Showing results by narrator "William Dufris" in All Categories

The job was simple: decapitate the zombie, get paid, get out. Warlock Marcus Shifter followed the plan perfectly. The corpse, however, did not. Now there's a body on the loose, accusations of illegal necromancy are flying, and the answers are waiting in the perilous alleys between the mortal and paranormal worlds. They're no place for someone who mostly gave up magic after a childhood accident. And given his tendency to shoot off his mouth and his Glock, Marcus is having a hell of a time digging up more than just bodies. When an apocalypse-minded megalomaniac threatens Marcus's family, things get personal.

Here, to treasure, a new story collection from award-winning horror master Al Sarrantonio. In Halloween and Other Seasons there's a neighborhood rivalry that grows to monstrous proportions, a hedgerow with an appetite, the ultimate Charles Fort story, and the end of the world from the beginning. Halloween and Other Seasons contains 18 gems of weirdness, including Al Sarrantonio's very first published story.

"I'm a free and independent dog!" That's how K-10 likes to think of himself. But life on the road can get lonely, and as K-10's travels bring him into contact with a range of dogs, he begins to wonder if being a wanderer really is the best life for a dog. Filled with great canine characters, this novel is both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching.

Speed: the most demonized - and misunderstood - drug in the land. Deprived of the ingrained romantic mysticism of the opiate or the cosmopolitan chic of cocaine or the mundane tolerance of marijuana, there is no sympathy for this devil. Yet speed - crystal meth, amphetamines, Dexedrine, Benzedrine, Adderall; crank, spizz, chickenscratch, oblivious marching powder, the go-fast - is the most American of drugs: twice the productivity at half the cost, and equal opportunity for all.

Once the great Glacier enclosed the Raumsdalian Empire. Now it has broken open, and Count Hamnet Thyssen faces a new world. With the wisecracking Ulric Skakki, the neighboring clan leader Trasamund (politely addressed as "Your Ferocity"), and his lover, the shaman Liv, Hamnet leads an exploration of the new territory in hopes of finding the legendary Golden Shrine.

The glaciers came and covered the world with ice. Now they are in retreat. North of the city of Nidaros, north of the forest, north of the steppes where the nomadic Bizogots hunt, a gap has opened in the ice-wall. And down through that gap come the men who call themselves "Rulers." Their terrifying cavalry rides wooly mammoths. Their bows can shoot arrows farther than those of the southerners.

The Colonial Defense Forces usually protect humanity from alien attack, but now the stability of the Colonial Union has been threatened, and Lieutenant Heather Lee and her squad are called to squash a rebellion on a colony world. It seems simple enough - but there's a second act to the rebellion that finds Lee captive, alone, and armed with only her brains to survive.

In the age of Trump, our society is defined by fear. Indeed, three out of four Americans say they feel more fearful today than they did only a couple decades ago. But are we living in exceptionally perilous times? In his best-selling work The Culture of Fear, sociologist Barry Glassner demonstrates it is our perception of danger that has increased, not the actual level of risk.

There's a turning point in every war, but I didn't expect this one to be in my front yard. Allies of the Fae king have moved against the military stationed in Saint Charles. Our unsteady alliances are threatening to fracture, providing the water witches and vampires an opportunity to strike. With losses on both sides, things are far more dire than we realized, and the return of a long-forgotten enemy has made that clear. Thankfully, I know a very grumpy parrot.

If there's one thing Warlock Marcus Shifter hates, it's the Delwinn Council, the governing body of the magical community. Between the grudges many on the council harbor because he walked away from magic and his suspicions that someone is working to undermine a 20-year peace with the nonmagical Normals, they really don't get along. Marcus has spent months hunting the traitor, infiltrating the Council and helping with "menial tasks" like repairing unstable rifts in the fabric of reality.

When private detective Sam Blackman agrees to help his partner and lover, Nakayla Robertson, conduct a fundraiser for orphaned twins, he does so to ease his conscience. The boys' parents were killed in a courtroom shootout where Sam was the key witness against the twins' father. The charity event, a nighttime ghost tour of the legendary haunted sites of Asheville, North Carolina, seems harmless enough.

It was only a simple, routine assignment for private investigator Sam Blackman and his partner, Nakayla Robertson: follow a history professor, who is suing a spinal surgeon for malpractice, and catch her in physical activities that undercut her claim.

Marsha Montgomery comes to the office asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate a burglary at her mother’s home. In 1967 someone stole a rifle and a photograph of Marsha’s mother, grandmother, and great grandmother taken in 1932 by renowned photographer Doris Ulmann. Marsha’s visit is no coincidence: The photograph was taken at the Kingdom of the Happy Land. Sam’s being played, but why? When Marsha’s 85-year-old mother, Lucille, is arrested for murder, Sam has his answer and his case. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy Lang - Lucille’s lover and Marsha’s white father - who disappeared in 1967?

Experience firsthand the bloodiest battle of the Civil war, through the eyes of two young teenage military officers - one from the North and one from the South. Corporal Thomas Galway was a 17-year-old Union soldier, while 19-year-old John Dooley fought for the South. Murphy expertly weaves excerpts from their journals with vivid descriptions of the brutal realities of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War in general.

Kate Chopin was an American novelist and short story writer. Scholars consider her to have been a forerunner of 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald, and she is among the most recognized writers of Louisiana Creole heritage. She is best known today for her 1899 novel The Awakening.

Robert Irwin is America's #1 real estate expert. But don't take our word for it—the sales figures speak for themselves. Featuring fully revised facts and figures that reflect the most recent changes in the real estate market, his Tips and Traps When Buying a Home, Third Edition provides first-time and experienced home buyers alike with practical, step-by-step information on a broad range of proven home buying strategies, along with indispensable advice and guidance on buying in an "Up" market, "Flipping," bidding wars, the new rules of closing costs, and more.

Purple and perplexed, Pleskit Meenom needs advice on how to deal with the challenges of his new life on Earth. Normally he would ask his best friend, Tim Tompkins, but the two boys have been tricked into a feud. So instead he turns to his Grandfatherly One - or, at least, the brain of that wise old man, which is all the family has left of him. But perhaps the Grandfatherly One is not as wise as they all would like to believe, since he convinces Pleskit to take him to school in the portable Brain Transport Device. And that's when things really start to go wrong.

Pleskit Meenom, the first alien to go to school on Earth, is starting to fit in with his new class. It's not easy, given how slippery the language is. (Just how many meanings does the word "cool" have, anyway?) But the biggest problem is Jordan Lynch, the class bully who just can't resist picking on the new kid. Finally Pleskit and his new best friend, Tim Tompkins, decide to take action. But taking action when you have alien technology at your disposal can mean taking things just a little too far...and we do mean little!

The aliens have made contact! But because they consider Earth a small, backwater planet, they send only one ambassador. The ambassador brings along his son, Pleskit, and (for political reasons) insists the boy should attend a regular school. Science-fiction loving Tim Tompkins is desperate to befriend the alien...and Pleskit is going to need a friend, because someone is trying to sabotage the mission.

Stock markets rise, and stock markets fall, but real estate is almost always a sure thing, especially in today's increasingly unpredictable investment climate. That's why more and more average Americans are becoming interested in pursuing real estate investing. How to Get Started in Real Estate Investing shows them how. Writing for investors with little or no experience in real estate, best-selling real estate author Bob Irwin walks listeners through all the ins and outs of real estate investing.