Showing results by narrator "Eric Messner" in All Categories

Lady Cecelia is to mysteries what a pack of foxhounds is to a fox...and her interference brings her to disaster. But Captain Serrano isn't about to let her employer - and now her friend - be destroyed. With the help of Lady Cecelia's nephew and his friends, including Lord Thornbuckle's adventurous daughter, Heris plots a rescue, while trying to rebalance her own life and recover relationships with some of her former crew. In the process, she and Lady Cecelia bring down a government.

Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, The Rookie is a story that combines the intense gridiron action of Any Given Sunday with the space opera style of Star Wars and the criminal underworld of The Godfather. Aliens and humans alike play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that literally want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed, and rival players are assassinated.

Set in a lethal American professional football league seven centuries in the future, The MVP puts huge humans on the field with four alien races, creating a game that is faster, stronger, and deadlier than anything we know today. Star quarterback Quentin Barnes has spent three seasons putting together a hard-hitting, hard-fighting team that combines rookies, rejects, discarded free agents, and seasoned veterans from all five species. He has fought against racism and bound his team together through shared sacrifice, blood, tragedy, and victory.

Esmay Suiza wasn't a member of a great Navy family like the Serranos. She'd had to make her way on grit alone, which meant it wasn't likely she'd ever make admiral and "hoist her own flag". Well, that was fine with her: All Esmay wanted was a secure berth where she could be part of something greater than herself, and otherwise just live her life in peace. But what we want or think we want from life and what we get are seldom the same - and one day, Esmay found herself in the middle of a space battle, and the senior surviving officer in a mutiny against a traitorous captain.

The Birthday Children fought for survival against the elements, jungle wildlife, the “Grownups” who created them...and, as evil corrupted their numbers, even against themselves. With these opponents finally defeated, Em and her people realized that more threats were coming, traveling from across the universe to lay claim to their planet. The Birthday Children have prepared as best they can against this alien armada. Now, as the first ships reach orbit around Omeyocan, the final battle for the planet begins.

It’s high-stakes, win-or-die football action in the far future, as aliens and humans fill positions based on physiology and leave their blood, sweat, and tears on gridirons across the galaxy. Last season, 19-year-old rookie quarterback Quentin Barnes overcame his racism and unified his team. He led the Ionath Krakens to a lower-tier championship, a championship that earns them promotion into the meat grinder known as “Tier One”. Now, he and the Krakens have to compete against the greatest football teams ever assembled and do far more than just survive each game.

In his trademark suit of black armor and skull-like helm, armed with a demon-forged axe, Corvis Rebaine twice brought death and destruction to Imphallion - willingly slaughtering countless innocents in pursuit of a more just society. But that was the old Rebaine. Before he killed the mad warlord Audriss and banished the demon Khanda. Before he lost his wife and children, who could not forgive or forget his violent crimes. Now, in a distant city, under a false name, Rebaine is loathe to resurrect his bloody ways, even when the neighboring nation of Cephira invades his Imphallion.

Lerris has settled into being a woodworker and building a life with Krystal. But this newfound peace is endangered when both Candar and Recluce come under the threat of invasion from the Empire of Hamor. Despite the imminent possibility of destruction, the lands of Candar will not unite and Recluce will not heed the peril. Lerris is faced with the challenge of becoming the greatest wizard of all time-or seeing his whole world destroyed.

In the realm of Imphallion, there once was a nightmare - a living nightmare known only as the Terror of the East. Nigh invulnerable in his magical black armor and aided by unholy minions, he laid waste to all in his path on his all-consuming quest to bring order to the land. His order. Then, at what should have been his moment of triumph, his will failed. And his army fell. Taking a young noblewoman as hostage, he escaped, vanishing into darkest memory.

The Order War illuminates great figures and major events in the historic war between order and chaos that is the central focus of the saga of Recluce. The deadly White Wizards of Fairhaven, wielding the forces of chaos, threaten the ancient matriarchy of Sarronnyn, the last bastion of order in Candar. When Sarronnyn falls despite the assistance of the Black Order mages, Justen, a young Black Engineer, must escape the city and master forbidden technology that harness chaos itself. Even so, it may not be enough to halt conquest of the White Wizards.

Kylara had to leave a bright future as a military cadet, and was thrown into the brutal world of off-world trading. This subsequent career in the family business was tough: marked by war, mutiny, and attempted assassination. But then her home was attacked and her parents killed - their trading empire left in ruins. Now she must save what is left of the family and the business, with few friends and too few assets. She must make full use of her hard-won experience to not just survive, but to restore the shattered fortunes of the Vatta family and their allies.

Someone has launched a full-throttle offensive against Vatta Transport Ltd., Ky's father's interstellar shipping empire. In short order, most of Ky's family is killed, and subsequent attacks sever vital lines of communication, leaving Ky fighting, in every sense, to survive. Ky is determined to identify the ruthless mystery enemy and avenge her family's name, but she needs not only firepower but information.

In the aftermath of the cold-blooded assassinations that killed her parents and shattered the Vatta intersteller shipping empire, Kylara Vatta sets out to avenge the killings and salvage the family business. Ky soon discovers a conspiracy of terrifying scope, breathtaking audacity, and utter ruthlessness. The only hope against such powerful evil is for all the space merchants to band together. Unfortunately, because she commands a ship that once belonged to a notorious pirate, Ky is met with suspicion, if not outright hostility.

For Ky, it’s not just about liberating the star systems subjugated by Turek and defending the rest of the galaxy’s freedom. There’s also a score to be settled and payback to be meted out for the obliteration of the Vatta Transport dynasty...and the slaughter of Ky’s family. But the enemy have their own escalation efforts under way - including the placement of covert agents among the allies with whom Ky and the surviving Vattas are collaborating in the war effort.

Nevada, 1872. Out of the merciless 40-Mile Desert, a stranger appears in the town of Golgotha, home to the blessed and the damned. He carries with him an innocent victim of a horrible massacre and a dire warning for Sheriff Jon Highfather. The conflict between the Indian nations and Mormon settlers has been brewing for years, and now the spirits of the fallen Indian dead have begun to rise to join in the fight. Deputy Mutt's old nemesis, Snake-Man, returns to begin a final bloody war against the Whites, purging them from the land forever.

Some say bad luck comes in threes. And if you’re a bandit, bank robber, or bloodthirsty killer, that bad luck comes in the form of three hard justice-seekers known as the Jackals. Each of the Jackals has his own path to follow: Former Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch is trying to protect a young Commanche from scalphunters.

Considered by the author to be his finest work yet, this is a novel of realistic detail, heartfelt emotion, and dazzling imagination that builds a world listeners won't want to leave and spins a tale they won't want to end. In a town of amazing magicks, where the real and the imagined live side by side and the Faerie of legend know the automatons of the future, Time sees all - but even he cannot escape the prophecy of James Hart's return, which can only mean the death of Shadows Fall.

Nevada, 1872. Out of the merciless 40-mile desert, a stranger appears in the town of Golgotha, home to the blessed and the damned. He carries with him an innocent victim of a horrible massacre and a dire warning for Sheriff Jon Highfather. The conflict between the Indian nations and Mormon settlers has been brewing for years, and now the spirits of the fallen Indian dead have begun to rise to join in the fight.

After the massacre of the entire G-Men franchise, the company sends their supes on a bacchanalia of a vacation at an island getaway, and the Boys keep an eye on the festivities and the guests, some of whom are worming their way to the highest levels of government. The Boys are then targeted, and one is ambushed. And we get a clearer picture of the backgrounds of Mother's Milk, Frenchie, and The Female.

Young ex-slave Gideon Bardsley is a brilliant inventor, but the job is less glamorous than one might think, especially since the assassination attempts started. Worse yet, they're trying to destroy his greatest achievement: a calculating engine called Fiddlehead, which provides undeniable proof of something awful enough to destroy the world. Both man and machine are at risk from forces conspiring to keep the Civil War going and the money flowing. Bardsley has no choice but to ask his patron, former president Abraham Lincoln, for help.