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Jump Gate Twist
Mark L. Van Name - 2010
“Van Name has created a hero worth at least a dozen more novels . . . I want this to be a series. I want to read a new one every year.” —Orson Scott Card Jon Moore: A nanotech-enhanced warrior who wants nothing more than a quiet life and a way back to his strange home world. Lobo: An AI-enhanced Predator-Class Assault Vehicle, a mobile fortress equipped for any environment from the seabed to interstellar space. TWO WOLVES IN A GALAXY OF LARGER PREDATORS! For the first time in a Jon & Lobo book, “My Sister, My Self,” the short story which introduced Jon Moore. One Jump Ahead: Jon Moore wanted only to relax on the pristine planet of Macken--but Macken was the secret battleground of two megacorporations, both determined to control the local jump gate and the riches of an undeveloped world. Finding allies and enemies among terrorist groups and elite mercenaries, gun-runners and the only kind of government possible on a frontier short on rules and long on riches, Jon and Lobo fight to a climax with a corporate army that can't afford to leave any witnesses. Exotic settings, fast action, real tech, mechanically-enhanced animals—and a beautiful woman who's as deadly as a cobra! Slanted Jack: The job looked simple enough: Jon agreed to help a con man, a friend from a part of his past he’d rather forget, protect a very special young boy. But the deal didn’t stay simple, as each move Jon and Lobo made resulted in more danger and more enemies. The best con man Jon’s ever known, a ruthless gang boss, a heavily armed group of religious fanatics, a beautiful woman with a mysterious agenda, and an interstellar government out to clean up a dangerous frontier world rush together toward an explosive climax—and Jon and Lobo are caught in the middle. Plus new introductions by the author, making this a package that every Jon & Lobo fan will want to buy.
Black Friday and Selected Stories
David Goodis - 1954
January cold coming in off two rivers. Hart is broke, freezing, looking for a place to lay low from the cops. If he can't find somewhere soon he might do something rash - like steal an overcoat and accept a wallet containing $11,000 from a man dying from gunshot wounds in the street. Whoever killed him might have a bed, though, even if that means hanging out with a bunch of thieves and drifters while the heat blows over. Lucky for Hart he's handy with his fists. And if he can use his looks and smarts to get in with the gang, maybe he can ride this out and score big on his own. Originally published in 1954, Black Friday is one of David Goodis's leanest, meanest melancholy thrillers. In the character of Hart, it features one of his classic, tortured romantic heroes, a man who becomes mired in circumstances from which there is no escape. In this edition, Black Friday is combined with short stories, unpublished since they were first written for pulp magazines in America over 50 years ago.
The Man Who Awoke
Laurence Manning - 1933
The stories detail his ensuing adventures as he tries to make sense of the societies he encounters each time he wakes.
Chasing Love
Ronica Black - 2010
You name it and Adrian Edwards is there, prowling like the fiercest of hunters, focused on a perpetual search for that ever elusive four letter word called ‘love.’ From woman to woman she goes, relentless in her pursuit. Tamara, her best friend since high school, is always there to lend an ear or to roll her eyes as Adrian once again casts aside another woman, ticking off all the things that were ‘wrong’ about her. So used to the game, Tamara gives her gifts for the ‘hunt’ like safari hats, compasses and old fashioned looking glasses. Only problem is, they don’t seem to help.Searching as if truly blindfolded, Adrian continues on her quest, going from a young, troubled go-go dancer, to an obsessive mail carrier, to a tweaked out tomboy, to a lusciously aggressive accountant with way more than numbers on her mind.Until one day Adrian realizes she has to learn to be with the person she’s been resisting all along. Herself. It is while on this inner journey that a special someone truly steps into view and shakes up her world for good, proving once and for all that love is never elusive… as long as you love yourself.Chasing Love is a heartfelt journey, one full of humor, sex, startling frankness, gripping reality and hard learned life lessons.
I Will Breathe
Regina Puckett - 2005
It has been eight hundred years since The Great War. There are small groups of people scattered in isolated pockets around the world, but most are too suspicious of each other for any intimacy. If they don’t stop hiding, and learn to help each other, there won’t be anyone left on earth.Liberty has grown up in this post-apocalyptic world. Her home is an airship built by her adopted father. Since his death, each day is just another day trying to survive in a hostile environment. That is until her father's dying friend asks if she’ll take custody of a small, child-like robot.The last thing Liberty needs is another responsibility. Surprisingly, once the endearing robot is aboard Airus, she discovers there is more to life than just living, and loving someone can be as easy as breathing.Reviewed By Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers’ Favorite“Have you ever wondered what the world would be like in eight hundred years time? Have you wondered what humanity would be like after an Armageddon or apocalyptic disaster? Would the human race even exist? And what in what manner would those surviving humans thrive?In I Will Breathe, Regina Puckett has written a story that reveals a futuristic look at life on a planet ravaged by war. As the main character, Liberty, struggles to survive and continue with the trading life that she learned from her adopted father, the possibility of a civilized human race once again existing evolves. The entire story makes you really think about 'what if?'. And it makes the reader hopeful that all will not be lost in the future. An interesting read.”
This Girl for Hire
G.G. Fickling - 1957
Sexy Los Angeles private detective Honey West matches wits with four murder suspects as she investigates the deaths of a washed-up Hollywood entertainer, a beautiful woman, and a poisoning victim, in a new edition of a crime novel first published in the 1950s.
A Darker Shade of Blue
John Harvey - 2010
John Harvey has been described as the master of British crime fiction: From the mean streets of London to the jazz clubs and clip joints of Soho, this is a world of broken families, revenge killings, and prostitution; drugs, guns, and corruption; a world of overstretched police forces and underpaid detectives; men and women who strive nonetheless for a kind of justice; a world in which everything, even friendship, has a price.Featuring characters like Frank Elder, who tried to turn his back on police work and failed; Jack Kiley, ex-cop and now a London-based PI; and the renowned jazz-loving and much-loved Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick, John Harvey’s finely crafted vignettes perfectly encapsulate life in the badlands of contemporary Britain.
First Shot
John Ryder - 2020
It’s the kind of case that ex-military loner Grant Fletcher would normally be happy to take on—if someone had the money to pay him. But this one he’s doing for free. This one’s personal. Fletcher owes his life to Lila’s father, from that time in Afghanistan he’d like to forget. And Fletcher knows that returning Lila safe and sound is the only thing that matters to his wheelchair-bound friend. She last called her father from a small town called Daversville, in rural Georgia. A place—Fletcher discovers as he checks into the only motel—where folks are proud to keep themselves to themselves, and almost all the business comes from the giant sawmill that looms large over the town. Before he’s even started looking for Lila, Fletcher finds trouble. And discovers that his friend’s daughter wasn’t the first girl to go missing in Daversville. Not the first by far. Then the last person to have seen Lila before she disappeared is murdered. With Fletcher on the scene when her body is found, he becomes the local deputy’s only suspect, leaving him no choice but to go on the run. Because he knows someone’s abducting girls in this town. And he also knows he’s the only one who can find them… Fans of the high-octane action and unforgettable heroes found in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series and David Baldacci’s Amos Decker books will love First Shot.
Best American Fantasy
Ann VanderMeerE.M. Schorb - 2007
This inaugural volume showcases the best North American fantasy short fiction from the preceding year.Hard truth about waste management / Sumanth Prabhaker --Stolen father / Eric Roe --Saffron gatherer / Elizabeth Hand --Whipping / Julia Elliott --Better angel / Chris Adrian --Draco Campestris / Sarah Monette --Geese / Daniel Courdriet --Chinese boy / Ann Stapleton --Flying woman / Meghan McCarron --First kisses from beyond the grave / Nik Houser --Song of the selkie / Gina Ochsner --Troop [sic] of baboons / Tyler Smith --Pieces of Scheherazade / Nicole Kornher-Stace --Origin story / Kelly Link --Experiment in governance / E.M. Schorb --Next corpse collector / Ramola D --Village of Ardakmoktan / Nicole Derr --Man who married a tree / Tony D'Souza --Fable with slips of white paper ... / Kevin Brockmeier --Pregnant / Catherine Zeidler --Warehouse of saints / Robin Hemley --Ledge / Austin Bunn --Lazy taekos / Geoffrey A. Landis --For the love of Paul Bunyan / Fritz Swanson --Accounting / Brian Evenson --Abraham Loncoln has been shot / Daniel Alarcon --Bit forgive / Maile Chapman --End of narrative (1-29; or 29-1) / Peter LaSalle --Kiss / Melora Wolff
The Innocents (Wil Hardesty, #1
Richard Barre - 1995
Children -- innocents -- whose long-buried remains are uncovered by a flash-flood. No one knows who could have committed such a crime. Clues are scarce, and with the media turning the story into a law enforcement nightmare, time is short. Only Wil Hardesty, a private eye who has more in common with the case than anyone knows, is willing to push hard enough -- and dig deep enough -- to find the cruelest of killers. The killer of The Innocents...
Low Port
Sharon LeeRu Emerson - 2004
Underwood, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Nathan Archer, Jody Lynn Nye and many others, including a new urban fantasy by Sharon Lee! So come along and meet an orphan with a dream, a dockworker who believes in freedom, a maintenance worker with feelings and visit a soup kitchen with a secret.Contents:Voyeur / Eric Witchey --Digger don't take no requests / John Teehan --The gate between hope and glory / Holly Phillips --Riis run / eluki bes shahar --Bidding the walrus / Lawrence M. Schoen --The gift / Laura J. Underwood --The dock to heaven / L.E. Modesitt, Jr. --Find a pin / Ru Emerson --Sailing to the temple / Alan Smale --The pilgrim trade / Mark W. Tiedemann --More to glory / Patrice Sarath --Gonna boogie with Granny Time / Sharon Lee --Angel's kitchen / Chris Szego --Lair of the lesbian love goddess / Edward McKeown --Contraband / Nathan Archer --Spinacre's war / Lee Martindale --Bottom of the food chain / Jody Lynn Nye --Zappa for bardog / Joe Murphy --The times she went away / Paul E. Martens --Scream angel / Douglas Smith.
Nothing but Memories
Derek Fee - 2013
Detective Chief Inspector Ian Wilson is tasked with the unenviable job of finding the killer with tensions running high throughout the city. In the powder keg that is the Northern Irish political scene, Wilson needs to discover the reason behind the seemingly random killings, and quick, in order to prevent the troubles from breaking out on the streets of Belfast again. A powerful, and exciting, thriller Nothing but Memories is a tour-de-force by Derek Fee, author of Cartel.
The Failed Cities Monologues
Matt Wallace - 2007
Separated by much more than a river, one side is an unfinished technological marvel populated by mega-skyscrapers where the wealthy live, work, and play. The other is a forsaken wasteland where order is strictly maintained by a rogue group of cleric soldiers known as the street preachers. But this dichotomy is about to change. Slowly, quietly, clandestine forces are working to undermine the small piece of redemption the street preachers have brought to their concrete flocks. In the face of watching their second chance crumble to dust, some will fight to stop it. Others will kill to make it happen.A bold experiment in podcast fiction, The Failed Cities Monologues are told from the shifting perspectives of the characters who inhabit this world, twisted noir archetypes and cyberpunk warriors. Their lives and their stories are linked together by conspiracy, fate... and blood.
Was Once a Hero
Edward McKeown - 2011
He’s joined by the genetically engineered assassin, Shasti Rainhell, whose cold perfection masks her dark past. Both are blackmailed by government spymaster, Mandela, into a suicidal mission to the doomed planet Enshar. Leading a team of scientists and soldiers, they must unravel the mystery of that planet’s death before an ancient force reaches out to claim their lives.The classic Planet Stories of S/F have suffered abandonment, without a rescuer, until now. Edward McKeown's "Was Once A Hero" combines adventure and romance with the dark humor and human complexities absent from a more black-and-white age. Robert Fenaday and Shasti Rainhell are real people. They make mistakes, they hurt, they stumble in the dark emotionally, and they save the world. They are flawed, wounded heroes, and they make you realize, as you hungrily turn each page, that the best fiction contains excitement and passion; and the best aspect of life is the possibility of personal redemption. Was Once a Hero provides both." Tim McLoughlin, author of "Heart of the Old Country" (Movie Title: The Narrows) and Editor of "Brooklyn Noir"