Literature Dramatized

Picking up exactly where Playing Gods 1: Isolation left off, Playing Gods 2: Adaptation brings the zehuderan warriors Xriah and Vylis to the world of Gravios. A far cry from the last plane where the two battled, Gravios is an ocean world of cybernetically augmented humans and post-apocalyptic sea vessels. All land on Gravios has been completely submerged into the depths, the sea level elevated by the planet-swallowing marine creature known as the Grava.

For archaeologist and TV show host Annja Creed, a restful vacation in Costa Rica is as elusive as a rare artifact. Days into her sojourn, Annja's peace is interrupted by a woman with a mysterious — and enticing — tale. Weeks earlier, her husband led an expedition into the rain forest, in search of the lost treasure of Lima, and hadn't returned. The priceless hoard was smuggled out of Peru during the country's 19th-century revolt against Spain. But it disappeared when a ship captain went mad with greed.

The note from her friend and colleague had read "I have quite the monster for you to chase, dear Annja." And then before she could speak to him, he'd been found dead in the hotel's stairwell. It didn't seemed possible. Annja Creed had been looking forward to three days of geeking out at the archaeology conference in Madison, Wisconsin, and then this tragedy strikes. And his is only the first death over the long weekend.

Business lately has been deadly for Ike Kelly. Recent unexpected gunplay has left his agency to a single operative. John Henry Cole is that operative. Kelly has received a letter from former lover Lydia Winslow, who operates an escort service in the new mining camp of Deadwood in Dakota Territory. "Three young women have been murdered since they arrived in camp." It is obviously a dangerous assignment, and Cole is advised that he must take every precaution - as if he needed such advice.

Gray Horse. The magnificent young Comanche warrior made strong by the medicine of the wolf, skilled at stealing horses and counting coup in the war raids of his people. Through his bravery and his wisdom, he would rally his beleaguered tribe against the tide of white settlers that swept over their land.

Duff MacCallister has just returned from a trip back to his native Scotland - more determined than ever to build a new future in Chugwater Valley, Wyoming. But Duff will do it his way, buying up a herd of rare Scottish black angus from the Kansas City market. He can’t know that his dream is threatened by a man driven by one desire: to take other people’s money and other people’s lives.

When Hunter Buchanon rescued a wounded coyote pup — and named him Bobby Lee — he had no idea the cute little varmint would grow up to be such a loyal companion. Coyotes aren’t known to be man’s best friend. Most of them are as fierce and wild as the Black Hills they roam. But Bobby Lee is different. When Hunter is ambushed on the road, Bobby Lee leaps to his defense. And when the attacker tries to shoot Bobby Lee, Hunter returns the favor by hitting the man with a rock.

John Thomas Rourke, M.D., ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority, has accomplished one of his goals — he's helped his young friend Paul Rubinstein locate his parents. Now, Rourke's search for his own family must continue, hampered by severe storms raging along the Eastern Seaboard caused by the earthquakes which destroyed Florida.

Bo Creel is back at his family's Star C Ranch in Bear Creek, Texas. Along with his buddy Scratch, he's finding out that home is where the hell-raising is. A rival ranch is trying to drive the Creel family out of business, using any means necessary. For Bo, Scratch, and Bo's nephew Lee, always suckers for a pretty face, come three ladies. Two to melt hearts and one to blur the battle lines between the ranches. Desperate to raise cash and save the Star C, the Creels set out on a cattle drive to the Gulf of Mexico.

Sometimes when a man’s luck turns, it turns hard. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are experienced drifters, but now the two trail pards are down to their last dime. So they accept the best job they can get, serving as deputies in a boomtown called Mankiller. Their boss is a drunken sheriff named Biscuits O'Brien, who would rather drink than work. Their tin stars are mighty pretty, but the job starts to get serious quickly, and soon the newly-minted lawmen are standing between a cunning clan of killers and the town's desperate citizens.

After a two-year drought, the Kerrigan ranch is dry as a bone and as dusty as a honky-tonk bible. On the brink of ruin, Kate Kerrigan hires the rainmaker Professor Somerset Lazarus, who promises salvation — in the form of a deluge. Kate is desperate enough to try anything. But when four angry gunmen show up, ready to lynch the phony rainmaker for swindling them out of their money, the Kerrigans have to choose sides fast — before the bullets start to fly.

"Stay the hell out of Fort Worth." Those were the last words uttered by a dying man who was the boomtown's most recent sheriff. Rail-thin and half starved, desperate cowpuncher Jess Casey ignores the travel advice. Instead, Jess not only enters Fort Worth, he becomes the new sheriff, inheriting the body-riddled little slice of heaven called Hell's Half Acre, the wide-open, deadliest piece of real estate on the American frontier.

While most folks are busy preparing for Christmas, the tightknit Jensen clan can only hope they’ll make it home. Luke Jensen is in San Antonio tracking down a dangerous outlaw. But when he finds the man leading a wholesome life — as a charity-working Hill Country pastor — Luke agrees to wait until after Christmas to bring him to justice.

The stench of death hangs over Happyville. When Flintlock rides into town, he sees windows caked in dust, food rotting on tables, and a forgotten corpse hanging at the gallows. The citizens of Happyville are dead in their beds, taken down by a deadly scourge, and Flintlock must stay put, or risk spreading the killer disease. His quarantine is broken by Cage Kingfisher, a mad clergyman who preaches the gospel of death.

Brewster Ritter had a warning for Flintlock: Do not cross the Sabine River. Ritter, the so-called Baron of the Bayou, is a vicious crime king still seething because Flintlock killed one of his gunmen in a Texas dustup. But Flintlock has his own powerful reasons for crossing into the nightmarish swamp country from East Texas. Now in an eerie land of mysterious mists, haunting cypress trees, snakes, gators, and black-hearted, trigger-happy war hogs, Ritter is waiting for Flintlock with enough men and guns to kill him 10 times over.

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.

The Doomsday Warrior, Ted Rockson, barely escapes from Moscow in a hijacked MIG fighter and crash-lands in the Midwest of America. But this is a post-apocalyptic 2089 AD America, and he must traverse the deadly wasteland to return to one of the last outposts of freedom in the Rockies, Century City. In the meantime, the Soviet Empire is preparing their most devastating attack on the American freefighters.

Archaeologist Annja Creed and her sword have never been outmatched — until now. When a surprise party for her mentor Roux includes some uninvited guests, Annja finds herself fighting desperately for her life. The intruders escape but leave a sinister message behind. A legend has resurfaced about a sword that should be feared. A sword that seeks a master as bloodthirsty as itself. It is wielded by an assassin known as the Dragon who initiates a terrible game of cat and mouse. Eventually, the two swords — light and dark — must meet...and only one shall triumph.

Faced with the looming threat of the Russian pack, Silver and Andrew Dare plan to host an envoy at their wedding. The Russian alpha rejects diplomacy, however, and instead sends Mikhail, an elite assassin. Mikhail begins to ritually murder sub-alphas, leaving them to bleed to death from a thousand shallow cuts. The Roanokes’ only leverage is Mikhail’s reverence for the Lady: He thinks She is reborn in Silver. Playing the Lady goes against all of Silver's beliefs, but she yields to Mikhail’s invitation for her to join him in Russia.

As the roaming band of survivors seek desperately to escape the eerie wastes and mutated life-forms of their nuclear hell, they emerge from a gateway back into the ruins of Manhatten — the concrete battlefield where Ryan had avenged the death of his father and older brother. The city is a flooded hellzone ruled by street gangs and hordes of reptilian mutants who inhabit the sewers. Under this urban ruin lives the self-styled King of the Underground, presiding over his subterranean fortress filled with prenuke memorabilia.