Showing results by narrator "Kevin T. Collins" in All Categories

Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement speakers of his time. For each occasion, Vonnegut’s words were unfailingly unique, insightful, and witty, and they stayed with audience members long after graduation. As edited by Dan Wakefield, this book reads like a narrative in the unique voice that made Vonnegut a hero to readers and listeners of all ages. At times hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and deeply serious, these reflections are ideal for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their "long-delayed puberty ceremony".

In The Green Pearl, King Aillas of Troicinet defends the peace of the Elder Isles against both the Ska marauders who once enslaved him and the wicked King Casmir. While organizing the unruly barons in the frontiers of his land, Aillas goes out of his way to capture the lovely Ska noblewoman who once stung him with her disregard.

It seems that my former power is gradually returning to me in my new body. I still have all my past experience, however, and everything is proceeding just as it should. How quickly can I earn money and build my reputation? No, I'm not going to resort to killing and looting. I'm an Architect, after all! I'm going to craft and build things! That's how Architects work! The time has come to rebuild my empire. So . . . I might end up having to do some killing and looting, after all. I'm not short of enemies . . .

Father John has lived his whole life without knowing a woman's touch. Hard at first, his self-denial grew easier over time, as he learned to master his urges with a regimen of prayer, cold showers, and jigsaw puzzles. That changed the day that Debra Rocks entered his confessional. A rough-talking adult film actress, she has come to ask him to pray for a murdered costar.

Since his wife, Michelle, left seven years ago, Jeffy Coltrane has worked to maintain a normal life for himself and his 11-year-old daughter, Amity, in Suavidad Beach. It’s a quiet life, until a local eccentric known as Spooky Ed shows up on their doorstep. Ed entrusts Jeffy with hiding a strange and dangerous object - something he calls “the key to everything” - and tells Jeffy that he must never use the device. But after a visit from a group of ominous men, Jeffy and Amity find themselves accidentally activating the key and discovering an extraordinary truth.

All Thorn wanted was to be a Battle Mage. He had the talent, and his whole future was before him. On the day of Choosing, he finds things don't always go as planned. Suddenly Thorn's life is thrown into fast forward, and he finds himself in a world not of his own choosing. In a world of spaceships and blasters, instead of horses and swords, Thorn needs to adapt and survive, make new allies, and rediscover that although nothing is familiar, he's still a Mage, and pirates and slavers beware.

The system came. The apocalypse ended. Now new worlds have merged with Earth. For Bain Lee, it means leveling his Ocularist class beyond its previous limits. With this strange class and the ability to see into the inner workings of the system, he may find the magic skills needed to earn his redemption. Not only that, but he might discover the secret behind the system itself.

The World Fantasy Award-winning third volume of the Lyonesse trilogy brings attention to the faerie changeling Madouc. Where princess Suldrun once meekly endured the proprieties of Castle Haidion, Madouc defends herself with rotten fruit. Vexed, King Casmir arranges a contest to marry her off, but Madouc has other ideas, and enlists the stableboy "Sir Pom-pom" on an impromptu quest to find her father.

Sam Capra and his thirteen-year-old son, Daniel, are living a quiet life in Austin, Texas, from where Sam runs a collection of bars and nightclubs around the world for America's most secret espionage agency, known as Section K. But a shocking revelation will uproot everything that Sam has been trying to build: Markus Bolt is missing. Having turned over allied agent names and military secrets to the Russians, Bolt fled to Moscow when he was discovered. But now a trusted source inside the Kremlin tells Section K that he has vanished, without a trace.

Two years after his parents' disappearance, Darian has sought refuge and training from the mysterious Hawkbrothers. Now he has opened his heart to a beautiful young healer. Finally Darian has found peace and acceptance in his life. That is, until he learns that his parents are still alive - and trapped behind enemy borders....

Thorn is back! The guilty will be punished. The war they dismissed as nonsense is now raging. Jen needs Thorn. The military want Thorn. Thorn is older and wiser, and he doesn't care what anyone wants. He has a better hold on his growing power, or so he thinks. The war calls, but there is unfinished business to attend to on the way. Unanswered questions lead in strange directions, and a war for no reason, is only part of the mystery. But through everything, Thorn carries two themes. The guilty will be punished, and there will be peace! Yesterday was just the start.

Liam Saunders-Chang is one of the last humans left on Mars. The son of two scientists who have been racing against time to create technology vital to humanity's survival, Liam, along with his friend Phoebe, will be on the last starliner to depart before Mars, like Earth before it, is destroyed. Or so he thinks. Because before this day is over, Liam and Phoebe will make a series of profound discoveries about the nature of time and space and find out that the human race is just one of many in our universe locked in a dangerous struggle for survival.

William Allen presents book 2 in the Tertiary Effects series.

Hadjar has seen everything that the Mortal Realm of the Nameless World has to offer. Beloved son, disgraced prince, brother, loyal friend, brave warrior, illustrious commander, murderer, traitor, devoted husband, monster . . . All these roles converge in Hadjar Darkhan, the Mad General. He has left behind songs and tales of courage and honor that have become the lament of the thousands who've met their end at his blade, their blood drenching the fields and valleys of the mortal regions. And he did it all so he could keep going, so his journey wouldn't end before its time.

Find a future. Lose a past. She's a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her. She's also on the run. Nashville is where she's come to claim her destiny. It's also where the darkness she's fled might find her. And destroy her.

I used to be the greatest Earth Mage in my world. The head of the entire Order of Architects. But the older you get, the more you come to realize that at some point, you need to retire, so that you can have the chance to enjoy a peaceful life and to cede your place to the young, some of whom have already turned two thousand years old . . .So that's what I did. But I failed to account for one thing: during the course of my long life, I'd accumulated too many enemies, and they had decided to spoil my retirement. So they died along with me. And I hope their deaths were final. But mine was not!

Centuries in the past, mankind fought a seemingly unbeatable adversary from sector to sector across the Spiral Arm until the war ground to a standstill and the Enemy withdrew. Believing that they had won, the citizens of the galaxy rebuilt. The Inner Worlds, which had escaped the worst of the war's ravages, became even more insular, while the Rim worlds adopted a free and easy way with law and order. Now, hundreds of years after their withdrawal, the Enemy is back - and this time they'll be satisfied with nothing less than the extinction of the galaxy.

A Missing Ferryman. An Undead Dilemma. An Immortal Detective. An emissary from the Dark Council has just materialized in the office of the Montague & Strong Detective Agency, and makes Simon Strong an offer he can’t refuse. Charon is missing. The legendary ferryman responsible for transporting sorcerer souls across the river Styx hasn’t been seen in days. And with each passing hour, those unable to cross the river are left to walk among the living, tilting the world further out of balance. Meet Simon Strong, an immortal, who is also the best private detective in New York City.

At the beginning of Nonzero, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web." Twenty-two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.

I can't say my parents never warned me about vampires. I just never believed them. Not - that is - until six months ago when vampires broke into my home and killed my family. Thanks to all the skills my parents taught me, I managed to escape but I couldn't save them. Two vampires down and the rest of the world to go. My bid for revenge is going to have to wait, though, because until I turn 18, I'm being placed in the loving care of Elizabeth and Jonathan McKnight - godparents I didn't even know existed.