Showing results by narrator "Rish Outfield" in All Categories

Imagine a Victorian house where every room is cursed with a frightful existence. Are monsters in the halls? Ghosts left to fester in the library? Or are the rooms themselves enchanted with malevolent energy? What was summoned long ago and what doorways were left open? Manor of Frights is a collection of tales all set in different rooms of the same house.

Storm is born into a world of secrets - an island no one visits, names no one will say, and deaths that no one will talk about. The answers are locked in his species' troubled past, guarded by the fierce creasia cats. But when Storm's friends are threatened, he decides that he must act, pitting himself against the creasia to show that they can be resisted and outwitted. To prove his point, he must stay one step ahead of clever hunters, who have more to lose than Storm imagines.

Mercenary. Galactic traveler. Survivor. Earl Dumarest is all those things - and more. For he claims to come from the mythical planet of Earth. And those claims have just attracted the attention of the sinister Cyclan. Stranded on Gath with no way off, Dumarest becomes embroiled in the schemes of a sadistic prince and a dying matriarch. Plots within plots unfold. Dumarest is the key to their success. For amid the schemes of prince and matriarch alike, all have come to experience the legendary Winds of Gath.

On the eve of Charder’s age-related death, 10 years after the events in the Hunters Unlucky novel, Arcove comes to tell Charder goodbye. Their conversation sparks a chain of events that will have a profound impact on the rest of the island, as well as on Arcove personally. “Lullaby” appears for the first time in this collection.

Still driven by his search for Man's fabled birthplace, Earl Dumrest accepts a commission to guard the Lady Derai, heiress to the proud House of Caldor, on the feudal world of Hive. On Derai's home planet, Dumarest had hoped to meet a living witness to Earth. But instead he finds himself in the lists of the deadly Contest on Folgone - with the Lady of Caldor as prize.

Anaroo is an airship slave, destined to spend her days running on a treadmill, winding the great springs of the Scarlet Albatross. When a storm threatens to sink the ship, Anaroo and her fellow slaves seize the opportunity to escape. Now, at last, she can go home. However, the airship nearly sank for a reason - violent unrest among the island kingdoms below. The world is changing, and the surviving inhabitants of the Scarlet Albatross will need to cooperate to survive.

The planet Logis was a violent world, where “bloodtime” made a duel to the death a legal way to settle the smallest quarrel. On this dangerous world, in the street at bloodtime, Dumarest met the woman Kalin - Kalin of the flame-red hair, with eyes that shone like pools of green fire. Kalin, who could see the future. The people of many worlds hated her, and called her “witch.” A few sought to possess her, to enslave her talent for their own gain. Dumarest held her, for love of her, and for the faint memory she held of a planet called Earth.

Retired Detective Bayard Lott hosts the weekly poker games at his home. The group calls themselves the Cold Poker Gang. And they succeed at closing old cases. Lott's very first homicide case as a brand-new detective had gone cold more than 20 years earlier. But retired Reno detective Julia Rogers, new to the Cold Poker Gang, suggests they look at that case again for personal reasons.

In 1988, Ernest Hillerman worked a few nights playing the monster in The Brown Depths, a horror film that has now gained quite a cult following. So when he is invited to appear at a convention and meet fans he didn't know he had, he is intrigued. What he finds out, however, is that the film he appeared in is apparently cursed...and everyone else associated with it has died under mysterious circumstances.

While the crew of the Scarlet Albatross struggles to survive her harrowing voyage, Gerard is busy keeping his promise to his father. He and Silveo return to Holovarus for a brief farewell visit. However, chaos is threatening to overwhelm the Great Islands, and even little Holovarus will not be spared. Gerard's father and brother are facing difficult decisions, and they need help. Gerard feels torn between his old kingdom and his new family.

Revenge is on Craze's mind. He chews on it everyday. He dreams of grander business and wealth, enough to make his father choke. That's the dream consuming him when the interstellar portal opens, spitting out a ship that that should no longer exist. A battleship spoiling for a fight, yet the war with the Foreworlds ended two generations ago. The enemy takes over Craze's tavern and aims their dastardly guns in his face. One wrong move and the shaky truce will end. So will Craze and his friends.

The planet Toy was a bauble of a world, designed for the pleasure of those who owned it. It was founded long ago as a corporate Utopia, and had the oldest computer banks in the Galaxy. Now Toy was in the hands of a decadent young Toy Master, whose greatest pleasure was the pain of others. Dumarest had come to Toy to consult the great Library, in hopes of locating long-lost Earth. He stayed to fight for his life.

Ourelle was the closest planet to legendary Earth that Earl Dumarest had reached. There the legend of the Original People persisted among the several strange races that populated this world out along a far arm of the Milky Way. Somehow the boy named Jondelle held the key to further data in Earl's quest, but before he could obtain it, the child was kidnapped.

When retired detective Bayard Lott offers to help Julia Rogers search for her lost friend near a remote Idaho lake, they find clues that might lead them directly to the most dangerous serial killer in Las Vegas history. Set in the rugged mountains of Idaho, this twisted mystery pits the Cold Poker Gang against a master criminal.

After the war with Earth, bioengineered humans scatter across the Backworlds. Competition is fierce and pickings are scant. Scant enough that Craze's father decides to hoard his fortune by destroying his son. Cut off from family and friends, with little money, and even less knowledge of the worlds beyond his own, Craze heads into an uncertain future. Boarding the transport to Elstwhere, he vows to make his father regret this day.

Dumarest came to the world called Scar with nothing but the skills of his hardened body and a blood-red ring on his finger. Deadly fungus-covered Scar, where drifting spore made every breath a wager from death - but among them are the Golden Spore that give eternal life, and are the most sought-after treasure in the galaxy. Earl Dumarest sought that treasure to gain the wealth he needed to continue his search for the world of his birth, a forgotten planet called Earth.

Secret Master of Fandom and Private Detective Spade gets a strange request: a tiny woman with pointed ears asks him to help her with a case at FleshCon, a California science fiction convention. The tiny woman turns out to be the infamous Paladin, whom Spade thought was only a rumor. Paladin needs help finding a teenage boy whom she says vanishes whenever she approaches him.

The planet was without a star of its own. It was from another galaxy. It was uninhabited and it was sentient. In its own way it might have been the most powerful single intelligent entity in the universe. But it knew nothing about humanity. So when it picked up the survivors of a wrecked space-liner, it was confronted by mysteries. What were men? What were women? What was emotion? What, especially, was love?

When a dead body turns up at the first ever Dinocon, Secret Master of Fandom and Private Detective Spade knows just who might be behind it all: Lucinda Danielle Stanhope who calls herself the Martha Stewart of Science Fiction. Now he just has to prove it. Stomping Mad marks the first appearance of Spade, who along with his sidekick Paladin, is one of Rusch's most popular characters.

Aboard the small trading ship Moray, Earl Dumarest headed into the Web, a region of space twisted and wrenched out of shape by the dense remnants of dead suns. He had no money, no goal, and no tomorrow - only his memories and an undying hope. Somewhere in the vastness of the galaxy he would find the person who could hear his question: "Have you heard of a planet called Earth?" - and answer, "Yes."