Showing results by narrator "Ray Porter" in All Categories

Working with a team to analyze and defeat external threats to U.S. security, Dan must deal with a terrorist plot to smuggle in dirty-bomb material using the established drug-cartel methods. In the meantime, there's an internal threat from disgruntled military elements involving an attempt on the president's life using the "football": the mysterious suitcase that accompanies the president at all times, containing the codes and protocols to launch a nuclear strike.

The world is in the grip of an epidemic of sleeplessness and one man will risk everything to find out what caused it. In his signature style of fast-paced action, outrageous violence, and graphically described scenes, we are tossed into a dramatic turbulence unlike anything you've ever read or heard.

No one - friend or foe - wants to take on this band of marauders. After all, they don’t call them the Rat Bastards for nothing. But now this bunch of mavericks, once welded together into a crack fighting unit, is coming unstuck between battles. It’ll take the music of gunfire to bring the grimy gang back to life. And blood is the only life they know....

The collection’s title novella, "The Farmer’s Daughter,” opens in the unforgettable voice of a 15-year-old girl living a life of solitude in rural Montana, where she has recently moved. Home-schooled by parents who don’t fully understand her, she finds escape in the rapture of playing piano and exploring the gorgeous countryside on her horse.

In this short story from New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, a young soldier returns from the Middle East and discovers that there is another - and much stranger - war to be fought in his hometown.

The Ascendant Humans have conquered Earth and banished mankind to a distant star. There, the refugees war in space over the resources rationed to them. In an orbital habitat, Commander Rylan Shaw labors against the inter-colony arms trafficking when an informant gives him horrific news. The ruthless cartel boss, Lilith, has stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Worse, she has permission from the Wardens, humanity's robot overlords, to unleash them upon the system.

The stories of The Path of Most Resistance feature curious nonconformists who find themselves pushing back against strange and oppressive social norms. They are mavericks who transgress the boundaries of convention in their strive for freedom and authenticity. No matter if they’re in a Silicon Valley office, the far reaches of space, or dystopian futures where relationships are subjected to totalitarian control, the characters show unshakable conviction in a world plagued with uncertainty.

In this chilling story from New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, a cemetery worker in Pine Deep begins to suspect that the dead are not resting easy in their graves.

Dog Star was first published in the April 1962 issue of Galaxy. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

With the same profound attention to detail that is a hallmark of his previous acclaimed works of fiction National Book Award winner Ha Jin gives us a collection of stories that delves into the experience of Chinese immigrants in America. Ha Jin depicts here the full spectrum of immigrant life and the daily struggles - some minute, some grand - faced by these men, women, and children.

Edgar Laplante was a small-time grifter, an erstwhile vaudeville performer, and an unabashed charmer. But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with medicine shows, he decided to undertake the most demanding and bravura performance of his life. In the fall of 1917, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader - and total fraud.

Send them out on leave and they’re a ragged band of losers who will tear any town apart. Bring them back and they’re the most effective bloodletting machine the Japanese have ever had to face. The Rat Bastards. The MPs can’t bust them because the Army needs them to win the war. This time they’re faced with their bloodiest challenge ever, as the brass sends them on a trop to the closest thing to hell on earth…The Pacific war zone known as Nightmare Alley.

From the introduction by Les Standiford: "The truth is that Miami, though naturally lovely, is a frontier town, perched on the border between the known and the rarely before experienced. The poet Richard Hugo once said that the natural place for the writer was on the edge, and 'edge' might well be the definitive word when it comes to this city... We are not only on the edge of the continent, we are to this country what New York was in Ellis Island's heyday, what the West Coast was in the middle of the 20th century.

In this short story from Beneath the Skin, Sam tackles another case worthy of his particular skill set.

Mystery sensation Pelecanos pens the lead story and edits this groundbreaking collection of stories detailing the seedy underside of the nation's capital. This is not an anthology of ill-conceived and inauthentic political thrillers. Instead, in D.C. Noir, pimps, whores, gangsters, and con-men run rampant in zones of this city that most never hear about.

The Lucians have faltered in their fight against the cruel Ascendant overlord, Cef. Now, a handful of survivors from a failed liberation campaign have been called to a Final Challenge in a madman’s arena. For Rylan, Geeta, Scott and Aila, this may be their only opportunity to make peace with those they love. It will certainly be their last, best chance to save mankind from an endless cycle of genocidal slaughter.

This story collection by one of the preeminent writers of this generation traces the arc of an entire career and - in this manifold exploration of delusion, fame, and experience - displays anew McInerney's rare ability to unveil and recreate the manic flux of our society.

Jim Harrison takes us on a journey of the human heart in three new novellas. Julip follows a bright and resourceful young woman as she tries to spring her brother from a Florida jail after he shot three of her former lovers. The Seven-Ounce Man continues the picaresque adventures of Brown Dog, a Michigan scoundrel who loves to eat, drink, and chase women. The Beige Dolorosa is the haunting tale of an academic who, recovering from the repercussions of a sexual-harassment scandal, turns to the natural world for solace.

Gary Foster's life is finally heading in the right direction. After years of trying, his wife, Beth, is pregnant, and he recently opened a business with his brother. But after collapsing suddenly, Beth is rushed to the hospital. Tests reveal a devastating diagnosis: an inoperable brain tumor. Their only hope is an expensive experimental treatment, with a cost that's out of their reach. And Beth's time is running out. Then a strange man approaches Gary and offers the money he needs, on one condition: that he kill someone, no questions asked. End one life to save another.

They’re bad news wherever they go. Slogging their way through steaming jungles choked with blood. Digging out from the stone-cold tunnels of an underground tomb. To them, death is just a sick joke - a joke played on anyone dumb enough to stand in their way. The Rat Bastards. Nothing is more important to them than winning.