Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Literature & Fiction

It’s 2006, and terror scaremongering in the media has rattled the residents of sleepy, suburban Dunlop Crescent. When a Maori family moves into number 14, the local cranks assume they are Middle Eastern terrorists hell-bent on destroying the Australian way of life. Rumour has it that they plan to turn their house to face Mecca. This sets off an extraordinary chain of events that embroils the entire neighbourhood as well as cynical media figures, bumbling antiterrorist police and a gang of white supremacists with a radical plan to wake up the country and ‘preserve Australian values’.

Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound which is said to have haunted his family for generations? Arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense.

The pall that had descended over the North is gone, and a new day has dawned on a victorious Mithral Hall, but no matter how bright things seem on the surface, Drizzt and his companions know that what lurks just under their feet remains steeped in evil and charged with unimaginable power. The dark elves of Menzoberranzan, including the powerful Archmage Gromph, aren't done with Drizzt yet.

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.

Shiva is gathering his forces. He reaches the Naga capital, Panchavati, and Evil is finally revealed. The Neelkanth prepares for a holy war against his true enemy, a man whose name instils dread in the fiercest of warriors. India convulses under the onslaught of a series of brutal battles. It's a war for the very soul of the nation. Many will die. But Shiva must not fail, no matter what the cost. In his desperation, he reaches out to the ones who have never offered any help to him: the Vayuputras.

As the French enter the American War of Independence, young Richard Bolitho is given command of the fast, well-armed sloop Sparrow. He has a chance to prove his ability, but danger threatens - as real and deadly as the enemy itself.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.

A Princess of Mars was the first book by Edgar Rice Burroughs to feature the character John Carter. It led to an 11-book series featuring his adventures and became the basis for the 2012 movie. Carter is a war-weary former military captain during the Civil War who is inexplicably transported to Mars. He quickly (and reluctantly) becomes embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions among the inhabitants of the planet.

Every disaster brings an opportunity. Goth Sullus and his empire have fallen. With the Legion and the rest of the galaxy watching from the still-smoldering galactic core, Carter, a former legionnaire turned private contractor, and Jack Bowie, a Navy spy with nowhere left to turn, sign up to work for an enterprising private contractor looking to make a statement on the planet Kublar. Plans are in motion dating back to the Savage Wars, and as the galaxy rushes to fill in the vacuum created by the fall of the Imperial Republic, the bodies are hitting the floor.

Everyone - even Augustus the cat - has cause to be obliged to Jeeves when he manages to retrieve the infamous Book - the book which lays bare the private lives of three-quarters of the upper classes. And which could prove to be political dynamite at the Market Snodsbury by-election.

The title story of this collection - a devilishly ironic riff on H. P. Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model" - was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, while "Probiscus" was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19. In addition to his previously published work, this collection contains an original story.

Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).

When Freya Miller is struck by tragedy, losing her husband and her home within a short time, she is burdened with many worries. The main one being where she and her five-year old daughter, Skye, are going to live. A chance meeting with the charismatic Dr Marsden changes all that. He offers the young mother the most amazing opportunity: an apartment at one of London’s most exclusive addresses for a fraction of the market rental cost. It’s an offer Freya simply can’t refuse.

Something terrible, unspeakable, immense has come to Menzoberranzan and is leaving death and destruction in its wake. The primordial of Gauntlgrym stirs, sending Cattie-brie and Gromph to Luskan and the ruins of the only power that can keep the beast in check. The damage of the Darkening, of war, and of a demon-ravaged Underdark has sent cracks out across the North. Some of this damage may never be repaired.

Tired of sitting out the war on Psydon in a mobile office lab, Legion Lieutenant Washam agrees to undertake a covert and unsanctioned mission with a band of Republic Recon Marines. Inserted deep behind enemy lines, the strike force uncovers a surprise key to ending a bitter war. Now they must navigate a hostile jungle teeming with murderous alien rebels, pushing themselves to the limits of their abilities, to get this vital intel to Legion Command - if they can survive that long.

It has been six years since plague, famine, and war ravaged the planet. World powers have collapsed. The human population has been reduced by 90 percent, and those who survived must always contend with a novel apex predator: human beings whose very DNA has been radically altered by the plague.

In 2061 a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world. A desperate plan is formed: recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.

Don't Mean Nuthin' tells the story of Frank Morgan, a young college grad raised on army discipline who begins his career as a Phoenix Program assassin in Vietnam believing in his country. The audiobook starts with Morgan on the Freedom Bird to 'Nam in 1969, sitting next to a grizzled grunt. It's Morgan's first hint of what may be in store.

For Chris Mason, working construction at the pinnacle of New York's skyline feels like being on top of the world—until that world is shattered when an otherworldly portal transforms Manhattan into a deadly fantasy realm. Chosen as a "salvager" by a mysterious System that has plagued humanity throughout history, Chris must now scavenge the ruins of his city for materials to craft weapons, armor, and shelter while the city continues to transform around him.

Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the government responds with a nuclear attack. America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen - from the President of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City - will fight for survival. In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth's last survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity.