Mostrando resultados por autor "Stephen Donald" en Todas las categorías

Listen to mystery stories by today's top writers and the masters who inspired them. The idea for this collection came to Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Lawrence Block when he was asked, "What is your favorite mystery story?" Block compiled this unique collection by posing the same question to some of today's favorite writers of the genre, including Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, and John Lutz.

Disinfectants, detergents, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides and homicides – everything a human being needs to clear his or her lot and start fresh in life, clean and pure, and it all waits at the press of a finger. Some of us love a good disaster, but we watch from a safe distance and it always happens to someone else… somewhere else… never here. Never us. Distended bellies and skeletal children are always the misfortune of others. Stop and wonder why. Your preferred answer no doubt leaps easily to mind, but the truth is probably quite different, because pestilence comes in all ...

Everyone loves a good joke, but nobody enjoys being subjected to the fun. Pranks are an especially childish form of delight, perhaps because they are the ultimate expression of prurient sadism, which we must disavow as civilized adults. We, the same civilized adults who teach our beloved youth the art of warfare while stockpiling an obscene surplus of thermonuclear weapons. Now that is funny! So, tease a guilty moment to titillate your secret sadist today. Giggling, it whispers. Of spoiled affluence and nothing better to do; of grotesque victimization that makes monsters from innocent ...

Within realms of the unknown, superstition stalks. Primitives see god in a rainbow, but they also suspect a deadly serpent beneath every unturned stone. Ignorance and fear sometimes unite to inspire us or spare us, but more often this demonic duality serves to light the torches of enraged mobs. Indeed, history tells stories of witches burned alive amid great celebrations. We know these things happened. We also know witchcraft is a figment. Fearlessly now, step away from the staid, known world that shelters you. Venture into lands of conundrum and enigma to witness ciphered matters of mind. ...

Black eyeliner. Black lashes. Black lips. Black hair. Through it all, peers the white cake face of Darling Girl Jones, orphan. From time to time, she awakens in her academy dorm room to find an ethereal spirit haunting her bed. Never disturbing, always intriguing, such an event is a certain promise of ghoulish adventure and mortal danger. Although today is a special day at her Academy because today is Christmas Eve - and that means all-you-can-eat pancakes with real maple syrup - Darling Girl's holidays are never so easy and a ghost with a serious problem is certain to spoil her fun!

It shapes our cosmos by confining the stars and is, perhaps, the interstellar sire of human spawn. Within each mind Dark Matter abides, the primordial ancestor of all things chaotic, violent and destructive. Gravitational and inert, it unyieldingly obsesses our most deviant desires while alternately flinging our most violent impulses into the fringes of destructive behavior. Take time to embrace the Dark Matter of life, if only because it is utterly inescapable.

How can dinosaurs of all kinds and from all epochs of evolution suddenly and randomly appear all over the world? His is an unpredictable world surrounding an entirely too predictable suburban neighborhood. Then everything changes. One thing is certain, during a plague of prehistoric thunder lizards, a feisty poodle can come in handy!

Whatever happened to the people next door? They were so loud and obnoxious, it's difficult to ignore their abrupt, unannounced departure. The neighborhood is lucky to have the old man at the end of the cul-de-sac, though. If not for his constant care, that abandoned home might have long ago gone to seed and become an eyesore. He keeps the lawn and the landscaping at no charge. You could learn to love this neighbor, but this would be a grave mistake.

A fleeting shadow skirting the storm-swept shoulder of an isolated country highway, she hitchhikes along the loneliest stretch of pavement in the most deserted hollows of the countryside. When the downpour presses, he insists on giving her a ride despite her demurs. It will be the most fateful companionship he will ever know.

A trusted agent in the employ of an untrustworthy corporation. He knows too much and he realizes this knowledge will soon necessitate his own liquidation. Will he retire in style to a lavish future, or will his employers violently consign his remains to an unmarked grave? He's tired of the rat race, and he has a plan for a fantastic exit. Sometimes, the rat gets the cheese and the trap springs empty.

This course provides a detailed executive-level review of contemporary topics in supervised machine learning theory with specific focus on predictive modeling and linear regression. The ideal student is a technology professional with a basic working knowledge of machine learning theory. Additionally, to better inform the interested student, the final lesson of this course presents samples in Python describing the essential implementation of described regression methods.

Calamity often follows a violent shout, but we have more to fear from the occasional wee, wicked whisper. This is the medium of humanity’s most despicable tongue, for a quick whisper is the requisite mode of lies, the self-serving gloat of torment, the insidious confidence of slander, and the preferred protocol of psychosis. Lovers reveal their most intimate and personal secrets on a breathless hiss, while murderous psychopaths use the same hushed voice to lure intended victims. Listen to the wicked whispers of vain success in “Ravenous Is the Void” and “She Comes, the Devil”. ...

They are the perfect couple, if perfection is a measure of lies and deception. They travel from town to town, conning their way across country working confidence games, large and small. When their past turns up to haunt them, they both quickly realize they are but hours away from certain death. Life then becomes a contest of ruthless cunning, but this is a game they play well. Tell the victims what they want to hear. Gain their confidence. Gain their trust. Then rob them blind! We are never more alive than we are when facing death.

Alter the future today by reading this story. Edited untold eons into our future to manipulate their past, our present, the message of this story is tailored word-by-word to exact a desired effect from each reader. The resultant distortion of space and time has a subtle but powerful ability to alter the individual psyche, which exerts an exponential force on the future as it propagates through our population and then countless generations of our progeny to come. The editor of this tale is the last standing Veer, the lone survivor of a time war devastating humankind's future, and she needs ...

While waiting for his wife to finish shopping, he stumbles across a strangely ornate spiral stairway hidden away at the back of the local mall. Bored, he decides to descend a flight or two to examine the strange window displays arranged along its outer wall. With each downward step, he realizes the displays progressively reflect history long since passed. Intrigued, he delves deeper and deeper into the stairwell's many mysteries. Has he gone too far? It's a deep, dark hole hidden away at the back of a suburban sanctuary. Lured by its presence, he loses his sense of time and then he loses ...

Nightland resides within an extraordinary region of time and space bound only by limits of sheer imagination. Its ephemeral pinnacles soar near the apex of human aspiration while its abysmal valleys plunge deeply into the darkest landscapes of global apocalypse. It is alternately violently wild and oppressively regimented. Nightland is older than all of recorded human history and it is many things to come.

After he follows a wealthy runaway debutante from Boston to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, an American investigator must hire a local guide to lead him into the dense jungles of the Mesoamerican interior in search of her. As they penetrate deeper into the forest, civilization disappears and they find themselves lost amid a mysterious land of bloody legend and savage myth. Within the ruins of a forgotten Mayan city, they ultimately encounter a contemporary death cult and discover the old gods reawakened. Five centuries ago, countless Mayans perished atop the chacmool, their beating hearts ...

Though doting parents often teach their children the futility of violence, every rational human being also understands the hypocrisy inherent in such lessons, since life surrounds us with countless examples of practical solutions wrought in savagery. While each act of brutality inevitably debases all humankind, a maladjusted minority also recognize in it a tempting potential to make quick return on a prized reward. Perspective, then, becomes a matter of outcomes. Most of us will experience violence demeaning; few of us will know violence redeeming. Journey into the surreal and mysterious in...

On a sunny afternoon, he meets the love of his life and the bane of his existence in the same event. She is beautiful, wealthy and sweet. Unfortunately, she is also the mother of an extremely intelligence and overly protective five-year-old boy who takes enormous delight in tormenting her mother's suitors. "You look like you're made out of doo-doo." Is theirs a match made in heaven or hell? Can he survive her preschool son's animosity to prove his love for them both?

As the zombie apocalypse begins, a small group of civil servants find themselves locked in their tollbooths, which are heavily armored against run-away automobiles. Trapped inside their hellish fishbowls, they curse their situation. As they watch the world fall apart around them, however, they realize they are safe... for a time. Cramped, dingy and institutionally depressing, their duty station becomes a backstage view of Armageddon. Even a bad day on the job is better than a good day amid a zombie apocalypse!