When Cornelius Cobb, known to his friends as 'Corny,' opens a string of brothels staffed entirely by lifelike female robots, he sees it not only as a good business idea, but as a humanitarian venture as well. Lonely men will get their needs met in a safe environment, police will be spared numerous vice raids, and human trafficking will diminish.Right?Poor, naive Corny! Little did he suspect what happens to anyone who upsets the time-honored business relationship that exists b...

There are certain illusions the human psyche depends on in order to maintain balance. One of the most vital of those illusions is that we can live our lives according to reason and logic, functions of the frontal lobes of our "advanced" brains. This belief remains widespread despite the evidence of history, which shows clearly that with humans, it is the tiny lizard-brain at the base of their skulls that rules.The characters in these stories, be they a famous concert pianist or a r...

The characters in these stories are not prone to philosophical musings, inchoate longings, or gender identity issues.Whether they be a tomb-painter in ancient Egypt or an astronaut returned from a long voyage, a waiter in a Three-Star restaurant or a soldier in the trenches of World War I, they each know exactly what they want, and they are hell-bent to get it.In their struggles they display the same vanity, perfidy, mendacity and saintly aspirations found somewhere among all...

As with all of Bruce Weber's short story books, the settings for these tales span the globe, from the leafy suburbs of Scarsdale, New York to the steamy jungles of Laos, from the desert canyons of the Southwest to tiny villages in northern France, and from a stuffy apartment in Tel Aviv to the banal suburbs of Las Vegas.But settings are no more than stages for the same dramas enacted daily by people around the globe. Driven by love or lust, greed or compassion, hate or mercy, they ...

The settings for these stories range from the steamy riverbanks of Thailand to the hallowed halls of classical music, from the torrid deserts of the southwest to the streets of Boston, from the mountains of Montana to dusty villages in India, and from a snooty club for the rich to the potholed streets of a rundown, crime-ridden barrio.Regardless of the setting, human beings are always doing the same things; hating and loving, sinning and redeeming, devils one minute, angels the nex...

These are NOT tales of love, loss and redemption.Whether they meet in a café in Paris or a bar in Saigon, a remote village in Thailand or a trendy bistro in Brooklyn, the characters in these stories have no interest whatever in the eternal spiritual verities.Their pursuits are entirely earthly, and their troubles really begin when they get what they want.

This is the story of Henry Falk, who suffers from seasickness so badly he gets nauseous watching waves at the beach. Henry has fallen deeply in love with Julie Morris, an accomplished blue-water sailor, and when she asks him to sail with her across the Atlantic, Henry is powerless to refuse.He goes on board with a medley of meds concocted to deal with his seasickness, and they do a pretty good job, but with one serious side effect: they kill his libido.As the voyage goes on, ...

This is the story of Frank Coyle, a veteran police officer who never meets his monthly quota of parking tickets, has never fired his service weapon, and who believes that putting anyone but violent criminals in jail is cruel and unusual punishment.He has compiled the lowest arrest record of any of his fellow officers, and yet he has imposed a lasting peace on the most violent, crime ridden area of his city.He has very unorthodox views of how the law should be upheld, and th...

Link Porter is an Iraq war veteran suffering from agoraphobia. He's terrified of open spaces, bright lights, loud noises, and crowds. He spends his days holed up his tiny darkened apartment, reading psychology textbooks and endlessly psychoanalyzing himselfBut Link Porter comes to realize that running from life is not always so easy, that sometimes a man's fate comes searching for him as relentlessly as the Hound of Hell, and that one afternoon, on a Saturday like any other, would ...

In this eclectic collection of twelve stories Bruce E. Weber brings together humility and arrogance, spirituality and aggression, innocence and harsh lessons to illuminate the human experience, that the lighter and darker sides seldom exist in a vacuum and that serendipity and irony often play major roles in the ever-evolving landscape of human life and human interactions. A hardened Brooklyn gentleman who evokes thoughts of Jack Nicholson finds compassion and love in a McDonald's in Nogal...

Father Gerry Gowan is wrongly accused of embezzling church funds. In disgrace, he is sent to St. Martin's, a rundown parish in a violent, crime ridden barrio the local police refer to as The Swamp. He's bitter about this assignment, till he learns that St. Martin's is an outpost of desperately needed social services in an area whose toxic racial mixture is primed to explode.Nothing in his background has prepared him for the urban bloodbath of The Swamp, where the crime rate is the t...

An original novel from Steven Gould, creator of the Jumper series, that tells the back story of Griffin O'Connor, a character created for the film of Jumper.What if you could jump? Go anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye? What would you do? Where would you go? What if you were only five years old?Griffin has a secret. It's a secret that he's sworn to his parents to keep, and never tell. Griffin is a Jumper: a person who can teleport to any pl...