Showing results by narrator "Richard Joel" in All Categories

Herb Moss is a nice young man. He's a Vegan: a member of a genetically engineered species, part human and part plant, living on the planet New World. It's a good life, really: Herb's engaged to be married to his childhood sweetheart Lily; has a job with his father's firm; and can look forward to a solid if unexciting future. And as everyone keeps telling him, it's time to put down roots. If he happens to be bored every time he thinks about it - well, that's a normal part of growing up, isn't it?

Bobby Hale is a Union veteran several times over. After the war, he sets his sights on California, but only makes it to Montana. As he stumbles around the West, from the Wyoming Territory to the Black Hills of the Dakotas, he finds meaning in the people he meets - settlers and native people - and the violent history he both participates in and witnesses.

As Europe slides toward war, the faculty of a midwestern university fight a crusade of their own - the campaign against Communism. The local publishing magnate has accused economics professor Jonathan Hogan of being a Red, and the scholar is forced to defend himself in front of the university's elders. They spare him, for Hogan is no Communist - merely a free thinker, open and honest in an age when conformity is the norm.

On the day the first shots of the Civil War were fired, a mob in Richmond clambered on top of the Capitol to raise the Confederate flag. Four years later, another flag was raised in its place while the city burned below. A 13-year-old girl compared the stars and stripes to "so many bloody gashes". This richly detailed, absorbing book brings to life the years in which Richmond was the symbol of Southern independence and the theater for a drama as splendid, sordid, and tragic as the war itself.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the single most important piece of legislation passed by Congress in American history. It gave the government sweeping powers to strike down segregation, to enforce fair hiring practices, and to rectify bias in law enforcement and in the courts. The Act so dramatically altered American society that, looking back, "it seems preordained", as Everett Dirksen, the GOP leader in the Senate and a key supporter of the bill, said, "no force is more powerful than an idea whose time has come." But there was nothing predestined about the victory.

At the turn of the eighteenth century, John Morehead Tripoli is marooned on the unspoiled Caribbean island of St. Renard. There, he lives for an idyllic year in a community of Carawak Indians. Three hundred years later, the Carawak are gone, St. Renard is carpeted with banana plantations and sugarcane fields, and Tripoli himself is remembered only through his grandson, founder of New Hampshire’s Tripoli College, which maintains a branch campus on the island.

The chaos of war is a horrific background for coming of age, a trial by fire testing all who experience it, and changing them forever. Contrary to Government denial during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army regularly sent Special Forces sniper teams into Laos and Cambodia. Their assignments took them deep into enemy territory. Heirs of Honor is the memoir of Lucky, the youngest member of one of those killing teams. A hero worshipping kid awed by the more experienced men around him, he was more than willing to prove himself to them and ignore the damage to his young soul.

"...measured first person narrative is packed with interesting details about investigative work and about his home life with Sherry and their young daughters: a refreshing rarity in the genre." ( Kirkus Reviews)

Unlike her brother, Saracasi Ocaitchi has always known that her loyalties belong to the ideals of freedom and democracy, not the government of the Alliance, and that protecting those ideals would require a fight. But now that the rebellion she has dreamed about has finally begun, she must come to terms with what that truly means: for herself, for her brother, and for all of the people who will die in the coming war.

Chace, a teenage orphan with the power to see the future, saves people anonymously by leaving them a letter to find in their moment of crisis. When his friends are in danger, he is there. He saves them but cannot predict the consequences. He can see their future, but he cannot see his own. Chase is interrupted while writing to save his best friend, Sarah. With an incomplete letter, her rescue feels equally incomplete inside. Sarah cannot rest until she speaks to the one person who helped her want to go on living.

Best-selling author David Drake has been creating top-notch military science fiction, space opera, and fantasy novels and stories for decades. In this all-original collection, a stellar line-up of writers pays tribute to Drake with stories as broad in range as his own fiction. 

Late-1970s Los Angeles was rampant with killers and shady characters, but all the go-getters at Space Matters saw was possibility. Richard Kasparov was handsome and charismatic; his younger associate, Jerry Schneiderman, brilliant and nerdy. When the pair hired a veteran contractor to oversee construction, the space planning firm they operated out of a hip mansion in LA's Miracle Mile district appeared poised to transform the boundless skyline into their jackpot. After the promising team imploded, however, the orderly lines on their blueprints succumbed to treachery and secrets. 

When his father leaves town, 12-year-old Rodney Culver's mother takes up with Otis Dell, a fry cook at the local diner - and a well-known petty thief. While Rodney resists the man's influence at first, Otis soon draws the boy into his small-time criminal world. After a simple heist goes violently wrong, Rodney becomes an unwitting fugitive, swept away from his mother to the primitive mountain sanctuary of the mysterious Lester Fanning. 

Wrought with warmth and wit, Jacobs's debut novel digs into Pasadena's most infamous structure and the city itself. In their journey to discover the source of the bridge's macabre alter ego, Nick Chance and his impish mutt interact with some of the big personalities from the Progressive Age, including Teddy Roosevelt, Upton Sinclair, Charles Fletcher Lummis, and Lilly and Adolphus Busch. They cavort and often sow chaos at Cawston Ostrich Farm, the Mount Lowe Railway, the Hotel Green, and even the Doo Dah Parade. 

Dungeon. Quest. Adventure. A journey into madness. When John Younger answered the Regent's call to find a missing prince, he thought it would be an easy way to make some coin. He was wrong. Thrust into a life-or-death battle with creatures only heard about in stories long since forgotten, John finds himself in a dungeon of elder ones and old gods. As he descends into the heart of darkness, John must use all of his brains and brawn to successfully make it through each floor of the dungeon, while saving others and gaining the favor of those within.

In Leading Through Uncertainty, Davis shares a concise set of smart, actionable leadership practices that leaders can use to navigate their businesses and teams through difficult times. These include focusing on honesty and transparency, motivating and inspiring employees, building an outstanding corporate reputation, paying attention to details, and more.  

A cruel, hated man collects a fortune, then disappears in the desert. The Texas Rangers think it's murder and put one of their best on the job - but he'll need help. There's evil here that no one suspects.

Original story published in Lariat story magazine - July 1947.

Julia's daddy was the judge in town. He used to be fair, but recently it seemed that had changed. What cost to regular folks would there be?

Wayne D. Overholser, winner of three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America, weaves a magic spell in this story with his consistent skill in presenting vibrant characters and his uncommon sensitivity to the depths of human personality.