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

This collection of short stories encompasses 20 years of work by Howard Fast, including some of his best-known and most treasured tales. Not merely fantasy or science fiction, these "Zen stories" explore the world’s mysterious and unanswerable questions, big and small, and the results are at once bizarre, humorous, chilling, and poignant. The 31 stories in Time and the Riddle showcase Fast’s range and supreme talent as a storyteller.

The undead are more alive today than ever. Immortal? Indeed! Nothing has sunk its teeth into 21st century popular culture as pervasively as the vampire. The fangsters have the freedom to fly across all genres and all mediums - there''s even apps for vamps. Whether roaming into romance, haunting horror, sneaking into science fiction, capering into humor, meandering through mystery - no icon is more versatile than the vampire.

Selden, a former mercenary, gave up war to settle in Balathex, the City of Fountains, and set up shop as a fencing master. But old habits die hard, and a man can use a secondary source of income when he has a habit of picking losing horses at the hippodrome. So he still hires out his sword on occasion and generally finds himself enmeshed in supernatural mysteries and fighting sorcerers, demons, and the like. This is an origin of sorts. It relates how he first got himself established in Balathex

"Yellachile's Cage", a story by Robert McCammon, was first published in his short fiction collection Blue World.

Hank is walking home from the bar when the Model T pulls alongside him. It's been decades since he saw a car this old, and the sound of it takes him right back to his 20s. The door is open, and when he climbs in, the car takes off - without a driver. Before he knows what's happened, Hank is right back at Big Spring Pavilion, where he spent his youth drinking bootleg whiskey and chasing pretty girls. He will find the past is not quite as he remembered it, but still a lovely place to go for a drive.

For Ahren, it's no longer a question of someone trying to kill him; it's who will try next. Still on the run for a murder he didn't commit, Ahren adapts to life as an outlaw as his reputation of the Black Raven grows. Yet nothing comes easily. Dogged by bounty hunters, he finds himself crossing steel with pirates on the high seas and battling monsters in subterranean cities. If that wasn't enough, he's paid to assassinate an immortal and must break out of a heavily fortified prison.

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.

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.

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.

When police officer Rick LaFLeur is infected with the taint of black were-leopard, he goes to Jane Yellowrock for help. But her idea of "help" is not quite what he was expecting: she knocks him out and he wakes up in a cage.

George Dumas (Bruiser) calls Jane Yellowrock to the Royal Mojo Blues Company, because the club has been the scene of vampire attacks from an unknown rogue-vamp. And they dance. Oh, do they dance…

On the surface, this Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic is about a drifter who comes to stay in a New Mexico commune founded by a group of deaf-blind people. But beneath the story, author John Varley examines deep, universal issues. What is the nature of communication? What does an individual gain - or lose - by subsuming himself to the whole? Can an outsider ever truly "belong"?

As a child, Henry Cadmus lived on Catalina Island, a scenic vacationland off the Southern California coast. But Henry's experiences were far from idyllic. Today, even though Henry has seen firsthand the horrors of war, the ghastly images that haunt his dreams are ones he associates with his childhood... and the island: a snarling pig-man holding a cleaver; a jackal-headed woman on a high balcony, dripping blood; strange occult rituals... and worse. If it was up to Henry, he would avoid the island entirely.

The sequel to the best-selling Zombie, Ohio, this explosive supernatural thriller from Scott Kenemore tells the story of three Chicagoans who have been thrown together by a bizarre, interconnected series of events during the first 24 hours of a zombie outbreak in the Midwest's largest city. A partnership is crafted between a pastor from Chicago's rough South Side, an intrepid newspaper reporter, and a young female musician, all of whom are fighting for survival as they struggle to protect themselves and their communities in a city overrun with the walking dead.

Guy Fawkes is back, and this time it's a toss up who's going to be blown up first: Parliament or Reginald Worcester, gentleman consulting detective. But Guy might not be the only regicide to have been dug up and reanimated. He might be a mere pawn in a plan of diabolical twistiness. Only a detective with a rare brain - and Reggie's is amongst the rarest - could possibly solve this "five-cocktail problem".

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.

Dan Harmon, creator of NBC's Community and known Dungeons & Dragons aficionado, tells the tale of when Drizzt stands face-to-face with his own prejudices.

Actress and geek goddess Felicia Day (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural) narrates R.A. Salvatore's first published short story. Bruenor, who had seemingly met his demise at the end of Streams of Silver, appears here as a young, beardless dwarf on a quest for revenge.

The inimitable Al Yankovic gives an inspired performance of this mini-adventure featuring Pwent, an unlikely warrior who adds a touch of humanity to the seemingly-senseless slaughter surrounding him.