Showing results by narrator "Kevin Collins" in All Categories

It's 1955, and Albert Einstein lies in a hospital bed, deathly ill. He suddenly stirs, asks his assistant for paper and pen, then scribbles something down. Minutes later, he dies. History tells us that Einstein jotted down equations that night. But struggling scholar Jacob Morgan believes that history is wrong. He's convinced that Einstein wrote a deathbed confession that night - a secret that the great scientist didn't want to take to his grave.

Executive assistant Emma Taylor is desperate for a little time away - away from her job, from her life, and from thoughts of her boss' son, who doesn't seem to know she even exists. Tired of waiting for the time to be right, she takes advantage of her boss' generous offer for a little weekend getaway to thank her for helping out with a difficult business deal.

Criminal defense attorney Harrison J. Walker, better known as Jaywalker, has just been suspended for using "creative" tactics and receiving "gratitude" in the courtroom stairwell from a client charged with prostitution. Convincing the judge that his other clients are counting on him, Jaywalker is allowed to complete 10 cases. But it's the last case that truly tests his abilities - and his acquittal record. Samara Moss - young, petite, and sexy as hell - stabbed her husband in the heart. Or so everyone believes. Having married the elderly billionaire when she was an 18-year-old former prostitute, Samara appears to be the clichéd gold digger.

Brand-new stories by: Daniel Woodrell, Matthew Eck, Catherine Browder, Nancy Pickard, John Lutz, J. Malcolm Garcia, Kevin Prufer, Linda Rodriguez, Nadia Pflaum, Phong Nguyen, Andres Rodriguez, and others. Kansas City: where East and West collide, where naked ambition meets broken dreams, where blues and the night go together like rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters. Yes, Kansas City is a surprising place of grit, gore, and betrayal, at least in the imaginations of our diverse lineup of contributors.

In a twisted game of life and death, dominance and destruction, humanity and colonizers - outside survivors struggle to find footing and reclaim what they've lost. Mary soon discovers she is the key - but will she be able to use her deadly gifts to defeat those who have created her?

What do you do when everything you've ever known is ripped away from you, leaving nothing but ashes and charred memories behind? You get angry. So very angry. Malwynn and his twin sister, Umaryn, live in a small town in Northern Varrland. In idyllic New Picknell nearly nothing happens, and when their day-to-day routine is interrupted by a skirmish between an invading patrol of the dead from The Amaranth Empire and a defending force from Varrland, their world begins to come undone.

The last place you'd expect to find a team of criminals is at a prestigious Philadelphia prep school. But on a class trip to the US Mint - which prints a million new coins every 30 minutes - an overlooked security flaw becomes far too tempting for a small group of students to ignore. United by dire circumstances, these unlikely allies - the nerd, the slacker, the athlete, and the perfect student - band together to attempt the impossible: rob the US Mint.

While hunting neodemons in her role as Warden of Ixos, Leandra obtains a prophetic spell that provides a glimpse one day into her future. She discovers that she is doomed to murder someone she loves, soon, but not who. That's a pretty big problem for a woman who has a shark god for a lover, a hostile empress for an aunt, a rogue misspelling wizard for a father, and a mother who - especially when arguing with her daughter - can be a real dragon.

A reconstruction of the life and milieu of Dan Mitrione, his work as a US police advisor in Brazil and other South American countries, and his kidnapping and murder by Uruguayan guerrillas.

The new Dragon Host goes operational with a mission for the Terrans. But as their numbers and skills rise, so do the questions. Why did the last Host end? Why are dragon kind so scattered? Are there any more to be found? And most importantly, where did the dragons come from originally? But what gets Bud started on all of these is an even deeper mystery. Why do the Keerah fear the dragons and no-one else? The Host must quest for its own past. But for Bud, it's become the Dragon Imperative.

"Yellowjacket Summer”, a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in The Twilight Zone magazine, October 1986.

A science-fiction novel about love and experimental music, technology and rain forests, humanity and the United States. Rock sensation Ryder fakes his own suicide and journeys to the rain forest. But San Francisco is not what he expected.

Rafe Montfort was a decorated Green Beret, the best of the best, until a disastrous mission and an unforgivable betrayal destroyed his life. Now this deadly soldier has returned to the sultry Georgia swamps to reunite with his brothers and take back all he lost. But Juliet must never know the truth behind what he's done...or the dangerous secret that threatens to take him from her forever.

What does the world get from God? What does the world lose when it loses reason? For centuries an aggressive secularism has fought to occupy the place once held by religion in Western society. Its intellectual leaders are ambitious. Their goal is to remove God from public discourse and then from memory. While they claimed that godlessness would bring about an era of peace, it brought history’s bloodiest century instead. Civic institutions founded on Judeo-Christian principles began to crumble apart from them.

Budd Schulberg is a master of the art of the short story, as he proved in his early collection Some Faces in the Crowd. The crowd is the American landscape: indelible characters drawn coast-to-coast from the teeming streets of New York to tables at Hollywood's legendary nightclub, Ciro's. In these sparkling stories, Schulberg brings us vivid, restless people haunted by abrupt failure in the wake of rapid success.

The apocalypse just got worse. When remorse drives Cyrus to abandon his hidden compound he doesn't realize what new dangers lurk in the undead world. He knows he must wade through the vilest remains of humanity and hordes of zombies to settle scores and find the one person who might understand him. But this time, it won't be so easy. Zombies and unpleasant survivors aren't the only thing Cyrus has to worry about. Not anymore.

"Yellachile's Cage", a story by Robert McCammon, was first published in his short fiction collection Blue World.

Diplomacy is the bane of Bud's life these days.

As riots rage across the Human Federation space, what he'd been told on Sanctuary accelerates. Everyone wants his help.

The consequences of losing your temper for a moment grow with your power.

But is this a good thing or bad? Only time will tell, but suddenly everything seems to be happening at once.

It's been five years since the Mason family vacationed at the lakeside cottage in northeastern Vermont, close to where prize-winning novelist Samuel Mason grew up. The summers that Sam; his wife, Mena; and their twins, Franny and Finn, spent at Lake Gormlaith were noisy, chaotic, and nearly perfect. But since Franny's death, the Masons have been flailing, one step away from falling apart. Lake Gormlaith is Sam's last, best hope of rescuing his son from a destructive path and salvaging what's left of his family.

The 12-year solstice has come. And with it, a sinister carnival brings a new sense of terror and wonder to a small coastal town. An enormous shoe is washed up on the shore...a tiny man disguises himself as a mouse...a crow provides eyes for a blind innkeeper...and three curious adventures discover the gateway to the Land of Dreams - where you don't always get what you want, you get what you deserve....