Showing results by narrator "Nick Podehl" in All Categories

Jack Rybicki is a high school senior who loves his girl, likes to party, and doesn't have much of a plan for his life. Then fate plucks him from obscurity and Jack, now renamed Jack Noble by his management team, becomes one of the most famous people on the planet. A teenager who likes to indulge himself with limitless resources is not the best recipe for a successful life. But, it's never too late in Middle Falls.

Brothers and gods, Karak and Ashhur created Dezrel to be a paradise of ageless humans. But mortal hubris aroused one god’s wrath, and forced the other to shield the young world’s rebellious denizens from his brother’s murderous retribution. Now, the bloody war between mortal nations and their immortal overlords has reached its tipping point. The city of Mordeina, under siege by the brutal Karak and his armies, fights valiantly against impossible odds. Bardiya - Ashhur’s loyal servant - and his people face a shackled death march across the desert.

Prophecy declared that corrupt politician Corajidin would rule the Shrīanese Federation, even become its new Emperor - and sinister magic has helped him defy death in order to do it. But his victory is not assured, thanks to clashing rival factions that hinder any attempts to unify the nation. Though he has taken increasingly brutal measures to eliminate all obstacles in his path, the dark forces supporting him grow dangerously impatient. And the harder they press, the more drastic Corajidin’s actions become.

An act of terrorism unleashed an unspeakable biological weapon…and hell on earth. But as the masses felled by a hideous virus rose from the dead to prey on the living, a small band of survivors defied death and its ghastly spawn - determined to outrun the world’s end, and somehow begin again.

Predatory kraken that sing with - and for - their kin; band members and betrayed friends who happen to be demonic; harpies as likely to attract as to repel. Welcome to a world where humans live side-by-side with monsters, from vampires both nostalgic and bumbling, to an eight-legged alien who makes tea. Here you'll find mercurial forms that burrow into warm fat, spectral boy toys, a Maori force of nature, a landform that claims lives, and an architect of hell on earth.

Someone has been farting up a storm at school and everyone thinks Keith Emerson is to blame. Unfortunately for Keith, it has earned him the nickname "S.B.D." (silent but deadly). To make matters worse, Keith's dad is a self proclaimed "Fart Machine" who really stinks it up at home. With the science fair quickly approaching, Keith decides he has had enough.

Ronan Truelove's best friend, scrappy smart aleck Greta Sustermann, has no idea that she is one of the thirty-six Pure souls crucial to the safety of the world. But Ronan's evil father has figured it out - and he's leading the Bend Sinister straight to Greta. If they capture her, she'll suffer a fate far worse than mere death. But to get to Greta, they're going to have to go through Ronan first.

Coop is cooking up another sure-misfire scheme (big surprise), and this time the comedy plays out from Sean’s point of view. What’s the new master plan? Making a cheapo horror movie guaranteed to make Coop, Sean, and Matt filthy rich! It’s a terrible idea, and Sean knows it. But he actually is desperate for cash - and for a way to wipe that big fat L off his girlfriend-less forehead. But when he agrees to write a script about the attack of zombie-vampire humanzees, he has no idea just how powerful a chick magnet this movie will be. Suddenly Sean is juggling not one but three interested ladies.

On the young world of Dezrel, brother gods Karak and Ashhur, fleeing their own failed world, recreate mankind in an attempt to make amends. The fledgling race of humanity is guided by the First Families, men and women who will not age so long as their hearts remain devoted to their deities. But quickly the realms are thrown into chaos by the construction of the Temple of the Flesh, built by exiled children of Karak in the unclaimed land of Haven that lies between the two kingdoms.

Dakkon’s in trouble. Things have gone horribly wrong. But so long as there’s still a glimmer of hope, it’s not too late, is it? With such high stakes, failure isn’t an option. He’s got to stay crisp. Frosty. Focused. Dakkon needs luck, skill, and a meteoric rise in power, however success won’t come so easily. Nature is cruel. Predators come in all shapes and sizes, especially when the land is warped by magic.

Danny Marin thinks the comic-book super-hero Shrinkman is the coolest! Shrinkman can shrink to the size of a bug and go places most ordinary people can’t. But when Danny suddenly starts to shrink, he finds that being small isn’t really so super. In fact, it’s terrifying. First, he’s nearly torn to pieces by his own dog. Then he’s in a fight to the death with a grasshopper! Danny had better find a way to get BIG again - or he will be a little bit gone!

Jeff the Game Master returns in Manipulating Magic, a unique spin on the LitRPG genre, not just providing the perspective of the players, but also of one of those mystical, magical, all-powerful GMs we all dream of being.

Paige Langford has it all: wealth, beauty, and ambition. Yet when her boyfriend’s betrayal costs her both her dream job and her reputation, she retreats to her brother’s rural home in Indiana to heal and figure out the rest of her life. There she meets Ryan Malloy, a gruff, hard-drinking cowboy whose surly temper can’t hide the pain in his eyes.

Dr. Sheridan Doyle - a fastidiously groomed and TV-friendly forensic psychologist - is the go-to shrink for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office whenever a twisted killer’s mind eludes other experts. But beneath his Armani pinstripes, he’s still Danny Doyle, the awkward, terrified, bullied boy from a blue-collar mining family, plagued by panic attacks and haunted by the tragic death of his little sister and mental unraveling of his mother years ago.

>In the winter life in McKinley, Minnesota, revolves around the rinks, where kids play hockey and grown-ups skate to scratchy phonograph records. Then, the year Marsh and his best friend, Willy, are 12, Carl appears at the rink, wearing a battered, old leather flight jacket and doing a strange dance that is both beautiful and disturbing to watch. It is Marsh and Willy who discover the terrible secret behind Carl’s dance, a secret that threatens to destroy him. But a small miracle occurs....

Meet Will Carter, but feel free to call him Carter. (Yes, he knows it's a lazy nickname, but he didn't have much say in the matter.) He has a stuttering problem, particularly around boobs and belly buttons. He battles Attention Deficit Disorder every minute of every day...unless he gets distracted. He's a virgin, mostly because he's no good at talking to girls.

As Daniel Byers prepares to attend a basketball camp before his senior year of high school, the terrifying blurs that've plagued him for the last nine months return. Dark images begin to haunt him - creatures crawling from the deepest pits of his nightmares, glimmers of chilling memories from his early childhood.

Over. That about sums up everything in my life. Suspended from my college football team and forced to cut back my hours at The District bar because of my crappy grades, I can’t keep turning to my sister, Fable, and her pro football–playing husband, Drew, to bail me out. I just can’t seem to find my own way. Weed and sex are irresistible temptations—and it’s messed up that I secretly hand over money to our junkie mom. A tutor is the last thing I want right now—until I get a look at her.

The Kolder linger on, a constant threat to Simon and the witches he's sworn to protect. To save their world from this threat from another dimension, Simon and Jaelithe must venture to the heart of the poisonous Kolder realm and vanquish them for good, or witness the enslavement of their world.

The hard-fighting, harder-drinking fortune hunters of The Hammer and the Blade and A Discourse in Steel are back to test their mettle and tempt fickle fate. Fantasy fiction has long welcomed adventurous rogues: Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, George R. R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg...