Showing results by author "Ian Thomas Healy" in All Categories

For the kids of the Neighborhood Watch, the final weeks of middle school are interminable. In the fall they will get to attend the Hero Academy, studying to become Just Cause superheroes. Their plans get derailed when police officers gun down an unarmed black man. Annalisa, aka La Capitána, gets video of them trying to cover up the killing.

This collection, Muddy Creek Tales, includes both previously published and all-new stories: The Mighty Peculiar Incident at Muddy Creek - What starts out as something simple as a train failing to stop winds up as something mighty peculiar indeed. Clockwork Chloe - Bert Tillory can get any woman to say yes, but who is he really looking for? Posse - Sometimes when riding down a fugitive, it's hard to tell who's the hunter and who's being hunted.

Making the Cut is the flagship show on the FoodieTV network, giving recent high school graduates a chance to win a scholarship to a prestigious culinary school. Midori is from San Francisco, and grew up in a family that owns a restaurant. All she ever wanted to do was cook, but in Japanese culture, women are relegated to hostess and management roles. Nicole is from Denver, the child of a broken home who's been forced to grow up way too soon. She's been poor her entire life, and that prize package is impossibly valuable to her. These two girls become friends despite their cultural differences, and together with six more challengers, will be competing in front of the cameras.

Steal big. The Crew: Olivia, the Director; Anjanae, the Artist; Pancho, the Techie; Kennedy, the Actress; Jerome, the Money Man; Vajra, the Thug. The Target: A painting of Anjanae's deceased mother, stolen from her and presented for sale by a professional artist. The Job: Steal it back and don't get caught, because high school is hard enough without facing hard time.

All Jackrabbit, Herald of the Rabbit God Leporidus, wanted to do was give his best friend Bunny a nice pre-wedding gift in the form of a trip to Japan. Naturally, Bunny is kidnapped by ninjas shortly after their arrival, forcing Jackrabbit to play superhero, detective, martial artist, video game enthusiast, street preacher, and more in his quest to rescue his friend.

A few years ago, Mustang Sally had to make a deal with her worst enemy in the entire world: Destroyer, the man who killed her father. He agreed to use his technology to reverse a nanotech plague and save the world. His price? A favor, to be collected from Sally at some point in the future. The time has come for Sally to fulfill her obligation. Destroyer needs her to help him save the life of his sister, who has been trapped in a comatose state for nearly her entire life. Sally will have to enter the woman's Dream-world, with help from her teammate Minerva and Destroyer's nephew March.

Airship Lies is a steampunk/Western anthology containing five stories from the Age of Wonder, ranging from the Old West to the wilderness beyond the frontier to the very edge of space itself.

A collection of eight tales ranging from horror to superhero, science fiction to postapocalyptic, that examine the darker aspects of the world.

High school reporter Sherri "Bax" Baxter is content being an outsider, with a reputation as a nosy busybody among the students of Jericho High. Instead of friendships, she focuses on objective journalistic integrity, because it will get her out of the dead-end Texas oil town and into a prestigious journalism school, and she's pretty sure she's found her big story. A new girl, Molly, has come to town with a mysterious sideways grin, a bolero hat, a well-loved guitar case, and the musical talent of legendary blues man Stevie Ray Vaughan.

La Capitana and the other teens of the neighborhood watch have spent their entire lives wondering why they have parahuman powers but not the genetic marker known to grant them. When their former rivals, the Arnold triplets, come to La Capitana with a lead on the source of their powers, she jumps at the chance to join Brittany, Brianna, and Brooklyn. Their investigation takes them across the country to New York City where the four girls discover their abilities have a more sinister origin than they could have imagined.

When Ava Zhang washes out of Just Cause Chicago, she figures her career as a superhero is over. Then she gets the opportunity to partner with experienced hero Detroit Steel, and the two of them work to halt the distribution of a dangerous new designer drug called Wool. And once again, everything goes wrong. Ava is accidentally dosed with Wool, and her ensuing loss of control results in major damage to an urban farm and sends a young farmer to the hospital with injuries she caused. When she goes to apologize, she discovers she's attracted to him.

40 years ago, Harlan Washington began his one-man war against the superheroes of Just Cause. One day ago, he grudgingly allied with those heroes to defend the Earth from an alien invasion. When he detonated a new kind of bomb to destroy the alien fleet, he was thrown through space and time. Now....He's lost in spacetime, dying, more alone than any human ever has been. He never expected to be rescued.

From a single short story written in 2001 to a sprawling series of more than 20 books, the Just Cause Universe is a superheroic reflection of our times. Encompassing more than 60 years of history, these tales fill in the gaps, tell the side stories, and broaden the depth of the JCU. Although all these stories have appeared in previous publications, this is the first time they have been collected into a single volume.

When a talented new player joins the perennially losing sub-minor-league hockey team the Fighting Aardvarks, it marks the beginning of a winning tradition. But things aren't as they seem, and players begin to change. First-line center Hammie learns the truth: The Aardvarks are becoming vampires, and it's up to him to stop them before the infestation spreads beyond just the team.

Hope was playing five-card draw with undead Elvis when the world ended. Before the world ended, Hope was a down-and-out virgin stripper. Now she's pregnant with a baby prophesied to be the world's salvation. Undead Elvis promises her that Graceland is the only safe place left even though the rest of the world has become sand and ash. Hope must undertake the perilous journey across a broken, unfamiliar landscape to reach it.

Giele has spent 20 years fighting wars for the King of Aelfland, but when he makes the mistake of falling in love with the Princess of the Realm, he is stripped of his rank, his citizenship, and his name. His face is marked with the slivered moon, forever identifying him as an outcast. No longer will he find a home among his own people. He travels halfway across the world to seek a fresh start among the colonists of the continent of Verigo, but the troubles of a marked man seem to follow him wherever he goes.

Jackrabbit is stuck in a time loop, living the same day over and over again, and his only hope to free himself is to recover a mystical artifact called the Nick of Time. But first, he's got to survive long enough to find it against obstacles like a demonically possessed water heater, a vicious cat in a tree, and a team of supervillains headed by the dastardly Cheddarman.