Showing results by narrator "Ray Porter" in All Categories

For 20 years, Merge Records has remained true to their belief that you can sign bands because you love their music and respect what they're trying to do. As giant corporate labels struggle for survival, Merge has garnered a secure and growing fan base while releasing some of the best music of our time. Our Noise is the history of the much loved label as seen by those who were there. It features interviews with and profiles of now releases some of indie rock's biggest names.

When Stuever's narrative begins, he's standing in line with the people waiting to purchase flat-screen TVs at Best Buy on Black Friday, the opening of the Christmas shopping season. From there he follows a number of key residents of Frisco, Texas, as they navigate through the nativity and all its attendant crises.

The Venus Asteroid Expedition is en route to the "Mirror," an impenetrable membrane to another universe that holds all the riches of the Federation, but the only point of entry is the point through which Landolph and his men traveled long ago - with most of the men never returning.

The collection’s title novella, "The Farmer’s Daughter,” opens in the unforgettable voice of a 15-year-old girl living a life of solitude in rural Montana, where she has recently moved. Home-schooled by parents who don’t fully understand her, she finds escape in the rapture of playing piano and exploring the gorgeous countryside on her horse.

LAPD detective and former vice cop Hayden Glass is a sex addict. The addiction has ruined his marriage and continues to complicate every aspect of his life. But regular attendance in Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings has helped keep his behavior from affecting his career. That is, until he suspects that three macabre and seemingly unrelated murders are linked to his meetings and targeted directly at him.

After thwarting the Federation's attempt to take over her ship, Captain Sarah Blythe vowed to make President Pleyal himself pay for her cargo losses. Their lone Fed prisoner told them enough of the President's plan: Confiscate all vessels to help equip the fleet he's gathering to end the Venus rebellion once and for all. But the citizens of the Free State of Venus have different ideas. Joining forces with the legendary Piet Ricimer and Stephen Gregg, Captain Blythe plans on making back more than her losses.

Paul Wright's family sends him to find his cousin, a photographer whose subjects have become increasingly macabre. Paul investigates Len's last known address, a cabin in California's Napa Valley, only to discover the frightening and sinister truth behind his cousin's obsession with the past.

Nox Dormienda is the award-winning debut novel of critically-acclaimed author Kelli Stanley (City of Dragons), and the first of a series in a new genre: Roman Noir. Featuring Arcturus, a hardboiled protagonist in the best Philip Marlowe tradition, Nox is a different kind of historical mystery, a suspense thriller that combines a classic noir style with the rich texture of the ancient past.

Narrated from the perspective of an American-born contract killer based in London, Calling Mr. King takes us into the mind and life of a man who is growing both increasingly cautious and distracted as he travels from job to job, city to city. Though long considered a first-rate, consistently reliable marksman with a cool, unshakable personality, he appears to be undergoing a severe change of character and focus, taking an interest as never before in the world beyond his targets.

Leo Painter is the CEO of Earth Global, a large energy, mining, and real-estate development firm. He and his party of company executives are traveling in Botswana to consult with the government about accessing their extractable resources. Sekoa is a male lion who shares with his bipedal enemies the misfortune of being the bearer of HIV/AIDS. Painter, pursued by his own "hyenas", only wishes to find a last resting place where he can further his dream. Their paths cross with tragic consequences.

In 1926, musician Tom Hickey reads in a broadside about a lynching that the Los Angeles newspapers failed to report and discovers that the Negro victim was an old friend. When his neighbor, an LAPD detective, confirms that, officially, the lynching didn’t occur, Hickey decides to investigate the murder, earning himself beatings, gunfire meant to dissuade him, and warnings from a Klansman that he’s made some formidable enemies.

A short story from New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry!

In "The Things That Live in Cages", an MMA fighter at the end of his career is offered the chance to stay young, fit, and stronger than ever - but the price is his humanity.

Joey Anderson attended his great-grandmother's funeral because he expected to receive a little inheritance money. What he didn't expect was to inherit her bed-and-breakfast, provided he lives there and follows her final instructions. With a little help from his friends, Joey grows up and discovers a world beyond me, my, and I.

In "The Death Song of Dwar Guntha", two old warriors prepare to ride into battle for the last time to save the future of Barsoom. Set in the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, this story first appeared in the anthology Under the Moons of Mars.

In a distant galaxy where immense danger threatens, desperate pirates travel to the outer limits of space, doing trade with the star colonies and encountering rivals, aliens, and strange human hybrids.

Clifford Hickey is scheduled to perform at the festival in what might be his last guitar gig before heading off to law school to please his father. He arrives at the peaceful woodland campsite of his brother Alvaro, but within moments six armed men in badges crash the camp, and Alvaro runs. Clifford is arrested and roughly handcuffed. One of the sheriffs’ nephews has been murdered, and Alvaro is the posse’s quarry. When Clifford’s father and mother arrive on the scene, it’s the beginning of a confrontation between the Hickey family and the locals, including the Cossacks, who seemingly have their own agenda for Alvaro.

In the weeks before the 1979 Mexican elections, San Diego PI Alvaro Hickey is checking the stories that Baja California campesinos are spreading about visits from the Holy Virgin - an apparition with definite political preferences. Though Alvaro doubts that this visitor is divine, he's firmly on her side. Then, Lourdes Shuler asks him to unite her with her sister, Lupe, whom she claims is the campesinos' Virgin.

The long and bloody war with the vampires in the United States has finally ended, thanks to the efforts of the vampire Arbiter and ONSET Commander David White - and a nuclear explosion on American soil. The final battle proves harder to conceal than hoped, however, and a series of high profile incidents end any chance of hiding the supernatural. Suddenly, the world is faced with the fact that it is both more wonderful and more terrible than humanity ever realized.

A former US naval intelligence worker, Milton William Cooper published his manifesto Behold a Pale Horse in 1991. Since then it has gone on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies, becoming the number-one best seller in the American prison system. According to Behold a Pale Horse, JFK was assassinated - because he was about to reveal that extraterrestrials were about to take over the earth - by his driver, an alien himself; AIDS is a government conspiracy; and much more.

Edgar Laplante was a small-time grifter, an erstwhile vaudeville performer, and an unabashed charmer. But after years of playing thankless gigs and traveling with medicine shows, he decided to undertake the most demanding and bravura performance of his life. In the fall of 1917, Laplante reinvented himself as Chief White Elk: war hero, sports star, civil rights campaigner, Cherokee nation leader - and total fraud.