Showing results by narrator "Kevin T. Collins" in All Categories

Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement speakers of his time. For each occasion, Vonnegut’s words were unfailingly unique, insightful, and witty, and they stayed with audience members long after graduation. As edited by Dan Wakefield, this book reads like a narrative in the unique voice that made Vonnegut a hero to readers and listeners of all ages. At times hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and deeply serious, these reflections are ideal for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their "long-delayed puberty ceremony".

It was a crime that shocked the nation: the brutal murder in Chicago in 1924 of a child by two wealthy college students who killed solely for the thrill of the experience. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were intellectuals - too smart, they believed, for the police to catch them. When they were apprehended, state's attorney Robert Crowe was certain that no defense could save the ruthless killers from the gallows.

Welcome to the challenge. You're an absolute nobody here—nothing, a zero, a useless lump of meat filled with bones. You're but a delicious morsel for your antagonists and those who got lucky at the start. The only goal you can have in your miserable existence is to kick the bucket as soon as possible.

FBI researcher Emma Dockery is back with a vengeance. Obsessed with finding a link between a string of deaths across several different states, she is convinced that there's a pattern. And where there's a pattern, there's a serial killer to put a stop to. When Detectives working on some of these cases start turning up dead, Emma knows that she's onto something.

Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive. This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history.

Gerald Livingston is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there’s something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn’t on the decades’ old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth’s infomesh about an "alien artifact".

The power unleashed during the Ascendance, lingers. After defeating the Revenant, Monty realizes Simon’s blood has been poisoned—tainted. Simon is slowly transforming. His body is harnessing dark magic in ways thought unimaginable. Now, Monty is faced with the hardest choice. Let the poison run its course, transforming Simon into a dark immortal, increasing his power, but drawing the attention of those who would want him dead, or allow Simon to take the blood lessons, risking his friend’s life? Can Monty help Simon before he’s too far gone or will Simon become an unstoppable threat?

In the early 1980s, Brian O'Dea was operating a $100 million a year, 120-man drug smuggling business, and had developed a terrifying cocaine addiction. Under increasing threat from the DEA in 1986 for importing seventy-five tons of marijuana into the United States, he quit the trade - and the drugs - and began working with recovering addicts in Santa Barbara. Despite his life change, the authorities caught up with him years later and O'Dea was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years at Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary in Los Angeles Harbor.

Get this: you wake up in the hospital. You're not feeling so hot—to put it mildly—and also, you're surrounded by hordes of zombies! After trying to run away, you eventually find a map of the building, but guess what? It's in French! Why? 'Cuz you're in France! You've got nothing on you but a baseball bat, and the zombies are just one step away from biting you on your bare backside. But don't worry, there's still hope, because you've got your own personal shelter in spacetime.

Hadjar has seen everything that the Mortal Realm of the Nameless World has to offer. Beloved son, disgraced prince, brother, loyal friend, brave warrior, illustrious commander, murderer, traitor, devoted husband, monster . . . All these roles converge in Hadjar Darkhan, the Mad General. He has left behind songs and tales of courage and honor that have become the lament of the thousands who've met their end at his blade, their blood drenching the fields and valleys of the mortal regions. And he did it all so he could keep going, so his journey wouldn't end before its time.

In the not-too-distant future, during an unacknowledged mission inside the Syrian border, a government operative unwittingly triggers an incredible event that alters the course of society. A terrible weapon has been unleashed - a weapon that, left to run its course, will destroy the moral fabric of humanity.

Russia, 1940. Fifteen-year-old Misha’s life is about to transform when his father is offered a job in Stalin’s inner circle. They move into a luxurious apartment in the Kremlin, but doubts about the glorious new Russia quickly surface. Misha realizes that the secret police can do whatever they like. His own mother is arrested and sent to prison, but Misha and his father daren’t complain. Then as German troops advance on Moscow, the atmosphere in the Kremlin ignites.

An emissary from the Dark Council has just materialized in the office of the Montague & Strong Detective Agency, and makes Simon Strong an offer he can't refuse. Charon is missing. The legendary ferryman responsible for transporting sorcerer souls across the river Styx hasn't been seen in days. And with each passing hour, those unable to cross the river are left to walk among the living, tilting the world further out of balance. Meet Simon Strong, an immortal, who is also the best private detective in New York City. Together with his surly partner Tristan Montague they must find the Ferryman.

Father John has lived his whole life without knowing a woman's touch. Hard at first, his self-denial grew easier over time, as he learned to master his urges with a regimen of prayer, cold showers, and jigsaw puzzles. That changed the day that Debra Rocks entered his confessional. A rough-talking adult film actress, she has come to ask him to pray for a murdered costar.

Find a future. Lose a past. She's a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her. She's also on the run. Nashville is where she's come to claim her destiny. It's also where the darkness she's fled might find her. And destroy her.

Once the Church of God Awaiting dominated all the kingdoms of Safehold. Then, after centuries of stasis, the island kingdom of Charis began to defy the edicts of Mother Church—egged on, some say, by the mysterious warrior-monk Merlin Athrawes, who enjoys the Charisian royal family's absolute trust. What vanishingly few people know is that Merlin is the cybernetic avatar of a young woman a thousand years dead, felled in the war in which aliens destroyed Earth...and that since awakening, his task has been to restart the history of the long-hidden human race.

Becoming the Hero of the Dragon Lands isn't easy. You have to survive a ruthless tournament. However, even after his victory, one he'd earned with sweat and blood, Hadjar's deadly adventure had just begun. The winner gets everything he could ever ask for: accolades, a wreath that symbolizes his greatness, and the Emperor's undivided attention. His duty is to escort the dragon Princess to the Ruby Mountains, the dwarves' homeland. But the wreath isn't what it appears to be. And the path that leads to the mountains runs through the Red Mist Lands, place only a chosen few could survive.

Since his wife, Michelle, left seven years ago, Jeffy Coltrane has worked to maintain a normal life for himself and his 11-year-old daughter, Amity, in Suavidad Beach. It’s a quiet life, until a local eccentric known as Spooky Ed shows up on their doorstep. Ed entrusts Jeffy with hiding a strange and dangerous object - something he calls “the key to everything” - and tells Jeffy that he must never use the device. But after a visit from a group of ominous men, Jeffy and Amity find themselves accidentally activating the key and discovering an extraordinary truth.

Superhuman terror incidents are on the rise, riots are breaking out everywhere like a plague spreading across the face of the world, and the unknown enemy still stalks the world. However, Pierson and Hale are determined to bring down the monster that caused this turmoil, no matter what it takes. With violence exploding on all sides, when given a clear shot at the source of the chaos, they determine to take their chance. Hale will throw every bit of power he has at the very source that granted him his strength, backed by a world thrown into chaos looking for someone, anyone, to blame.

Apprenticed to a venerable wizard when his hunter and trapper parents disappear into the forest never to be seen again, Darian is difficult and strong willed - much to the dismay of his kindly master. But a sudden twist of fate will change his life forever when the ransacking of his village forces him to flee into the great mystical forest. It is here in the dark forest that he meets his destiny, as the terrifying and mysterious Hawkpeople lead him on the path to maturity.