Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

Jen did not want to leave the city. She did not want to move to a farm with her mom and her mom's new boyfriend, Walter. She did not want to leave her friends and her dad. Most of all, Jen did not want to get new "sisters", Andy and Reese. As if learning new chores on Peapod Farm wasn't hard enough, having to deal with perfect-at-everything Andy might be the last straw for Jen. Besides cleaning the chicken coop, trying to keep up with the customers at the local farmers' market, and missing her old life, Jen has to deal with her own insecurities about this new family.

The Ouroboros Project was my last chance at salvation, but the new virtual reality was just as bad as the world I’d left. Backroom deals with corrupt nobles, slavery, and murder were all swept under the rug in the pursuit of gold. Despite everything, I found mercenary life fulfilling, until my guild was attacked. Now, I've got unknown, extremely rich enemies on all sides, a mysterious woman with strange magic and compound eyes, and a guild to save.

Azure has come face to face with the notorious bandit, James Bower. Completely surrounded, what can he possibly do to survive the encounter with an enemy almost double his level and emerge victorious? Things won't be easy for Azure as he faces more perils than ever before. Even if he does survive, he still has the Darkness status effect to contend with, sorting out his friends from his foes, and starting his journey to the God of Land. Perhaps he'll end up being the biggest backstabber in the end.

In Caitlín R. Kiernan’s The Ammonite Violin & Others, one of contemporary dark fantasy’s most bewitching and distinctive voices is back with another banquet of the weird and unexpected. Within this book, you’ll discover a dazzling suite of stories situated on the borderlands between the unspeakable and the erotic, the grotesque and the sublime.

In his Locus review of Two Worlds and in Between - the first volume of The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan - Gary K. Wolfe wrote, “...it makes you wish the second volume were here now.” Well, the long wait is over. This second volume completes this ambitious undertaking, collecting the finest of Kiernan’s stories from 2004 to 2012, selected by the author herself. The book includes 25 short stories and one poem, plus the short novel Black Helicopters - more than 200,000 words of fiction, including the World Fantasy Award-winning “The Prayer of 90 Cats”.

Adventure calls! Reality and fantasy finally collide when a new member joins Azure's party. A dangerous encounter with a mimic makes him think twice about touching large chests. And learning magic proves to be a bigger pain than he could have ever imagined.

After failing the most important exam of his life, Kyle is forced into a VR war. Now, he fights on the front lines as cannon fodder for what he always assumed was the government, losing a little part of his memories with every virtual death. When the mission he’s on goes wrong, Kyle is stranded on a planet far from his original destination. Finally given a chance to make an impression in the organization, Kyle will have to risk his mind for a chance at salvation. If he fails, he'll lose all will to resist: making him the perfect soldier.

The only thing worse than an assassin is a zombie assassin. And this killer is no ordinary zombie, and Cisco Suarez, the Miami Police Department's resident supernatural consultant and a practicing necromancer, has to untangle his story and solve the case.

When a top secret, undercover mission goes wrong for one of the company's operatives, Ballantine must call on Team Grendel and the crew of the Beowulf III to take down a drug lord and stop Southern California from being overrun by a new substance more addictive and deadly than any drug on the planet. But things are never that simple as Team Grendel find they are under siege by cloned Megalodon sharks that developed a taste for the new substance, sending the monsters on a drug fueled rampage of bloody violence along the Baja Mexico coastline.

Now counted among the top ranks of Adventurers, Glenn must find a new path. After two years standing vigil at the gates of his hometown, Glenn finally has a chance to fulfill his dream of joining the Blazers, traveling the world, adventuring with his childhood love, and helping people beyond Wolfpine. And all it cost was his best friend, his family, and a life with everyone he loves.

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

I've met Magnus, the man who instigated the attack on my guild, and rather than fighting him, I’m helping him. He’s shown me the truth about Nexus and left me reeling. Now, to return home and see Eris again, I'll have to complete the hardest job I've ever considered. Journey to Aldrust and steal their most prized possession.

Hate your job. Start all over. Become an assassin. Roman Martin's life continues to take twists and turns he could have never seen coming. A month after losing his power, Roman is greeted by an exemplar named Orange who has some damning information for him. Later, he's given an ultimatum that forces him to become a government assassin, where he's sent to the Western Province in pursuit of a Centralian fugitive he knows intimately. It's not something Roman is comfortable with doing, but if he hopes to survive and avoid prosecution by his own government, it may be his only choice.

All Azure wants to do is leave The Realm, but the Bower Boys throw a wrench in his plans. Mistakes that Azure made when he first joined The Adventurers Guild come back to haunt him. Uden flexes between good and evil once more as he's put in a precarious situation. Is vengeance worth endangering all of your friends and possibly dying for? Azure answers that question with steel, taking a path he never thought he'd travel. Once he set foot down it, there was no going back. Decisions were made and someone will pay the ultimate price.

One last mission. It's a promise familiar to Captain John Duggan. Each final battle has another following it, with another after that. They come to him with the inevitability of death. His latest task seems no different to the others before it. As events progress, Duggan begins to believe - he starts to see how his life might change at the end of it and how the lives of billions in the Confederation may be saved if he succeeds. This time, his superiors plan no less than the destruction of the Helius Blackstar itself.

The first issue in the second century of Weird Tales features a new HELLBOY story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. Editor Jonathan Maberry has built a collection of cosmic horror that will destabilize your worldview.

Eric McCaffrey is very good at VRMMORPGs; he's played most of them, but the lack of funds is starting to affect his ability to play popular games. It's time to move on to something more...obscure. Battlegrounds Online is the only game of its kind. A VRMMOFPS. A military warfare game so realistic that it scares away most players daring enough to try it.

When kingdoms clash, the innocent suffer. Except in this realm of magic and bizarre science, Matt isn't entirely certain there are anymore innocents. Certainly not him. Having vanquished one for, he's faced with an ever expanding number of opponents including a particularly smart, elusive one whose command of the sky dominates the battlefield. How will Matt and his Heroes handle them? And does victory always mean extermination?

When the supernatural rears its head in Miami, the sleuthing's usually up to me, Cisco Suarez, resident necromancer and all-around hard case. All I ask is to kick back in paradise once in a while, spend some quality time with my girl, and maybe even find that special moment to pop the question. But life doesn't always play fair, and neither do monsters. Turns out, old grudges die hard. So come after me. Maybe I deserve it. But going after my family crosses the line.

Fifteen years ago, a deranged young man abducted a teenage girl in a parking lot. He chose her for her innocence. Punished her for her beauty. Dowsed her with gasoline and tried to purify her with fire. Detective Jacob Rein managed to stop the lunatic and lock him up for life. Now the girl who survived that horrible ordeal has been found dead, an apparent suicide. Near her body is a letter from "The Master" - a bloodchilling promise to finish what he started.