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

To many, the brain is the seat of personal identity and autonomy. But the way we talk about the brain is often rooted more in mystical conceptions of the soul than in scientific fact. This blinds us to the physical realities of mental function. We ignore bodily influences on our psychology, from chemicals in the blood to bacteria in the gut, and overlook the ways that the environment affects our behavior, via factors varying from subconscious sights and sounds to the weather.

Lieutenant James Shelley and his squad of US Army soldiers were on a quest for justice when they carried out the unauthorized mission known as First Light. They returned home to America to face a court-martial, determined to expose the corruption in the chain of command that compelled their actions. But in a country still reeling from the nuclear terrorism of Coma Day, the courtroom is just one battlefield of many.

Takeo feels he must take on the Tribe and demonstrate the ruthlessness he will need to be a competent ruler. But the Tribe don't believe, firstly, that he knows where to find them and, secondly, that he will have the strength of will to deal with them. They are proven wrong.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth global anxiety about linkages between the environment and society at a fundamental structural level. Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life provides an accessible exposition of the latest foundational knowledge on how natural and social systems science can inform planetary crises. Humanity has either tried to conquer or capitulate to natural order, whereas we should be seeking to understand latent structures and patterns that permeate all systems and develop an "earthly order," that is socially functional and sustainable.

Max is dying. No one wants to believe it, but he knows it's true. And as the end grows closer, he can only think of one thing: Who will protect Liz if he's not here? Liz can't stand watching Max suffer. She's determined to find some way - any way - to save him. But the only way to help Max is to risk her own life. Is she willing to die for the one she loves?

Michael: He's still having flashbacks of his escape from the underground compound. Only Cameron, the mysterious girl he met behind bars, seems to understand him-and realize that the sheriff may be gone but an even more dangerous enemy is out there.

In a world where one's magical prowess is determined by one's skill with words and ability to spell, Nicodemus is a wizardly apprentice afflicted by a curse that causes him to misspell magical texts. Now the demon who cursed him has hatched a conspiracy to force Nicodemus to change language and ultimately use it to destroy all human life. As Nico tries to thwart the demon's plan, he faces challenges from all sides.

Vasilis "Billy" Kostopolos is a Bay Area Rust Belt refugee, a failed sci-fi writer, a successful barfly, and, since the exceptionally American zombie apocalypse, an accomplished "driller" of reanimated corpses. There aren't many sane, well-adjusted human beings left in San Francisco, but facing the end of the world, Billy's found his vocation trepanning the undead, peddling his one and only published short story, and drinking himself to death.

They plucked him out of his own familiar world to kill him with extreme prejudice. This is what always happens to those who are just food in the bowl for someone with a better luck. But consider yourself warned: he is a very special food - the kind that eats you right back. Think again whether you really want to come and get him. And if you still do, just stay put. He'll come for you himself.

Newlyweds Polly and Leo Xanthus long for a life where they never have to hide from the mafia that forced them into seclusion. The Marcello crime family is on the brink of going under. With their revenue streams drying up and the feds ever-present on their tail, aging crime boss Alfonso Balivino looks to steal a diamond owned by his one-time boss, Kostas Xanthus, to fund the family. Now, Polly and Leo will be forced to leave their unknown location and find their way home to New Orleans before the Marcello family murders again, forcing them and the ring on Polly’s hand out of hiding.

The most civilized and 'decent' among us find that we are complicit with the most brutal murderers. We enter into literally unspeakable alliances - of which we dare not speak except through the obliquities and indirections of fiction, poetry, and visual art of the sort gathered here in New Jersey Noir.

With a mysterious key in hand and their only friends by their sides, the twins Malwynn and Umaryn race against the Amaranth Empire's invasion. Chased from the capital city of Varrland, branded as criminals for the murder of their traitorous aunt, they begin the trek to the forlorn wilderness of Duulan. They seek a village where their parents had nearly perished decades ago, where an abandoned mine, protected by an army of the dead, conceals the darkest secrets of Elmoryn.

Anthropologist Allison Pinckney is stunned when she inherits the key to a 17th-century pirate cipher that makes her the target of two brutal arms dealers. Now, to save those she loves, she must solve the cipher. With this perilous mission growing ever more dangerous, she reluctantly seeks help from ex-Green Beret Zack Tremaine, the one man she's been avoiding. Because if she gives into her long-buried feelings for him, it could cost them their lives.

Scott Snyder’s protagonists inhabit a playfully deranged fictional world in which a Wall Street trader can find himself armed with a speargun, guarding a Dumpster outside a pawnshop in Florida; or an employee at Niagara Falls (his job: watching for jumpers) will take off in a car after a blimp in which his girlfriend has escaped. But in Snyder’s wondrous imagination there’s a thin membrane between the whimsical and the disturbing....

What do you do when everything you've ever known is ripped away from you, leaving nothing but ashes and charred memories behind? You get angry. So very angry. Malwynn and his twin sister, Umaryn, live in a small town in Northern Varrland. In idyllic New Picknell nearly nothing happens, and when their day-to-day routine is interrupted by a skirmish between an invading patrol of the dead from The Amaranth Empire and a defending force from Varrland, their world begins to come undone.

"White", a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in 2014 on robertmccammon.com.

Malwynn and his twin sister, Umaryn, experienced true horror when their hometown of New Picknell was razed to the ground in the first act of war by a Necromancer from The Amaranth Empire. They took their thirst for vengeance north across the border, and, after killing both the innocent and the guilty alike, they discovered a horrible truth. The Empire had not ordered the strike. The Necromancer had been paid.

With the weight of expectation riding on Nyx's shoulders, the stakes have never been higher. She's got to save herself, her brother, and everyone else who's counting on her survival knowledge... if only she knew how to get them all out. It's back to the drawing board, but there's no way she's giving up her dream of freedom after coming so far, whatever the cost.

Hotter than hell and half of Alabama, FBI Agent Mac Callahan is thirsty for everything except love. Coming home to bust a white-collar crime ring, Mac intends to execute his usual practice with work and women - get in, get it on, and get out. Instead, he finds himself unexpectedly drawn to the legacy of his family, his plantation, and the charms of a Southern girl.

Is death the end...or only the beginning? Ethan Wate always dreamed of leaving the stifling Southern town of Gatlin. But he never dreamt that finding love with Lena Duchannes would drive him away. Lena is a Caster girl whose supernatural powers unveiled a secretive and cursed side of Gatlin, so powerful it forced him to make a terrible sacrifice. Now Ethan must find a way to return to Lena - and Gatlin - as she vows to do whatever it takes to get him back. Even if it means trusting old enemies or risking their loved ones’ lives.