Showing results by narrator "Mikael Naramore" in All Categories

Two dozen tales of future shock and twisted history from an undisputed king of cyberpunk science fiction, including Nebula Award finalists “Sunken Garden” and “Dori Bangs.”

Born to a wealthy Virginian family, privileged Jordan's got her life all planned out. Get her PhD, find the perfect Virginian man to marry, pop out a few more Kacys, and make her state senator father proud. If only Jordan could let the past rest. When your mother disappears without a trace, it carves a gash that bleeds a long time. Jordan has never given up hope that her mother is alive. So when Jordan's old nanny shows up with a mysterious locket containing a portrait of Jordan's mother, Jordan believes her hope was not in vain.

Knocking at death’s door. Bargaining for a second chance. Seems like a heck of a way to find out about an alien invasion.... Vietnam vet Albert Jenkins is battling a bulging waistline and a passion for drink. So when a towering pile of scrap rocket parts falls and crushes the stubborn curmudgeon, he thinks it’s finally the end. But just as he’s about to take one final breath, a snarky alien parasite offers him a deal: His life in return for sharing his body.

The Monster of Karth has risen once more. Quin Tern of Azbar has met his fate, and his council has borne the price of crossing Raz i'Syul Arro. Now, as the cruel walls of the city fade into the winter storms at his back, Raz rides north, seeking to take the High Priest Talo Brahnt up on an offer he never should have refused. The path Raz has chosen, though, is a bloody one, and before long he and his new companions find themselves pitted against hardships they can neither anticipate nor ignore.

The Hero's mad quest to purge the world continues beyond death, but a journey to the far north promises that knowledge might succeed where power could not. Allegedly, there are wise sages who understand the Legend, though Tani fears that they have also been consumed by its light. As the group travels into fearsome mountains, they can only hope to prevent the Hero from destroying new lands.

Carter's a homicide cop in Titanshade, an oil boomtown where 8-tracks are state of the art, disco rules the radio, and all the best sorcerers wear designer labels. It's also a metropolis teetering on the edge of disaster. As its oil reserves run dry, the city's future hangs on a possible investment from the reclusive amphibians known as Squibs. But now negotiations have been derailed by the horrific murder of a Squib diplomat. The pressure's never been higher to make a quick arrest, even as Carter's investigation leads him into conflict with the city's elite.

Recruited by a colleague for a mysterious mission and transported to a realm beyond space and time, Jim finds himself thrust into the company of Incarnates - individuals with powers and abilities so vast that they can do almost anything, including warp reality. But these esteemed personages are plagued by a dark issue, for which they turn to Jim for help: One amongst them is a murderer. Charged with finding this killer, Jim soon realizes the inherent folly of pursuing an individual who is power personified and able to alter reality with the wave of a hand.

With 50,000 freed slaves at their back, Raz i'Syul Arro and Syrah Brahnt leave the savannahs of Perce behind. Karesh Syl is no more. Karesh Nan burns in their wake. Beyond the border before them the South looms, ready and waiting, and together Raz and Syrah pray they are prepared for the great offense they must now undertake against the fringe cities.

Known to the K2 Special Services team as Romeo, ex-Navy SEAL Jake Buchanan may spend his downtime living up to his nickname, but there's one woman who sets his heart racing like no one else can: Maria Kincaid. Unfortunately, his boss - her brother - has made it crystal clear that she's off-limits. Jake doesn't do commitment, while Maria is the type of woman who deserves a promise of forever. Yet Maria finds herself drawn to Jake, the man who stares at her with a desire she wishes he'd act on.

Mina Louvet is a fighter, a human with a powerful will to survive in a world dominated by warlocks, soul-eaters, and shifters. Identified by the king's witch as one of the rare, invaluable females in Dragons Realm who can give birth to a dragon's son, she was stolen from her parents as a child and taken to the Keep to be reared in the ways of the Ahavi. As one of the few, the elect - the Sklavos Ahavi - Mina is expected to feed her master's fire, reanimate his blood, and above all else, give him strong dragon offspring: children who will one day rise to power.

Left for dead on a backwater planet, Liam must crawl through ancient alien ruins in search of an advanced weapon. Piecing it together is the only way to hold the Kroerak forces at bay until reinforcements arrive - if they arrive at all. Marny Bertrand has never left a crew member behind, and she’s not about to start now. When she discovers Liam is still alive, she'll put everything on the line and mount a reckless rescue mission. If she can’t reach her stranded crew before their defenses fall, enemy droves will get their claws on the only weapon capable of saving humanity.

Danzen Ravja’s life has never been easy, not when he was an orphan at the Diyu Brotherhood, not since he retired from the blood trade, and certainly not since he began cultivating his echo, which has unlocked an entirely new level of enemies. Nomtoi, Danzen’s demon half-brother, has unleashed the Seven Evils, the most vile hellspawns that Diyu has to offer. While Danzen and his companions have been able to stop some of them already, Uchi and Kitazawa prove to be challenges that they may not be able to overcome.

Captain Liam Hoffen aims to expand Elea Station into a thriving community. But after an enemy armada attacks his struggling station, limited resources threaten the entire population. With no other options, Hoffen must abandon his people in search of supplies deep in marauder territory. Barely surviving his first battle, the bold captain is forced to partner with a double-dealing pirate to navigate treacherous space. But his fears multiply, when he discovers the scarce provisions he needs demand trade with a once-defeated nemesis he swore never to trust.

Liam Hoffen wants nothing more than for the people who call the Mhina system home to be left alone and allowed to forge their own destinies. With more than a year having passed since House of the Bold’s stunning defeat of the Mendari army, Elea Station has become home to the refugees from the Mendari War and has opened its doors to any who want to live freely. The only problem is that Kifeda House and the Strix are plotting to overthrow this thriving and fast-growing trading hub.

When a man’s body is discovered in a Swiss glacier thirty years after he went missing, his son, Foster Treherne, hopes he’ll finally have closure on what happened to the father he never met. But then the autopsy reveals signs of a struggle, and what was assumed to be a tragic accident suddenly looks more sinister. Foster tracks down his father’s old friends, but when he starts to ask questions it becomes clear that there’s something they don’t want to tell him.

It started as a simple heist. It went to hell from there. On a space station orbiting a pale blue sun, a package changes hands. Data too sensitive to transmit will be exposed for one brief moment. The client is paying a crazy sum - if the job is clean. That’s not going to happen. Instead, the galaxy’s unluckiest crew of outlaws will have to put all their resources into salvaging what they can from the job. Even if it’s only avoiding blame for the fallout.

After fighting space pirates and rescuing a damsel in distress, nothing sounds better than shore leave at Puskar Stellar on Mars where Liam can reconnect with his girlfriend. But neither their newest crew member, Marny, nor the Mars Protectorate Navy is ready for them to spend much time relaxing.

Space station Echo Niner remained neutral in the Earth/Mars civil war. For a pair of fugitives on the run from both sides, it sounded like the perfect place to regroup. But Eric and Jessie Ramsey barely set foot aboard Echo Niner before getting embroiled in local disputes.

Sgt. Reggie King wakes up from a battlefield injury to find himself physically intact. But the hospital staff insist he’s not fit to return to duty. As part of his psychological recovery, they introduce him to a game. Armored Souls is a tank game on steroids. Giant walking mechs called juggernauts engage in interplanetary wars as noble houses and mercenary factions wage endless battles for supremacy. For the pilots of these juggernauts, the rewards are glory, cash, and XP.

Albert Jenkins and his friends have enjoyed several months of peace, which is why when a Rosengul spaceship crash-lands into his new house, he's not exactly surprised. From the wreckage, a pair of ordinarily reclusive small Rosengul emerge and spin a tale of kidnapping and deceit. Of course, AJ, not always the most sensitive, asks the pertinent question of how that involves him and his friends. The simple answer is that AJ and crew have developed a reputation of getting things done, probably because his methods skirt Galactic Empire rules.