Showing results by narrator "Mike Vendetti" in All Categories

Narrated by Mike Vendetti and Kathy Verduin, Cat in the Rain is not just about a cat. The cat can be taken at face value and surface-level as "just" a cat, and the events of the story as being a minor snapshot into one hour's events in the lives of an American couple living in 1920s Italy. But since when in our own lives do events simply happen without having wider implications? Many things we do are motivated by other desires, drives, wants, fears, and anxieties. 

Audiobook narrators Mike Vendetti and Kathy Verduin bring Hemingway's classic masterpiece "The Sun Also Rises" to life. Travel with them through pre-WWII Europe as Hemingway explores the dysfunctional relationship of friends drawn together by a beautiful, troubled, and often confused woman, plus the drama and excitement of the bullfights.

A chilling ghost story by Lord Dunsany, a.k.a. Edward Plunkett, resolves itself thusly: If two straight lines cut one another, the opposite angles are equal. Let AB and CD cut one another at E. Then the angles CEA and CEB equal two right angles (prop. xiii.). Also, CEA and AED equal two right angles, proving that ghosts don't exist.

One of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, two hitmen from Chicago arrive at a diner to await the arrival of Ole Anderson a former boxer who "messed up" in Chicago. Dressed like twins complete with sawed-off shotguns under their overcoats, they plan to execute Anderson when he comes into the diner for dinner. 

Hemingway claims he wrote The Torrents of Spring in ten days, concerning two men who work at a pump factory: World War I veteran Yogi Johnson, and writer Scripps O'Neill. Both are searching for the perfect woman, though they disagree over this ideal. 

Imagine being trapped in the millisecond between the past and the future. All Dave Miller wanted to do was commit suicide in peace, but here he was. Trapped.

Kurt Vonnegut creates a near-perfect world. There are no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, and no wars. All diseases were conquered. So is old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers. The population of the United States is stabilized at forty-million souls. Have a problem? Not really, just call the Federal Bureau of Termination. Nothing to it. Just pick up the phone and call 2BR02B. Thus the title, "To be or not to be".

"Youth" is a surprisingly complex short tale, with a deep core of thought-provoking reasoning. What is our motivation? Where is our growth? What do we consider valuable? These questions and more are brought to light in this story by Isaac Asimov. Youth is one of the rare Asimov stories with alien characters.

Charming and thought-provoking, this short story from American master of science fiction Ray Bradbury and narrated by Mike Vendetti follows the misadventures of a group of elderly women who have poured their life savings into a final trip to an outer-space paradise, only to find out that the promised journey doesn't pan out quite the way they expected it to.

Communication is the key to getting along. Space travel makes communication with alien races imperative, but before the language problem could be resolved the war started. A highly intelligent cat-like race able to communicate telepathically is discovered that offers to help. But wait how can you trust an alien or anyone that can hear your thoughts?

In short, Elmer is a drunken, womanizing hypocrite who becomes a Baptist minister, a position from which he is soon ejected. He then links up with star revivalist Sharon Falconer, who is heavily based on Aimee Semple McPherson. Throughout his career, Gantry moves through many settings and scenarios illustrating aspects of the American religion. With religion as entertainment and show business, both Elmer and Sharon are consummate performers. They are always on.

T.S. Elliot was likely the best read of any of his contemporaries. In his poetry, we often find an allusion to the works of other great writers. In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" he makes reference to Dante Shakespeare and "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvel. Prufrock, as the name implies, is an indecisive wimp, whereas Marvel in his seduction poem, has his eye on the prize, and makes no bones about it.

"Behind the Curtain" is short, also simple, a tale of revenge in the manner of Edgar Allan Poe. The author even mentions Poe in her story, and her two characters, Santallos, the narrator, and Quentin, his guest, drink Amontillado. Santallos is a collector of Egyptian antiquities, including mummies and mummy cases. You might say he's wrapped up in his hobby, so much so that he neglects his wife. Naturally, she falls into the arms of the younger man, Quentin. Santallos concocts a fiendish kind of revenge.

This clever and thought-provoking short story by Isaac Asimov, one of the masters of science fiction, suggests that a higher power can step in and steer us from our reckless ways. After all, we may be inhabitants of a universal barnyard overseen by a master farmer.

Time travel may have its consequences. We can only speculate. Philip K. Dick takes us there.

Imagine a smartphone app that would expose the evil thoughts of people around you. In this story from 1919, a scientist stumbles across a membrane that does just that to his color photography. The images can't hurt one physically, but oh, what they do to the mind.

Roberta, AKA Robert is having identity issues since her sex change because Robert just won't go away.

There were ten humanoid robots somewhere in the United States, each one carrying a fragment of a TC bomb. TC! The race for sheer horror in bomb-ery had ended there. TC! Total Conversion! The sun was no longer a synonym one could use. Total conversion made the sun a penny candle.

"Time Pawn" is a novelette by Philip K. Dick published in Thrilling Wonder Stories. Vol. 44, no. 1, summer 1954. Travel with award-winning audiobook narrator, Mike Vendetti, and Dr. Parsons to our world in the distant future where everyone and everything is perfect. But wait; there's more!

A child goes into the garage and finds his father talking to himself. No, really talking to himself, as in two identical people. The boy; however, can sense the "thing" from his father. And then the thing comes to the dinner table...