Literature Dramatized

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.

In the west, there’s always work for the kind of men willing to get their hands dirty — from rounding stray cattle to stringing barbed wire. Bo Creel and Scratch Morton are just such men. Now they’ve been hired for the one job they’ve never tried: wearing badges — in a little stain of a town called Whiskey Flats.

When a lovely lady steps off a dusty stagecoach in Hangtree, the hardest heart skips a beat - and Sam Heller falls hard for her. What Hangtree doesn't know, however, is that Julia Pepperday isn't who she pretends to be. She is the daughter of the late Black Ear Skinner, a notorious outlaw who wanted his only child to have all the advantages in life and sent her back east. Black Ear Skinner's apple hasn't fallen far from the tree though. Julia has turned her back on the fancy boarding school and set her sights on Hangtree, because that's where Sam Heller has built a hard-earned fortune.

In Phoenix, a sheriff guns down a banker and robs him of a document. Going to the banker's aid, a witness hears the dying man's last words and takes hold of the map the sheriff was really after. By the time the crooked lawman realizes he has the wrong document, Jolene Wellington is on the run - and framed for the murder of the banker.

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.

Wise in the ways of a lawless land, the blood brothers deal out their own brand of frontier justice. And when they ride a hot and dusty trail into Texas looking for some excitement, they find it in spades. Big John Lee owns the biggest spread west of the Pecos, but he’s hired a crowd of tough gunners to claim more than his legal share. Bodine and Sam Two Wolves decide to throw their lot in with the men of the Circle S, who were next on John Lee’s land-grabbing list.

Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves were hard on a trail that led them deeper and deeper into Apache territory toward the Mexican border where a bunch of varmints, desperate men who hire out to most anybody to most anything, were operatin' two of the scummiest dodges in the west. Running guns to the Apache and white-slaving kidnapped children. Matt and Sam had hooked up with two companions along the way, a prideful mountain man who'd lost his granddaughter in an Indian raid and a miss searchin' for her brother, taken by the Apache a while back.

Flintlock takes no pleasure in killing. But when his pal O’Hara gets bullwhipped by a trio of lowdown prairie rats, Flintlock finds sanctuary for his wounded friend at the cabin of a kindly miner and his lovely daughter. Flintlock heads out to hunt down some food. But there’s more than just deer lurking in these woods. A bloodthirsty band of eight savage raiders — led by a half-mad gunslinger called The Old Man of the Mountain — wage a full-scale attack on the miner’s cabin.

Young Lerris yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament. In Recluce this means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond. Many do not survive. Lerris chooses dangergeld. Lerris will need magic in the lands beyond, where the power of the Chaos Wizards reigns unchecked, and he must learn to use his powers in an orderly way before his wanderjahr, or fall prey to Chaos.

Chet Byrnes is building a new life in Arizona Territory as he expands his cattle ranching operation - but trouble just keeps coming. A brutal Apache attack on his cattle drive. A friend's young daughter is abducted, and the search leads Chet and his men to the wild town of Tombstone and ultimately south of the border, where everything comes with a price...and life is cheap.

Sweet Apple, Texas is the deadliest town west of the Mississippi - where getting killed is as easy as ordering a beer. Which is why East Coast big shot Cornelius Standish sends his lily-livered nephew, Seymour, to Sweet Apple. With Seymour out of the way, Cornelius will own the company that rightfully belongs to his nephew.

It’s been over half a year, now, since the brutal murder of Archbishop William de Laurent during his pilgrimage to the Galicien city of Davillon. During that time, the Church of the Hallowed Pact has assigned a new bishop to the city - but it has also made its displeasure at the death of its clergyman quite clear. Davillon’s economy has suffered beneath the weight of the Church’s displeasure. Much of the populace - angry at the clergy - has turned away from the Church hierarchy, choosing private worship or small, independent shrines.

Although he hasn’t seen Robert Bergin for 40 years, Ishmael feels duty bound to respond when his old friend calls for help. Robert’s daughter Gillian is about to be married, and he is afraid she’ll fall prey to the ancient family curse. Arriving in rural Yorkshire, Ishmael and his partner Penny learn that the vicar who was to perform the ceremony has been found dead in the church, hanging from his own bell rope.

Esmay Suiza wasn't a member of a great Navy family like the Serranos. She'd had to make her way on grit alone, which meant it wasn't likely she'd ever make admiral and "hoist her own flag." Well, that was fine with her: all Esmay wanted was a secure berth where she could be part of something greater than herself, and otherwise just live her life in peace.

Sure, it would've been easy killing Two Diamond Joe with a second shot. No man takes a .44 round square between the eyes and survives. But Jeston Nash only wants his prize horse back from the man, and a fast trail out of the New Mexico badlands. Together again with Quiet Jack, Nash is on a hunt that will take him through unforgiving terrain, a tangle of firebrand beauties, and even into a lawman's trust - before squaring off with most ruthless pack of gunmen ever to rule the desert frontier.

Boyd Ackerman is no ordinary criminal. Trained by the US Army, commanding his band of killers with military efficiency, Ackerman has outsmarted and outfought every lawman who has tried to stop him. But he's never faced MacCallister before. Falcon MacCallister wasn't looking for a fight. Then Ackerman's Raiders kill his niece's husband - and take a young woman hostage. Falcon and his brothers ride into action.

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.

There's nothing like family. At least that's what people say. But when Bo and Scratch come home to Bear Creek for a long-overdue visit, Bo's family kindly invites him to turn around and leave. His old friends and neighbors turn tail and run when they see him. Next thing he knows, he's in jail for the brutal murder of two saloon girls in neighboring Cottonwood. Unfortunately, the real killer looks astonishingly like Bo. Now, with his buddy in jail, Scratch needs to ride to the rescue, if he can escape the clutches of the beautiful assistant to a traveling snake oil salesman.

U.S. Deputy Marshal Will Tanner earned his badge the old-fashioned way. He shot the bad guys, saved the good guys, and won the fear and respect of everyone in between. That’s how legends are born. But when he visits a friend at his ranch and ends up confronting a trigger-happy horse thief, Will earns the wrath of the deadliest, lowlife killers west of the Mississippi. This is how legends die....Turns out Will Tanner is nothing but a moving target on a blood-soaked trail of revenge.

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.