Showing results by narrator "Tom Cox" in All Categories

21st-Century Yokel explores the way we can be tied inescapably to landscape, whether we like it or not, often through our family and our past. It's not quite a nature book, not quite a humour book, not quite a family memoir, not quite folklore, not quite social history, not quite a collection of essays, but a bit of all six. It contains owls, badgers, ponies, beavers, otters, bats, bees, scarecrows, dogs, ghosts and yes, even a few cats. What emerges from this are themes that are broader, bigger and more definitive.

Railway tunnels, the lanes and hills of the Peak District, family homes, old stones, shreds fluttering on barbed wire, night drawing in, something that might be an animal shifting on the other side of a hedge: Tom has drawn on his lifelong love of weird fiction, folklore and nature's unregarded corners, to write a collection of stories that will delight fans, old and new, and leave them very uneasy about turning the lamp off.

Tom's lyrical, candid prose roams from an intimate relationship with a particular cove on the south coast, to meditations on his great-grandmother, and a lesson on what goes into the mapping of hills themselves. Because a good walk in the hills is never just about the hills: you never know where it might lead.

Meet Phluttr - a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, and about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers - and they don't even know the tenth of it. But what's the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA?

Andy has been kidnapped. He's in Africa, and the only telephone number he can remember is his parents'. But Andy's mum and dad have issues of their own. Andy's dad has been forced into retirement and doesn't know what to do with his time and is horrified to discover that a friend has been telling Andy's mum that she has a constitutional right to an orgasm. Andy's girlfriend, Ali, is in New York on a work trip. She thinks it's time for them to get married and has dropped monster hints that Andy has been resisting.

This epic tale sweeps across continents and time, hovers over a key era in American history, and deftly realizes the humanity of a whole cast of characters. Told through flashbacks and alternating points of view, The Last Crossing is about redemption, about seeking and finding, about human feelings and strengths, about personal honor, and about that moment in life when we must decide to cross over and surrender to love.

A young Lithuanian immigrant, full of hope, arrives in Chicago in 1904 to work in the stockyards. He and his family soon find themselves processed like the very cattle they slaughter, by the system they dreamed would save them.

It is the year 896 during the Age of Magic and young Liam found himself searching for his purpose. His world forever changed when his family all tragically died within months of one another. As the world around him grew cold, the only warmth he found was in remembering the stories of the legendary warrior his father fought alongside. As a child, young Liam dreamt of fighting next to such warriors, and with nothing left to lose, he departed his home on a quest to become just that. The only thing he did not realize was just how much carnage awaited him.

Fifty years after humanity desperately sought and found a new home on Jurthaan IV, tension with neighboring planet Palnach necessitates a peace treaty as well as the arranged marriage of Princess Kylee Wen Dao to Palnach’s Prince Maju. Taren Platinum is the best — now banished — guard on Princess Kylee’s security team. He’s also in love with her. After crashing the royal wedding, rescuing the princess, and fleeing Jurthaan IV in a stolen spacecraft, Taren finds himself on the run with Kylee, pursued by soldiers from both Jurthaan IV and Palnach.

As the hunters enter the Realm of Delco, they quickly discover it is declining into turmoil. Thrust directly into action, Liam now finds himself under the supervision of Mala. Liam soon realizes that it is not just his combat skills that will be put to the test but the integrity of his heart and the purity of his soul. Liam is pushed to his limits and beyond. Where he believed he would find light, he instead finds darkness. It is in the most unlikely of places that he finds the support and motivation to overcome the seemingly impossible odds leveraged against him.