Showing results by narrator "ray porter" in All Categories

The Incrementalists are a secret society of 200 people - an unbroken lineage reaching back 40 thousand years. They cheat death, share lives and memories, and communicate with one another across nations and time. They have an epic history, an almost magical memory, and a very modest mission: to make the world better, a little bit at a time. But now Phil, the Incrementalist whose personality has stayed stable through more incarnations than anyone else's, has been shot dead.

In this short story from New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, a reporter accompanies a special ops team on a dangerous mission against space pirates.

"Who's There?" was first published in the November 1958 issue of New Worlds. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Here is a guidebook to the facts and circumstances surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The listener will examine the people, places, and timeline of that first Easter. But more than that, we delve into the prophecies of those events, given hundreds of years prior, as well what happened after Christ rose from the dead.

Seven years after a brush with death on Mount Rainier, the narrator agrees to join a friend on one of the peak's most dangerous routes. Having vowed never to become That Guy who dies in the mountains, he returns to the narrow ledge between safety and oblivion. Questions swirl in his head as the climb draws near. Does danger breed character, or is mountaineering sheer indulgence?

Joey Anderson attended his great-grandmother's funeral because he expected to receive a little inheritance money. What he didn't expect was to inherit her bed-and-breakfast, provided he lives there and follows her final instructions. With a little help from his friends, Joey grows up and discovers a world beyond me, my, and I.

Summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Bored and listless, 15-year-olds June and Val are looking for fun. Val wants to do something wild and a little crazy: take a raft out onto the bay. Only Val survives, washing ashore in the weeds, bruised and unconscious. This shocking event echoes through the lives of Red Hook's diverse residents. In Visitation Street, Ivy Pochoda combines intensely vivid prose with breathtaking psychological insight to explore a cast of solitary souls, pulled by family, love, betrayal, and hope, who yearn for a chance to break free.

When a county employee is found shot to death in sun-drenched daylight while sitting in his county road grader, Undersheriff Bill Gastner is faced with puzzling questions. The simplest explanation - that an errant bullet from a careless target shooter’s rifle blew out Larry Zipoli’s brains - is soon discarded as inconsistencies surface. The fatal bullet shows no rifling marks, and investigation shows that the shooter walked directly toward the road grader, in full view of the victim - who did nothing to defend himself.

The Lucians have faltered in their fight against the cruel Ascendant overlord, Cef. Now, a handful of survivors from a failed liberation campaign have been called to a Final Challenge in a madman’s arena. For Rylan, Geeta, Scott and Aila, this may be their only opportunity to make peace with those they love. It will certainly be their last, best chance to save mankind from an endless cycle of genocidal slaughter.

In six intense, haunting short novels, Don Winslow returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of his acclaimed body of work – crime, corruption, vengeance, justice, loss, betrayal, guilt, and redemption - to explore the savagery and nobility that drive and define the human condition. In Broken, Winslow creates a world of high-level thieves and low-life crooks, obsessed cops and jaded private detectives, dope dealers and government agents, bounty hunters and fugitives.

The stories of The Path of Most Resistance feature curious nonconformists who find themselves pushing back against strange and oppressive social norms. They are mavericks who transgress the boundaries of convention in their strive for freedom and authenticity. No matter if they’re in a Silicon Valley office, the far reaches of space, or dystopian futures where relationships are subjected to totalitarian control, the characters show unshakable conviction in a world plagued with uncertainty.

Why has punditry overtaken news, with so many media outlets pushing partisan agendas instead of information? Comedian Stephen Colbert's catchword "truthiness" has captured something essential about our age: that people are more comfortable with ideas that feel true, even if the evidence for those beliefs is thin.

Taryn di la Rovissi and Rutger Shaw: Two hard-luck mercenaries looking to make a clean break from the flagging war in occupied Llael... With the forces of Khador massing for another surge south into Cygnar and the Thornwood Forest, Taryn and Rutger are forced to take a dangerous escape route before borders close for good. Amid the last refugees fleeing the advance, the duo is caught up in an assignment that will prove to be either their salvation or their undoing.

Mystery sensation Pelecanos pens the lead story and edits this groundbreaking collection of stories detailing the seedy underside of the nation's capital. This is not an anthology of ill-conceived and inauthentic political thrillers. Instead, in D.C. Noir, pimps, whores, gangsters, and con-men run rampant in zones of this city that most never hear about.

With the same profound attention to detail that is a hallmark of his previous acclaimed works of fiction National Book Award winner Ha Jin gives us a collection of stories that delves into the experience of Chinese immigrants in America. Ha Jin depicts here the full spectrum of immigrant life and the daily struggles - some minute, some grand - faced by these men, women, and children.

The dire legend of Thagrosh Hellborne began in cold and darkness... Thagrosh has known nothing but bondage and grueling labor for all his adult life. Prisoners of Khadoran slavers, he and the other ogrun of his village have spent their lives toiling in the lightless depths of a mine. Yet Thagrosh and his brother Vargal have a plan to escape their misery and flee to the nearby nation of Rhul. When their bid for freedom is discovered, Thagrosh is forced to escape alone into the wilderness once again.

"Before Eden" was first published in the June 1961 issue of Amazing. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a grand master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

In this short story from New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, Edgar Allan Poe's brilliant amateur detective Auguste Dupin is called in to investigate a savage murder perpetrated by an invisible killer.

Forty years in the making, The American People embodies Larry Kramer's vision of his beloved and accursed homeland. As the founder of ACT UP and the author of Faggots and The Normal Heart, Kramer has decisively affected American lives and letters. Here, as only he can, he tells the heartbreaking and heroic story of one nation under a plague, contaminated by greed, hate, and disease yet host to transcendent acts of courage and kindness.

I volunteered to be a spy, not an assassin. I know this is war...but I just want to do what's right. If you ask me, none of us should be here - but no one gave me a choice. And I won't blindly follow orders. I am essential to the plan. And I will be a hero for my country. If I were normal, I wouldn't be old enough to join the army. But I'm not normal. I'm a weapon.