Showing results by narrator "Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki" in All Categories

After the world's governments collapsed, the corporations took control. Houston's Pulsystems has sent an expedition to the lost Martian colony of Frontera to search for survivors, but Reese, aging hero of the US space program, knows better. The colonists are not only alive; they have discovered a secret so devastating that the new rulers of Earth will stop at nothing to own it.

Imagine… Ghosts, gods, and devils - heavens and hells - cities in the sky and cities beneath the sea. Time machines, spaceships - certainly you can imagine Martians, but what about interplanetary vampires? Or a mouse that isn't a mouse? Honeymoon in Hell proves that Fredric Brown has a special vision, a sight beyond our wildest nightmares, a perception of things we couldn't even begin to imagine.

In stories like "A Night in the Cemetery," "Night of Horror," and "Murder," not only will Chekhov's dark humor and twisted crimes satisfy even the most hardboiled of mystery fans, but readers will again appreciate the penetrating, absurdist insight into the human condition that only Chekhov can bring. Whether it is the death of a young amateur playwright at the hands of an editor who hates bad writing, or a drunken civil servant who ends up trapped in a graveyard, these stories overflow with the unforgettable characters and unique sensibility that will forever make Chekhov one of the most fascinating figures in literature.

Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, with the help of his friend newspaper reporter Hutchison Hatch, solves a variety of mysteries using cold, hard logic. No matter how twisted the trail of clues or how clever the perpetrator, Professor Van Dusen, aptly dubbed “The Thinking Machine”, reminds us that “two and two make four, not some times, but all the time”.

Silvariah Frandelle, the famed “Miner Girl” who escaped certain death on Mars, wants nothing more than a stable life on Earth, free from the trauma of the past. Lazarus Penn stands in her way. No device or tactic is beneath him as he fights to take possession of her and everything that belongs to her. From the courts of Guam City, the tourist haven floating in space, to the depths of the sea, to the streets of Old Seattle, he sets forces in pursuit, both human and otherwise, to regain his power over her and take possession of her as is - he believes - his right.

Ray Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science-fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in Ignorance Is Strength.

Silvariah Frandelle, a brilliant and beautiful business woman, falls from wealth and success into exile and poverty, indentured - barely one step above slavery - as an off-world laborer to escape prison. Her last calculated risk as a free woman, paid for with years of service, becomes the key to surviving hostile environments. Space, gravity, and Mars wastelands were expected. Intrusive AIs, obscure experiments, and shadowy foes were not.

Lewis Dodd, a young, troubled composer, arrives at “Sanger’s Circus”, a wild gathering consisting of precocious children, a slovenly mistress, and an assortment of hangers-on in the Austrian Alps overseen by the eccentric Albert Sanger, a composer himself. Tessa, Sanger’s lively 14-year-old daughter, falls in love with their handsome visitor. After Albert’s death leaves Tessa and her siblings penniless, they must implore extended family members for assistance. Florence, Tessa’s 28-year-old cousin, graciously steps in to help and she falls in love with Lewis.

As the early years of detective fiction gave way to two separate golden ages - of hard-boiled tales in America and intricately-plotted, so-called “cozy” murders in Britain - the legacy of Sherlock Holmes, with his fierce devotion to science and logic, gave way to street smarts on the one hand and social insight on the other, but even though these new sub-genres went their own ways, their detectives still required intelligence and clear-sightedness as characterized the earliest works of detective fiction: the trademarks of Sherlock Holmes, and of all the detectives featured here.

Science fiction dwells mostly in the realm of possibility, where mysteries proliferate nevertheless, meaning is never static, and “time and history have convinced us that things are not as they seem”. So, too, does all language, argues Samuel Delany, in his vigorous justification for the writing life. Chronicling his struggle with dyslexia, the evolution of his gay and Black identity during the AIDS crisis, and his experiences and relationships through five decades as a writer of fiction and nonfiction, Delany is a longtime observer of language’s inner workings.

Into the darkness within; or else the light.... When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, more than a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

In the Kingdom of Estala, sorcerers called the Menti are outlawed, and religious fervour spreads throughout the realm. When Reva Avalon's parents are murdered during the Menti uprising, King Davead of Estala takes her into his care. But instead of marrying Prince Luca, as the King promised, she is sold to the severe General Unna of the King's army. When she is abruptly released from his clutches, Reva embarks on a journey through Estala, with more adventure, danger, and heartbreak than she could ever have imagined. Prince Luca, the king's second son, has always lived in the shadow of his beloved older brother. Sickly and weak, Luca fears he may be on his deathbed, but in a shocking turn of events, Luca finds himself at the centre of a power so great it may consume him. Luca must learn to control his powers in order to hide them, but can he hide his new gifts of sorcery from his father?

Witness as Arsène Lupin boldly makes a name for himself as a gentleman-thief in “Madame Imbert’s Safe” and “The Queen’s Necklace”. In “The Arrest of Arsène Lupin”, passengers onboard a transatlantic steamer fear for their valuables when the captain announces that Arsène Lupin has snuck onto the ship...and he could be disguised as anyone. Just when it seems like there is no match for him, Lupin goes head-to-head with the famous English detectives Sherlock Holmes and Herlock Sholmes.

Basic training is over. For 11-year-old Robbi, the real work on the Laddertop station begins…even as its strange, dark secrets grow more compelling. With the help of mentally linked robot companions, she and an elite crew of children perform the dangerous maintenance work on the Power Web. But only Robbi keeps having urgent dreams from The Givers, the alien species who bestowed upon humans all the Laddertop technology.

Originally published in 1886, the nine stories in this collection encapsulate Sarah Orne Jewett’s love and reverence for nature; her affinity for understanding complex, nuanced, and often strained relationships; and—just as her father encouraged her—her ability to write not about things, but to “write the things themselves just as they are.”

Four curiously gifted children from different parts of the world come together in a kingdom ruled by a peanut brittle-addicted monarch who wishes to destroy their uniqueness in his quest for absolute power.

In an attempt to soothe growing Cold War tensions between America and Russia, Premier Nikita Khrushchev visits the US to see all that his “enemy” has to offer. Top of his to-do list? A trip to Disneyland and an introduction to sexual icon Marilyn Monroe. Thanks to the impossible security requirements, Disneyland is out of the question. Marilyn, on the other hand, jumps at the chance to put on a show for the Russian official. During her appearance, she overhears the details of an assassination plot designed to spark an atomic holocaust and devastate both superpowers.

From the haunted hills of Roman Britain to the sewers of occupied Warsaw … in the bloodied streets of Revolutionary Paris, and the anarchy World War II Shanghai … out of the wilds of America, India, Africa and Europe … down the long savage darkness of the centuries, monsters have fed upon us. They are shapeshifters, vampires, sorcerers and spirits—things named only in myth, and things for which we have no name. They are our demons, our reflections, our desires and our nightmares. And all too often, they are … only human.

Micah Abrams has been transformed. No longer the bully who tormented David Donner, he faithfully follows a divine mission to spread hope and healing across the ashy wastelands of the Pacific Northwest. But when Sera Donner is taken from him once again, doubt comes prowling for Micah's own soul, and he makes a shocking choice that changes everything. Running from an enemy he once believed couldn't destroy him, adrift in a lawless land where people will do anything to survive, Micah must come to grips with a God whose power is perfected in weakness.

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. This volume of The Lock and Key Library is sure to haunt and charm fans of ghost and detective mysteries alike.