CharlesRay1's Reading List
10 stories
Life First by rjcrayton
rjcrayton
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When the government wants to steal her kidney, Kelsey Reed makes the only choice she can: run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvTVhP4O6I0 ~~~~~ "The prospect of being the human parts drawer society reaches into to cure its neediest patients would drive anyone mad. "- Kelsey Reed, Life First Strong-willed Kelsey Reed must escape tonight or tomorrow her government will take her kidney and give it to someone else. She'll need the help of her true love, Luke, to make this dangerous escape. This dystopian future Kelsey lives in was forged by survivors of pandemics that wiped out 80 percent of the world's population. Here, life is valued above all else. The mentally ill are sterilized, abortions are illegal and those who refuse to donate an organ when told are sentenced to death. Determined not to give up her kidney or die, Kelsey and Luke enlists the help of a dodgy doctor to escape. The trio must disable the electronic tracking chip in Kelsey's arm for her to flee undetected. If they fail, Kelsey could be stripped of Luke, her kidney and everything else she holds dear.
Garden Capers by JulesPJacob
JulesPJacob
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A Master Gardener/Horticultural Therapist's tales of plant and insect adoration, the beneficial and dark sides of gardening and epic battles: Jules vs. Armadillo; Deer vs. Jules; Cat and Possum vs. the Trap and Japanese Beetles vs. Dawn Dish Detergent.
The Glass Sponge by JulesPJacob
JulesPJacob
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Jacob's poetry collection, The Glass Sponge, traces family moments in "Dream House" through the "…lazy moonlight" as the sound barrier is broken, warning us, Ozzy and Harriet have stepped out. A tenderness emerges through the fear and angst of family abuse with a compassionate eye and an intimate understanding of the toll abusers demand. —Diane Smith, Founder and Editor of the Award Winning Journal Grey Sparrow published by Grey Sparrow Press: a 501C3 Corporation The Glass Sponge can be purchased and read in its entirety at http://julesjacob.com http://finishinglinepress.com and Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/The-Glass-Sponge-Jules-Jacob/dp/1622291557
Keep the Wolf from the Door by TMSterling
TMSterling
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There are no saints in the city of angels... Michael Kiryakov discovered that at an earth age. Now at 36 years-old, he's thrust into a battle of good versus evil when his gambling empire, built on addiction and blood, crumbles to the ground. Charlie Campbell Jr. is among LA's young and fortunate. Being the only son of a financial guru to California's elite, Charlie is destined for great things. Instead he becomes financial guru to California's corrupt. And at 31 years old, he faces jail or death, and he wonders what went wrong. Charlie blames his cousin, Michael. But Michael has another explanation for him: Yelena Volkov Life is a miracle. Nobody could tell Des Paradiso otherwise. When a mysterious man appears out of the darkness to save her life, and the life of her unborn child, her faith is restored. But her faith is soon tested when she finds herself caught in a web of sports betting, arms dealing, and human trafficking backed by the Russian Mafia. She soon discovers that the hands that saved her from death are far more skilled at taking life.
I Am Woman, Hear me Roar! by jenniferkathleen
jenniferkathleen
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What happens when you become a woman... and decide it's not what it's cracked up to be?
Luck and Death at the Edge of the World by nashedron
nashedron
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Security specialist Gat Burroughs died once and he'll be damned if he lets it happen again. Unfortunately, somebody is determined to kill his client, a washed-up star named Max Prince, and isn't afraid to go through Gat to do it. Is it Max's debauched granddaughter and heir? Is it the deadly Suerte y Muerte, a cult that kills to steal good luck? Is it Max's own lawyer and manager, James Jerome? And how on earth did the would-be assassin get past Max Prince's top-grade AI, the one that's adopted the likeness of computer pioneer Alan Turing? Gat will have to follow the clues through L.A.'s underworld, the slums of Mexico City, and his own guilty past to find the surprising answer. “A great science fiction detective story ” - Ian Watson, author of "The Universal Machine: From the Dawn of Computing to Digital Consciousness" ** The Gat Burroughs Series ** This is the first book in the Gat Burroughs series, which includes novels and shorter fiction. Gat Burroughs is a security specialist in Los Angeles after The Fall -- not so much an apocalypse as a social collapse that changed the world he knew. The United States has been replaced by the enclaves -- former states and megacities that are now nations. Large swaths of the country have collapsed utterly, regressing to pre-technological Grey Zones. Even in L.A., which remains largely intact, the polite face of democracy has largely been stripped away and the gap between the haves and the have-nots has become a vast gulf, with little space in between. But Gat is determined to find a way to make a life for himself without compromising his humanity. Bonus: Click on my profile and look for the bonus that's only available to Wattpad readers. ** Other Titles in the Series ** "Felon and the Judas Kiss" -- available on Amazon and Kobo. "Los Angeles Honey" -- coming soon.
Homeland by CoryDoctorow
CoryDoctorow
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER -- In Cory Doctorow’s wildly successful Little Brother, young Marcus Yallow was arbitrarily detained and brutalized by the government in the wake of a terrorist attack on San Francisco—an experience that led him to become a leader of the whole movement of technologically clued-in teenagers, fighting back against the tyrannical security state. A few years later, California's economy collapses, but Marcus’s hacktivist past lands him a job as webmaster for a crusading politician who promises reform. Soon his former nemesis Masha emerges from the political underground to gift him with a thumbdrive containing a Wikileaks-style cable-dump of hard evidence of corporate and governmental perfidy. It’s incendiary stuff—and if Masha goes missing, Marcus is supposed to release it to the world. Then Marcus sees Masha being kidnapped by the same government agents who detained and tortured Marcus years earlier. Marcus can leak the archive Masha gave him—but he can’t admit to being the leaker, because that will cost his employer the election. He’s surrounded by friends who remember what he did a few years ago and regard him as a hacker hero. He can’t even attend a demonstration without being dragged onstage and handed a mike. He’s not at all sure that just dumping the archive onto the Internet, before he’s gone through its millions of words, is the right thing to do. Meanwhile, people are beginning to shadow him, people who look like they’re used to inflicting pain until they get the answers they want. Fast-moving, passionate, and as current as next week, Homeland is every bit the equal of Little Brother—a paean to activism, to courage, to the drive to make the world a better place.
Diary of a Teenage Time Traveler by PkHrezo
PkHrezo
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Who needs teenage dreaming when you're a time traveler? Bianca Butterman's parents run their own time travel agency in the latter half of the 21st century and Bianca's heir to the family biz. Talk about travel perks! Leisurely trips whenever business permits is more than just a rockin' good time. Except, how do you keep all those timelines straight and remember what decade you're visiting when you've got exams to ace, first kisses to barf over, rumors to squash, and prom dresses to design ... Updated weekly, Bianca's entries are in journal format via her electronic diary device, similar to the tablets we use today, but in the future they work as projected holograph screens and keyboards. Diary of a Teenage Time Traveler, is a Wattpad EXCLUSIVE prequel to Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc.,(links on profile page) and follows Bianca's early teen years leading up to her eighteenth birthday and earning her official time-craft pilot's license. Feel free to leave comments on what kind of time trips (past or future) you'd like Bianca to take and it may be featured in a new diary entry! Check out where she's been so far ....
Daughter 4254 by LeighStatham
LeighStatham
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Daughter4254 used to think life in a community where art, music and names are outlawed would suffocate her creative spirit. Now that she’s rotting in a prison cell, she’s not sure her dying mother made the right choice when she entrusted her with the secrets of rebellion. Prison has given her plenty of time to relive every mistake and lose all hope. Her next stop is the MindWipe. Then she meets Thomas, a fellow inmate, who tells her stories of the mythical mountain colonies where people have names and the arts thrive. Together they plot an escape, knowing if they fail, they will die. Or worse, their consciousness will be taken by the MindWipe, leaving their bodies free for the government to use. When nothing goes as planned, Daughter4254 must choose between using her mother's secret to better the world she hates, or following Thomas to the quiet life of freedom she has always craved.
Greener Grass by MichaelJSullivan
MichaelJSullivan
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HE WANTED TO ESCAPE HIS PROBLEMS. HE WANTED TO SEE THE FUTURE. HE NEVER CONSIDERED WHAT THE FUTURE WANTED. Confronted with suffering a painful death from cancer, Dan Sturges, a retired Ford’s engineer, foregoes treatments to try an idea of his own. After reading a theoretical article in Scientific American on time displacement, Dan builds a time machine in his garage. With nothing to lose but a few months of pain, Dan pins his hopes on a future where cancer might have been cured, or at least a quicker death by electrocution. How could he have known that what happens after he presses the button is more shocking than the eighteen car batteries he connected himself to? Greener Grass is a science fiction short story of 5,600 words by Michael J. Sullivan, author of the fantasy books of The Riyria Revelations and the Riyria Chronicles. This short story was the seed that grew into his full-length novel, Hollow World published in April 2014 by Tachyon Publishing. While the ideas are similar, the two worlds depicted are quite different. In Greener Grass, the world was created to provide a "twilight zone" twist. In Hollow World, the future provides an environment that may be utopian or dystopic depending on the readers perceptions.