Showing results by narrator "Stefan Rudnicki" in All Categories

Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Masque of the Red Death” nearly 180 years ago, yet its narrative and characters continue to mystify and captivate. The short story is driven by Prince Prospero’s attempt to evade the “Red Death”, a fatal plague infecting his kingdom, by hiding in his abbey, where he indulges in pleasures and delights with other nobles. He soon finds out that no one can escape their end. Steven Archer has recast the characters of “The Masque” and illuminated the narrative in a novel and perhaps more visceral light.

Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus has invested every last hope in achieving a prosperous new start in a new country. But the only job open to him - in the appalling stockyards of Packingtown, Chicago - will become a brutal, dispiriting, and dangerous challenge to his pride, his family, his life, and his faith in the American Dream. A scathing condemnation of capitalism, corporate corruption, and the exploitation of the working class, The Jungle was a sensation when first published. It stands as one the greatest and most influential proletarian novels ever written.

In this ninth volume of Glenn G. Thater’s Harbinger of Doom saga, Theta arrives at Jutenheim, hot on the heels of Korrgonn and the League of Shadows. Their fateful confrontation is fast approaching, if only they pass the Black Elf king and the ancient evils that lurk in his subterranean domain. But do the Black Elves serve the dark powers or the light?

Real estate developer Harold Longworth is facing life in prison for the murder of his wife in their Sagaponack, Long Island home. Just hired by the defense attorneys, former NYPD detective Giuseppe "Joey" Mancuso realizes that for a whole year before the trial, the attorneys have bungled the investigation. Was it on purpose? Are the attorneys covering something up? Joey and his half-brother, Father Dominic O'Brian, have 10 days before the end of the trial to find the real murderer.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky burst onto the world stage in November 1917 as coleader of a Marxist Revolution seizing power in Russia. It made him one of the most recognized personalities of the 20th century, a global icon of radical change. Yet just months earlier, this same Lev Trotsky was a nobody, a refugee expelled from Europe, writing obscure pamphlets and speeches, barely noticed outside a small circle of fellow travelers. Where had he come from to topple Russia and change the world? Where else? New York.

As he attempts to rebuild his life in rural Oregon after a tragic accident, Malcolm Mays finds himself corresponding with Dusha Chuchonnyhoof, a mysterious entity who claims to be the owner of Malcolm's house, jailed unjustly for 117 years. The prisoner demands that Malcolm perform a gory, bewildering task for him. As the clock ticks toward Dusha's release, Malcolm must attempt to find out whether he's assisting a murderer or an innocent.

Luke Abramson, a brilliant cellular biologist who is battling lung cancer, has one joy in life: his 10-year-old granddaughter, Angela. When Angela is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given less than six months to live, Luke wants to try a new enzyme, Mortality Factor 4 (MORF4), that he believes will kill Angela's tumor. However, the hospital bureaucracy won't let him do it because MORF4 has not yet been approved by the FDA. Knowing Angela will die before he can get the treatment approved, Luke abducts her from the hospital with plans to take her to a private research laboratory in Oregon.

A promising young surgeon, Andrej Koscuikso has come, with great reluctance, to study at a military orientation center adrift in black space. Against his will, he will train here to serve as a "Ship's Inquisitor" - a vocation that runs counter to his deepest moral convictions.

In The Dragon's Son, there is new hope in the form of a special offspring who might be able to bridge the anarchy that is disrupting the delicate and unseen order that the Parliament has tried to protect. The twin offspring of a high priestess and a dragon hold the key to man's future, but their identity must be held secret, even from each other, until they have matured. One is raised in a human court, the other in hiding.

In “A Smile of Fortune”, a ship’s captain meets the seemingly genial Mr. Jacobus and his irritable brother while embarking in the tropics. One a respectable businessman with a considerable reputation, the other a confessed rogue and entrepreneur with no reputation left to lose, the captain is at a loss to determine which he should befriend. In this masterly tale of misplaced loyalty, family feuds, and illicit bargaining, the captain finds himself the unwitting partner in a deeply unorthodox transaction.

The seemingly peaceful, prosperous community of Beverley Green is haunted. While certain inhabitants - the young Stella Nelson and her feckless painter-father Mr. Arthur Wilmot, who conducts a mysterious business in the City; the aristocratic Salter Boyden; and the retired businessman Merrivan - try to hide their pasts, it turns out that nothing stays secret for long. When, in this tense atmosphere, Mr. Merrivan is found murdered, the clues point to none other than Stella Nelson.

In The Breakthrough in Two Acts, Dr. Fredric C. Hartman paints a vivid picture of emotional pain and its context within the human mind and brain. Set in the dramatic backdrop of a therapy session as a stage play, featuring Dr. Hartman as the psychologist and Human Consciousness itself as “the patient”, this is a practical guide for anyone who struggles with negative or painful emotions.

John Bandicut and his companions are summoned to a star-cloud called Starmaker, known to humans as the Orion Nebula, to discover what force threatens newborn stars - and possibly every world within a thousand light-years. Their journey takes them not just into the perils of a stellar nursery, but into confrontation with the Mindaru, a billion-year-old AI and adversary of life as they know it. The task is daunting. But with the aid of Deep and Dark, sentient clouds who are perhaps the strangest beings they have met yet in their exceedingly strange journey, there may be hope.

John O'Ryan is not a god...not exactly. He is an eternal warrior destined to combat the Dark Lord through all time for dominion of the Earth. Follow him, servant of a great race, as he battles his enemy down the halls of time, from the caves of our ancestors to the final confrontation under the hammer of nuclear annihilation.

Beautiful, homicidal Julie has one lethal solution for every problem. And now Nolan and his sometime sidekick Jon have gotten on Julie's “problem” list. If a pair of out-of-town hitmen can't do the job, Julie will do it herself.

The professional hitman known as Quarry - star of the Cinemax TV miniseries of the same name - has put killing behind him. But after a beautiful writer of true-crime best sellers drops by to announce he's the subject of her next book, killers descend to give him some of his own deadly medicine, forcing Quarry to journey into his bloody past to find the answers - and settle old scores.

Katharine can’t believe what she’s seeing. Her world has always been planned and orderly, but now, she’s petrified that she’s going insane, and she’s equally afraid that she’s not. What if the strange creatures she’s seeing really are disappearing and the messages showing up in Latin actually mean something?

Do zombies scare the stuffing out of you? I'm not talking the slow ones that mindlessly stumble around moaning and tripping over their own feet. I'm talking fast zombies. Ones that will run you down, tear you to pieces, and eat you for supper. Ones that keep coming no matter what damage you do to them. Did any such creatures ever exist, except in people's imaginations? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. This seventh volume of the Harbinger of Doom saga reveals the truth about them.

Cobras: technologically enhanced warriors bred to fight an alien menace no ordinary human can withstand. Once the Cobras fought the implacable alien invaders, the Trofts, to an uneasy stalemate. But in recent years they have faced an enemy more insidious, the oppressive regime known as the Dominion of Man. Now, the Cobra Worlds find themselves under the boot heels of the Dominion, forced into what amounts to slavery, living under martial law. But two clans of Cobras - the Moreaus and the Brooms - will not stand idly by.

This second volume of The Long List Anthology is designed to recognize the short works that were nominated for the 2016 Hugo Awards but did not make it into the top five short list for the final ballot. Thus, voted into the Hugo Award's long list of works - the top 15 works nominated for each category - were these short stories and novelettes, now made available to a wider audience by award-winning narrators.