Showing results by narrator "Chris David" in All Categories

The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Across the country and in every nation, people began “coming up Latent,” developing terrifying powers - summoning storms, raising the dead, and setting everything they touch ablaze. Those who Manifest must choose: become a sheepdog who protects the flock or a wolf who devours it. In the wake of a bloody battle at Forward Operating Base Frontier and a presidential impeachment, Lieutenant Colonel Jan Thorsson, call sign “Harlequin,” becomes a national hero and a pariah to the military that is the only family he’s ever known.

Jon-Tom and his friends have seen better days. After his motley crew moved heaven and Earth to save civilization at the battle of Jo-Troom Gate, his merry band went its separate ways. Mudge, the foul-mouthed otter, eagerly returned to thieving, drinking, and whoring, while Talea, the girl of Jon-Tom’s dreams, embarked on her own adventures, leaving him to study magic with Clothahump, the irascible wizard whose inept spell trapped him in this weird otherworld in the first place.

In the future, the leaders of Hive nations–nations without fixed location–clandestinely committed nefarious deeds in order to maintain an outward semblance of utopian stability. But the facade could only last so long. The comforts of effortless global travel and worldwide abundance may have tempered humanity's darkest inclinations, but conflict remains deeply rooted in the human psyche. All it needed was a catalyst, in form of special little boy to ignite half a millennium of repressed chaos.

Hansel and Gretel are sent into the forest by their mother to collect berries as a punishment. The siblings get lost in the twilight and discover the gingerbread house of an old ugly witch. She enchants the children and wants to bake them into gingerbread. Hansel and Gretel use their wits to save themselves and push the wicked old woman into her own oven. The children are finally found by their worried parents, who are looking for them in the forest. In the end the family is happily united.

In all the horrific corners of the Civil War, there was no hell worse than Andersonville, the Confederate prison camp. Less infamous but equally inhumane was a Yankee prison camp run by General Thomas Wainwright. In the war’s aftermath, a survivor of Wainwright’s cruelty summons Joe Buckhorn to New Orleans, and asks the gunslinger to kill the general — not simply for revenge, but to stop another atrocity.

Jon-Tom has been trapped in a strange land of talking owls and wizarding turtles for a year now, his sole consolation that in this universe his musical abilities have inadvertently made him something of a sorcerer. But when an encounter with some burglars leads to him snapping the magical duar that channels his power, he finds himself an ordinary human again — on a quest to repair his instrument with nothing but his staff and his semi-faithful, ever-complaining otter sidekick to defend him.

It’s an ordinary day in the Bellwoods, save for the fact that Jon-Tom the spellsinger has awoken as a six-foot blue crab. He soon reverts to normal — as normal as a college student trapped in a world of magic and talking animals can be, anyway — but the bizarre changes keep happening, affecting not just him but the whole of this strange world. His wizardly mentor suspects these are the effects of the perambulator, a cosmic being whose presence distorts reality.

In California, Frank Morgan nearly found a home. But now he’s pulled up stakes and hit the road again, aiming to reach the high desert of Arizona. For Frank, the plan changes when he steps into a saloon in a dusty boom town called Los Angeles. That’s where he learns that his nemesis, Val Dooley, has found a new business: the selling of young women into prostitution, with the victims as young as 12 years old and the survivors ending up drugged and beaten.

In 1866, the border between the U.S. and Mexico is a hotbed of gunrunners, mercenaries, and the Emperor of Mexico's spies, saboteurs and double agents. On top of which, West Texas is plagued by Comanche warriors. Into this mix ride two massive gangs of the meanest, most kill-happy bunch of bloodthirsty ravagers to ever draw a breath. Sam Heller and Johnny Cross have got the marauders in their sights, but they aren't ready for the slaughter and destruction the raiders unleash on Hangtree County.

In the depths of Calth's arcology network, the Underworld War has raged for years. Aeonid Thiel, previously an honoured sergeant of the Ultramarines, once again finds himself in trouble. Pitted against the daemonic forces of the Word Bearers, he has no choice but to venture back to the ravaged surface and brave the deadly solar flares that have scoured all life from this world.

It all started one night when a selfless woman helped a drunken stranger get home safely from a club. Little did they both know that after that one night, their lives would change forever. A friendship was forged, an undeniable love was born, and secrets were revealed that took them on the journey of a lifetime. A family was created: a daughter and a son who were Connor and Ellery's world.

What started as a routine hunt and grab - putting outlaw Thorp McCluskey on a train to Cheyenne and prison - has just gone straight to hell for bounty hunter Luke Jensen. First came the beautiful prostitute who pointed her alluring attentions in Luke’s direction. Then came a man who fought by Luke’s side in the war - but the war is over and friendships can turn deadly. Luke gets bushwacked, his prisoner is gone, and so is a fortune in gold. Now Luke is riding back into the Wyoming wilderness to hunt down McCluskey and his woman to finish what he started.

In the title story, "Dark Nocturne", D is hired to unlock the secret of a siren's song that is drawing men in their twenties to their deaths in the hills outside Anise Village. In "Notes on Imagined Autumn", D finds himself caught between two lovers during a ritualistic sacrifice in the village of Shirley's Door, but if D can't stop the sacrifice will all in the village be doomed? And in "Legend of the War Demons", two living weapons, genetically engineered creatures who are the last remnants of a war waged hundreds of years in the past, find that battle is not so easily forgotten.

Catholic priests don't generally have children, but Australian legend Father Chris Riley has brought up about 60,000 – and they're some of the toughest kids around. He regularly encounters some of the most troubled children on Earth – kids who have given up or refuse to talk to others, who steal, take drugs, see themselves as irredeemable failures, hate everyone and everything, self-harm, have been abused or abuse other kids, and prostitute themselves.

They call her the Ghost of Dunhill Cemetery, but most people think “the Cemetery Girl” is just a story. In some ways, that’s true. Her chosen name is Calexa Rose Dunhill, but she doesn’t know her real name. When she first arrived here, all she knew was that someone had tried to murder her, dumped her body, and left her for dead. Calexa has been hiding out, afraid to seek out her true identity in fear that her would-be murderer would find her and finish the job. And someone is searching for her...a man who holds the key that will unlock the secrets of Calexa’s past.

She calls herself Calexa Rose Dunhill. She has been living - hiding out - in Dunhill Cemetery ever since someone left her there to die. She has no idea who wants her dead or why, but she isn't about to wait around for her would-be killer to finish the job. Despite her self-imposed isolation, Calexa’s ability to see spirits - and the memories she receives from them - guarantees she’ll never be alone, even among the deceased.

In the year leading up to the Iowa Caucuses, few thought a freshman senator named Barack Hussein Obama would be able to win the Democratic nomination - not to mention become the country's first black president. But something was stirring. Hundreds of young people from all over the country, inspired by a message of hope and change, began assembling in Iowa. These 'kids' became the foundation of one of the most improbable presidential campaigns of our lifetime.

For Smoke and Sally Jensen, the Sugarloaf Ranch is the American Dream come true. A glorious stretch of untamed land near the Colorado-Kansas border, it’s the perfect place to stake their claim, raise some cattle, and start a new family. But when a man claiming to be an army colonel arrives in Big Rock—with a well-armed militia—the Jensens’ dream becomes a living nightmare. This stranger calls himself Colonel Lamar Talbot. He’s come to warn them about a looming war with the Cheyenne Indians. And only he can save them from a bloody massacre—by launching a counterattack that’s even bloodier.

In this chilling adventure, Vampire Hunter D has been dispatched to vanquish the ancient vampiric Noble Count Braujou, guardian of an ancient buried treasure. But when a mysterious object crashes into the earth, destroying half of the northern Frontier, D faces an even more terrifying opponent—the renegade vampire Valcua, the Ultimate Noble! Having been exiled to outer space, Valcua took his entire kingdom of strange and deadly creatures with him, and swore that when the time was right they would return to have their revenge.

More than 1,500 years after his disappearance into the mists of Avalon, King Arthur has returned. This time, he's prepared to rule the Camelot of a new millennium: New York City. Handsome, charismatic Arthur Penn is running for mayor on a platform of common sense, humor, and knightly virtues. His advisors include a gifted 10-year-old named Merlin; Percival, an immortal accountant; and Gwen, a lovely young woman with no end of problems.