Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

For many years, the protagonist and his uncle, Dr. Elihu Whipple, have nurtured a dark fascination with an ancient, abandoned house on Benefit Street in Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. Whipple has made extensive records tracking the mysterious yet apparently coincidental sickness, madness, and death of many who have lived in the house over its 150-year existence.

Over the past two years, a group of four players had given so much to their role-playing world that it had developed a magic of its own. The creatures, warriors, sorcerers, thieves—all came alive. Now, there is an odd connection between the gamers and their characters, splitting into factions to determine the fate of the Game itself, and both the inside and the outside worlds. One thing is for certain. Hexworld will never be the same.

Dorian Lake spent years cornering the Baltimore hex-crafting market, using his skills at the hermetic arts to exact karmic justice for those whom the system has failed. He keeps his magic clean and free of soul-corrupting Netherwork, thus avoiding both the karmic blow-back of his practice and the notice of the Presidium, a powerful cabal of practitioners that polices the esoteric arts in America.

Locked in his dark cell, Greg lay awake in bed, fidgeting with the small cassette recorder; he knew well enough no one was going to come looking for him - not while he was in between jobs, and had traveled to an undisclosed location without telling anyone. What brought him here were rumors of an abandoned building there that was said to be part of a black site. Questionable as the lead was, the story seemed too good for an amateur journalist like Greg to pass up. And that, thanks to a case of mistaken identity, he was now incarcerated there as an inmate.

As the barriers between worlds start to crumble, a superhero must battle his greatest enemy yet… After a summer spent protecting the vulnerable from natural disasters, Ted Finley couldn’t be happier to return home for his senior year of high school. While he dreams of fighting back-to-back with his protector, Erica LaPlante, a new and powerful enemy threatens to end their mission for good… As if that weren’t enough, Ted and the gang must face down a cunning presidential candidate, a disgruntled gatekeeper between realms, and two familiar villains if they want to keep a deadly army at bay. If they fail, the people they know and love will find themselves on a planet-wide battlefield… The Candidate is the third novel in The Viral Superhero Series, a saga of heroes, villains, and high school. If you like action-packed fight scenes, witty banter, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then you’ll love Bryan Cohen & Casey Lane’s epic third installment.

In September 1939, Nazi Holocaust mastermind Heinrich Himmler conscripts brilliant physicist Peter Winter to devise a secret weapon of supreme power and to create a revolutionary aircraft to deliver it. Peter and his Jewish wife, Rachel, know they may only be able to slow Himmler down and not stop him from developing the ultimate weapon.

Once, this world was dominated by the fallen, but humanity cast off their tyrannical rule and created a mighty empire with colonies spread out across the globe. The power of the metropolis is stronger than ever before, but its past is dark and its future cloudy. Old secrets are capable of destroying in one moment what took years to create. After all, nothing can save it from treason, not armadas of battleships nor bomb-laden dirigibles.

Whilst working on a spreadsheet for a New York-based PR firm, Gerald has his consciousness uploaded into his company's Slack channel. He posts for help, but his colleagues assume it's an elaborate joke to exploit the new working-from-home policy and, now that Gerald's productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from...wherever he says he is. Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists co-worker Pradeep to care for his body and Slackbot, the service's AI assistant, to help him navigate his new digital reality.

A mystical and transcendent journey of two wanderers, an 11-year-old boy and an old man to whom the boy has been entrusted by his father, a Jew, fleeing the ravages of the war by the late award winning author, Aharon Appelfeld. The old man is a former Ukrainian commander, revered by the soldiers under his command, who has gone blind and chosen the life of a wanderer as his last spiritual adventure.

A bounty hunting survivor. A Galactic dark elf. A woman who has given up her humanity to become something more. These stories and more are available in the first short story anthology for the System Apocalypse, covering year one on Earth. When the world ends, humanity steps up, finding new ways to survive in a world with Classes, magic and monsters. The anthology features exciting, new stories by five new writers and a new, never publicly released short story by Tao Wong.

New Babylon is the capital of the mighty Second Empire. Dirigibles drift over the city, steam trains race down its tracks, and the factory chimneys never stop billowing smoke, even for a moment. The hegemony of science is unquestioned, and yet magic hasn't disappeared from the world. It remains dissolved in the blood of those who are called Illustrious. Hardline reductionists find that hard to accept, but it is not in their power to change the longstanding status quo.

In this world, steam and electricity are the favored sources of power. Science has taken the place of religion, while magic is unknown by all but peculiar outcasts. But the border between reality and the underworld here is extremely thin. Thankfully, the adepts of scientific knowledge have found success holding back the onslaught of infernal creatures. Electricity is stronger than magic, but even it is not all-powerful. A former detective constable for the New Babylon Criminal Investigative Police, Leopold Orso is illustrious.

Saddled with both a new pupil and a bar to run, Dorian has to pick his battles carefully if he is to find his soul. When the Dark Choir bargains with Dorian in exchange for his loyalty, the power they offer may be too valuable to refuse...for a new menace threatens the hermetic order in America. Members of the Presidium are being outed in the press, and the formidable cabal's response is swift and brutal. But Dorian has no time to hide from the Presidium's fury, as the new Deputy Mayor taps him to investigate a string of occult crimes.

A regular life isn't in the cards for Dorian Lake, but with his charm-crafting business invigorated and the prospect of a serious relationship within his grasp, life is closer to normal than Dorian could ever expect. In the heat of the Baltimore mayoral campaign, Dorian has managed to balance his arrangements with Deputy Mayor Julian Bright with his search to find his lost soul. Dorian soon learns of a Netherworker, the head of a dangerous West Coast cabal, who might be able to find and return his soul.

When he was young, Jimmy met a boy in a playground. As the years passed, Jimmy grew older...but the boy did not. Set in a haunted playground, The Red Boy explores the boundaries between parents and children, women and men, and the living and the dead.

Taken together, the works of H. P. Lovecraft create a terrific world of elder gods, ancient aliens, and cosmic horror. This new original collection of Lovecraft's earliest stories lays the foundation for that world and prefigures many of his later infamous tales.

Two families. Two faces of America. An act of violence with far-reaching consequences. Gus Voorhees is a pioneer in the advancement of women's reproductive rights and a controversial abortion provider in the American Midwest. One morning as he arrives at his clinic, he is ambushed by a hardline Christian, Luther Dunphy, and shot dead. The killing leaves in its wake two fatherless families: the Voorheeses, who are affluent, highly educated, secular and pro-choice, and the Dunphys, their opposite on all counts.

Franny Doyle is having the worst day. She’s been sacked, the subway doors ripped her favorite dress to ruins, and now she’s flashed her unmentionables to half of lower Manhattan. On the plus side, a dashing stranger came to her rescue with his (Gucci!) suit jacket. On the down side, he can’t get away from her fast enough. Worse yet? Someone posted their (entirely not) meet-cute online. Suddenly Franny and her rescuer, Hayes Montgomery, are the newest social media sensation, and all of New York is shipping #SubwayQTs.

Ex-Navy Seal Mike Gannon - a man used to being in the firing line - has always wanted to travel to Alaska. So when the opportunity for a bucket-list trip to the northern wilds comes up, he doesn't hesitate to take it. However, he soon discovers other hunters are already there...and he's in their targets. Soon Gannon finds himself caught and captured, forced onto a private jet bound for an unknown destination. He may not know who took him or why, but he's certain that lethal danger awaits.

When Paul Ondragon's mentor, Roderick DeForce, seeks his help on a seemingly routine missing-person case, the consummate troubleshooter finds himself vexed by a puzzle even he can't easily solve. The missing man is a tough-as-nails former Navy Seal working for a company that specializes in high-stakes deliveries to crisis areas. But who wanted him out of the way . . . and why?