Showing results by narrator "Gary Bennett" in All Categories

It was looking like Lady Luck had quite a grudge against him. In fact, at this point merely crashing the multi-billion-dollar ship he had helped design would have felt like winning the lottery compared to his current dilemma. If only he were so lucky. Things had started off all right - that is, until a freak wormhole unexpectedly swallowed his ship, leaving him stranded on an unknown planet far, far from home.

He had survived a spaceship crash, alien slave traders, space pirates, and fierce gladiatorial combat. Hell, he’d even faced an actual fire-breathing dragon and lived, but now, he was presented with an even greater challenge. Domestic living, captive on a strange world. Charlie almost had to laugh at his changing circumstances, having seen it all since a wormhole spat him out in a distant galaxy. He learned to fight, he learned to use magic, he even learned to kill - to survive at all costs.

Like poop on your shoe, bad luck had a knack for sticking Charlie wherever he went. And it sure did stink. Wormholes to a distant galaxy? Done it. Alien slavery? Yup. Forced gladiatorial combat? That too. Space pirate and eventual rebel leader? Check. Rising to the pinnacle of power as Dragon King? Uh-huh. Charlie, it seemed, had seen and survived it all, and at long last it looked like he’d finally earned himself a little peace and quiet. That is until a whole new threat reared its ugly head.

When your luck just plain sucks in not one galaxy, but two, most people would throw in the towel. But not Charlie. In fact, it almost seemed like he was a glutton for that sort of misery. His friends were spread across two distant galaxies, separated by a heavily guarded magical portal and struggling to deal with a war now spilling over into both the technological realm as well as the magical one. And it was beginning to look like they’d reached their breaking point. But Charlie wasn’t about to give up, nor would he give in.

Charlie thought building a spaceship had been tough, so being king should be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, it was like a cake made of cement. Hard to swallow, and just might kill him. It was good being king, or so Charlie had believed. After an abrupt crash arrival, people had finally stopped trying to kill him - for the most part, anyway - and his new subjects respected him. Or feared him. It was sort of hard to tell, what, with the ginormous dragon who had eaten the previous king standing right behind him.

Could a magic wielding astronaut fight off an alien invasion with just his vampire assassin and space dragon friends? Amazingly, Charlie thought they might actually pull it off... that is if Lady Luck decided to play nice for a change. Unfortunately, knowing his fortunes, the odds of that were slim to none. The aliens were coming, that much was certain. What they could do to stop them, however, remained up in the air. Having joined forces with the mighty AIs overseeing the planet and its defenses, at least their toys had been upgraded accordingly. 

Charlie had already managed to overcome alien mercenaries in two galaxies, miraculously saving his own neck as well that those of his dear friends. But things were getting complicated, and fast. Very, very complicated, in fact. With their forces in the dark as to the true nature of their enemy, Charlie and his band of rebel pirates and resistance fighters would have to dig deep if they hoped to find a way to overcome the deadly foe.

Charlie had a constant companion everywhere he went. Unfortunately, its name was trouble. Space portals to another galaxy were just the beginning of the worries piled high on Charlie's plate. Not only was he facing a hostile band of alien mercenaries, hell-bent on capturing his home and enslaving his people, but now, it seemed, there was something more afoot. With his homeworld, solar system, and even the entire galaxy at risk, Charlie and the great AI minds of Earth had to make a decision.

They came. They didn’t do much sight-seeing before they conquered and marked the human Omegas. They call themselves the Regha Horde. We call them the Hordesmen. And Hunger is my new boss.

The Fever Hordesman sits outside my house, wailing punny lyrics while beating a rock rhythm on his armor, and I'm late for work. My omega heat’s coming on early, throwing a monkey wrench into my single-minded plan to ignore his single-minded quest to mate me. I have to admit - privately - his strong jaw, full mouth, and a scent that can send over a dozen omegas into heat, make my girly bits quiver. Just a little.

Terror Hordesman came. With flowers. Red roses. He came, he marked me, and he moved into my house. This is bad. Very bad. Because, I'm funding the Betaren project he's trying to destroy. If he finds out, I fear, he'll end me.

Is a witch throwing curses your way? Something scary scratching at your window in the night? Then, I've got just the charm for you. Mostly, though, I find things. Lost treasures, missing loved ones...if you need something found, I'm your guy. So, when a grieving father hired me to track down a family heirloom stolen by a sticky-fingered hobgoblin, I was happy to help.

Missions to alien planets have resulted in interactions with strange beings in the past, but never on this level. When Marine Corporal Goshawk becomes part of the search team tasked with locating some missing SEALs, he expected action and plenty of it. After all, they had to send in Marines to rescue SEALs. What he didn’t expect was that the mission would completely transform him, body and spirit. As new threats from strange beings continually challenge the team and their mission rapidly spirals out of control, odd allies emerge in unexpected places.

He’s half my age. He cooks. He fusses over my bad sleeping habits, and knows how to handle a gun. Our little reprieve during a mission can only mean one thing: My guard is down. And the enemy I hunt is watching me, waiting for the perfect time to strike. The time is now.

A bounty hunting survivor. A Galactic dark elf. A woman who has given up her humanity to become something more. These stories and more are available in the first short story anthology for the System Apocalypse, covering year one on Earth. When the world ends, humanity steps up, finding new ways to survive in a world with classes, magic, and monsters. The anthology features exciting, new stories by five new writers and a new, never publicly released short story by Tao Wong.

Jake has it all — a new home, an amazing girlfriend, and nearing a promotion at work. Best of all, he feels he’s finally moved on from the horrors of his traumatic past. But when he learns that his estranged brother, Trevor, has moved back into their haunted childhood home, Jake knows his past is not quite finished with him yet. Jake rushes to the old house in Rose Grove — a small town with a tragic history — to pull his brother from that dangerous place. But it’s too late. There, he finds Trevor trying to make contact with the spirit that tormented them years ago. 

Roscoe Ransom returned home from World War I, broken both in body and spirit, drowning his pain daily in a bottle of whiskey. But even alcohol can’t numb the agony of losing his wife or the fear of trying to raise his son, Junior, alone. However, the mind-numbing predictability of Roscoe’s life as a sharecropper and his role of town sheriff - a job given to him out of pity when he returned from the war - is suddenly upended when a black man in their tiny community is murdered and castrated.

Can't Give It Away on Seventh Avenue: The Rolling Stones and New York City explores the history of the group through the prism of New York. It is a highly detailed document of the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between the world's most famous band and America's most famous city as well as an absorbing chronicle of the remarkable impact the city has had on the band's music and career.

Bailey has given up on ever finding love. So when her best friend sets her up on a blind date, she’s more than just a little skeptical. But all doubt is pushed aside after she meets Jaxon, a bear shifter who is everything she could ask for - strong, handsome, and kind. But Jaxon has a rival for leadership of his clan, another bear shifter named Levi who is thrilling and mysterious with an air of danger that draws Bailey in. Levi also becomes a rival for Bailey's affections. She tries to resist him, but the allure is too strong.

In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER. Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes, The Blood of Strangers became an instant classic. Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches - this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.