Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Anthologies & Short Stories

In the Shadow of the Towers compiles nearly 20 works of speculative fiction responding to and inspired by the events of 9/11, from writers seeking to confront, rebuild, and carry on, even in the face of overwhelming emotion.

Trapped in hostile territory just after the resolution of the Avan-Thrak war, Gryl lives off the land and the spoils of his once-ally, the chaotic Thrak berserkers. When a chance encounter with a group of renegade Shytan knights offers him a chance at a warm meal and a few nights of relative peace, and the possibility of coin in his pouch, Gryl finds himself unable to refuse. He soon learns, however, that no matter how far removed from the war he might be, the past is never far behind.

Working as a barmaid in the rough-and-tumble city of Half Town, Jancy the Quick keeps her true profession a secret but is poised to respond whenever injustice is found. In this instance injustice has found her. But this time Jancy may have bitten off more than she can chew.

"Sun and Steel" illuminates the origin of Jirom, one of the main characters of the Book of the Black Earth epic fantasy series. This story explores the brutal nature of this world as well as the honor and duty that bind its characters together.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

These stories present electric messiahs, identity constructs, the Beatles, and even a nuclear Armageddon, which serve as comic foils for Lain's everyman characters. Here is an America where packets of Sea Monkeys arrive in the mail containing secret messages, and the girl next door can breathe underwater. With Last Week's Apocalypse, Douglas Lain arrives with a punch line and a warning.

Forty years after the legendary Green encampment known as Cascadiopolis was destroyed in an apocalypse of bombs, a cold case cop investigates the unresolved death of a man who may never have existed. Who was the mysterious Tygre Tygre? What was his connection to the aging terrorist known as Bashar? Who gave the order to destroy the fabled encampment? And why is one of the world’s richest men searching for the same answers? This story was originally published in the Audie Award-winning METAtropolis: Cascadia.

In a world of criminals, thugs, con artists, cheats, and swindlers, there must be a man to stand against the powers of darkness and corruption. A man not afraid to walk the mean streets—whether they be those of 1930s Los Angeles, an ancient fantasy realm, or some far-flung planet of a future star empire. He is a man who knows that a “good man” is not always a “nice guy”. But when the chips are down, he understands that a hero does the right thing, even if it means losing everything.

The New York Times Best-selling fantasy author Anne Bishop makes her U.S. debut in science fiction with this engaging futuristic novella. The Restorers travel the universe fulfilling a purpose handed down through the generations. They live and die aboard city-ships, never knowing the worlds they create and save. What begins as a disastrous training exercise in creating and balancing ecosystems becomes an unexpected fight for survival. The only hope may be the secret project of an untried Restorer.

From the age of steam and the heirs of Dr. Frankenstein to the asteroid belt to the halls of Miskatonic University, the writers at Book View Café have concocted a beakerful of quaint, dangerous, sexy, clueless, genius, insane scientists, their assistants (sometimes equally if not even more deranged, not to mention bizarre), friends, test subjects, and adversaries.

The MECH: Age of Steel anthology features a vast array of tales showcasing giant human-piloted, robot war machines wreaking havoc in blasted cities, or on dystopian landscapes, or around space stations and asteroids against a cosmic backdrop, and more!

Here are six stories from the January and February 2003 issues of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, at once more current and more human than today's headlines.

In a post-apocalyptic America, Jamie Teague helps a group of travelers make their way past the murderous Bushwhackers. Jamie comes to find that the strangers are Mormons headed for Utah to avoid being massacred. Knowing that they will die without his help, he agrees to take them as far as his cabin.

This story is included in Orson Scott Card's collection The Folk of the Fringe.

The music of Rush, one of the most successful bands in music history, is filled with fantastic stories, evocative images, thought-provoking futures and pasts. In this anthology, notable, best-selling, and award-winning writers each chose a Rush song as the spark for a new story, drawing inspiration from the visionary trio Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.

A prime volume by best-selling author David Drake explores a future world where the police have cameras watching everybody, everywhere, 24-7... and introduces Lacey, the man who watches the watchmen. Then Drake segues to a very different, but no less foreboding future where the Fleet preserves the peace in the galaxy - in theory at least, and at a cost which is extremely high, and not just in money or even in lives. And much more, as the listener is taken on a guided tour of the many world of David Drake

A bizarre death in a primitive, cult-like community walled off from a futuristic society brings a enigmatic agent from the outside world to investigate. Hurst offers a genre-bending reflection on how technology defines us. Also included: an excerpt from the author's post-apocalyptic thriller The Dead Lands.

Vitus Adamson has a second chance at life now that he's no longer a zombie. But after killing his brother, Jamie, Vitus lands in prison on murder charges. Jamie's death exposes secret government projects so deep in the black they cannot be seen - without Vitus, that is. Sprung from jail, the government hires Vitus to clean up Jamie's messes, but tracking down his brother's homemade monsters gone rogue is easier said than done. The first of them is a convicted killer assumed to be safely behind bars.

In a post-apocalyptic America, Deaver Teague makes a living salvaging things left behind from before the war. When he hears some truck drivers talking about a hidden cache of gold in a Mormon temple in flooded Salt Lake City, he enlists some friends to look for it.

This story is included in Orson Scott Card's collection The Folk of the Fringe.

Years after a war that destroyed America, Sam Monson, the governor of the state of Deseret, negotiates a peace treaty with a woman out of his past - on behalf of the son he left behind.

This story is included in Orson Scott Card's collection The Folk of the Fringe.