how the author imagined it and how they intended it to be understood. I also think Luke is a great narrator, he has a really nice tone of voice for it.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
makes you think about your own perspective on life - what would be important to you
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
Would you consider the audio edition of The Man on Table Ten to be better than the print version?
I have not read the print version so cannot compare but enjoyed this - I believe that as it was read by the author he applied the appropriate tone and emphasis throughout
Who was your favorite character and why?
there were only a few characters in the book The Man at table 10 himself was my favourite
Which character – as performed by Luke Smitherd – was your favourite?
The man at table 10
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It was sad to reflet on the life led by the man knowing the responsibilities that he had.
Any additional comments?
only a short story but just the right length for quick SCI Fi fix
Having listened to another of the author books, The Stone Man and enjoyed it, i decided to give this short story a go. I found this book to be again, well written and well thought out. The Narration by the author was very good, and i particularly liked the ending, I highly recommend this to anyone who has a fondness for something off kilter.
Really interesting story although read very quickly. It had a good flow and kept my attention throughout. The protagonist has life changing experience and shares this event and his subsequent adaptations to his life. It reminded me that everyday is special, unique and to be celebrated. That ultimately we have little actual effect upon our life path so live each moment while you can.