Showing results by author "Robert Kroese" in All Categories

Praise for City of Sand “Dark, gritty, intense, and mind-boggling.” – Lelia F. “Mind. Blown. Just when you think you have gotten a handle on where the story is going to take you, Kroese drives it right off the rails.” – Dale F. “Equal part detective story and Philp K Dick paranoia trip, the story weaves together elements of a techno thriller and a psychological thriller that left me guessing until the end.” – Brent D. You Can't Go Home Again... He thought he knew this place. He was wrong. Retired police detective Benjamin Stone returns to the city of his childhood to find ...

You can fight the future, but the future fights back. Paul Bayes has begun to feel like all of his actions are dictated by forces beyond his control. But when his suicide attempt is foiled by a mysterious young woman named Tali, Paul begins to wonder if the future is really as bleak as it seems. Tali possesses a strange power: the ability to predict tragedies and prevent them from happening. The possibility of breaking free from the grip of fate gives Paul hope. But when Tali disappears, Paul begins to realize that altering the future isn’t as easy as it seems: you can fight the future, ...

Interstellar con man Rex Nihilo and his long-suffering robot sidekick Sasha are back, and they're neck-deep in their most outrageous scam yet: selling black market planets! As the pair's profits soar, they find themselves on the run from...well, pretty much everybody...when their antics draw the attention of an ancient intelligence determined to wipe humanity from the galaxy, they put their moneymaking plans on hold - and team up with their biggest rival - to save the galaxy once again.

Interstellar con man Rex Nihilo has a price tag on his head. Railroaded into smuggling a shipment of contraband corn to a planet short on food, Rex finds himself on the run from an insidious corporation named Ubiqorp, which reaps obscene profits by keeping the planet dependent on shipments of synthetic rations. When Rex and his long-suffering robot companion Sasha are sentenced to work as slave labor on a massive Ubiqorp plantation, they learn the terrible secret behind the corporation's products.

A terrifying demon has come from the shadow world to threaten the land of Orszag. Flanked by a horde of ghostly specters, the demon intends to lay waste to the city of Nagyvaros, and only one man can stop him: Konrad the sorcerer. To defeat the demon, Konrad must learn to master the power of the warlock's brand. But with enemies all around him and no time to lose, Konrad finds himself playing one foe against another in a desperate attempt to stay alive, hoping one day to wreak his vengeance on the man who destroyed his life...

After interstellar con man Rex Nihilo hijacks a cargo freighter on a whim, he decides that he, and his long-suffering robot sidekick Sasha, have found their calling as space pirates. But when the ship's cargo turns out to be a cryogenically frozen religious fanatic who holds the secret to a vast galactic conspiracy, Rex and Sasha find themselves on the run from real pirates - as well as agents of the oppressive Malarchy, crazy space cultists, and the Ursa Minor mafia. If Rex is going to get out of this jam alive, he might just have to save the galaxy - again.

A space-faring ne’er-do-well with more bravado than brains, Rex Nihilo plies the known universe in a tireless quest for his own personal gain. But when he fleeces a wealthy weapons dealer in a high-stakes poker game, he ends up winning a worthless planet…and owing an outstanding debt more vast than space itself!

In the 23rd century, humanity has been hunted to the verge of extinction by an alien race. When an exploratory ship accidentally travels back in time to Viking-age Scandinavia, the human race is given a second chance. Pursued by the power-hungry King Harald, the four surviving crew members join a ragtag band of Vikings as they pillage their way across Europe. To save humanity, they must somehow return to the stars. Thus begins a decades-long effort to teach the Vikings to build a craft capable of reaching space - a ship that will come to be known as the Iron Dragon.

The end is near—and it’s being supervised by the least qualified angel in Heaven. Reality is unraveling. The Eye of Providence, the mysterious power source that holds the universe together, has gone dark—or so it seems. As existence itself begins to fray at the seams, angels vanish, demons scheme, and the world teeters on the edge of destruction. Amidst the chaos, Mercury, a rogue cherub with a flair for sarcasm and a questionable work ethic, is reluctantly pulled back into the cosmic fray. He joins forces with Christine Temetri, a battle-weary journalist, and a cast of immortals, ...

A hooded man, his face marred by a mysterious black brand, walks the Plain of Savlos. Some say he has the power to summon demons. Others say he is the only one who can vanquish them. His name is Konrad, and he has a secret.... Once an ordinary soldier, his life was forever changed by a fateful meeting with a dying sorcerer. Now he is all that stands between civilization and the creeping evil of the shadow world.

"Clever, inventive, and original, Kroese’s hilarious romp has cult favorite written all over it." —Booklist The end of the world has never been this disorganized. Christine Temetri is tired of chasing doomsday prophets. She’s spent years reporting on apocalyptic cults, false messiahs, and spiritual scams—and she’s ready to call it quits. But when a string of strange events leaves her homeless, hunted, and somehow at the center of an unfolding divine conspiracy, she realizes this might be more than just another fringe meltdown. Enter Mercury: an angel with a gift for sarcasm, a ...

When the Apocalypse fails, what's a disgraced angel to do? Mercury—rogue cherub, cosmic bureaucrat, and reluctant hero—was this close to retirement when the end of the world didn't quite end. Now, with the dust barely settled from the last disaster, he finds himself inexplicably back on Earth… and things are even weirder than usual. While a demon in Ireland is mistaken for a bestselling author, a cynical reporter watches her career implode, and a mysterious government agency starts poking into supernatural affairs, Mercury is once again caught in the middle of a cosmic mess. From ...

Dead men tell no tales—unless they’re still walking. Boric the Implacable was a legend in his own time—a king, a warrior, and a world-class badass. But death, as it turns out, was just the beginning. Slain by a coward with a lucky blade, Boric finds himself stuck somewhere between this life and the next, trapped in his own corpse and shackled to a cursed sword that refuses to let him go. Now, navigating the land of Dis as a reluctant wraith, Boric must seek answers from witches, dodge sunlight like a vampire with a sunburn, and fight off the creeping rot of undeath—all while ...

In a land where dragons are a historical footnote and theology is a contact sport, a hapless missionary named Wyngalf embarks on a divine mission with the enthusiasm of a zealot and the competence of a beached fish. Armed with the teachings of the obscure Noninitarian faith—devoted to a God with nine conflicting personalities—Wyngalf sets out to bring enlightenment to the mysterious land of Dis. What begins as a fool’s errand quickly spirals into an epic misadventure involving pirates, monsters, incoherent prophecies, and a girl who really should know better. Between a dragon who has ...

After derailing more apocalypses than he can count (or remember), Mercury is finally ready for some downtime. But peace and quiet are hard to come by when you're an immortal rogue cherub with a reputation for divine disruption. Just as Mercury settles into a new identity, a disturbing pattern begins to emerge—one involving alternate dimensions, supernatural entities, and a centuries-old plan to rewrite reality itself. Enter a mysterious tech mogul with a god complex, a reclusive inventor with too many ideas, and an end-times preacher whose timing might finally be right. When Mercury ...

After narrowly averting the apocalypse (again), Mercury—the celestial realm’s most reluctant cherub—is stuck on Earth with nothing but attitude and immortality. When a teenage Satanist accidentally summons him from cosmic exile, Mercury lands in the middle of a tangled mess involving rogue angels, incompetent terrorists, and a shadowy government experiment in mass mind control. As Mercury's allies dig into the conspiracy, they realize it has roots in the American Revolution—and Mercury may have had something to do with it. With heavenly agents watching from above and earthly forces ...

A Knight Out of Time. A World Out of Order. When Vergil Parmeligo, Knight of the Order of the Unyielding Badger, wakes up after inhaling a lungful of mysterious silvery powder, he finds himself over a century removed from his last quest. The goblins he swore to vanquish? No longer the enemy. His estate? In ruins. Civilization? Steam-powered and suspiciously tolerant of the monstrous and the absurd. Joined by his well-meaning but dim caretaker Handri, Vergil sets out to reclaim his honor, his holdings, and perhaps a slightly less humiliating reputation. But in a land now ruled by bureaucrats...

When interstellar con man Rex Nihilo and his quick-witted robot sidekick, Sasha, land on the dusty frontier planet of Tierra Grande, they’re expecting an easy job: track down their friend, bounty hunter Pepper Melange, and maybe make a quick buck on the side. But things take a wild turn when Rex and Sasha accidentally take out a group of local troublemakers in the ramshackle town of Last Chance. What starts as a simple rescue mission spirals into a chaotic adventure of shootouts, shenanigans, and shadowy conspiracies.

Under arrest for crimes he hasn't yet committed, interstellar con man is given one chance to earn his freedom: he and his long-suffering robot sidekick Sasha must track down six fugitive androids who are determined to assassinate the Malarchian Primate!

Los Angeles, 2039. The Disincorporated Zone teeters on the brink of civil war, but for phenomenological inquisitor Erasmus Keane and his reluctant partner Blake Fowler, that’s just the beginning of their problems. A cryptic trickster has been leading them through a maze of riddles, each clue drawing them deeper into a conspiracy that reaches far beyond the DZ. As gang factions prepare for bloodshed and the city’s power brokers pull unseen strings, Keane and Fowler race against time to prevent an even greater catastrophe—one that threatens to unravel the fragile balance of power in LA ...