Darren Johnson's Best Short Stories of 2018

Darren Johnson's Best Short Stories of 2018
Author: Darren Johnson
Publisher: Darren Johnson
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2019-02-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1386697281

Including eight disparate tales ranging in length from short story to novella, plus one huge crossover tying them together: THE BABY HUNTER: When mutant superhuman babies cause the apocalypse, you need... The Baby Hunter. They hunt us. He hunts them. CHASING COWQUEST: After thirty years, it seems someone has finally broken Max's record on a mysterious arcade game called Cowquest. With his wife's permission, he's returning to his hometown to get it back. QUINCUNX: In the final game of the Scrabble Championships, one player makes a move no one saw coming. MALTZIE: A CAT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: For anyone that’s ever had a special little fuzzface in their life. Adopted as a kitten, Maltzie immediately forged a bond with his humans that only grew stronger with time. THE 2ND AMENDMENTERS: They worship the only Amendment that matters (to them). Second Amendment! TYRONE JACKSON AND THE HALF-COURT DUNK: Harry Potter meets Boyz n the Hood in this explosive parody. Includes special bonus features. IT WAS A GIFT FROM GOD, THEY SAID: Everyone on Earth is suddenly "blessed" with the gift of flight. Why question it? THE BEST DAMN COP ON THE FORCE: You don't get to be the best without taking a few risks. THE GREATEST CROSSOVER OF ALL TIME: They’re some of the worst, most poorly written characters ever created by one man in 2018. Now their worlds are about to collide. They thought they had problems before… Featuring all your favorite (and least favorite) characters from the above compilation. A thriller.

Darren Johnson's Best Short Stories of 2019

Darren Johnson's Best Short Stories of 2019
Author: Darren Johnson
Publisher: Darren Johnson
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2019-11-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1393227902

Flying monuments. Quantum, time-traveling historians. Controllable back hair. Unidentified bussing objects. 14 separate tales plus one immense crossover bringing them together because why not: SPEEDING STEALTH BUS: Its attacks on pedestrians both terrorized and crippled the nation. Now it's back and just as stealthy — and violent — as ever. THE GREATEST LOVE STORY THAT ALMOST WAS: They had the perfect relationship until fate stepped in. You won't see *this* sappy story around the holidays. SINGLE ELIMINATION EARTH: Eight billion competitors forced to fight to the death against their will. One winner. THE LAST CHANCE: He's been unsuccessful for ages. It consumes his every thought. And now, as the last human on Earth, he has one more chance. SITUATIONAL: Even though their lives are the same, they don’t feel quite right. Something is either wrong with them — or everyone else. A QUICK, NEIGHBORLY PROBLEM: The ride's over and your language skills suck. Let the insults fly! 5 YEARS THE VILLAIN: Kidnapped by aliens, he’s been given five years to help humanity clean up their act. The catch? He’s marooned in an alien spacecraft stuck in orbit. One can’t save the human race without pissing a few billion of them off. THE LESSON: If you don't brainwash your kids, who will? Oh, Father O'Malley! Yay! THE UNWONTED 5: Five strangers with "useless" powers come together to form something more. Sorry, bad guys. THE REARRIVALS: The old gods are back and tearing things up, baby! You know, maybe someone *should* question them. INTERVIEW WITH A CANDIDATE: A HORROR STORY: Even the devil would be disgusted by this guy. Do they not care in Alabama, or what? STUR TRONK: Captain Alex Q.T. Pecks has been charged with maintaining the peace. I give it a week. LIMO RIDER: He's used to riding in limos. However, he's also used to being let out. TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE: As Written by a 12-year-old Purely for the Money: subtitle says it all. THE GREATEST CROSSOVER OF ALL TIME 2: All the bad guys from the stories above are teaming up to take over the world(s) and then some. All the good guys are trying to stop them. Note: knowledge of the first (2018's) Greatest Crossover is NOT required. Heck, it's not even recommended. You like crossovers? Well, this is crossover-er than any of them!

Arnesto Modesto: The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler

Arnesto Modesto: The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler
Author: Darren Johnson
Publisher: Darren Johnson
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2018-06-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

What if you could go back and do it all over again? By sending his memories back in time, Arnesto Modesto gives himself a do-over. Of course, his much younger self may not be prepared to handle all that foreknowledge... Encouraged by his friend Pete, Arnesto attempts to use his limited recall to do some good — and winds up stumbling through some of the biggest events of the past quarter-century. Take it from Arnesto: Life isn't easier the second time around. (Think Groundhog Day if the main character went much farther back and only got to repeat his life ONCE.) For anyone who has ever wondered, "What if?"

Tyler Johnson Was Here

Tyler Johnson Was Here
Author: Jay Coles
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0316440787

A young man searches for answers after the death of his brother at the hands of police in this striking debut novel, for readers of The Hate U Give. When Marvin Johnson's twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid. The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it's up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean. Tyler Johnson Was Here is a powerful and moving portrait of youth and family that speaks to the serious issues of today--from gun control to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Feather Thief

The Feather Thief
Author: Kirk Wallace Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2018-04-24
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1101981628

As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.

Uncommon Grit

Uncommon Grit
Author:
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1538735547

Retired Navy SEAL and professional photographer Darren McBurnett takes readers behind the scenes into the elite SEAL training program, BUD/S, in Coronado, California. Striking, beautiful, and haunting, Uncommon Grit takes a unique, unprecedented look at the toughest training in the military -- and the world -- from the vantage point of someone who lived through it. Retired Navy SEAL Darren McBurnett includes vivid descriptions of both the physical and mental evolutions that occur as a result of the immensely challenging SEAL training process. His stunning photographs, partnered with his compelling insights and sharp sense of humor, allow the reader to laugh, cringe, gasp, and even envision themselves going through this extraordinary experience.

Means of Ascent

Means of Ascent
Author: Robert A. Caro
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 594
Release: 2011-11-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307422097

In Means of Ascent, Book Two of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert A. Caro brings alive Lyndon Johnson in his wilderness years. Here, Johnson’s almost mythic personality—part genius, part behemoth, at once hotly emotional and icily calculating—is seen at its most nakedly ambitious. This multifaceted book carries the President-to-be from the aftermath of his devastating defeat in his 1941 campaign for the Senate-the despair it engendered in him, and the grueling test of his spirit that followed as political doors slammed shut-through his service in World War II (and his artful embellishment of his record) to the foundation of his fortune (and the actual facts behind the myth he created about it). The culminating drama—the explosive heart of the book—is Caro’s illumination, based on extraordinarily detailed investigation, of one of the great political mysteries of the century. Having immersed himself in Johnson’s life and world, Caro is able to reveal the true story of the fiercely contested 1948 senatorial election, for years shrouded in rumor, which Johnson was not believed capable of winning, which he “had to” win or face certain political death, and which he did win-by 87 votes, the “87 votes that changed history.” Telling that epic story “in riveting and eye-opening detail,” Caro returns to the American consciousness a magnificent lost hero. He focuses closely not only on Johnson, whom we see harnessing every last particle of his strategic brilliance and energy, but on Johnson’s “unbeatable” opponent, the beloved former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, who embodied in his own life the myth of the cowboy knight and was himself a legend for his unfaltering integrity. And ultimately, as the political duel between the two men quickens—carrying with it all the confrontational and moral drama of the perfect Western—Caro makes us witness to a momentous turning point in American politics: the tragic last stand of the old politics versus the new—the politics of issue versus the politics of image, mass manipulation, money and electronic dazzle.

Zom-B Clans

Zom-B Clans
Author: Darren Shan
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2014-07-08
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0316214302

B's first mission with the Angels --sentient, do-gooder zombies-- went horribly wrong when vicious members of the Ku Klux Klan attacked New Kirkham, a stronghold of precious human survivors. B is not about to let the racist thugs persecute innocent people, but while saving the town, one of B's oldest friends is kidnapped by the Klan. The Angels are prepared to do what it takes to save him, but B will have to make some very hard decisions about loyalties--to old friends, to the Angels, and to new families and old.

Justice Lost

Justice Lost
Author: Scott Pratt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Revenge
ISBN: 9781542049689

In the Wall Street Journal bestseller, lawyer turned rogue Darren Street faces the most personal and ruthless vendetta of his life. After forfeiting years serving time for a false murder conviction, former criminal defense attorney Darren Street finally got his freedom back and is trying to build a regular life. But when an unthinkable tragedy shatters his hard-earned normalcy, Street is left reeling from the devastating blow. As the criminal-justice system refuses to dispense justice, he sets out--without mercy--after the man responsible. Unwilling to stop at simply righting one wrong, Street decides to dust off his legal skills and dive back in--this time to unseat the district attorney general in Knoxville, whose callous indifference nearly let a man get away with murder. Now navigating a broken establishment already steeped in corruption, Street will find the retribution and redemption he so desperately needs--unless it draws him even deeper into the very chaos that derailed his life in the first place.

Bob Dylan in London

Bob Dylan in London
Author: K G Miles
Publisher: McNidder & Grace
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2021-02-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0857162152

'A must have for Dylan enthusiasts, lovers of London, and anyone with even a passing interest in the history of music. I devoured it in two sittings - and I loved it!' Conor McPherson, playwright, Girl from the North Country This is both a guide and history on the impact of London on Dylan, and the lasting legacy of Bob Dylan on the London music scene. Bob Dylan in London celebrates this journey, and allows readers to experience his London and follow in his footsteps to places such as the King and Queen pub (the first venue that Dylan performed at in London), the Savoy hotel and Camden Town. This book explores the key London places and times that helped to create one of the greatest of all popular musicians, Bob Dylan.