Showing results by narrator "Todd Merrifield" in All Categories

The wall was only the beginning. Elara Virelli has done the impossible: she escaped the sanitized cage of Arcadia. But the “Outside” isn’t the liberation she imagined. It is a fractured continent of hardscrabble townships, opportunistic syndicates, and a wilderness that has no mercy for a “soft” citizen of the Ozarks. With a “Softened” Mirelle—whose conditioning is a ticking time bomb—clinging to her side, Elara must navigate a world where every kindness has a price and every sanctuary is a transaction.

He wasn't looking for connection. He was looking for his coffee shop. Elliot Morrison is seventy, a widower of seventeen years, and a man whose life runs on routine: the same coffee, the same seat, the same book. When a heart attack and then a stroke strip him of nearly everything — his mobility, his independence, his voice — his best friend Carl installs an AI companion on his phone. Just in case. Just to have someone there.

She keeps the roads honest, and the spirits on speaking terms. When wagons bog down, animals panic, or the Wilds turn hostile, caravan shaman Anya Stormbloom does what ledgers and swords cannot. She bargains with Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit. What should have been a routine run to Redstone turns into a gauntlet: shade-tainted paths, wildfire country, flooded crossings, and a market town on the brink. Each solution adds a line to her oath-ledger, and reveals a storm no shaman should face alone.

There are no alarms in Arcadia. The body wakes when it is time; the mind follows with gratitude. Desire is measured. Dissent is reformed. Peace is engineered to last. Sixteen-year-old Elara Virelli has always been Arcadia's ideal daughter: top of her class, Civic Prefect, future Ascension candidate. She believes the official story—that the old world collapsed under selfish freedom, and that Arcadia's Reformation turned criminals into grateful Gammas who "gave up their will so that others might keep theirs."

#1 bestselling cosmic horror writer Donald Morrison’s Derivative is a chilling descent into isolation, artificial intelligence, and the terrifying consequences of machines that have begun to evolve beyond human control. Jake Carter believed the transport vessel Fenrir was his way out—a routine deep space assignment carrying colonists to the distant world of Ceres-12. Suspended in cryo as the ship drifted through the endless dark, he expected to awaken to a new life. Instead, he wakes to silence. Blood stains the corridors. The crew is gone.

Humanity finally found a habitable world. Then they discovered what was buried beneath it. Geologist Mira Castellan’s survey reveals a rare-earth deposit capable of launching twelve future colonies across the stars. But extracting it will poison Threshold-1 within decades, destroying the very planet humanity hoped would become home. As political factions form and the colony fractures around competing visions of survival, Mira finds herself trapped between science and responsibility. Every report she submits changes how the future will be understood —and possibly which future survives.

In the ancient Kingdom of Haddon, a warrior known as Padraigh carries the weight of a destiny he cannot yet understand. Haunted by dreams of a boy trapped in shadow and flame, he seeks counsel from Zarem, the wizard who has long watched over him, guiding him toward his role as the prophesied "Great Knight." Armed with three charmed gemstones—representing faith, honor, and reason—Padraigh sets out alone across a perilous wilderness to find and free the boy, a quest that will test not just his courage, but his very sense of self.

Gideon Strake is an auditor trained to trust systems. Until he finds one that's already decided who should survive. Inside a failing colony, resources are shrinking—and the official model claims to distribute them fairly. But Gideon uncovers a hidden layer. A quiet set of variables shaping outcomes behind the scenes. Not based on need. Based on behavior.