Fiction Literature Dramatized

Malcolm Theodore Puddle is a 21-year shipping clerk — from way back East. What is he doing out here? The Mountain Man’s former neighbor, Humbolt Puddle, has died and left his crumbling 600-acre ranch to his only living heir, just as a greedy and ruthless cattle baron is circling the Humbolt ranch like a ravenous vulture. Poor, unsuspecting Puddle is walking into a death trap. Smoke is the not the pitying kind. But any enemy of Smoke’s neighbor is his enemy, too.

The Lord Protector of Portland has continued to press his rule into every corner of the Willamette. Both Juniper and Havel know that war is coming, but their allies in the Free-state of Corvallis are less convinced. Sir Nigel continues his escape from mad King Charles with the aid of his new found Tasmanian allies, having to out race the legendary sailing ship the Cutty Sark and battle pirates off the coast of Africa.

Jon-Tom and Mudge are bored. Their adventuring days long behind them, the spellsinger and his once-thieving otter sidekick have settled into a life of tepid domesticity, and they are sick of it. They hunger for an old-fashioned adventure, but there are no more great evils to combat. And so they decide to follow the music. Literally.

Jon-Tom and his friends have seen better days. After his motley crew moved heaven and Earth to save civilization at the battle of Jo-Troom Gate, his merry band went its separate ways. Mudge, the foul-mouthed otter, eagerly returned to thieving, drinking, and whoring, while Talea, the girl of Jon-Tom’s dreams, embarked on her own adventures, leaving him to study magic with Clothahump, the irascible wizard whose inept spell trapped him in this weird otherworld in the first place.

Colter Farrow’s branded face is a constant reminder of why he’s been on the run for so long. But his plan to return home and confront his past backfires when he’s framed for the murders of two men. Men who turn out to be US Deputy Marshals. Resigned to living on the lam, Colter heads to Utah Territory, where a desperate town marshal offers him a job as — of all things — a lawman. What better way for a man to hide from the law than to become part of it?

He is brave, tough as leather, and has left behind a trail of deadly enemies - outlaws he's hunted down or killed with the cold heart of a man used to violence. A feared bounty hunter and the scourge of bad men everywhere, Flintlock carries an ancient Hawken muzzle-loader, handed down to him from the mountain man who raised him. He stands as the towering hero of a new Johnstone saga.

In this raw, brutal world ruled by the strongest and the most vicious, an unseen player is manipulating Ryan and his band, luring him across an unseen battle line drawn in the dust outside Tucson, Arizona. Here, a local barony becomes the staging ground for a battle unlike any other, against a foe whose ties to pre-Dark society present a new and incalculable threat to a fragile world. Ryan Cawdor is the only man living who stands between this adversary's glory...and the prize he seeks.

When former first lady Gwen DeVere Queen is discovered to be hale and hearty - after falling victim to a successful (and very public) assassination - the jig is finally up. Arthur Penn, a.k.a. King Arthur, reveals his true identity, and the existence of the Holy Grail, to the world. Unable to cope with the sick and dying who desperately entreat him to heal them with the power of the Grail, Arthur accepts an offer from an entrepreneur with a new approach to health care: siphon water through the Grail, bottle it, and sell it as a curative.

Two years after Wild Bill Hickok made his mark on Deadwood, Scratch Morton and Bo Creel make theirs. Their job is guarding gold shipments from the mining camps — shipments that keep getting hijacked by a gang called the Devils of Deadwood who plunge pitchforks into their victims’ bodies. With Thanksgiving approaching, Scratch just wants to carve a turkey with a handsome widow woman at his side. Course, when the US Army comes to the rescue, all hell breaks loose. The widow gets taken hostage. So do a bunch of soldiers. Now, Scratch and Bo are going after missing gold.

If there’s one thing Smoke Jensen hates, it’s a man who fights dirty. And no one fights dirtier than a politician. Especially a lying, cheating, no-good grifter like Senator Rex Underhill. Luckily, with another election coming up, this senatorial snake in the grass has some serious competition: Smoke’s old friend, Sheriff Monte Carson. Carson’s an honest man, and he’s got Smoke’s full support. But Underhill’s got support, too: a squad of hired guns ready to hit the campaign trail - and stain it red with blood.

The Loner didn’t just bust out of jail, he busted out twice. The third time might be the charm — or a bullet in the belly. He didn’t want much — just the chance to drift out of Texas into New Mexico Territory. That’s when the Loner discovered there was a price on his head. A victim of mistaken identity, he broke out of Hell Gate Prison a few years back. Now, he’s behind bars again, until a sheriff’s love-struck daughter decides to come to his aid and a beautiful bounty hunter — who also has eyes for the Loner — joins in.

He may be a Confederate turned-bounty-hunter with a predilection for trouble, but Lou Prophet knows you never overstay your welcome in a town that wants you dead. Now, all because a young fool with a lousy poker hand couldn’t hold his temper, Prophet has a bloodthirsty posse aiming to pump him full of lead for murdering the son of prominent cattleman Gerard Loomis.

Cade Williams is no ordinary man. His ability to cross over to the other side makes him uniquely qualified to command the Church’s special operations division. As a modern-day Knight, Cade can use the curse that has scarred his soul as a weapon against the forces of darkness. But a new kind of unholy war is brewing — and soon Cade may be the last man standing...between the living and the dead.

Fear and human depravity permeate the frigid air in a once-dynamic Alaskan city. Ryan Cawdor and his group of survivalists go on red alert the moment they set foot on the forbidding tundra, but regardless, they find themselves rounded up by cannibal coldhearts. The companions quickly discover there's a fate much worse than becoming food. Dangerous new experiments are taking place in a long-abandoned military base and, in the bitter heart of the frozen North, new horrors reach out to poison their hope for a better tomorrow.

The endless struggle for power among the barons is a way of life in Deathlands, but Ryan Cawdor and his warrior survivalists take no sides — unless forced to. But as the land around the Rio Grande reaches the breaking point in a bitter war, the companions are harnessed into battle, moving toward a grim confrontation with an old enemy whose secret stockpile of 21st-century nerve gas is poised to unleash infinite madness once more upon a ravaged Earth.

Miles beneath the ocean's surface, a decaying redoubt barely protects Ryan and his companions from a watery death. Battling vicious assaults from cyborgs programmed by artificial intelligence to kill them, they're desperate to escape this underwater trap. But above the waves, a new threat awaits: a massive predark super ship banished to the seas of Deathlands. Decades of madness have led to civil war between the citizens of the upper and lower decks. Now pawns in a bloody game, Ryan and the other survivors must destroy the ship or face their certain end at sea.

Falcon MacCallister never thought he’d wear army brass. But Colorado is about to join the Union — and the would-be state has just made him Lt. Colonel in its Home Guard. Then, before his military career can take off, Falcon loses one of his men and two deadly new Gatling guns to a murderous ambush. Falcon is going to get those Gatling guns back — before they kill the wrong people.

In the aftermath of the apocalypse, little remains except age-old evils of greed, perversion, and force. But a small group of survivalists cherishes the legacy of human courage and hope. Led by the charismatic Ryan Cawdor, they persevere in a brutal world through warrior skills and a bold desire to regain the promised future. The fertile bayous teem with mutant life-forms and altered species. Off on a trek with his son, Ryan fends off the dangers from marauders and Nature's traps, but also finds signs of hope for humanity's new future.

Boyd Ackerman is no ordinary criminal. Trained by the US Army, commanding his band of killers with military efficiency, Ackerman has outsmarted and outfought every lawman who has tried to stop him. But he's never faced MacCallister before. Falcon MacCallister wasn't looking for a fight. Then Ackerman's Raiders kill his niece's husband - and take a young woman hostage. Falcon and his brothers ride into action.

When John Rourke's daughter is kidnapped by a Russian agent, Rourke follows their trail across a frozen Arctic wasteland - and stumbles upon a small pocket of humanity living in a tropical paradise surrounded by ice and snow. The community of Icelandic descendants has flourished in seclusion during the long years following the fiery holocaust, unaware of the fierce and bloody struggle in the outside world between the forces of freedom and Communist tyranny.