Dramatized Science Fiction

R. S. Belcher's debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, was enthusiastically greeted by critics and listeners, who praised its wildly inventive mixture of dark fantasy, steampunk, and the Wild West. Now Belcher returns to Golgotha, Nevada, a bustling frontier town that hides more than its fair share of unnatural secrets.

Across the flat plains of the Dakotas, an iron horse shrieks and rumbles across refurbished tracks. Inside the boxcars, Ryan Cawdor and his companions face trouble unlike any other. Jak is missing, Krysty is dying, and the train is loaded with sec men, whitecoats, and a horrifying experiment — a baron with psionic abilities using stolen children to fuel his mad dream for mind control of every living soul in Deathlands.

The Russians, consolidating their brutal hold on America after the bloody horror of World War III, are planning an act so vicious that mankind, itself, may never recover from the blow. John Thomas Rourke, the ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons expert, and survival authority is the only one with a prayer of stopping them. But the Reds aren't afraid of Rourke. They fear the same thing he does: the imminent combustion of the earth's atmosphere into a global mass of deadly flame!

It's a perilous world after the fiery apocalypse of World War III, and John Thomas Rourke — ex-CIA Covert Operations Officer, weapons specialist, and survival expert — pursues his arch-enemy Vladmir Karamatsov into the strife-torn, blackened wilderness of mainland China and a rendezvous with certain death. Karamatsov, bent on the destruction of the entire world, is determined to seize control of the vast Communist Chinese nuclear arsenal that survived the hell-fire destruction of the Night of The War.

Kylara Vatta is the only daughter in a family full of sons, and her father's only child to buck tradition by choosing a military career instead of joining the family business. For Ky, it's no contest: Even running the prestigious Vatta Transport Ltd. shipping concern can't hold a candle to shipping out as an officer aboard an interstellar cruiser. It's adventure, not commerce, that stirs her soul. And despite her family's misgivings, there can be no doubt that a Vatta in the service will prove a valuable asset. But with a single error in judgment, it all comes crumbling down.

Fear and human depravity permeate the frigid air in a once-dynamic Alaskan city. Ryan Cawdor and his group of survivalists go on red alert the moment they set foot on the forbidding tundra, but regardless, they find themselves rounded up by cannibal coldhearts. The companions quickly discover there's a fate much worse than becoming food. Dangerous new experiments are taking place in a long-abandoned military base and, in the bitter heart of the frozen North, new horrors reach out to poison their hope for a better tomorrow.

A former enforcer of the baronial police, Kane, with fellow renegade Grant and archivist Brigid Baptiste, discover a new gateway in Central America — one that could lead them deeper into the conspiracy that has doomed Earth. Traversing a new Caribbean sea ruled by mutant creatures and ruthless pirates, they encounter a most unusual baron struggling to control the vast oil resources of the region. Uncertain if this charismatic leader is friend or foe, Kane is lured into a search for an ancient relic of mythic proportions that may promise a better future.

A new and horrific face of the Annunaki legacy appears in the Arizona desert. A shambling humanoid monster preys on human victims, consuming their energy, burning their souls — leaving empty, mindless shells in its wake. Trapped inside this creature, the souls of rogue Igigi, once the treasured slave caste of the Annunaki, seek hosts for their physical rebirth. And no human — perhaps not even the Cerberus rebels — can stop them from reclaiming the planet of their masters for themselves....

Faced with the looming threat of the Russian pack, Silver and Andrew Dare plan to host an envoy at their wedding. The Russian alpha rejects diplomacy, however, and instead sends Mikhail, an elite assassin. Mikhail begins to ritually murder sub-alphas, leaving them to bleed to death from a thousand shallow cuts. The Roanokes’ only leverage is Mikhail’s reverence for the Lady: He thinks She is reborn in Silver. Playing the Lady goes against all of Silver's beliefs, but she yields to Mikhail’s invitation for her to join him in Russia.

Earth remains the volatile prize of aeons of war and domination by two panterrestrial races. Returning the fight to these inhuman overlords, the Cerberus rebels are the champions of the planet's postapocalyptic dark ages. They spark a uniquely human resilience and courage to stand down the forces of infinitely powerful, perhaps unstoppable entities in the ongoing war to retake Earth for humanity.

Pulling sec duty aboard a steamboat on the mighty Sippi is a welcome reprieve for Ryan and his friends…until armored warships reduce their vessel to a burning husk. Abruptly stranded in a nightmarish, poisonous swamp, fighting off crocodiles and muties, the companions and their crew of allies get to work building rafts. Their escape route, however, is swiftly intercepted, and they learn they've sailed into the middle of a fierce conflict between two villes fighting over the iron trade. The companions don't seem to stand a chance against the fleets of ironclad gunboats.

Two centuries after skydark, the oligarchy of the nine barons who have governed nuke-ravenged America endures - yet their control as plenipotentiaries of earth's first nonhuman inheritors rapidly diminishes. For as the myth that shrouds the planet's secret rulers is exposed by a handful of scientists and warriors dedicated to freeing humanity from the eternal yoke of slavery, the truth becomes more deadly....

The St. Charles Players present a unique telling of H.G. Wells' classic futuristic adventure, in a new multi-cast dramatization performed in exciting Radio Theatre style.

In the nuke-altered region of the Great Lakes, Ryan and his group face the spectrum — from the idyllic to the horrific — of a world reborn. Close to enclaves of peace and sanctuary, Deathlands' most distorted spawn of humanity, cannibals, spread terror. Against the battered shoreline of Lake Michigan, an encounter with an old friend leads to a battle to save Milwaukee from a force of deadly mutant interlopers — and to liberate one of their own.

A civil war raging in the Des Moines River valley forces Ryan and his companions to take sides, or die. Because somewhere in the middle of the generations-old conflict is a lost redoubt. But Snake Eye, the deadliest gunslinger in Deathlands, stands between them and the way out. And the mutie contract chiller won't step aside until he has Ryan's head.

In the nuke-altered America of the 21st century, time conspires against survival, especially for a legendary group of warriors led by Ryan Cawdor. Born and bred in Deathlands, Ryan dares to unlock the secrets buried deep in the wreckage of a planet. Time may be the enemy in the daily struggle to stay alive, but perhaps it can reveal something better....

In L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s The Magic Engineer, Dorrin, a young scion of Order magicians, is interested in forbidden knowledge - the working of machines. He is the Leonardo da Vinci of his age, but his insights violate the rules of the Order magic of Recluce, and in order to pursue his invention he must go into exile - in the lands of Chaos. Tortured by the knowledge that to preserve Order he must create new devices for war, Dorrin stands between Recluce and the forces of the Chaos that seek to destroy it.

Xriah and Vylis, two avatars, both empowered with differing superhuman abilities, are repeatedly thrust into wildly varying worlds to do battle on behalf of their respective deities. Though the nature of their deities is shrouded in mystery, both avatars' faith in their purpose is strong and unwavering. On each successive world they seek one another out, and then it is a battle to the death, despite the fact that both the defeated and victor alike are reborn and plunged into yet another world, to begin the fight all over again.

Wayson Harris was one of thousands of clones born and bred to be the ultimate soldiers. But as an outlawed model, he was different from the rest - possessing independent thoughts and an addiction to violence. Stranded on a frontier planet, Harris is desperate to get back to civilization - and back into the fight. But the rebel factions are warring among themselves, and Harris is contacted by a group that wants to return to the Unified Authority's command.

The woods surrounding Lake Huron are filled with danger and bounty alike. Pirates frequent the waters, cold-hearted cannibals and stickies wander the woods, and the mystical Sea Hag and her Hag-Sworn keep an eye on it all. A local moonshiner has offered to escort the companions through the forest to the nearby Martkplatz where they can resupply at the ville’s annual trade festival. However, the companions get more than they bargained for when forces converge on Marktplatz and kick off the festival with a bang.