Showing results by narrator "Adam Epstein" in All Categories

Behold the orphan. Born into a world that is not a world. A digital being grown from a mind seed, a genderless cybernetic citizen in a vast network of probes, satellites, and servers knitting the Solar System into one scape, from the outer planets to the fiery surface of the Sun. Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software.

The good news is that you have just awakened into Eternal Life. You are going to live forever. Immortality is a reality. A medical miracle? Not exactly. The bad news is that you are a scrap of electronic code. The world you see around you, the you that is seeing it, has been digitized, scanned, and downloaded into a virtual reality program. You are a Copy that knows it is a copy. The good news is that there is a way out.

Short novels are movie length novels that may well be the perfect length for science fiction stories. This unabridged audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2011, by current and emerging masters of this form. In "The Ice Owl", by Carolyn Ives Gilman, an adolescent, female, Waster, in the iron city of Glory to God finds an enigmatic tutor who provides her with much more than academic instruction while a fundamentalist revolt is underway.

Tony Giodone made his living as an assassin - until one of his marks ripped his throat out and turned him into a werewolf. Now he's the best hired killer there is. When a curvy woman in an expensive suit tries to hire him to kill her, his wolf senses insist that she is his mate. One kidnapping, a plethora of gunfights, a psychic coma, and two faked deaths later, Tony and Sue have new identities and are hiding in a community of Sazi shapeshifters. All seems well, until Sue begins to pull away from Tony and he realizes that if he can't be more open with her, he's going to lose her.

In 2034, the stars went out. An unknown agency surrounded the solar system with an impenetrable barrier, concealing the universe from humanity’s gaze. In 2067, Nick Stavrianos is hired to investigate the disappearance of a mentally disabled woman, Laura Andrews, from the institution where she was being cared for. Aided by a skull full of neural modifications, he follows her trail to the Republic of New Hong Kong, where an organization known as the Ensemble has uncovered Laura’s extraordinary secret: An ability that could transform the world.

Investigative reporter Andrew Worth turns down a documentary on a mysterious new mental illness - "Distress," or acute clinical anxiety syndrome, for another assignment. He's on his way to the artificial island of Stateless, where the world's top physicists are gathering to decide on a new TOE, or Theory of Everything, to replace Einstein's outmoded legacy.

Sue Quentin has reached the end of her rope - she's desperate, and there's only one way out. Her plan doesn't include falling for Tony, the mysterious hit man she hires. He listens when she speaks and somehow convinces her that maybe her problems aren't entirely insurmountable. He even thinks her little potbelly is sexy. So he's a werewolf - everyone has flaws! Sue enjoys being coddled by Tony, and, for his part, Tony likes the way Sue moans when he touches her. She begins to think she and Tony might have a shot at a future together, despite his unorthodox profession...and even though she doesn't know his real name.

In a universe where the laws of physics and the speed of light are completely alien to our own, the travelers on the ship Peerless have completed a generations-long struggle to develop advanced technology in a desperate attempt to save their home world. But as tensions mount over the risks of turning the ship around and starting the long voyage home, a new complication arises: The prospect of constructing a messaging system that will give the Peerless news of its own future.

For three heroes, the past is about to come back to hunt them. A renegade warrior, a mystic exile, and a magic-wielding soldier are on the run. Their enemies are closing in. Some want to control them, some want to rob them, and others just want them dead. In a land of monsters and renegades, their one hope for survival may be an ancient device of evil, the long-lost Grieving Tree....

The generation ship Peerless is in search of advanced technology capable of sparing their home planet from imminent destruction. In theory, the ship is traveling fast enough that it can traverse the cosmos for generations and still return home only a few years after they departed. But a critical fuel shortage threatens to cut their urgent voyage short, even as a population explosion stretches the ship’s life-support capacity to its limits.

In Yalda's universe, light has mass, no universal speed, and its creation generates energy. On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting light into the dark night sky. And time is different: An astronaut might measure decades passing while visiting another star, only to return and find that just weeks have elapsed for her friends. On the farm where she lives, Yalda sees strange meteors that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed...

World-class entertainer and Sazi councilmember Antoine Monier has taken his big cats all over the world without any trouble - until his latest trip to Stuttgart, where one of his tigers is stolen and killed. To Antoine's surprise, the German police have another tiger in custody - a tiger who is actually a lovely Turkish-American woman, Tahira Kuric. Like Antoine, Tahira is a shapeshifter, but of the Hayalet Kabile, the ghost tribe of shapeshifters. And despite their immediate attraction, Tahira wants nothing to do with Antoine - the Sazi are the enemy of the Hayalet Kabile.

Mankind's first alien contact tears into Earth: Projectiles launched from Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, vaporize whole cities. Under siege, humanity gambles on one desperate counterstrike. In a spacecraft scavenged from scraps and armed with Vietnam-era weapons, foot soldiers like 18-year-old Jason Wander-orphans that no one will miss-must dare man's first interplanetary voyage and invade Ganymede. They have one chance to attack, one ship to attack with. Their failure is our extinction.

Short novels may well be the perfect length for science-fiction stories. They are movie-length tales that resonate with moxie while fully exploring characters, new worlds, and ideas. The stories in this unabridged audio collection are the best-of-the-best short science-fiction novels published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of this form.

Jason Wander is ready to lead the final charge into battle. After 40 years of fighting the Slugs, mankind's reunited planets control the vital crossroad that secures their uneasy union. The doomsday weapon that can end the war, and the mighty fleet that will carry it to the Slug homeworld, lie within humanity's grasp.

Humans have been discovered on the Outworlds. And the Army decides to send emissaries. Emissaries like Jason Wander. As intraplanetary conflicts rage around him and the personal stakes get ever higher, Jason finds that playing planet-hopping politician can be harder than commanding armies. When united mankind squares off to battle the Slugs for a precious interstellar crossroad, Jason will discover that the most dangerous enemy may be the one he least expects.

He's a wolf… She's a jaguar…Raphael is a former agent of the shape shifter secret police, forced into retirement after a very public scandal. Now he's assigned to help the victim of a hideous crime - a woman who has been attacked by a serial killer, and accidentally turned into a were-jaguar.

Three heroes know the danger. In the City of Towers, a tormented mystic and a soldier-wizard try to thwart a monstrous scheme. In the Shadow Marches, a disgraced warrior summons an ancient sect to battle. As a dragon rises, can their struggle succeed? Or will they fall to madness and the music of the Killing Song?

At 25, General Jason Wander has fought and won man's only alien conflict. Now, after long years in space, he's coming home...but to what? Earth's desperate nations, impoverished by war damage and military spending, are slashing defense budgets. There's just one problem with this new worldwide policy - the first alien invasion was merely Plan A. Suddenly, the real assault begins: Earth is attacked by a vast armada of city-sized warships. To block their invasion, mankind has only one surviving craft and a single guerrilla strike force...a suicide squad led by Jason Wander.

The first book in a series of dark tales and high adventure in the Eberron™ campaign setting. The Binding Stone features the brand new races that were created specifically for the Eberron campaign setting. It's also the first Eberron novel to take its listeners on an exploration of many uncharted territories in the setting.