Fiction Literature Dramatized

Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk — from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man’s former neighbor, Humbolt Puddle, has died and left his crumbling 600-acre ranch to his only living heir, just as a greedy and ruthless cattle baron is circling the Humbolt ranch like a ravenous vulture. Poor, unsuspecting Puddle is walking into a death trap. Smoke is the not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke’s neighbor is his enemy, too.

Smoke Jensen has seen the worst that men can do on the lawless frontier. But even the mountain man is not prepared for the outlaw band that strikes Smoke’s ranch, kidnapping Sally and the daughter of Smoke’s neighbor. Now, the women are gone and a ranch hand and his young daughter are dead.

Buckskin, Nevada, was once a boomtown, then died a peaceful death. But when a fresh vein of silver is struck, Frank Morgan lets himself get pinned with a tin badge at the worst possible time. It's not the petty swindlers, or the stray murderer or two that will give Morgan problems. Instead, Buckskin is heating up from a miners strike, industrial sabotage, a hostile state militia, and an outlaw gang that decides the time is ripe for an all-out assault on the town.

In the town of Thirty-Four Corners, Colorado, Matt Jensen rides into a savage blood feud. Thirty years ago two friends came West and built a thriving cattle business. Now, their families have become kill-crazy enemies and the town is awash in a frenzy of killing. Add in hired gunmen on both sides of the fight, and two lovers crossing the dividing line, and the terror will never end. Eager to put as many miles between himself and Thirty Four Corners, Matt Jensen just can't bring himself to leave without trying to stop the bloodshed.

Some people don't know when to leave bad enough alone. Just when it seemed that Smoke Jensen's life had settled down to something resembling normal, he'd all but forgotten the vicious young gunfighter who called himself Sundance. Smoke had hoped to teach that twisted kid a lesson by shooting off his ear. But the lesson didn't take. Now, after years on the run, Sundance's hunger for revenge has pushed him over the edge.

The Krakau came to Earth in the year 2104. By 2105, humanity had been reduced to shambling, feral monsters. In the Krakau’s defense, it was an accident, and a century later, they did come back and try to fix us. Sort of. It’s been four months since Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos learned the truth of that accident. Four months since she and her team of hygiene and sanitation specialists stole the EMCS Pufferfish and stopped a bioterrorism attack against the Krakau homeworld. Four months since she set out to find proof of what really happened on Earth all those years ago.

Smoke Jensen has journeyed up to the Colorado Rockies to a sell a prized bull to a local rancher. Instead, the rancher and his wife have been mercilessly slaughtered by outlaws only moments before Smoke’s arrival. In a hail of bullets, Smoke pulverizes two of the murderers and drags two others to the town of Brown Spur for justice. Come hanging day, the two killers are on the way to the gallows when a thundering gang of raiders crashes into town and rescues them from the jaws of death.

Business is booming in Chirichua Junction, on the edge of a great northern river basin. But with cattlemen lined up against sheep men, the land has turned into a war zone and the town constable is a dirty as they come. Fresh from a violent confrontation with a fellow manhunter, Frank Morgan is called to Chirichua Junction by his old Civil War commander - and arrives just as an angry rancher is taking the law into this own hands. Suddenly, good men and bad are poised to kill.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the High Sierras. But Smoke Jensen and his children, Louis and Denise, won’t let a little snow stop them from heading to Reno for the holidays. There are two ways for them to get there: the long way, going around the Sierra Nevada Mountains, or the short way, going right through them. Smoke decides to take a gamble. They’ll follow the trail that, decades earlier, brought the legendary Donner Party to a gruesome, tragic end....

Exiled from the Smoky Mountains for gunning down a man in self-defense, Breck Wallace tries to make a new home in St. Louis, even tries his hand at romance, but some men are too wild to settle down. Breck is soon back on the trail, where a vicious gang of trappers, after his goods, picks up his scent and begins to dog his every step, until Breck’s only choice is to bed down for the winter with a tribe of friendly Indians. In the frigid, brutal cold of a Rocky Mountain winter, he hopes to find peace...but death is not done with Breck Wallace.

They call him "The Butcher of Baxter Pass," the notorious former Union General who massacred 200 Confederate prisoners just because he could! Now it's Sheriff Jess Casey's unenviable job to protect the bloodthirsty murderer from those who want him dead...pretty much everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line!

Crater City, New Mexico, is a bustling mining town brimming with the stench of men hungry to get rich the old fashioned way - killing the competition. Dennis Conroy is the owner of the biggest saloon in town, and he needs a few good sharpshooters to help protect surveyors laying out a route for a spur rail lie before his rival Hugh Thornton beats him to it. Jo Buckhorn’s handy with a gun so he takes the job.

In the days leading up to Christmas, struggling actress Esther Diamond is working as a singing-and-dancing elf at Fenster & Co, a major Manhattan department store. As if dealing with hordes of holiday shoppers isn't bad enough, Esther's ex-almost-boyfriend, Detective Connor Lopez, is on the scene investigating a series of mob-related truck hijackings of Fenster's merchandise. Semi-retired hitman Lucky Battistuzzi is also nosing around, since the mob resents being implicated in thefts they didn't commit.

At the Sugarloaf Ranch, Smoke and Sally Jensen prepare to welcome Preacher home for the holidays — unaware that their friend is trailed by a storm full of trouble. On a mission of vengeance, an old trapper is rescued by Ace and Chance Jensen from ruthless outlaws — and wanted by a driven bounty hunter named Luke Jensen.

After a lifetime of robbing banks and holding up trains, Jimmy “Slash” Braddock, and Melvin “Pecos Kid” Baker are ready to call it quits — though not completely by choice. Sold out by their old gang, Slash and Pecos have to bust out of jail and pull one last job to finance their early retirement....

Prince Corum has defeated the Chaos Lord Arioch. But any peace for him and his faithful Rhalina is brief. His actions have evoked the murderous anger of Arioch’s sister, the dreaded Xiombarg. The Prince in the Scarlet Robe must continue his odyssey, face the terror of the Mabden armies, and challenge the might of the Queen of the Swords. Only the legendary City of the Pyramid offers a glimmer of hope. But Corum must get there first, and along the way he will encounter horrifying creatures, strange forms of sorcery, and new planes of existence.

In Tennessee, 17-year-old Breckinridge Wallace knew the laws of nature. When his life was in danger, he showed a fearless instinct to fight back. Killing a thug who was sent to kill him got Breckinridge exiled from his Smoky Mountain home. Brutally wounding an Indian attacker earned him an enemy for life...Now, from the bustling streets of St. Louis to the vast stillness of the Missouri headwaters, Breckinridge is discovering a new world of splendor, violence, promise and betrayal. Most off all, he is clawing his way to manhood behind the law of the gun.

After Conrad Browning, known as The Loner, takes down the men who killed his beloved wife, he hightails it to New Mexico to visit her grave. There, he gets the surprise of his life: His ex-fiancée, Pamela Tarleton, backed up by a vicious gang of gunmen. Turns out the beautiful Miss Tarleton has a long memory — and she’s never forgiven Conrad for breaking their engagement and marrying another. On top of that, she blames Conrad for her father’s death.

When Conrad Browning's wife disappears in the untamed frontier, Conrad finds himself assuming the identity of his famous gunslinging father, Frank Morgan, to find her. But his hopes of rescuing Rebel are swiftly shattered - and now he's burning for vengeance, the old-fashioned way. So he fakes his own death and starts calling himself The Loner, becoming the deadliest gunfighter this side of his own father - ready to settle the score in blood and bullets....

It’s the dawn of a new century. But on the vast Sugarloaf Ranch not much has changed since legendary gunfighter Smoke Jensen and his wife Sally tamed the land two decades ago. Raising cattle is still a dangerous business — and just as deadly as ever. When Smoke is injured swapping bullets with some cow thieves, Sally puts out a call for help to Matt, Ace, and the rest of the Jensen clan. But time is running out. The bloodthirsty rustlers are ready to strike again — and there are lots more of them. And the Sugarloaf’s last defense is Smoke and Sally’s next of kin....