Showing results by narrator "Neil Hellegers" in All Categories

Howard Fast began to formally practice Zen meditation after turning away from communism in 1956. The Art of Zen Meditation, originally published by the antiwar political collective Peace Press, in 1977, is the fruit of Fast’s study: a brief and instructive history of Zen Buddhism and its tenets, written with a simplicity that is emblematic of the philosophy itself. Fast’s study of Zen also inspired his popular Masao Masuto mystery series about a Zen Buddhist detective in Beverly Hills.

Dorian Lake spent years cornering the Baltimore hex-crafting market, using his skills at the hermetic arts to exact karmic justice for those whom the system has failed. He keeps his magic clean and free of soul-corrupting Netherwork, thus avoiding both the karmic blow-back of his practice and the notice of the Presidium, a powerful cabal of practitioners that polices the esoteric arts in America.

Now, the academy is sending its students to a holy land called the Burning Lake. Treasures beyond imagination lay at the heart of this mystical realm, guarded by fearsome beasts and wild magics. But chaos lurks behind the allure of the holy land. Forces once dormant have begin to stir, and when they make their move, nobody will be safe. With both his, and the lives of his friends in the balance, Andross' only chance of survival may be revealing his greatest secret to the world.

Everything is falling apart. Magnus is hunting Eris, and even the gods fear him. As if that weren’t enough, our criminal dealings have finally caught up with us. The Merchants Guild are coming to settle all accounts, and we’re deep in the red.

Every year since the Ashlords were gifted phoenix horses by their gods, they've raced them. First into battle, then on great hunts, and finally for the pure sport of seeing who rode the fastest. Centuries of blood and fire carved their competition into a more modern spectacle: The Races. Over the course of a multi-day event, elite riders from clashing cultures vie to be crowned champion. But the modern version of the sport requires more than good riding.

Why did Uden ever want to come to the mainland? Life in The Realm is hard when you have rent to pay. Azure explores various ways of making money but quickly finds that bounty quests are where the real loot is at. The only problem is that most of the bounty quests are classified as Very Hard, which has proven to come with the risk of death. Follow Azure as he gets robbed, finally learns magic, makes new friends and enemies, and meets a character that turns The Realm upside down.

Years have passed since the demon Tarrik and his master, the sorcerer Ren, destroyed the servants of Samal and suppressed the very essence of the vile lord. The cost was greater than even a demon could have imagined. But in the realms of demons and humans, no evil can be fully controlled, and no one’s true fate can be foretold. Including Tarrik’s. He’s been summoned once more, now by the vengeful Linriel, who’s fallen in with one of Samal’s ravaged survivors.

Ted Finley is ready to fight, equipped with a weapon that could change everything. Erica LaPlante is ready to lead with an army prepared to make its final stand. Natalie Dorn is ready to die, though she wonders if there’s something worth living for. But The General is ready to end all of their lives with one fell swoop. Within 24 hours, a victor will be crowned. Can Ted and his friends survive long enough to take back their world?

When Mark Ryder's latest mission turns into a bloodbath, he'll find himself alone on the shores of an alien moon hunted by insects the size of skyscrapers. Now, if he wants to get off this rock alive, he'll have to cut a bloody swathe through the bug queen's elite army, rendezvous with the all-female Artemis squad, and blow the whole thing to Kingdom Come without getting killed.

Ted Finley is your average suburban nerd, but when a group of thugs threaten to kill innocent people, something incredible happens. After he's gifted with superhuman abilities during a seemingly random brunch, Ted quickly transforms from a nobody into a viral video sensation.

Saddled with both a new pupil and a bar to run, Dorian has to pick his battles carefully if he is to find his soul. When the Dark Choir bargains with Dorian in exchange for his loyalty, the power they offer may be too valuable to refuse...for a new menace threatens the hermetic order in America. Members of the Presidium are being outed in the press, and the formidable cabal's response is swift and brutal. But Dorian has no time to hide from the Presidium's fury, as the new Deputy Mayor taps him to investigate a string of occult crimes.

Vidu, a used-car dealer and d-bag extraordinaire, had been aimlessly wandering the streets of Chicago with only one thing on his mind… and that was before he got turned into a zombie. Just when you thought you had seen the last of him, now you can find out what happened to Vidu after he left his friends behind during the pandemonium of Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse… One Beer at a Time. Humor, action, zombies, hangovers, gratuitous insults, and more Vidu!

In his account of the sensational life and murder of Grady Stiles Jr., also known as the legendary carnival freak Lobster Boy, author Fred Rosen explains how Stiles' death was engineered by his wife, Mary Teresa, the carny known as the Electrified Girl. Rosen describes how Mary Teresa arranged for her husband's murder after years of physical and emotional abuse. During Mary Teresa's dramatic trial, Rosen becomes a character in his own book.

I'm Cisco Suarez, and a week ago I was dead. Cursed into serving a clandestine shadow group, I have a lot of blood on my hands. Good thing I also have a juvenile problem with authority. I'm not taking orders anymore, and the first thing on my bucket list is bringing them down. If I'm good at anything, it's looking in dark places. But I've got shadows of my own. Horrific deeds coming back to haunt me, and not the metaphorical kind of haunting, either. I'm talking ghosts, mages, and that thing with the glowing red eyes.

The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to behold with its esoteric, inconsistent standards: 12 inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, 16 ounces in a pound, 100 pennies to the dollar. For something as elemental as counting and estimating the world around us, it seems like a confusing tool to use. So how did we end up with it? Most of the rest of the world is on the metric system, and for a time in the 1970s America appeared ready to make the switch.

In The Dinosaur Tourist, Caitlín R. Kiernan’s 15th collection of short fiction, 19 tales of the unexpected and the uncanny explore that treacherous gulf between what we suppose the world to be and what might actually be waiting out beyond the edges of our day-to-day experience. A mirror may be a window into another time. A cat may be our salvation. Your lover may be a fabulous being. And a hitchhiker may turn out to be anyone at all.

Graeme only wanted a pint.\ He'd even have taken one of those fruity craft beers in a pinch, but it seemed Fate had other plans...which is strange, because as it turns out, Graeme is possibly the only being in the universe unaffected by the otherwise divine and tangible force of destiny. Immune to its machinations, he is Fateless.

In the summer of 1933, a man named Adolf Hitler is the new and powerful anti-Semitic chancellor of Germany. But in Los Angeles, no-nonsense secretary Liesl Weiss has concerns much closer to home. The Great Depression is tightening its grip, and Liesl is the sole supporter of two children, an opinionated mother, and a troubled brother.

In this striking, enormously affecting novel, Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of two very different yet intimately linked American families. Luther Dunphy is an ardent Evangelical who envisions himself as acting out God's will when he assassinates an abortion provider in his small Ohio town while Augustus Voorhees, the idealistic doctor who is killed, leaves behind a wife and children scarred and embittered by grief.

As it prepared to ward off an invasion by five well-equipped neighboring armies in 1948, newborn Israel lacked the weapons to defend itself. Enter Al Schwimmer, an American World War II veteran who feared a repeat of the Holocaust. He created factitious airlines, bought decommissioned airplanes from the US War Asset Administration, fixed them in California and New Jersey, and sent his pilots - Jewish and non-Jewish WWII aviators - to pick up rifles, bullets, and fighter planes from the only country willing to break the international arms embargo: communist Czechoslovakia.