Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

Ted Finley is your average suburban nerd, but when a group of thugs threaten to kill innocent people, something incredible happens. Gifted superhuman abilities during a seemingly random brunch, Ted quickly transforms from a nobody into a viral video sensation. Forced to navigate school and life with his newfound powers and fame proves to be difficult, but Ted’s biggest challenge lies ahead. He’s not the only one with powers....

Wildfires have been part of the American landscape for thousands of years. Forests need fire—it's as necessary to their well-being as soil and sunlight. But some fires burn out of control, destroying everything and everyone in their path.

With the graveyard that was Washington, DC, now in their wake, Jack and the group head west toward the Mojave Desert. There, in the scorching hot wasteland, an organization known as Central works to cleanse the world of the zombie virus. But Central can't operate without Doc Klein. They need his superior intellect and tenacity. So Jack's mission is simple: Deliver Klein to their base unharmed. But the survivors don't know the entire story behind the cure, and someone in Jack's circle does. This secret could very well tear the family apart.

Isolated in the aftermath of tragedy, Erin Fullarton has felt barely alive since the loss of her young daughter, Korrie. Her estranged husband, Zac, a brilliant astrophysicist, seems to be coping better. Lost in his work, he's perfecting his model of a stunning cosmological phenomenon, one he predicts will occur today. But when Erin receives a phone call from her daughter's school, the same call she received 500 days earlier when Korrie was still alive, Erin realizes something is happening. Or happening again.

Their work complete, Kyle and his guild leave Tolsa. The rebellion against Arndale is spreading, the economy is destroyed. They took everyone with them when they fled the doomed world, including their new allies the M-Wolves. Kyle wants to begin his final missions: rescue his familiar, meet Motaki’s mech challenge, and save the Denti homeworld. Yet, Kyle is nowhere near ready, and he knows it. They must upgrade and train every possible second, or everything will be lost. Arndale has other plans, and attacks the orphans on Cinna forcing Kyle to reverse course.

What happens when a superhero becomes the world’s greatest villain? Ted Finley isn’t himself. Enslaved in his own mind, he’s forced to live the life of his deadliest enemy. Erica LaPlante has lost hope. The treaty that torched her purpose may destroy everything she loves as well. As Natalie fights her demons and Jennifer considers a new definition of family, Earth’s greatest threat looms large....

Even in the 21st century, the popular image of a scientist is a reclusive genius in a lab coat, mixing formulas or working out equations inaccessible to all but the initiated few. The idea that scientists are somehow smarter than the rest of us is a common yet dangerous misconception, getting us off the hook for not knowing or caring how the world works.

What happens when a bunch of 30-year-old degenerates survive an apocalyptic zombie outbreak? They get into even more trouble in the aftermath. Duh. That's right, Charlie Campbell and several of his loser friends have escaped a nightmare Chicago fraught with zombies and an occupying army, only to find the wild-lands beyond aren't any safer.

When Mark Ryder's latest mission turns into a bloodbath, he'll find himself alone on the shores of an alien moon hunted by insects the size of skyscrapers. Now, if he wants to get off this rock alive, he'll have to cut a bloody swathe through the bug queen's elite army, rendezvous with the all-female Artemis squad, and blow the whole thing to Kingdom Come without getting killed.

Liberty and justice for all is the bedrock of American democracy, but has America betrayed our founders’ vision for the nation? In When They Come For You, New York Times best-selling author David Kirby exposes federal, state, and local violations of basic constitutional rights that should trouble every American, whether liberal, conservative, or libertarian. Free speech, privacy, protection from unreasonable search and seizure, due process, and equal protection under the law are rights that belong to every American citizen but are being shredded at an alarming rate.

I'm Cisco Suarez, and a week ago I was dead. Cursed into serving a clandestine shadow group, I have a lot of blood on my hands. Good thing I also have a juvenile problem with authority. I'm not taking orders anymore, and the first thing on my bucket list is bringing them down. If I'm good at anything, it's looking in dark places. But I've got shadows of my own. Horrific deeds coming back to haunt me, and not the metaphorical kind of haunting, either. I'm talking ghosts, mages, and that thing with the glowing red eyes.

With Eden now behind Jack, he and the group set out to find the mysterious Doc Klein, who may know how to put a stop to the zombie plague and bring peace back to our world. But the task won't be an easy one. While traveling through the wasted East Coast, Jack and the gang get caught in a war between two groups - human cannibals and the Wranglers, the latter led by an ancient, clairvoyant woman named Mother. It is Mother who warns Jack of the Doc's insanity.

Madness and incantations in the nightmares of poets. Vicious ancient cults in the mountains and swamps. A corpse city rising in the sea. After Professor Angell meets a sudden and mysterious end, Francis Thurston, while sorting through his uncle's papers, makes a fateful discovery that ties these malignant manifestations together.

Raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and frustrated with their parents' repressive rules, Bryan and David Freeman rebelled as teenagers. Encouraged by an acquaintance he met while institutionalized at a reform school, Bryan became a neo-Nazi. Bryan then indoctrinated David, and their flair for defiance took a dark turn. After callously murdering their father, mother, and younger brother, the skinhead brothers took flight across America, with police from three states in hot pursuit.

In the feverish, money-making age of railroad barons, political machines, and gold rushes, corruption was the rule, not the exception. Yet the Republican mogul "Big Alex" McKenzie defied even the era's standard for avarice. Charismatic and shameless, he arrived in the new Alaskan territory intent on controlling gold mines and draining them of their ore. Miners who had rushed to the frozen tundra to strike gold were appalled at his unabashed deviousness. A Most Wicked Conspiracy recounts McKenzie's plot to rob the gold fields.

Still heading east, but now with two new companions, Jack Jupiter's goals have changed. Not only does he crave revenge against the one-eyed man, he now aims to save his brother from the clutches of the District. But Norm has been brainwashed into becoming the Overlord's second-in-command, and with every passing minute, the District grows stronger while our heroes grow weaker.

The stories in this anthology range from quietly strange to ambitiously speculative. Humans transform into cosmic energy or sentient algae. A man wakes up in a new body in a world with continents cut out, months absent from the calendar year, and souls misplaced. Students at a high school regularly vanish without a trace. A woman descends into the depths of the ocean and encounters all-knowing creatures who may have the answers to her deepest questions.

Kyle Tait, having survived the harrowing, cross-country journey home to his family, must now struggle for existence in a post-EMP world that no one could have imagined just three short months prior. Each day brings new challenges - how to fight the bitter cold, where to scavenge food for the table, and how to best fend off intruders and keep their community safe. As the cold, dark days of winter begin the slow transition to spring, the Tait family is faced with a challenge that dwarfs all others.

For too long, victims have been told to be quiet, to keep a secret, to be ashamed, to be blamed, and we now say, "No more." It is time to speak. It is time to form a chorus of voices that demand change. This anthology is a way to channel those experiences into something inspiring, moving, and encourages others to action.

All Azure wants to do is leave The Realm, but the Bower Boys throw a wrench in his plans. Mistakes that Azure made when he first joined The Adventurers Guild come back to haunt him. Uden flexes between good and evil once more as he's put in a precarious situation. Is vengeance worth endangering all of your friends and possibly dying for? Azure answers that question with steel, taking a path he never thought he'd travel. Once he set foot down it, there was no going back. Decisions were made and someone will pay the ultimate price.