A collection of poems by Buck Downs, author of Marijuana Softdrink, Recreational Vehicle and more.Set in a fantasy world that is both harsh and beautiful, Grandelyn follows the journey to freedom of an enslaved group of people. Oppressed by an evil dictator, the slaves appear doomed to a lifetime of torture and servitude. But an unlikely leader rises among them and offers a chance for freedom. Ariyah, the beautiful young daughter of a rebellious slave, grows to become a fierce warrior and a reluctant leader in the eyes of the people. Ariyah attempts to lead the slaves out of bondage and into a new life – in a beautiful yet mysterious land called Grandelyn. After years of pain and suffering, Ariyah and her people find that Grandelyn offers the potential for peace and happiness. But Grandelyn has dark secrets that are about to be revealed. Those secrets, and a dictator who is unwilling to relinquish his grip, threaten everything that Ariyah and the others have fought so hard to attain. In effect, Grandelyn is the story of two journeys, and two transformations. One is the journey of an enslaved people struggling to transform themselves to a free people. The other is the journey of a young girl struggling to quickly transform from a child slave to a leader. Both journeys have unexpected and dangerous consequences. All journeys must end. Will both of these journeys end in the peace and prosperity of Grandelyn, or in a dark new world?

Can dancing master Alec Valcourt bring new life to the sleepy little village of Beaworthy--and to one young woman's restless heart?

The moon has fallen. In possibly the most epic space story of all time, Speed, a lunar sports hero, faces out-of-this-world challenges, after the moon tragically falls to earth. Speed's life will never be the same, but great character and determination could save his friends and family.The moon has fallen. In possibly the most epic space story of all time, Speed, a lunar sports hero, faces out-of-this-world challenges, after the moon tragically falls to earth. Speed's life will never be the same, but great character and determination could save his friends and family.LaCrosse has breathed life into classic themes with complex new alien cultures, letting unique human virtues shine through the dark corridors of space and time. Ender's Game meets Lord of the Rings meets Goosebumps, in a unique mash-up of science fiction and fantasy, with some elements of horror.Children, Young Adults, and the young at heart will love this romp through space and time, battling monsters and learning to cope with challenges on a galactic scale.Spoilers!In a world where a substance called vapor dominates an intergalactic economy, a lowly earthling must use wits and cunning to fight space vampires able to change physical form.Speed has discovered a terrifying secret about the robots which are supposed to govern humanity. Before he gets a chance to correct this galactic programming error, Speed is abducted by a powerful alien species.After Speed learns to cope with his new situation, gain some new friends, and endure brutal combat training, Speed must fight a final battle where the fate of the galaxy will be decided.With a cliffhanger to match all cliffhangers, Battle Moon 2075: Ramming Speed is perhaps the most epic story ever imagined, and a fitting start to the Battle Moon: 2075 saga. To Be Continued...

Piper always wished for a new life. She never thought she'd actually get it. When she does, she goes through hell just to pick herself up from the ground.As one who's always been ridiculed, she finds it hard to let new people into her life. When she loses her mother, she realizes that sometimes family isn't the best thing for a person.Piper yearned for a new life. School was a disaster, and home offered no comfort. One day, when she finds herself abandoned, it seems she's gotten her wish, but things couldn't be worse. Hopeless and destitute, Piper commits a grand act that, one day, could cost her even more than her unsatisfactory life.After a series of trials, Piper manages to get her life back on track. In a new city and at a new school, she meets friends who help her to be the person she'd always imagined herself to be. In the end, Piper reconciles, in her own way, a destructive relationship between herself and her unstable mother, and then goes on to live a happy life.

Isaac Bolachek isn't exactly cut out for a zombie apocalypse. He's not athletic, doesn't like guns, and prefers tinkering with electronics over road warrior heroics. In a world now over-run with the walking dead, he feels even more out of place than usual. Then again, maybe he's the hero the world really needs.May 5th 2190, a New America celebrates its first centennial. Marking the time when a wandering rogue turned into a Prophet Warrior aligned himself with a despot general to rebuild the war-ravaged country on Five Key Principles for Survival he found hidden away in the pages of The Book of Tomorrows—one of the last books published before the fall of the civilized world. Anonymously written by someone known only as The Author, the onetime highly controversial 21st century novel is not only the root source supporting the strong foundation for rebuilding a better world, but may also be the inadvertent catalyst that led to the destruction of the old one. However, life isn’t as perfect as it appears in the so-called utopian paradise of New America. Michael Angel is meeting Eve Adams for the first time through a government mandated Selected Breeding Program. They genuinely fall in love at a museum while tagging along with a group of schoolchildren taking a computer-guided tour of history, staged with a spectacular showmanship by a computer-animated old man, who looks like a cross between Albert Einstein and The Monopoly Man. The animated man describes everything from the creation of universe, to the formation of the earth, right on up to the evolution of life on the planet with his words vividly replicated in 3-D images. Speaking with a-bravado-of-pride for all the great things we’ve accomplished, his critical rendering of the past turns into a diatribe when recounting the savage nature of man. CHAD blames the human race for practically destroying the planet in our lustful pursuit of wealth and power, along with our species propensity for putting faith in spiritual beliefs and mythical legends, instead of scientific knowledge and logical thought. He explains how it really doesn’t matter if the lessons we learn from history are factual accounts or fabled myths. Then he clearly illustrates a direct lineage to Western Civilization through the legendary tales found in Greek, Roman, English, and eventually American literary sagas. On their way out of the museum, Michael and Eve come across a graffiti-strewn painting with the letters FWF sprayed across it. The familiar tag of the Free Will Forever rebellion has been growing in strength with the recently discovered identity of the Prophet Warrior’s heir giving the rebel group a renewed hope. But then, a revealed hereditary link to the young couple forces them to set out on a fateful journey to save their future tomorrow. The World According to CHAD is a powerful prelude to Forever Tomorrow, Book One of The Book of Tomorrows trilogy. It’s also a hard, uncompromising look at how we tend to view history through rose-colored glasses and with selective memories. Someone once said all history is a lie agreed upon, especially when adding in the human factor. But no matter how twisted the pretzel logic one employs to get the answer they want, the truth will still always be true and out there for anyone to find. The history lesson contained in The World According to CHAD, along with the New Constitution for a New America, are profoundly important written words that may very well anger some people still caught in their Matrix world of self-delusion, but for those open minded individuals who aren’t ashamed of what they don’t know, and only what they refuse to learn, will feel these words should stand the test of time alongside other substantially renowned literary works

The fourth collection of M. Edward McNally's short stories, from beyond the vale of history (AKA: the 1990s).Contents: Flipper the Stripper - You think your job is boring?Justice in Ireland - One of those "metaphoric" titles.The writer served in Vietnam as an eighteen year old marine. He experienced Vietnam at its worst. At such a young age, his experiences were imprinted upon his memory in a way that PTSD will permanently engrave the past forever. His poems are not the run of the mill war poems, but poems of beauty. And you ask, "How can war poems be poems of beauty?"Take a chance and read, and judge for yourself. Experience the raw pain, and experience the healing of the soul. Walk in this marine's boots. Follow the path he has followed for more than forty years. Take the dare.

An excerpt from the novel by Robert A. Chapin "Orphans Of The Mourning". The main character is Preston Cunningham assigned to Vietnam as a top secret cryptographer, but is nothing more than a "scrounge".In this episode he has just been rescued. Beaten and bruised he is recovering from his ordeal at a POW hospital in South Vietnam. The exploits continue.He falls in love with his nurse.Preston Cunningham has just been rescued from a group of North Vietnamese Army regulars in Cambodia where his helicopter made an emergency landing in forbidden territory - known as "over the line."Following an operation to repair his broken eye socket, teeth, ribs and third degree burns, he is under the care of Lieutenant Linda Villani who is assigned to Preston for the duration of his (30 day hospitalization).She nurses him back to health, but not before falling in love with him. She suggests that Preston work for her father at his construction company in San Francisco. In the meantime however, Linda is engaged to an engineer in her dad's firm ten years her senior.While recouperating, Preston is informed that he has been considered for The Medal Of Honor based on his conduct as a POW. Preston Cunningham a sergeant, and Linda a lieutenant are prohibited according to military rules from fraternizing. Her commanding officer turns a blind eye and deaf ear to their budding romance.On the day he is to leave the hospital and Lieutenant Villani behind it is a sad departure, but both look forward to fostering their relationship. This author will release additional chapters as short stories from the novel "Orphans Of The Mourning."

Jack McKinnon’s boat overturns, his dog drowns. Creepy events occur; Jack disappears only to resurface when his wife is around. RCMP Sergeant Bill Majors and other old friends help Jack’s wife and son look for him. Seven years later he is declared dead, but turns up again. This time with help from a Medicine man and a caring Indian nurse, he regains his mind.Jack McKinnon, loving father, loyal employee and avid fisherman is going up to his summer property on the north end of Andover Lake, BC in 1989 to open it for the family’s first visit in May. A sudden spring squall turns his 1984 Unsinkable Thunder Craft over, his dog a Rhodesian Ridgeback, who was a good swimmer, drowns. Jack is a very poor swimmer, but he manages to dog paddle to shore. Exhausted, wet and cold, he finds a locked cabin, pushes the door and doorframe in and starts a fire in the stove. He sleeps till morning, and doesn’t know where he is, but manages to find railway tracks and walks back to the small town of Merriweather where he left his van. The neighbouring Carling RCMP are called. The same day, police and Jack are unable to locate the cabin where he thinks it is. However they do find a cabin with an upside down Indian Dream Catcher over a pushed in door on the other side of the lake. Jack is drawn into the cabin.Jack goes back home to Langley, but leaves his family to go back to the cabin, and disappears. Weird things begin to happen to his wife and son, soon they are told their summer property is too close to the Ancient Indian Graveyard at the north end of the lake. Jack is found but unable to remember anyone. He’s sent to the hospital in the local town. He doesn’t know his wife Rikki, discharges himself and disappears again. Meanwhile, an Indian Band whose Reserve boarders the Fraser River flats, chooses a new shaman who comes from Eastern Canada. He convinces the local Bands that he can bring the old ways back and creates an Indian uprising. It fizzles out. The shaman turns to the Ancient Indian Graveyard at the north end of Andover Lake. Things change and now the shaman wants to own the land in his own name, and build a gaming casino, hotel and RV park. Seven years pass, and the Insurance Company advises Rikki that she has waited long enough and her husband should be declared dead. But Jack turns up again. But the question of why Jack was taken and why he couldn’t stay home, what did the cabin and Soul Catcher have to do with anything, and why did the shaman finally decide to kill Jack are still out there. Good friends, a loyal wife and son never gave up hope, with help coming from an unexpected source, Jack is able to resist the spell that has kept him captive all these years. The foreseen events of the past finally catch up with Jack McKinnon and his family and friends. With the help of an Old Man (Medicine Man) and a caring Indian nurse the truth is finally told.

This is a collection of very short stories. Each one is intended to be read in a single sitting, with the goal of being entertaining, with the occasional deep thought tossed in. Most of the time, humor reigns.The stories are so short and enticing, that they are great, fun, quick reads and page-turners.This is a collection of very short stories. Each one is intended to be read in a single sitting, with the goal of being entertaining, with the occasional deep thought tossed in. Most of the time, humor reigns.The stories are so short and enticing, that they are great, fun, quick reads and page-turners.If this set of stories is successful, there are dozens more ready to be compiled, with an unlimited stash yet to be created.

Chapters of Life is an anthology of short stories, essays and poetry that explores the poignant moments of life, where events in a life can be like the chapters in a book. The event is over but the thread of continuity remains and goes on.Would life be so meaningful if it weren't for its fatal quality? Is that what makes life so precious?Chapters of Life is a collection of short stories, essays and poems to present a different perspective to the platitude that we are all dying. Like the chapters in a book, the events that occur in our lives, mark us, and then we turn the page, and most of the time, we go on starting a new chapter in our lives.

7 classic ghost stories by acknowledged masters of weird fiction with a brief introduction by Tony Walker:7 classic ghost stories by acknowledged masters of weird fiction with a brief introduction by Tony Walker:A Room in the Tower - by E F BensonThe Woman's Ghost Story -by Algernon BlackwoodThe House and the Brain -by Lord Edward Bulwer-LyttonThe Beast with Five Fingers- by W. F. HarveyThe Dunwich Horror - by H P LovecraftThrawn Janet - by Robert Louis StevensonThe Signal-Man by Charles Dickens

If you had the ability to get what you wanted what would you ask for? Money? Power? Strength? Or something more dangerous?An office worker in Purgatory seeks consolation and hope by sending himself postcards and email messages from an imaginary holiday destination. When discovered, he is sent there.… When he got home that evening there was a beautiful sunlit holiday postcard in his letterbox, addressed to him and signed Williby. It was a breathless and ecstatic message describing unimaginable tropical delights and so looking forward to seeing him soon. It brought tears of longing to his eyes so sharp that they glittered like crystals on his cheek. They cracked and shattered when he wiped them away, but the promise shone within him like stars.Williby sighed and closed his eyes but when he opened them again he was still there…Sorrow is a free story from The World Is Round, available now.A great philosopher's masterwork is unravelled by a duck, an influential talk show host begins executing his guests, and a baby enchants a murderous African dictator in this collection of seventeen short stories. A work of poignant satire and extraordinary imagination, The World Is Round is always weird, sometimes bleak, and frequently hilarious.

Mom always told us to stay out of the woods behind the house. There was something final about the way she said it, like she had been there her whole life. She didn't always say a lot to us growing up. Sure, sometimes you couldn't shut her up, but she spent a lot of time just standing at one window or another, staring out at the woods behind the house.I made friends at college; stupid, lost boys who were always drunk. Bearded artists and philosophers, retching their dreams on the side of the road like magic shows, calling out for an audience to help them clean up. I might even have become one of those boys, sad and dark and twisted into spaces I didn't fit into. Kill me, I said to the walls. Kill me, floor. Drown me in my own vomit.There was a forest along two sides of the school, dark and silent, watching us destroy our immune systems in the light of the street lamps. I watched it follow me home, out every window up the stairs of my residence hall, out my room window at the end of the hallway. I remembered Reed saying, "The woods are all the same." Because they were.The first night I went out to that tree line, shaking and scared, was the last time I ever hoped to be normal. I watched my fingers reaching for the bark, trembling fingernails pulling back to reveal the nail beds, pulsing red, blood blisters boiling on the backs of my hands. I closed my eyes and smiled at the pain.

Fantasy novel about wisdom, power, adventure, courage and human spirit, set in the gravely endangered world of sorcerers, warriors, dragons and monsters. A sorcerer called Arios the Black and a prince called Orin ar den Raamternan embark upon a deathly adventure which will decide the fate of their world, although not in the way they expected...Orin ar den Raamternan is a prince obsessed with desire to gain absolute power, intending to use it to bring peace to the world.A mysterious visitor entices him to search for the Ring of the Kings, an artefact made in the dawn of time, which loans the ultimate power to its owner. However, to find the Ring, the prince first has to find a mountain called the Dragon Rock.He embarks on the quest in the company of his guards, but, as they reach the slopes of the Blue Mountains, an enormous mountain range which blocks the way to the Dragon Rock, the wolves slaughter the whole guard and the prince himself barely survives.These are the circumstances in which Arios the Black, a reclusive goat-herd from the Blue Mountains, finds the prince. Haunted by the sight of the enormous Dragon Rock on the horizon, Arios is an ex-sorcerer who, because of the disaster he unwillingly caused, utterly abandoned the sorcery and isolated himself from the world.Driven by the desire to find a way of breaking the pattern of his lonely life, Arios joins Orin in the quest for the Dragon Rock. In the chain of events that follows that decision, Arios and Orin cross the Blue Mountains, travel through war-stricken lands, survive many perilous confrontations with strange enemies and allies even stranger, and finally confront the army of the evil Lord of Doom, coming to an unexpected end of their quest. "The Dragon Rock" is a fantasy novel written by Croatian author Aleksandar Budjanovac (1963 - 2009), Ph.D., professor of psychology, writer, martial art master and guitar player. In this novel, he explores the nature of power, wisdom, and reckless and curious human spirit, as well as the nature of good and evil. Although the novel is relatively short, it is action-packed, sprinkled with pearls of wisdom, and full of unexpected twists and turns. Told in smooth narrative, this is a novel which will enchant the reader from the first to the last page. The novel is now published by Aleksandar's brother, Nebojša, also a Croatian writer.

The long-awaited series finale! In this epic saga, Mr. Dorro is accused of a brutal crime and sentenced to punishment far from quiet lanes of Thimble Down. The village bookmaster is sent to a hellish fate and neither Sheriff Forgo, nor his young friends Wyll and Cheeryup, can save him. This is his most terrifying story yet, as Dorro and his kind edge ever closer to ... GOBLIN WAR.The long-awaited series finale! In this epic saga, Mr. Dorro is accused of a brutal crime that he didn't commit. At last, the bookmaster's enemies unleash their revenge and sentence him to punishment far from quiet lanes of Thimble Down. He's sent to a hellish fate in the east -- and neither Sheriff Forgo, nor his young friends Wyll and Cheeryup, can save him. Along the way he encounters monsters, villains, and even an unusual friend. This is the most terrifying episode yet, as Dorro and his kind edge ever closer to ... GOBLIN WAR.

The first story in the 'Slayer of Evil (Prices Negotiable)' series. In a world where monsters are a fact of life, experienced monster hunter Eric Margrave thinks buying a haunted house for dirt cheap and kicking out the ghost is a great way to save some cash. Too bad this ghost is a bit more tenacious than the norm...The world of the supernatural is a place of intense horror and blood-chilling danger. Dark, twisted monsters stalk among humanity from the shadows, seeking only to devour us. Seems like somebody should make some money from all that, right? Enter Eric Margrave, semi-professional monster hunter (He'd be a professional, but they really don't have a certification process for this sort of thing.). When the things that go bump in the night start actually knocking on the door, he's the one who serves them their walking papers... for a nominal fee. Prices negotiable. No demons, please.In his debut appearance, Eric has entered the exciting world of real-estate, looking to set up a new safehouse. Good news: the house is haunted, and therefore a steal at the current price if you happen to know how to work an exorcism. Bad news... well, the house might be a bit more aggressively haunted than even a freelance slayer of the paranormal is used to...

Overnight, the world has changed. A deadly virus thrusts the country into chaos. Barely escaping, a thirteen year old boy flees to the unforgiving desert to take his chances with thirst, starvation, and certain death. His greatest fears are there, as is the mysterious hope his grandfather gave him. Exposed and vulnerable, he must face them in Chris Hampton's gripping tale of Edge Walker.Overnight, the world has changed. A deadly virus, unleashed on an unsuspecting population, thrusts the country into chaos. Barely escaping the sickness, drones, and man-hunters, a thirteen year old boy flees to the unforgiving desert, preferring to take his chances with thirst, starvation, and certain death only to find he's the target of the dark medicine man. His greatest fears are there in the unknown wilderness, as is the mysterious hope his grandfather gave him. Exposed and vulnerable, he must go and face them in Chris Hampton's gripping tale of Edge Walker

Hunched in the darkness, above the company smoke room, a lonely creature lies in wait for its next meal. Smoking kills, in more ways than the workers below can imagine.Smoke was first published as part of the short story collection Storms in Jars.Enroute to rendezvous with the dreadnought U.S.S. Alliance near the Romulan neutral zone to pick up Colonel Finnegan and his MACOs, Captain Kirk takes time out to tell his nephew, Peter, about his first mission as captain of the Enterprise.The last in the current series of stories written in the Star Trek universe, as seen in the New Voyages: Phase II fan-film series. “Calm Before the Storm” takes place after the live-action episode “Kitumba” and the story "The Enemy of My Enemy."