Showing results by narrator "MIke Vendetti" in All Categories

Imagine being trapped in the millisecond between the past and the future. All Dave Miller wanted to do was commit suicide in peace, but here he was. Trapped.

Communication is the key to getting along. Space travel makes communication with alien races imperative, but before the language problem could be resolved the war started. A highly intelligent cat-like race able to communicate telepathically is discovered that offers to help. But wait how can you trust an alien or anyone that can hear your thoughts?

Back from his final deployment with the US Marines, Alan Carson is hiking across New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness to ponder his future and put the war in his past. When his best friend and squad leader, Sergeant Kurt Timms, took a Taliban bullet because of bad intel, Alan made a promise to his dying friend. He would come here to see the rugged mountains that were Kurt’s boyhood stomping grounds. But deep in a trackless canyon, miles from any trail, Alan finds something else: the body of a dead man at the foot of a cliff, an ancient cave…and a passageway too intriguing to ignore.

A cat walking across a room swerves suddenly and walks carefully around something we can't see. We shrug, smile, and remark that cats are always doing that. Our hitherto amiable dog suddenly develops the irritating habit of barking and growling violently at certain innocent passersby. We still shrug, wonder what's got into the mutt, and pass it off. Mr. Dick argues with frightening urgency that if we are wise, we wilt immediately investigate these oddities of animal behavior.

A chilling ghost story by Lord Dunsany, a.k.a. Edward Plunkett, resolves itself thusly: If two straight lines cut one another, the opposite angles are equal. Let AB and CD cut one another at E. Then the angles CEA and CEB equal two right angles (prop. xiii.). Also, CEA and AED equal two right angles, proving that ghosts don't exist.

Like many of Stevenson's tales, Markheim is a chilling examination of good and evil that resists easy moralizing.

Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour is a classic example that some short stories can say all they need to do in just a short time. This story remains tantalizingly ambiguous, perhaps because so little is said, and so much merely hinted at.

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense...Now that Eric Branson and his small militia have a much better idea of what they’re up against, it’s time to go on the offensive and take the fight to the enemy. The first mission involves the rescue of the friends he and Jonathan met on the upper Atchafalaya River. But Eric Branson won’t ignore the opportunity to strike hard at the heart of the operation that is bringing so much fear and disruption to the residents of the region.

The story is about a 25-year-old Harvard student who follows a "clean" life. He marries a 40-year-old clean Southern woman and the two try very hard to have a baby. Eventually, both become disenchanted with each other, and the wife's girlfriend moves in to live with her.

"Three-Day Blow'' is a short story that became a chapter from In Our Time. Jake (Hemingway's alter ego) hikes to his friend Bill's house where they spend the morning talking and drinking. The conversation is mostly chit-chat until the liquor loosens them up enough to discuss Jakes's breakup with Marjorie.

As I listened to this, I couldn't help but compare Buggs and Ad to George and Lennie in Steinbeck's Mice and Men. Buggs protects Ad as George protected Lennie. Ad, though diminutive in size, as a former professional boxer could be as dangerous as Lennie when he had a crazy spell. Hemmingway portrays Buggs as the true leader of the group, highly intelligent, articulate, and gentle to his companion Ad while leading Ad to believe he is in charge.

Days have turned into weeks with no contact from anyone outside of North America, where the power, communication, and transportation grid has been completely destroyed by massive solar flares. In the ensuing chaos, grocery store shelves have been stripped bare and panicked survivors have fled the cities and towns, sweeping across the countryside in a desperate attempt to find sustenance and avoid the violence.

One of the most iconic TV series ever was Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. This audiobook contains four short stories that inspired four episodes of The Twilight Zone: "The Bus Conductor" by E.F. Benson; "Elegy" by Charles Beaumont; "Time Enough at Last'' by Lynn Venable; and ''An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge'' by Ambrose Bierce. Read by award-winning narrator Mike Vendetti, one can understand why Searling was inspired by these short stories.

Imagine if you will a three-year journey to outer space and back, drinking distilled water, breathing filtered air, and synthetic food. You can imagine the anticipation of returning to Earth, and then discovering you are allergic to everything on Earth from women to the air you breathe. This is the story of four aging astronauts, able only to look at Earth from their spaceship or venture out to water the geraniums wearing a spacesuit.

"Just room for one inside, sir," isn't quite as bone-chilling as hearing "room for one more, honey" in one of the Twilight Zone's most popular episodes, "Twenty Two." The Rod Serling masterpiece was inspired by E.F. Benson's "The Bus-Conductor". A ghost bears the chilling news instead of a recurring dream in Benson's chiller.

As massive solar flares bombard the Earth, an intense electromagnetic pulse brings down America’s long-neglected power grid. The electric age ends and anarchy descends as desperate citizens panic. Artie Drager, whose dream Bahamas vacation turns into every parent’s worst nightmare, finds himself stranded thousands of miles from his home and only daughter, Jessica. As the horrible aftermath unfolds, Jessica is frantic about her father lost somewhere at sea. But first she must save herself right at home.

"The time is the day after tomorrow. The place: a far off corner of the universe. The cast of characters: three men lost among the stars, three men sharing the common urgency of all men lost.... They're looking for home. And in a moment they'll find home, not a home that is a place to be seen but a strange, unexplainable experience to be felt."

Imagine if you will, a cat-like animal able to read your mind. That is not too far-fetched because I believe at times my cat can read my mind, but this cat is different. This creature also has another power, the ability to project to your mind. It is so intent upon pleasing you, that what you think about becomes very very real. Real to the point you believe and act upon what the cat projects.

First published in 1953 ,"Time Enough at Last" by Lynn Venable is the basis for the eighth episode of The Twilight Zone, becoming one of the most famous episodes of the original Twilight Zone. It is "the story of a man who loves books yet is surrounded by those who would prevent him from reading them. Hope springs forth when the protagonist appears to be the sole survivor of a gigantic nuclear attack, but wait folks; there is more."

Massive solar flares bombard the Earth. An intense electromagnetic pulse undermines America’s power grid, wreaking havoc. Panic and chaos ensue in cities like New Orleans, where 16-year-old Mitch Henley was stranded after driving his parents to the airport. The son of a game warden in a rural Mississippi county, Mitch is an expert hunter and woodsman and knows he can survive back on his family’s remote 600 acres. With no way to know if his parents’ plane landed safely or crashed because of the pulse, Mitch sets out alone to walk home.