Showing results by narrator "Todd Menesses" in All Categories

Magic is dead. That’s what the government would have you believe. I know the truth. So does the government. Which is why they’ve hired me along with several others to hunt down the remnants of magic. It’s not an easy job, but it’s a job I can’t live without.

Quinn Becker doesn't believe in ghosts. Or coincidences. That changes when his five-year-old son, Drew, tells him about the "white boy" who visits him at night. Drew recounts his ghostly experience with a boy who looks like him but "doesn’t have a face". As Drew's encounters with the white boy escalate, Quinn and his wife, Mel, are forced to decipher what is real and what is the product of their son's vivid imagination. As the family searches for answers, they discover a link to a 40-year-old mystery and a connection to Quinn's own past.

Silver, they call it, the light of the full moon: celestial magic that changes men into beasts and calls the dead from their graves...and young men to their destinies. Billy Cole is the son of legendary folk hero Ian the Black. He should be marching to war, battling dragons, and rescuing fair maidens. Unfortunately for him, the war is long over, the last dragon was slain by the Dread Duke, and all the girls in Redfield are either several years younger than him or already married. Billy is 16 springs old and ready for a life of valor and excitement.

A massive spaceship. A promise of loot. But there’s a catch in this adventurous fantasy world...Eighteen-year-old gamer Caleb Whitson is out of options. With his mother’s health growing worse and money running out, he signs up for a once-in-a-lifetime mission to space where he’ll play an immersive video game called Sword of the Moon King while traveling across the stars, headed for a mining mission on the dwarf planet Ceres. Once inside the fantasy game, he soon discovers the Ceres Horizon Mining Company is not what it appears to be.

After receiving an ominous message about forthcoming demons and doom, Falmagon Sej is sent to retrieve a magical staff to protect the Anshedar. But he has unknowingly fallen in love with the sister of his enemy, and the price for betraying love may be too high for him to stomach. Falmagon's footpath to becoming the Highborn Longwalker is riddled with sorrow, promising an undying hate for himself, unless he can somehow find salvation under the grace of the light bringer.

The princess must die - that’s Brenn Dardrogan’s objective when he, his Dusk Legion partner, and a few expendable sellswords break into the castle at Cavell. But the righteous Crimson Sun’s sudden interference forces the Dusk Legion’s group to chase them through the dangerous dark forest of the Dyndaer.

Fearing for his life, Rhone clasps Stone’s collar to his neck, and runs, trying to evade Commissioner Dodge and his black vested men. But his only out seems to be the badlands, a place named for a very good reason. Even there, fate seems to be against him, as Rhone is left for dead, and Stone, his unique crystalline friend is taken.

When Sam's dad dies in a car accident, Sam is shuttled off to the dusty town of Holler, Oklahoma, to live with a long-lost aunt. There he encounters a mysterious mangy cat who leads him to an unassuming tree that turns out to be a portal - a passage through which Sam can revisit his old life for a few minutes at a time.

It seems like lifetimes have passed since Benjy and Marty watched the old world die. Not everyone's caught up with the changes. For the moment it seems they might be the only ones who truly understand that nothing will ever be the same again. They both know that won't last long. Dragons have emerged from their eons-long slumber and the world must come to terms with it or perish in fire. Panic and chaos spring up in the wake of these living natural disasters and people are looking for a safe place to hide from their winged overlords.

A chance meeting between Benjamin Draig and Martin "Marty" Ambrose suggests the potential for a great friendship. Both were with different groups of friends just outside of Moab, both on their way to hike through the mountains. But then things went horribly wrong. It's all Benjamin and Marty can do to stay alive when the earth opens beneath their feet, and they're swallowed by the mountain. As a fire-spewing monster emerges and spreads its wings to blot out the sky, Benjamin and Marty learn that the comfortable illusion of the world they knew is gone.

Not everyone is happy with what Benjy and Marty are building. Rather, they're unhappy that they're not the ones in charge. The birth pangs of a new community are hard enough to navigate, but what happens when jealousy leads to a rivalry that could strangle this newborn wonder?

Joe Maynard runs a legit place, good food, good service, and at night, good music. It's true, if you want to place a friendly side wager, Joe will take your bet. He's a community leader, a player in the local politics of Capital City on Beta Prime. But nobody really knows Joe Maynard, where he came from, and what his past is. Don't ask Joe about it, either - he won't tell you.

An unprecedented cold season settles over the kingdom, and Benjy dares to hope that winter will give everyone a chance to breathe easy while their enemies sleep through the deep freeze. Repelling Addervaul's assault took it out of them, and now the time had arrived to settle in until the thaw brings more flaming fury to their door. What's that wise old saying? Wish in one hand . . . The chill wind blows over the kingdom, carrying the howls of the hungry.

From the corpse of what was once the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, forgotten sins are stirring. Threats concealed in the dark corners of the old empire see their chance to emerge. Their insidious intentions have brewed in malevolent patience over eons, and now their hour has come. The kingdom so lovingly built and fiercely fought for is their objective, and there is no depth to which they won't stoop to take it for themselves. Benjy and Marty need to dig deep within themselves.

Exploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate. Tom Piazza’s debut short story collection, originally published in 1996, heralded the arrival of a startlingly original and vital presence in American fiction and letters. Set in Memphis, New Orleans, Florida, Texas, New York City, and elsewhere, the stories echo voices from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Johnson in their sharp eye for detail and their emotional impact.

Jessie is pushed over the edge by her own grief and a mother who cares more about sex and booze than her own flesh and blood. With the help of a powerful demon, she takes revenge and begins a spellbinding journey to unleash an evil as old as time. Rising: The Second Death is the prelude to Brian Rella’s action-packed horror and dark fantasy series, The Second Death.

American Revolt: By 2090 almost half of Americans are on welfare. Brilliant, talking computers have stolen most service and middle management jobs, while exploding populations in the southern hemisphere monopolize dumb factory work. And aquifers dry, world-wide, causing food shortages. A blond young "welfie" vows to remedy all this. He enters the Marines and then leads a revolution.

The war on the edge of explored space has finally struck home. Millions are killed when the city of Northgate is attacked by an alien ship. Mac Narrad is lucky to be alive. But while looking for his family in the rubble he discovers an awful truth. The attack may have been faked by the military to gain control of the population. His quest for the truth leads him to the mysterious planet of Ronos, a secret planet hidden by Earth's military. A planet full of life, beauty, and a potential that could alter the course of humanity.

You don't know when it will change your life, or how, but the zombie plague is spreading quickly and in ways that no one could have imagined.

Benjy and Marty have defied the dragons to build their kingdom on the hope and strength of their humanity. Hope shines in a wyrm-scorched world, but power always comes with consequences. Strength never goes unchallenged for long.