Showing results by narrator "Christopher Scheeren" in All Categories

"Work Sets You Free" by David Barnett is an original short story featuring the protagonist of the forthcoming novel Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl. Gideon is a young fisherman in Yorkshire, England, in an alternate 1890, who embarks on a journey to find Captain Lucian Trigger, the famed Hero of the Empire, to deal with a mystery plaguing his home village.

As the old gods awaken and satrapies splinter, the Chromeria races to find its lost Prism, the only man who may be able to stop catastrophe. But Gavin Guile is enslaved on a pirate galley. Worse, Gavin no longer has the one thing that defined him - the ability to draft. Without the protection of his father, Kip Guile will have to face a master of shadows alone as his grandfather moves to choose a new Prism and put himself in power.

It started in 48 B.C. when a centurion on a rescue mission for Julius Caesar went down with the ship in a storm. With his last breath, he saw the object of Caesar's seafaring excursion - an accursed, mechanical minotaur - hit bottom...and start to walk away. While taping an episode of Chasing History's Monsters, TV host and archaeologist Annja Creed learns that her sometime friend and protector Garin has acquired an ancient butterfly key artifact, the kind once used to wind automatons, clockwork-style devices.

Does Horace have the power and strength to save what he fought so hard to win? In a setting reminiscent of ancient Egypt and Babylon, where God-Kings and God-Queens hold the power of life and death, Horace, the one-time slave who became a powerful magician, has turned the tables on his former masters. Follow Horace, Alyra, and Jirom as they navigate the hurdles of managing the slave rebellion under the Akeshian Empire's nose. But evil is not content to sit back and let them gather their strength. A new threat is coming in the form of an unstoppable army of the walking dead.

After decoding an ancient scroll — one that purports to pinpoint the treasure of the Jewish Temple, lost for 2,000 years — archaeologist Annja Creed agrees to lead the party to recover the find in Judea. It’s a perilous desert journey through sandstorms and bandits, and complicated by mysterious sabotage within the group, to arrive at a long-forgotten fortress deep beneath a mountain.

There’s something rotten in Wyoming, and it’s not just the smell of cow pies — the first whiff is coming off the Laramie County Cattlemen. Right off the bat, Duff notices something odd: no small-time ranchers allowed. It’s big-leaguers only. And none are bigger than Brad Houser, owner of the sprawling Twin Peaks ranch. He’s up in arms over the small-timers claiming the unbranded mavericks who escape their herds. Which is perfectly legal. No brand, free cow.

Now a deputy US Marshal, Chet Byrnes hunts down the baddest hombres the west can throw at him. Chet and his crew must travel to New Mexico to free his cousin J.D. from a corrupt sheriff and his band of deputies. New allies will emerge to help Chet as he squares off with his greatest challenge yet; stopping bandits along the Arizona-Mexico border. Friendship will carry Chet across the Mexican border into a land where the only justice is found at the end of a six-gun.

In a wild frontier boomtown like Rattlesnake Wells, it’s hard to know who to lock up, who to let out, and who to gun down. But as town marshal, it’s Bob Hatfield’s job to separate the sinners from the saints — or at least keep them from killing each other. Now there’s a new boy in town. He’s fresh out of prison. He swears he was wrongfully convicted of embezzling from his boss at the local mine. He wants to clear his name and reclaim the woman he loves.

Mordecai Lewis and his son Michael lead men from Tennessee into Spanish-ruled Texas, to hunt wild horses. The trip is fatal for Mordecai, leaving Michael and his family in danger, both from the soldiers of Spain and the evil Blackwood family back home in the Tennessee hills.

Gavin Guile, once the most powerful man the world had ever seen, has been laid low. He's lost his magic, and now he is on a suicide mission. Failure will condemn the woman he loves. Success will condemn his entire empire. As the White King springs his great traps and the Chromeria itself is threatened by treason and siege, Kip Guile must gather his forces, rally his allies, and scramble to return for one impossible final stand.

The city of Haven has changed Hawk and Fisher from what they once were...but what, or who, were they? Discontent and a political assassination draw them to the Forest Kingdom. King Harald is dead and the kingdom is in turmoil. The King's Questor seeks out Hawk and Fisher to find the killer break some spells and help restore a kind of peace.

Hewey Calloway and his brother Walter are young men looking for work. Their first job puts them in the middle of a territory war between two powerful ranchers, C.C. Tarpley and Eli Jessup. It's a tough trail for two green cowpunchers and the forks in that trail may lead the brothers in different directions.

In a setting reminiscent of ancient Egypt and Babylon, where God-Kings and God-Queens hold the power of life and death in their hands, Horace, the one-time slave who became a powerful magician, has turned the tables on his former masters. Follow Horace, Alyra, and Jirom as they navigate the hurdles of managing the slave rebellion under the Akeshian Empire's nose. But evil is not content to sit back and let them gather their strength. A new threat is coming in the form of an unstoppable army of the walking dead.

Here in America, life is full of surprises. Duff never expected to hear from his old friend Charles McGregor, his battalion commander from the Black Watch Regiment of Her Majesty’s army. Turns out McGregor lives in New Mexico now. And he needs Duff’s help. He’s started a new life as the mayor of Antelope Wells - a mining town that’s being targeted by a power-hungry madman Ebenezer Schofield, who wants to declare the whole area an independent principality - and himself as king.

The war continues, and the undead ravage the land. Jirom, Horace, and Emanon begin to hope they might free the empire. But can they manage to do so before the dark king conquers the world?

The city of Haven has changed Hawk and Fisher from what they once were...but what, or who, were they? Discontent and a political assassination draw them to the Forest Kingdom. King Harald is dead and the kingdom is in turmoil. The King's Questor seeks out Hawk and Fisher to find the killer break some spells and help restore a kind of peace.

For Chet Byrnes, building a ranching empire means adding new land, hiring good men, finding water, and trying new breeds of cattle. But outlaws and Tuscon's idle rich want to take it all away - and Arizona just may be too lawless to stop it. So while the Byrnes family expands its reach, Chet must do his job hunting down outlaws on either side of the border.

Mexico won its freedom from Spain, and now the American settlers in Texas want their independence from the government of Mexico. Revolution is in the air, and the Lewis family is caught up in the struggle which will lead to the doomed battle of the Alamo.

Dark conspiracies bubble to the surface as war and zealotry spread across the empire. Old alliances are shattered, new vendettas are born, and all peoples - citizen and slave alike - must endure the ravages of storm and steel.

Dark conspiracies bubble to the surface as war and zealotry spread across the empire. Old alliances are shattered, new vendettas are born, and all peoples - citizen and slave alike - must endure the ravages of storm and steel.