A magic rebellion in the Kingdom of Caithe receives an offer of help from a mysterious ally in this fantasy saga from the author of Call of Madness.Charged with murder, heresy, and treason, Athaya spent months in captivity, her magic painfully sealed inside her mind. But her allies kept her mission alive—if only barely—risking their lives to recruit wizards and train them at their secret camp. Now Athaya has escaped, and her brother, King Durek, is desperat...

Captain Noon is in his last year at college. He sleeps till noon, he dreams of being a pilot. Time and opportunities slip away in procrastination. The narrator, his father, recalls his own fathers instructions, play for keeps, and the head of his high school hoe-out your row. Get on with it. Finish what you do. A distant cousin Nora put off life and never got around to it. A thorn in the side of members of the family, Nora lives alone and has a stroke. She is the family historian collectin...

As the battle for the soul of Caithe rages on, a magical enemy from outside poses a new threat in this fantasy saga by the author of Call of Madness.Princess Athaya Trelane has become a champion of the Lorngeld, beseeching them to embrace their gifts and defy the laws forbidding their magic. For this she sacrificed everything—family, friendship, love, and even her own sanity. Though her followers still face the terror of King Durek's ruthless Tribunal, a far greater...

Dean Smith has taken falls from galloping horses, engaged in fistfights with Kirk Douglas and George C. Scott, donned red wig and white tights to double Maureen O’Hara, and taught Goldie Hawn how to talk like a Texan.He’s dangled from a helicopter over the skyscrapers of Manhattan while clutching a damsel in distress, hung upside down from a fake blimp 200 feet over the Orange Bowl, and replicated one of the most famous scenes in movie history by climbing on a thundering team of horses to ...

When Dr. Brownes partner retires, his practice is taken over by Dr. Forbes Q. Hazzig, who becomes a zealot for a managed care revolution of marketplace medicine. Browne and his associate Dr. Kennes receive irrational, discordant information from healthcare experts, consultants and economists. Browne learns that rhetoric of a mass movement must be as erroneous as possible promising a vague, glorious future. Hazzig grows immensely rich and gains enormous power relying on intimidation and coe...

Honorable Mention, Bolton Memorial Prize, Conference on Latin American HistoryA government monopoly provides an excellent case study of state-society relationships. This is especially true of the tobacco monopoly in colonial Mexico, whose revenues in the later half of the eighteenth century were second only to the silver tithe as the most valuable source of government income. This comprehensive study of the tobacco monopoly illuminates many of the most important th...

A crazy collection of twisted stories in the tradition of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, from the editor of Pulphouse, Dean Wesley Smith.Head-shaking stories such as the one about a cop with a rose for a head in search of the evil murderer The Pruner. Or the one about sentient boogers, or the tale of those pesky Martians…A truly hilarious batch of stories from some of the best writers working today.“Resolutions ’R Us” by Annie Reed“The Birth of Booger Nation” b...

Mathew died at the age of fourteen, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to grow up.Set in the primative area of Idaho, “Growing Pains of the Dead” tells a gentle ghost story of a young boy named Mathew who finally gets a chance to grow up one hundred years after he died.Bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith was born and raised in Idaho and knows the trails in the primitive area. All the setting and trails and ghost towns in this story are accurate, and as far as he knows, ...

More than sixty thousand words of original fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith. Ring Game, a new novel in the Cold Poker Gang series, plus five new short stories; “Lost Time: A Marble Grant Story”, “The Remarkable Way She Died: A Cold Poker Gang Short Story”, “Wrong Turn: A Bryant Street Story”, “Cat in a Different Place: A Pakhet Jones Story” and “Penny Dead: A Sky Tate Story.”This 47th volume of Smith's Monthly also includes How to Write Fiction Sales Copy...

Over seventy thousand words of original fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith.In this twenty-ninth monthly volume the full novel Dead Hand: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery, plus four short stories, and a serialized novel, Laying the Music to Rest.Short StoriesShootout in the Okey-Doke Casino: A Poker Boy StoryHe Could Have Coped with Dragons: A Jukebox StoryRoses Around the Moment: A Ghost of a Chance StoryThe...

Between the earth and the sky, between the past and the present, between the musical notes and the silence exist universes. Millions of them. The eighth volume of Fiction River presents fourteen universes, all different, all powerful. From a planetary survey ship moored in an alien ocean to a comic book convention near a strange Louisiana town, each of these universes go somewhere familiar and strange at the same time. Come visit the universe of Fiction River, which Amazing Stories called ...

Mary Jo hated her most recent job of killing a woman named Bonnie Malak. Something felt off.So Mary Jo, with her lover and fellow assassin, Jean, decided to figure out what seemed out of place.Sometimes a job to kill might not be on target.A Mary Jo Assassin Story of love, death, and friendship.