Showing results by narrator "Bronson Pinchot" in All Categories

The 1849 Gold Rush in California brought to a boiling point the new state's wild and unruly politics. Before long, there was mob rule in the muddy streets of San Francisco. This decline of constitutional authority on the West Coast mirrored the fumbling actions of Congress and the federal government in Washington as a nation deeply divided over the slavery issue struggled to find a way to preserve the Union.

Two years have passed since Jed Welch escaped the ruins of New York City. The monsters have begun vanishing from parts of the world, and rebuilding efforts are underway. Isolated communities and their militias are starting over, slowly reclaiming cities and countryside alike. Now a sergeant, Jed leads a squad providing security on Galveston Island, as they await the arrival of the first refugee ships. When a saboteur's bomb threatens everything, Jed and his people find themselves cut off from support and communication.

When the body of Sextus Verpa, a notorious senatorial informer and libertine, is found stabbed to death in his bedroom, his slaves are suspected. Pliny, a very respectable young senator and lawyer, is ordered by the emperor Domitian to investigate. However, the Ludi Romani, “the Roman Games”, have just begun, and for the next 15 days the law courts are in recess. If Pliny can’t identify the murderer in that time, Verpa’s entire slave household will be burned alive in the arena.

In one of Niven's rare stories of cross-dimensional travel, an unnamed protagonist discovers the real reason that things seem so foggy on a foggy night.

Nolan Garrett is on the hunt for traitors, and it just got personal! His targets: A pair of thieves who broke into a military armory. Already, the stolen high-grade weapons have flooded the streets of New Avalon with blood. Nolan’s pursuit brings him to the last place in the universe he’d want to go...home. On the planet he thought he’d left behind forever, he is swept up in a local war between his first love and his oldest enemy. In the heat of battle, he will uncover dark secrets that, if brought to light, could destroy him - and the woman he loved - forever.

One could argue the story begins the night Allegra Douglass is awarded Distinguished Chair in Philosophy at her top-tier university in New York—the same night her grandmother dies—or before that: the day Allie left Birmingham and never looked back. Or even before that: the day her mother disappeared. But for our purposes Allie’s story begins at the end, when she is finally ready to tell her version of what happened with a white supremacist named Matthew Strong.

"Chico", a story by Robert McCammon, was first published in his short fiction collection Blue World.

In Admit This to No One, we meet a group of women connected to a central figure either personally or professionally, and for better or for worse - an all-powerful and elusive speaker of the House, whose political career has only stopped short of being presidential due to his myriad extra-marital affairs. The speaker’s daughters from his several failed marriages have a complicated relationship with him to say the least - alternating between longing for his affection or bristling with resentment, and occasionally relief at being left out of the spotlight.

This nonfiction essay, first published in Vertex in April 1973, discusses the grandfather paradox.

Detective-Lieutenant Gene Trimble faces an increasing number of bizarre suicides in a world struggling to come to terms with its place in a multiverse of different timelines, where every decision ever made by anyone becomes an alternate universe.

In the second volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy, questions are answered, stakes are raised, and mysteries are deepened.… Following the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the second book of the Southern Reach trilogy introduces John Rodriguez, the new head of the government agency responsible for the safeguarding of Area X. His first day is spent grappling with the fall-out from the last expedition. Area X itself remains a mystery.

When Sargent Singer discovers that the paintings in his father’s gallery are alive, he is pulled into a captivating world behind the frame that he never knew existed. Filled with shady characters, devious plots, and a grand art heist, this inventive mystery-adventure celebrates art and artists and is perfect for fans of Night at the Museum and Blue Balliett’s Chasing Vermeer. There’s one important rule at the Beaverbrook Gallery - don’t let anyone know the paintings are alive.

One day in November 1994, Lawrence Levy received a phone call out of the blue from Steve Jobs, whom he'd never met, offering him a job running Pixar, a little-known company that had already lost Jobs $50 million. With Pixar's prospects looking bleak, it was with some trepidation that Levy accepted the position. After a few weeks he discovered that the situation was even worse than he'd imagined.

Armed with cutting-edge weapons and an AI-run cybernetic suit that controls his paralyzed legs, he is the fist in the shadows, the dagger to the heart of the Nyzarian Empire's enemies. Then he found Bex on his doorstep.... A junkie, high on the drug he'd fought for years to avoid, and a former elite soldier like him. So he takes her in to help her get clean - Silverguards never leave their own behind. If only he'd known his actions would put him in the crosshairs of the most powerful cartel in New Avalon.

It took all of 30 seconds for two shots to bring the world of Margaret Tabaaha crashing down around her. After losing her husband in Afghanistan during the first year of Operation Enduring Freedom, her two sons were all that she had left. Now they had been taken from her violently, deliberately, plunging her into a whiskey bottle and stripping away her reason for living.

Two investigations start at the same time in Swann County, North Carolina, one by the FBI, the other by the sheriff. The feds want to know who stole three Stinger missiles during a helicopter crash. The sheriff wants to know who hanged a black ex-con in a well. Seb Creek, a sheriff’s detective, gets involved in both investigations and fights through lies, secrets, and murder to find the killer. The trail involves a long-ago axe murder, the ravages of combat, an outdoor gas chamber, a mystery at the bottom of a well, and finally a last killing and an ancient testament.

The Sublime Engine explores the profound sense of awe every person feels when they ponder the miracle encased within the ribs.

In this lyrical history, a critically acclaimed novelist and a leading cardiologist - who happen to be brothers - draw upon history, science, religion, popular culture, and literature to illuminate all of the heart's physical and figurative chambers.

This nonfiction essay, first published in Galaxy in March 1969, discusses the many uses, implications, and limits of teleportation, from personal transportation to interstellar travel.

A short-story magazine that assembles a thrilling new mix of stories from genres including horror, science fiction, comedy, and suspense. Buried at the heart of every story in the magazine is a unique artifact, an object that has inspired our storytellers to create a big idea, an irresistible question, a new immersive world, or a sense of wonder. Unearth your next great story with Assemble Artifacts.

The New York Times best-selling author of Einstein's Dreams presents a collection of essays, written over the past 20 years, that displays his genius for bringing literary and scientific concerns into ringing harmony. Sometimes provocative, sometimes fanciful, always elegantly conceived and written, these meditations offer listeners a fascinating look into the creative compulsions shared by the scientist and the artist.