Science Fiction Suspense

Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens is the 5th and final volume of Night Shade Books' five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman." This volume contains all of the John the Balladeer stories (sometimes better known as Silver John), Manly's most famous character.

Vitus Adamson is falling apart. As a pre-deceased private investigator, he takes the prescription Atroxipine hourly to keep his undead body upright and functioning. Whenever he is injured, he seeks Niko, a bombshell mortician with bedroom eyes and a way with corpses, to piece him back together. Decomposition, however, is the least of his worries when two clients posing his most dangerous job yet appear at his door looking for their lost son.

The luxurious Lathrop Grand Hotel is a Savannah institution that has entertained guests for more than a century and a half, offering some of the finest accommodations in the city. Famously haunted, the hotel draws tourists from around the world eager to encounter its numerous ghosts. The hotel is also known for being honeycombed with hidden doors and secret passages, enabling staff to appear and disappear quickly as they attend to the hotel's guests.

When Lewis Barnavelt and Rose Rita Pottinger explore an abandoned theater, they discover an unpublished opera score entitled "The Day of Doom". Ignoring a strange omen, they show it to their music teacher, who heralds "The Day of Doom" as a masterpiece. Little do they know that the eerie Henry Vanderhelm, the composer's grandson, arrives - with a plan. A plan to awaken the dead and enslave the world!

Light years from Earth, an alien planet forced their queen from power and cast her into space. For millions of years, the queen's ship wandered the cosmos, until it crashed on Earth. As a child, Michael Hems first lost his mother to cancer, and then his father to the bottom of a bottle. Growing up in a small town, Michael's friends became his life. The only one he knew. The only one he wanted. But the night he found the ship, everything he loved was thrown into jeopardy.

We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks--as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . . He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heir--young, romantic, cultivated--to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life....

Fifteen-year-old Maya and Arjun find their placid world suddenly overturned, when their favourite history teacher is found brutally murdered. The death shocks the students at the school and baffles the police. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger’s reappearance after 5000 years strikes fear into the hearts of powerful members of a secret society, called the Sangha. Who is he and what is he after? What secrets are Arjun’s uncle and mother hiding, and why do they inexplicably decide to leave town for an unknown destination?

As a fox-shifter, Shayne Davies gets no respect in an underworld run by the fearsome and powerful - werewolves and vampires, sorcerers, demons, and mythical faerie creatures. Even at home, Shayne is still treated like the brat of the pack. All Shayne wants is to prove that she's got what it takes to run with the big dogs, which is why she is constantly hounding Nick Gorgeous to make her an agent at the "Double D", the Detroit Division of the FUA.

A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt. Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse. Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters to vampires....

In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as "Last Stand in Denver", has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death.

In Chicago, someone has been killing practitioners of magic, those incapable of becoming full-fledged wizards. Shockingly, all the evidence points to Harry Dresden's half brother, Thomas, as the murderer. Determined to clear his sibling's name, Harry uncovers a conspiracy within the White Council of Wizards that threatens not only him, but his nearest and dearest, too.

Preble Jefferson can see five seconds into the future. Otherwise, he lives an ordinary life. But when a confrontation with a cop on a New York City subway goes tragically wrong, those seconds give Preble the chance to dodge a bullet, causing another man to die in his place. Government agencies become aware of Preble's gift, a manhunt ensues, and their ambitions shift from law enforcement to military R&D. Preble will do whatever it takes to protect his family, but as events spiral out of control, he must weigh the cost of his gift against the loss of his humanity.

For a thousand years, Concordia has maintained peace between its provinces. To mark this incredible feat, the emperor’s ship embarks upon a twelve-day voyage to the sacred Goddess’s Mountain. Aboard are the twelve heirs of the provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing. All except one: Ganymedes Piscero—class clown, slacker and all-around disappointment.

After nearly four years, the zombie epidemic has almost burned itself out. Once a lone survivor on the brink of insanity, Gus Berry has a new life on a communal farm, his daily routine of policing the fields only rarely disrupted by straying undead. Gus’s drinking binges are over, and the dark days of Annapolis are soon to be a distant memory. But his troubles are far from over . . .

Desperate to pay the rent, Broadway star wannabe Poppy McGuillicuddy is the middle of DJ-ing a Halloween party when a mishap with a cat named Calamity changes her life forever. Suddenly, she's a familiar - as in, a witch's familiar. Or in her case, a warlock's. Even more specifically, a gorgeous warlock...who wants nothing to do with her. Thank God for the ladies from OOPs, who've promised their help as Poppy navigates her accidental paranormal powers.

In this series opener, listeners meet Jack and his foster siblings, Ava and Matt, who are orphans. But they're not your typical kind of orphans - they're geniuses. Well, Ava and Matt are, which sometimes makes life difficult for 12-year-old Jack. Ava speaks multiple languages and builds robots for fun, and Matt is into astronomy and a whiz at math. As for Jack, it's hard to stand out when he's surrounded by geniuses all the time.

All good things must come to an end, Constant Listener, and not even Stephen King can write a story that goes on forever. The tale of Roland Deschain's relentless quest for the Dark Tower has, the author fears, sorely tried the patience of those who have followed it from its earliest chapters. But attend to it a while longer, if it pleases you, for this volume is the last, and often the last things are best.

Commander David Bryce is scheduled to lead a routine re-supply run for the Orbital Development Group (ORB) to the fledgling colony on Mars. Without warning, he’s taken away by government agents and told the mission parameters have changed. They’ve discovered something. And it’s drifting closer to Earth. Atlas Donovan tirelessly hunts for an artifact, and tracks the piece to Lake Como, Italy. After the recent news from ORB, Atlas is more drawn to the trail than ever.

Welcome to the Centennial. Every 100 years, the island of Lightlark appears to host the Centennial, a deadly game that only the rulers of six realms are invited to play. The invitation is a summons—a call to embrace victory and ruin, baubles and blood. The Centennial offers the six rulers one final chance to break the curses that have plagued their realms for centuries. Each ruler has something to hide. Each realm's curse is uniquely wicked. To destroy the curses, one ruler must die.

Acclaimed, New York Times best-selling fantasist Raymond E. Feist gets his masterful Serpentwar Saga off to a spectacular start with Shadow of a Dark Queen. Feist’s classic epic fantasy adventure returns listeners to ever-imperiled Midkemia, a breathtaking, richly imagined realm of magic and intrigue, where two unlikely heroes must rally the forces of the land to stand firm against a malevolent race of monsters intent upon conquest and annihilation.