{"title":"Stephen Swartz","description":"Stephen Swartz grew up in Kansas City, where he was an avid reader of science-fiction and quickly began emulating his favorite authors. Since then, Stephen studied music in college and, like many writers, worked a wide range of jobs: from fast food to soldier, from IRS clerk to TV station writer, before heading to Japan for several years as an English teacher. Stephen now teaches English at a university in Oklahoma and continues to write late into the night.","products":[{"product_id":"flu-season-2-the-way-of-the-son-paperback","title":"Flu Season 2: The Way of the Son - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eEverything changes when you lose your mother, even more if you lose her during a pandemic when everyone is fighting for survival and it is your responsibility to protect her and you fail.\u003cbr\u003eNow you have a wife and baby to protect in the savage outerlands - where danger lurks in every shadow, and it's every man for himself.\u003cbr\u003eI call it the Way of the Son - definitely not the way Mom would've gone.\u003cbr\u003e\"The road is finite, and well-marked, so you only need to go along it, following the path that's already set before you.\u003cbr\u003eYet sometimes it will lead you in the wrong direction. Sometimes you will end up in the wrong place.\"\u003cbr\u003eYou have to find your way back home again, wherever that may be - even through a deadly pandemic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67575185866975,"sku":"9781680630756","price":20.23,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/AGZfJGxfLa9781680630756.webp?v=1790373079"},{"product_id":"flu-season-the-book-of-mom-paperback","title":"Flu Season: The Book of Mom - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eEverything was fine, just me and Mom. And her precious tuba. Then the pandemic came and everyone had to adapt to a new normal. Until the new normal became unbearable. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWe awoke one morning and the news was worse than before. Food rationing, no power, gas lines. Mom decided we should leave, wait it out at my grandparents' farm, but danger followed us, north and south, to the east, all the way to the coast, trying to find safety with family members who instead needed our help more than we needed theirs. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eI had to trust Mom to find us a sanctuary - but not on an island where other survivors of the pandemic are trying to set up their own society, with rules as strict as in the city. Definitely not a place where our family secrets will be exposed.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67576008016095,"sku":"9781680630732","price":20.23,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/pMyj82GHls9781680630732.webp?v=1790376890"},{"product_id":"into-the-woods-a-fantasy-anthology-paperback","title":"Into the Woods: a fantasy anthology - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eA magical house in the woods... Love affairs, bitter quarrels, Hungry ghosts, fell demons and more await you within this enchanting collection. Myrddin Publishing presents ten diverse fantasy tales of love, loss, hope, and horror with a dash of humor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67576530469087,"sku":"9781680630367","price":13.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/uQ-4vPH_ER9781680630367.webp?v=1790383896"},{"product_id":"flu-season-4-the-book-of-dad-paperback","title":"Flu Season 4: The Book of Dad - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eBIG SISTER CARES FOR YOU \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFritz returns from his rehabilitation to find his life destroyed: his family shuns him, he's assigned a menial job, stuck in a unit for single workers, weekly counseling sessions to be sure he doesn't backslide. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis crime? He made a video years before of his elderly mother telling about the 10-year pandemic and the lawless decades that followed. It was well received - then banned, removed from every stream, even his personal copy taken. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThen someone in the government decided the pandemic and the lawlessness never happened. His video was inconvenient. But who would want to ruin his life? Could it be the Big Sister who stares down from posters all over the city? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFritz (born in Book 3) blames his mother, Isla (narrator of Book 3), for his troubles. He never wanted this existential angst. He never asked to be born. Maybe his troubles began with that damn tuba.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67894518350047,"sku":"9781680630169","price":20.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/f-BTQXN5mb9781680630169.webp?v=1790920279"},{"product_id":"exchange-paperback","title":"Exchange - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn Unspeakable Crime.High school teacher Bill Masters and his family have a comfortable life in suburban Oklahoma City - until his wife and teen daughter are killed in a mass shooting. Overwhelmed with grief, Bill struggles to put his life back together - or construct a new life from what remains - even as he must combat continuing crime that threatens him and his home.A Second Chance.When exchange student Wu Ting \"Wendy\" Wang arrives from China for her year at an American high school, she has no idea what has just happened to her host family. She's a constant reminder to Bill of why his family is gone. Yet he is determined to protect her at any cost - ready to use his father's gun. And he will not fail this time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67894518579423,"sku":"9781680630572","price":20.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/MSIA0-qyNd9781680630572.webp?v=1790920281"},{"product_id":"the-masters-riddle-paperback","title":"The Masters' Riddle - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eLegend says they come in the night and carry away the bad ones....\u003cbr\u003eOne night Toog is captured and taken away by the mysterious race known as the Masters.\u003cbr\u003eFirst left in a cold, dark cell, Toog is tormented by questions: Why me? What did I do wrong?\u003cbr\u003eWith beings from worlds across the galaxy around him he learns the Masters' ways and plots his escape.\u003cbr\u003eHowever, even if he can get out of the prison how can he hope to find the way home again when home is on another world?\u003cbr\u003ePerhaps his capture serves another purpose, one which Toog will only understand by solving the Masters' riddle.\u003cbr\u003eOnly then will his life have meaning and his world be saved.\u003cbr\u003e\"...an empowering tale of survival, revenge, and what it means to not be human.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67894531621087,"sku":"9781680630596","price":20.23,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/wwJi_vXBZg9781680630596.webp?v=1790920295"},{"product_id":"year-of-the-tiger-paperback","title":"Year of the Tiger - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvery night Karl Edwards has strange, violent dreams. He sees the world as though he's looking through the eyes of a Bengal tiger and it's driving him insane. Fortunately, his sexy wife knows a hunky doctor who can help her have Karl committed, that is. Locked up, the nightmares worsen as the tiger hunts down the men who killed its mate. Karl has a plan, however. All he has to do is persuade Althea, a young nurse, to help him escape. Next, he must get to India. Then he must find that one tiger and kill it. Only then will he have the mind they seem to share all to himself. But others are also interested in joining the hunt. The doctor who put Karl in the mental hospital, fearing Karl will reveal his crimes. And famous big game hunter Colonel John Barrington will come out of retirement, with worldwide media in tow, for one last chance at a man-eating tiger!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67894551347423,"sku":"9781680630213","price":20.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/EtM1t70ggw9781680630213.webp?v=1790920319"},{"product_id":"sunset-conclusion-to-the-stefan-szekely-trilogy-paperback","title":"Sunset: Conclusion to the Stefan Szekely Trilogy - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eMidnight, 31 December 2099. As the Empire of Europa celebrates the new millennium with battle lines in Ukraine and preparations underway for invading England, the Emperor in His capital of Budapest welcomes His guests, the elite of vampire society. Yet all is not well in the empire. Different factions agree the time has come for new leadership. As rabid mobs protest and attack palace guards, Emperor Stefan and his closest staff huddle in the imperial suite, awaiting rescue. But how do you get away from the clutches of the supreme demon who lives forever and exists everywhere? If Stefan can free himself, the world may yet be saved. If he fails, the destruction will continue until the Anglo-American Union falls and vampire society rules the world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67894558949599,"sku":"9781680630299","price":20.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/IcMPIOyqpn9781680630299.webp?v=1790920336"},{"product_id":"flu-season-5-the-granddaughter-paperback","title":"Flu Season 5: The Granddaughter - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat a Post-Apocalyptic World needs is Music! \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt is 100 years since the end of the great pandemic. Decades after lawlessness and civil war, society has rebuilt as a repressive regime. Unwilling to accept the new ways, some people have fled west and started new towns. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMaggie's mother takes her and her brothers to live with their aunt in Skinner Canyon. Yet Maggie grows up haunted by her father's death in the capital city, and her family's entire pandemic legacy. To counter that, Maggie, now the town's school teacher, decides that what the town needs is a band - also she can play the family tuba! \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut there are plenty of obstacles, from suspicious townsfolk to a conniving salesman, her lack of knowledge about music, a vengeful stranger, and threats by tribal bands asserting their land claims. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThankfully, Maggie has the support of her quirky cousin Eve in this post-apocalyptic world - as well as a few music colleagues - but mostly her own determined will. As Isla's granddaughter, she has a lot of responsibility. Can she save herself, her family, and perhaps the entire nation?","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67894585688287,"sku":"9781680630343","price":20.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/mIAijo9qo9781680630343.webp?v=1790920371"},{"product_id":"the-dream-land-book-i-long-distance-voyager-paperback","title":"The Dream Land: Book I: Long Distance Voyager - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eHow far would you go to save the love of your life? Through a doorway to another world? When high school sweethearts Sebastian and Gina discover a doorway to a new world, adventure-loving Gina falls in love with the world of Ghoupallesz and wants to stay. But studious Sebastian fears losing touch with Earth, so he returns alone. Nevertheless, he sneaks back time and time again for his own strange adventures before finally giving up the habit after too many lost loves, betrayals, and war. Years later, working night shift at the IRS service center, Sebastian feels the cosmic pull once more. Gina is in trouble--again. Of course he must return and save her! Perhaps this time, they can stay together. Returning through the interdimensional doorway, Sebastian must first gather his comrades from the war, cross the towering Zet mountains, and free Gina from the evil Zetin warlord's castle. Unfortunately, Sebastian finds there are more questions than answers. Is his adventure on the other side real? Or is it just the dream of a psychotic killer? That's what the police want to know when friends and co-workers go missing. THE DREAM LAND is an eloquently efficient epic of interdimensional intrigue and world domination by high school geeks, filled with twisted humor (think double-helix), some steampunk pathos, a patina of psychological thriller (imagine a police procedural gone bad), passionate romance (tears will be shed!), graphic violence (de rigueur in battles scenes with a cast of millions), and the inevitability of quirky conundrums of time and space. \"Long Distance Voyager\" is the first volume of The Dream Land trilogy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67907683516639,"sku":"9781939296221","price":21.53,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/O5WCsdvbH29781939296221.webp?v=1790974330"},{"product_id":"the-dream-land-ii-dreams-of-futures-past-paperback","title":"The Dream Land II: Dreams of Future's Past - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eSAVE THE ONE OR THE MANY? OR BOTH...IF YOU ARE AN INTERDIMENSIONAL VOYAGER! After his adventures in Book I, Sebastian Talbot (a.k.a. Set-d'Elous, legendary warrior and Sekuatean cavalry captain) has exiled himself to a desolate island, content to laze away the days writing his memoir. Until the emissary from Queen Tammy arrives with a mission he cannot refuse. Tammy, the IRS clerk he took to Ghoupallesz along with Michael in Book I, wants him to go fetch her son who she left on Earth. How could she return for him? She married the King of Aivana. That mission raises desperate questions for Sebastian: If he can go back and forth through these interdimensional doorways and arrive in different time periods, perhaps he can do something to prevent the big war he fought through, the war that destroyed his family and millions of others. So he returns to his Ghoupalle wife Zaura. While on patrol duty, he comes upon a young poetess he knows will become the rebel leader who helps overthrow the monarchy and causes the wars. What would you do? Meanwhile, back on Earth in another timeline, Sebastian awakens from a coma and is helped in his recovery by Dr. Toni Franck. An affair develops-just as his opportunity for escape comes along. Later, as Sebastian\/Set escorts teams of mercenaries back and forth to conduct their history-changing business, he tries to meet up with Toni again only to realize the police are still in pursuit. Desperate to see her, he arranges a meeting only to have a SWAT team show up, cornering him. Can he escape through an interdimensional doorway this time? THE DREAM LAND trilogy continues in Book II with parallel time lines, world domination and world destruction, and as always the minuti  of heroic minds playing god without a rule book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67907686007007,"sku":"9781939296269","price":21.58,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/5K8OfZJYKH9781939296269.webp?v=1790974352"},{"product_id":"the-dream-land-iii-diaspora-paperback","title":"The Dream Land III: Diaspora - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eSet-d'Elous (a.k.a. Sebastian Talbot) finds himself paralyzed and mute, tormented daily by the mocking spirit of the evil Empress-his wife. His only hope is to be rescued, but all his fellow Voyagers have been blown to other places, some back to Earth. They awaken to a world they had left and now cannot comprehend. Tammy's son, Chucker, awakens in the jungle, however, and in his years there realizes what went wrong in his team's assassination attempt on the Emperor of Sekuate: they shot the wrong guy. Feeling guilty, Chucker tracks Set-d'Elous to Earth, where he is locked up in a prison hospital, let out once a month for a day with Dr. Toni Franck, his former psychiatrist now wife. With the aid of a retired cop, Chucker must rescue Sebastian in order to counter the rise of a violent prophet's cult back on Ghoupallesz. Only a final battle will decide the truth-a truth that permeates the next few centuries.... Legend tells of a comet that will cleanse the world, and governments realize its near. Fortunately, Jinetta-d'Elous (a.k.a. Gina Parton, Interdimensional Voyager), a struggling mother of two, comes forward to offer assistance. Leading the aerospace commission, she tries to drive forward Ghoupallean technology from airships to interstellar spacecraft in the time remaining. However, success has its price and as the clock counts down, Gina must rescue her daughter from the evil Overlord and secure seats aboard the last spacecraft departing before the comet strikes. THE DREAM LAND trilogy concludes in Book III with an epic crash of time lines and an unforgiving planetoid coming to test even the heartiest of Interdimensional Voyagers!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67907688366303,"sku":"9781939296276","price":21.58,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/62vuFlftEK9781939296276.webp?v=1790974372"},{"product_id":"a-beautiful-chill-paperback","title":"A Beautiful Chill - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eÍris is a refugee from an abusive youth in Iceland, further abused on the streets of Toronto - until she sees Art as an escape. With a scholarship, she drifts from depression to nightmare to Wiccan rituals to the next exhibit. There's a lot she must forget to succeed in a life she refuses to take responsibility for. Eric is settling in at Fairmont College, starting a new life after betrayal and heartbreak. Divorced and hitting forty, he has a lot to prove - to his father, his colleagues, and mostly to himself. The last thing he needs is a distraction - and there's nothing more distracting than Iris. A BEAUTIFUL CHILL is a contemporary romance set in the duplicitous world of academic rules and artistic license.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67907690922207,"sku":"9781939296306","price":20.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/qzkKia1RdP9781939296306.webp?v=1790974388"},{"product_id":"the-warriors-baumann-paperback","title":"The Warriors Baumann - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMore than 200 years after Jacob Baumann opened his dentistry in THE GRANDSONS (Flu Season Saga, Book 6), civilization has further declined to become a medieval society where former states are now individual kingdoms. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this farther future, descendants Stank and Rory Baumann make a fateful journey across Missouri to the capital city of Louis. Rory intends to wed the princess, but only after his warrior brother Stank (Stanley K. Baumann) duels the duke to death and clears the way. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHowever, travel through the savage Ozark country is filled with unwelcome lessons and their arrival in the fortress city with the silver arch is even more dangerous with the wily gambits and schemes of a suspicious royal Court. Can these two country bumpkins achieve their lofty goals and grab their destiny or will they fail at the twisted turns of truly outrageous fortune? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTHE WARRIORS BAUMANN, set in a world where the Americus survives as a cruel and vain society of savage lands and crusty castles, is a ribald comedy with plenty of daring-do and delicious wordplay - a literary poultice for your pleasure, a barb for your bonnet, and a pouty princess ripe for a ruse!","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67911550992607,"sku":"9781680630435","price":21.53,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/iez3jplmCE9781680630435.webp?v=1790988776"},{"product_id":"flu-season-6-the-grandsons-paperback","title":"Flu Season 6: The Grandsons - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the western territory of apocalyptic America, fatherless young Bart Baumann frets over his boring life, stuck between his nagging mother and his domineering uncle, the sheriff. When Bart gets the chance to ride with his uncle's posse after a gang of notorious outlaws, the teen boy relishes the chance to show everyone he's finally a man. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut that adventure takes a bad turn, sending the boy alone into the wilderness. When he comes upon a trio of gunslinger sisters, his young life is changed forever. Together they will confront the harsh realities of a ravaged nation trying to survive - long after a devastating plague, decades of lawlessness, reconstruction of a tyrannical society that rose then failed - until the gang must flee the law by daring to breach the forbidden zone where any random mistake could prove deadly. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTHE GRANDSONS concludes the Flu Season Saga in epic fashion: a feisty Western set in the future, with unexpected science-fiction oddities, outlandish courtroom theatrics, and tear-jerking family drama.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67931878981855,"sku":"9781680631395","price":26.93,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/aAcIbraGHT9781680631395.webp?v=1791312722"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/stephen-swartz.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}