Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Volume 1 [Kindle Edition]

Paul D Brazill (Author), James Oliver Hilton (Author), Col Bury (Author), Richard Godwin (Author), Matt Hilton (Author, Editor), Zoe Sharp (Author), Stephen Leather (Author), Steven Savile (Author), Adrian Magson (Author), David James Foster (Author)

Book Description

"This book should not be purchased by asthmatics or heavy smokers as it leaves a fit person breathless with excitement." ***** Crimesquad.com

37 Action-packed Pulse Pounding Tales!

That's exactly what you get in this collection of action stories from top thriller authors Stephen Leather, Matt Hilton, Zoë Sharp, Adrian Magson, Steven Savile and many more, including stories from exciting up-and-comers.

Think back to the days when heroes were heroes and the action was furious and full-blooded. When often as not, the hero was quite the opposite: an anti-hero - but he needed to be, to bring the kind of violent justice to villains worse than him. When political correctness took a back seat, even as the bullets and karate chops were flying. Basically it was good old harmless fun. It was a case of disengaging your moral compass and getting down with the hero as they took on all comers, and they did it with balletic grace and uncompromising violence. Gratuitous? Mostly. Realistic? Not always. Great fun? You betcha!!!
Then fast forward to the here and now: What if the current action and thriller authors set their minds to bringing back the action genres of old?
Well, that question is answered here.
Within these pages you will find secret agents, vigilantes (both just and insane), cops, villains, soldiers, veterans, gangsters, swordsmen, privateers, Ninja and even a crypto-zoological beast you might recognise. Some of the tales are delivered with shocking realism, some as lighter entertainment, some on the grittier side, but each and every tale included in Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Volume 1 is sure to get your heart racing.

Kick back and enjoy the ride!

Contents:
Introduction by Matt Hilton
Strangers on a Train by Stephen Leather
Satisfaction Guaranteed by Matt Hilton
Valley of Death by I S Paton
The Real Deal by James Oliver Hilton
Jingle Bells by Adrian Magson
Death By Licence by Joe McCoubrey
The Night Butterflies by Zoë Sharp
Gallance by Col Bury
Battle For Baghlan by Matt Hayden
The Stranger by David Barber
Expiry Date by Gavin Bell
A Most Honorable Death by Jochem Vandersteen
Jack Be Nimble by Steven Savile & Steve Lockley
At Close Range by Ian Graham
Cutter's Law by James Hopwood
Angel Tough by Absolutely Kate
On Her Majesty's Bloody Service by Iain Purdie
The Legend of Jimmy-The-Gimp by Keith Gingell
Blood Moon of 1931 by Terrence P. McCauley
Skinner Alive by Daniel Moses Luft
Jobs Taken by Asher Wismer
The Handler by Gavin Hunt
Blood on Their Hands by Les Morris
Issa's Island Prison by Graham Smith
Eastern Fury by Andrew Scorah
The Liberator by Paul D. Brazill
The Tower of Marnir by Paul Grzegorzek
Bit Part Player by Theresa Derwin
The Judgment of Jean Lafitte by Evan Lewis
Avenged: Sixfold by Natasha Marie Thomas
Man or Mouse by Mark Dark
Stokey by Robin Jarossi
Savage Sun by Richard Godwin
One Flew Over the Policeman's Bonnet by Pete Sortwell
Born of Woman by Laird Long
Chickens by K.A. Laity
*Bonus Story* Trench Warfare by Matt Hilton
Acknowledgements
Afterword by Matt Hilton

Product Details

• File Size: 743 KB
• Print Length: 437 pages
• Publisher: Sempre Vigile Press; 1 edition (May 2, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B008082QP6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #240,942 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Truth in Advertising at Last! September 5, 2012

By C. Allinotte

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

First off, it has to be said... $1.50 for over four hundred pages of entertainment? That's just insane value right there.

Action: Pulse Pounding Tales, Vol. 1 from editor Matt Hilton, best known as the author of the Joe Hunter series of action novels brings together 37 short stories of action and adventure.

These tales are all bound together with the unapologetic tradition of drugstore book rack pulp - and they deliver exactly what the reader expects. Bad guys with guns are hunted down and given their just deserts by even badder anti-heroes with even bigger guns.

That's not at all to say that you won't be surprised and transported by the stories and the characters - only that "entertainment" is the watchword here, and it is delivered in a 428 page bucket.

Some particular standouts are "Strangers on a Train", by Stephen Leather in which a band of "Hard Boys" from London meet their match when they pick the wrong subway car to rob. For pure, gritty revenge fantasy, "Gallance" by Col Bury is possibly the best example among several choices in "Action"; and Adrian Magson's "Jingle Bells" brings an unexpected and very welcome dose of heart to the mix.

Just as the "lone wolf with an agenda" (be they cops/agents or soldiers of fortune) begins to get a little thin, the second half of the book kicks in, and presents stories of Swords and Sorcery, like the excellent "Issa's Island Prison" by Graham Smith, and the rollicking pirate tale, "The Judgement of Jean Lafitte" by Evan Lewis.

The collection finishes off with a bang, collecting a group of stories under the subtitle "The Grittier Side", where everything that has gone before gets ratcheted up to another degree, and the violence and misery are elevated to a point that some may find uncomfortable, but that others may find the best in the book. Richard Godwin's "Savage Sun" is a prime example of this principle, playing with the idea of how much revenge is just too much.

All is not perfect in this collection, however. Sometimes, in smaller, self-published anthologies, the editor needs to rely on the writer doing a lot of their own "clean up" work; and there are a few of the shorter stories where typos and homonym errors add up to some unwelcome distraction.

Among 37 stories, however, I can say that there are only about four or five that didn't grab my attention, and of those, there are just three that may have been better left out. (One story was a write-off as my Kindle (on Android) chopped up the letters and every third line was blanked out, so that one is no fault to the writer!)

I'll end the way I began- at $1.50 for over 420 pages of some of the most fun, action-packed, entertaining stories you're likely to read this year, this should be your next Kindle read!