Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Fantasy

Alex Bledsoe’s fantasy novels have drawn rave reviews for their ingenious blend of classic fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. Now Bledsoe returns with an all-new tale of intrigue and murder.

Love - and murder - are in the air.

It took Joe Grey’s human, Clyde Damen, nearly forever to pop the question to his girlfriend, Ryan Flannery, and what more romantic time to tie the knot than on Valentine’s Day? But dark secrets from the past soon threaten to destroy everyone’s happiness. First, a body discovered many miles away reopens a 10-year-old cold case involving a man who disappeared days before his own wedding. Then another body is found closer to home, on the grounds of a ruined estate, deserted save for a band of unusual feral cats.

I've always had a weak spot for strange ladies. One very beautiful girl had even warned me that she was, get this, a vampire. But did I listen? No.

Ghosts can be caught, bottled, and sold by covert dealers to addicts who inhale the things - and when a young boy named Kootie accidentally inhales the ghost of Thomas Edison, he finds that all the factions of Los Angeles’s occult underground are after him, determined to kill him and get Edison’s powerful ghost for themselves. Aided by Edison’s confused and irascible ghost, Kootie flees - and finds himself dodging perils natural and supernatural in the gritty alleys and trainyards of a Los Angeles that tourists never see.

The year is 2085, and humanity has spread throughout the solar system, a stable lunar colony is agitating for independence, and lunar tourism is on the rise. Against this background, professional "Close Protection" specialist Scotty Griffin, fresh off a disastrous assignment, is offered the opportunity of a lifetime: to shepherd the teenaged heir to the Republic of Kikaya on a fabulous vacation. Ali Kikaya will participate in the first live-action role playing game conducted on the Moon itself.

Zohar, an ancient land of sand and splendor, rallies for its last stand. The genocidal Aelarian Empire sends its legions to destroy the small desert kingdom. King Epher and his band of rebels stand against a fire they cannot extinguish. And it is Claudia herself, once Epher's paramour, who leads the legions tasked with killing him. Across the sea, in the Empire's capital, a cruel new emperor has seized power. Atalia Sela, once the leader of a barbarian horde, now fights in the arena as a gladiator. Ofeer Sela, once a concubine and now a rebel, seeks to free her sister.

Were the alien and his robot here to help or hinder humankind? Find out the surprising answer in the original story that inspired the classic 1951 science-fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. This is a must-read for any science-fiction lover, for, as the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says, "the film lost the story's ironic ending." Now listeners can discover first-hand what Hollywood left out in this best-known novella of the legendary 1930s idea man, Harry Bates.

Aglirta, known as the Kingless Land, has fallen into lawlessness. Now, a powerful warlord has come to take control through force, while the diabolic minions of the Serpent move into position for a climactic battle that will scar the valiant Band of Four forever.

Following a mysterious absence of several years, the Man of Steel comes back to Earth in the epic action-adventure Superman Returns, a soaring new chapter in the saga of one of the world's most beloved superheroes.

Maggie Sullivan has returned to Wolfe Creek, determined to find out why her best friend vanished one fog-shrouded night a year ago. But it quickly becomes clear that if the residents of the secluded mountain town know what happened, they aren't talking. Sheriff's deputy Koda Wolfe reluctantly agrees to help Maggie, even as he tries to convince her to leave town for her own good. Soon he's compelled to protect her from herself, his family's ancient curse, and a killer who could strike again.

Too long to be a short story, too short to be a novel - welcome to the surprisingly potent world of the novelette. The award-winning magazine Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show has been an online haven for this powerful form of storytelling since 2005. Now its editors have selected their all-time favorite science fiction novelettes from the magazine's eight-year history and reprinted them together in one big book of listening pleasure.

In a transformed mid-19th-century America dominated by plantation owners and kept in line by Southern military forces, a mild-mannered academic from Maine, Professor Joshua Chamberlain, stands accused of crimes against the nation. In court alongside him is Abraham Lincoln, whose fiery rhetoric brands him a "threat to the security of the United States of America". Convicted, Chamberlain is sentenced to 40 years hard labor, while Lincoln's fate is indefinite detention at Fortress Monroe.

A young woman possessed by a ghost has slain the Fisher King of the West, Scott Crane. Now, temporarily freed from that malevolent spirit, she seeks to restore the King to life....

Best-selling writer Orson Scott Card founded the online magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show in 2006. It has been a big success, drawing submissions from well-known science fiction and fantasy writers, as well as fostering some amazing new talents. This collection contains some of the best of those stories.

Earth has been devastated by a massive solar flare. Now a small group of survivors fights to rebuild civilization. Cities became ovens, grasslands seas of flame. As the touch of dawn swept westward across the spinning planet, its fiery finger killed everything in its path. Glaciers in Switzerland began to melt; floodwaters poured down on burning Alpine villages. Paris became a torch, then London. North of the Arctic Circle, Laplanders in their summer furs burst into flame as their reindeer collapsed and roasted on the smoking tundra. The line of dawn raced westward across the Atlantic, but as it did, the sun dimmed as quickly as it had flared. The Americas escaped the sun’s wrath … almost.

Schism is how it all began, harkening back to the early years of the Skolian Empire, back to the beginning of the war between Skolia and the Euban Traders. Twenty-three years have passed since the fateful vote in the Skolian Assembly that Roca missed in Skyfall. It created the first open hostility between Eube and Skolia, which has only deepened in the ensuing years. Now Eube senses an opportunity, for strife has riven the first family of the Skolian Empire.

Dr. Jake Ross came to Washington to make a difference. As the science advisor to a newly elected freshman senator, Jake has crafted a comprehensive energy plan that employs innovative new technologies to make America the world's leader in energy production while simultaneously boosting the economy and protecting the environment.

Alissa is the only student living in the Hold, learning a millennium’s worth of magic from the last surviving Master. Even shape-shifting to her dragon-like raku form is becoming second nature. But when a spell goes awry, Alissa is transported back four centuries to an era when the Hold and its city thrive with magic students and their tutors.

Normally, not even drunk on a bet would Violet Parker go to Slagton, a creepy ghost town inhabited by those too stubborn - or deranged - to leave. But a certain bullheaded Deadwood detective has a problem - his informant from Slagton has gone missing. When Violet is shanghaied into taking a hunting trip to the ghost town to search for the missing snitch, she stumbles into trouble that will take more than a double-barreled shotgun to escape. Will Violet survive this new hell that haunts her, or will she end up on Slagton's growing list of those "gutted and hung"?

The Drone-masters are coming. Humanity is on the verge of extinction. And Earth has no idea. The fires of intergalactic war have given rise to an unexpected hero. Medical scientist by training and ship's captain by circumstance, Tag Brewer leads a band of aliens, a few humans, and a synthetic lifeform into the deepest reaches of unexplored space. They may be all that stands between humanity and utter annihilation. It's up to Tag's crew to unveil the shroud of secrecy surrounding the Drone-masters. He must destroy them before they destroy Earth.