Showing results by narrator "Matt Godfrey" in All Categories

"But come back soon", the sign said. Obviously it was a lie. The people in the grocery store just wanted to make sure he couldn't buy the spice he needed to make the recipe he'd selected for that night (recipes must be followed exactly). Obviously they wanted him to eat out...to meet the waitress, Marta, to see her horrible, unspeakable, unbearable ugliness. It was obvious to him: her maimed, twisted face was the living desire to be dead. He had to help Marta be dead. 

In recent years, nicotine has become as verboten as many hard drugs. The literary styles in this volume are as varied as the moral quandaries herein, and the authors have successfully unleashed their incandescent imaginations on the subject matter, fashioning an immensely addictive collection.

Mason “Mace” Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human-remains detection - that is, he trains dogs to hunt for dead bodies. He calls his pack of cadaver dogs The Finders, and his prize pupil is a golden retriever named Vira. When Mace Reid and Vira are called in to search Washington Park at three o'clock in the morning, what they find has them running for their very lives.

One of the preeminent writers of weird fiction, Robert Aickman is celebrated for his unsettling and often ambiguous "strange stories", but he once wrote that "those, if any, who wish to know more about me, should plunge beneath the frivolous surface of The Late Breakfasters," his only novel, originally published in 1964.

His initiation complete, Leg knew he had to prove himself worthy of the gift his totem had given him. The boy was facing a long and difficult journey to dangerous lands. Meanwhile, those with eyes set on ruling the Northern Empire were also making their move. But what was most important to Leg? His personal advancement or the integrity of the empire? Of course, it was possible the two priorities were inseparable, especially since a true wizard had been introduced to the world.

From paranormal plots to stories of the supernatural, tales of the unfamiliar have always fascinated us humans. To keep the tradition alive, fantasy aficionado Paula Guran has gathered the most delightfully disturbing work from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique! No two mysterious shadows are alike, and the same can be said for the books in this series. The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 4 contains more than twenty stories. Listener beware and indulge if you dare, because these chilling tales are sure to spook and surprise!

Jack and Allen need a break. They’ve decided to spend the summer before their senior year of college out in Western Massachusetts. But their quest for rest and relaxation comes to an end when they arrive in Greifsfield, MA. Their friendship is tested by a mysterious beauty and her razor-sharp smile, then broken when they’re caught up in a rash of mysterious disappearances. How will these two friends cope with the truth behind a town that craves raw meat? And how will they survive beneath the glow of the full moon?

The Accidental Ecosystem tells the story of how cities across the United States went from having little wildlife to filling, dramatically and unexpectedly, with wild creatures. Today, many of these cities have more wild animals living in them than at any time in at least the past 150 years. Why have so many cities—the most artificial and human-dominated of all Earth's ecosystems—grown rich with wildlife, even as wildlife has declined in most of the rest of the world? And what does this paradox mean for people, wildlife, and nature on our increasingly urban planet?

The details of the Bell family's terrifying experience with the supernatural have never been told in quite the way that Bram Stoker Award-nominated horror author John F.D. Taff has conceived. In his novel, for the first time, the Witch has her own say. And what she reveals about the incident and the dark motivations behind her appearance reaches way beyond a traditional haunting. Forget what you've heard about this wholly American legend. What you believe you know about the mysterious occurrences on the Bell farm is wrong.

Years earlier, John Tracker fled the insanity of his family and their house, a centuries-old monstrosity that his grandfather Theophilus rigged full of hallucinatory tricks and vicious death traps designed to capture the Devil. Now middle-aged, John receives word that the place is to be demolished to make way for a freeway, and he decides to revisit it with his girlfriend Amy Griffith before its destruction. But when a blizzard traps them inside the house, they will be forced to contend with the dangers hidden within: strange time-shifts, murderous traps, and more.

The Deadfall Hotel is where our nightmares go, it’s where the dead pause to rest between worlds, and it’s where Richard Carter and his daughter Serena go to rediscover life - if the things at the hotel don’t kill them first. Think of it as the vacation resort of the collective unconscious. With the powerful prose that has earned him awards and accolades, Steve Rasnic Tem explores the roots of fear and society’s fascination with things horrific, using the many-layered metaphor of the Deadfall Hotel.

Charles Ripley has a good job as an engineer, a pretty wife, and an expensive house in a fashionable San Diego suburb. But it isn't until Ruskin Marsh moves in next door that Ripley realizes how passionless his life really is. Marsh, a connoisseur of the arts, high-powered lawyer, model husband and father, and effortless seducer of women, is so supremely alive that Ripley finds himself irresistibly drawn to him. But after Marsh's arrival, local girls begin to vanish, marriages end violently, and horribly mutilated corpses are found.

Over four years have passed, and still Matthew Doyle can't shake the guilt of turning his back on Ruby, the girl who saved his life. As much as he's tried to avoid returning home to Hanceville, Alabama, he must do so in order to complete his service with the Tennessee Valley Authority, helping to establish electricity throughout the county. But Ruby continues to haunt his dreams, and the only way to move on is to seek her out and make things right.

The whole world is falling apart. Bashorg, the demon, and the Beast, a dragon, are summoning all their power to rage against the Abyss, the prison their divine essences have been trapped in. Leg Ondo and his team must pull off the impossible once again. But how are they going to save the planet with Beatrice Shiv, a beautiful young girl, causing problems for Liara Slick, Leg's betrothed? How are they going to save the world if they can't even get along? The time has come for Leg Ondo to remember his true past as a valg.

Glencoe, Illinois: A home invasion turned kidnapping at the mansion of billionaire financier Kenneth J. Druckman brings Mason “Mace” Reid and his cadaver dog, Vira, to this wealthy northern suburb of Chicago. Druckman was assaulted, left behind while his wife and young daughter were taken for ransom. Brought to the scene by the FBI, Reid specializes in human remains detection, and Vira is the star of his pack of cadaver dogs. After Vira finds the dead body of the mother, everyone is on high alert to find Druckman’s missing daughter before she disappears forever.

This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different.

Today, most people remember E. B. White as the beloved children's book author who gave us Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, but did you know that most of his career was spent writing for famous magazines like The New Yorker? His lifelong dream to write a children's book about a mouse would take years to get published before it became the classic book we know and love today. A few years later, White would publish yet another children's book inspired by a pig he had raised and a spider whose webs he loved to admire in his barn.

Once, the Queendom of Sol was a glowing monument to humankind’s loftiest dreams. Ageless and immortal, its citizens lived in peaceful splendor. But as Sol buckled under the swell of an immorbid population, space itself literally ran out.…

Like all sons, Travis longs to have a good relationship with his father, who abandoned Travis as a child to pursue his gambling lifestyle. Now, as an adult, Travis is willing to forgive and forget in order to make things right with his father, even if it means reaching beyond the grave to do so. But when Travis does reunite with his long-lost father, will he make up for lost time and repair their broken relationship, or is it true that some things and some people never change?

In the eighth decade of the Queendom of Sol, three commodities rule the day. The first is wellstone, a form of programmable matter capable of emulating almost any substance. The second is collapsium, a deadly crystal composed of miniature black holes, vital for the transmission of information and matter - including humans - throughout the Solar System. The third is the bitter rivalry between Her Majesty's top scientists.