Showing results by narrator "Michael Taylor" in All Categories

Picking up exactly where Playing Gods 1: Isolation left off, Playing Gods 2: Adaptation brings the zehuderan warriors Xriah and Vylis to the world of Gravios. A far cry from the last plane where the two battled, Gravios is an ocean world of cybernetically augmented humans and post-apocalyptic sea vessels. All land on Gravios has been completely submerged into the depths, the sea level elevated by the planet-swallowing marine creature known as the Grava.

The stench of death hangs over Happyville. When Flintlock rides into town, he sees windows caked in dust, food rotting on tables, and a forgotten corpse hanging at the gallows. The citizens of Happyville are dead in their beds, taken down by a deadly scourge, and Flintlock must stay put, or risk spreading the killer disease. His quarantine is broken by Cage Kingfisher, a mad clergyman who preaches the gospel of death.  

In Tennessee, 17-year-old Breckinridge Wallace knew the laws of nature. When his life was in danger, he showed a fearless instinct to fight back. Killing a thug who was sent to kill him got Breckinridge exiled from his Smoky Mountain home. Brutally wounding an Indian attacker earned him an enemy for life...Now, from the bustling streets of St. Louis to the vast stillness of the Missouri headwaters, Breckinridge is discovering a new world of splendor, violence, promise and betrayal. Most off all, he is clawing his way to manhood behind the law of the gun. 

Stu Carlson serves people drinks. Night after night, in the dry Texas heat, he stands behind the bar and listens to troubles and sorrows and worries and regrets—not too far off from his old position behind a pulpit. Doling out counsel and care, Stu’s a compassionate man. When the scotch he serves Andrew Washburn—Dean of Fine Arts and all-around asshole—turns out to have been poisoned, Stu is shaken. A regular at Stu’s bar, meek and talented Daniel Lackland, is arrested for the crime.

Gold - a man either had to fight for it or dig for it, and Bolton had always liked guns better than shovels. So he took the job Wells Fargo offered. It was five dollars a day and a new Greener shotgun - and all he had to do was shepherd a king's ransom in gold across 100 miles of Hell.

Riding into Willow Springs, Texas, Jefferson Davis King trails a horse behind him intended as a gift for his friend, C. D. Hollis. But Sheriff Hollis isn't around to collect; he'd been killed with a shotgun blast weeks earlier by an unknown gunman.

They were not wanted where they came from. They were not welcome anywhere. They were outcasts, rootless and friendless, until luck or destiny threw them together. A former Apache scout shunned by his tribe, an ex-Union Army major, a former Confederate captain, and two army deserters, all forced to band together to stay alive. That is, as long as they could avoid killing each other.

Through a harsh land of mesquite and prickly pear, scattered oaks and carpets of stubborn grass, the Brazos River wound its way south to the Gulf of Mexico. To its banks came settlers from across America, daring men and women who dreamed of owning ranches and farms, building homes for their families, and one day establishing a United States republic in Mexican-held Texas. Among them were Jon Tallman, a wanderer and adventurer; Nancy Stafford, a strong-willed pioneer; Jacobs, a wagon train leader; and Alan.

Fate threw them together. A common goal united them. They were the Outcasts, men unwanted by their own kind, with no one to trust but each other. Together they rode through the West, determined to find a land where they could live their lives in their own way. But that search had to wait once the Outcasts came upon a young boy in danger. After his own blood kin was cruelly murdered, the boy was left an orphan, and the only witness to the cold-blooded crime. The Outcasts knew they had to help the boy find a home, but they didn't know the killers were on his trail, determined to silence him for good.

At the far western edge of the Great Plains, where the prairie meets the mountains, flows the South Platte, drawing farmers, traders, and trappers to land long held sacred by two proud tribes. As the pioneers stake claims beside the pure waters of the river, conflicts threaten to explode into war. Men and women on both sides fight to protect their families, fortunes, and future....

Texas Ranger, J. D. King feels like he's been rode hard and put away wet. After a shotgun blast took his half-brother, C. D. Hollis, King had nearly lost an arm seeing to the killer. Now, he's heading home for Christmas and a hard reunion with Hollis' family. Edwin Spivey has plans for Christmas and for King too. Some time back, Sheriff Hollis and Tom Trueblood put him in prison. Now, he's broken out to make them all pay, including their kin.

It's 1943 and Newport, Kentucky (AKA Little Mexico) is the bawdiest spot in America. Nick Cavanaugh, a sailor on leave, finds himself taking sides with independent casino owners Carl and Pearl Jules against the powerful Syndicate, which wants to keep this territory all to itself.

They were a rootless bunch, friendless and unwanted, shunned by everyone except each other. They were the Outcasts, a ragged group of men who made their own way through an unforgiving West. They knew what it was like to be hated and recognized injustice when they saw it. So when they saw an innocent black wrangler framed for a murder he didn't commit, it stuck in their craw.

Buck Wallace was determined to make his home by the Pecos River. He vowed to live alongside the Kwahadies and carve his own private paradise out of the wilderness. But the trail to peace was long, hard and stained with the blood of the few who went before him. He would have to brave the challenge of the legendary warrior Goyah...learn the perils and pleasures of love from the beautiful Kiowa woman Asa...and test his will to survive in a land of infinite promise...and intense danger.

It appears that everyone in Skary, Indiana, is having an identity crisis of epic proportions, including the town itself. Once known as the haunt of the world's most popular horror writer, Wolfe "Boo" Boone, Skary started losing tourist business after Boo abruptly abandoned his career. Now the little town with the big marketing hook is up a creek...and on the brink of bankruptcy.

Four people are brutally murdered during the robbery of a Las Vegas convenience store. As the investigation of the killings moves forward, it appears more and more likely that the killer was really after one of the victims and the heist was only a diversion. But which one was the real target? Was it the young clerk? How about the Hispanic man who worked at the airport? Or maybe it was the tough guy who was employed as a bouncer at a drug-infested club.

By blood, bone and history, Austin Bullock is now chief of his nation, responsible for maintaining the welfare of his people and the land. By choice, he left the reservation years ago to teach high-school history, to coach basketball in the white man's school, and to seek an identity apart from his Native American heritage. Now the waters of Lost Man Marsh and the song of the Tie-snake call Austin to return. Someone outside the Nation has sinister plans for the people who live there.

John Augustus Sutter came to the wide and wild California country to build an empire. At his side was Morgan Beck, out to stake his own claim at the confluence of two powerful rivers, the Sacramento and the American.

Amid the magnificent desolation of the American Southwest ran a river of hope, bringing life to the desert, and pioneers to a forbidding land. They gathered on the banks of the Purgatory...wandering souls on the run from the past...or in search of the future: Hernan Eduardo and his sister Elena, posing as husband and wife to hide her shame; Aaron, who has fled from danger his whole life, and who has to summon the courage to stand up for his rights; and Talks To Ghosts, a native on a vision quest.

A ship's ravaged hulk, now lying on the river bottom near Montevideo, Uruguay, becomes of interest to the grandson of the ship's galley officer. He has come upon some intriguing clues that lead him to believe the ship was carrying something of immense value. He recruits a friend to help him dive down to the wreck and seek the treasure, but they soon find that they are not the only ones who seemingly know the ship's secret.