Don't Shoot Me in the Ass, and Other Stories Free online reading

By turns heart-stopping, hilarious, and profound, here are 10 rollicking tales of action and technology—from the author of the best-selling Arisen series.

• When the shit comes down in a California civil unrest, one man is tooled up and ready to rock—but soon finds himself driving his motorcycle into a flaming roadblock with a mysterious federal agent chick on the back firing an assault rifle over his shoulder....
• Nice-guy hitman Johnny Chen knows that when things don't go well, they go very poorly—and the only way out of the gunfight on this rooftop is straight over the edge and into the lion's den....
• A corporate takeover in the topsy-turvy world of the dot-com boom leads a burnt-out sysadmin to start confusing the Nerf missile launchers with more dangerous toys....
• An elite (plus hot) Silicon Valley cryptographer finds her job on a collision course with government black-ops—and all hell breaking loose with Chinese and Israelis in a balls-out firefight in her company's server room....

These stories ripple with two-fisted gunplay, white-knuckle computer hacking, and the absurdity of high-tech existence. But beneath the surface, powerful themes underpin the action: the effects of science and technology on our understanding of philosophy and religion (and sex); the quiet capitulation of isolated young men and women who are very handy with computers, guns, or both; and the meaning of our commitments to other people, especially when things begin to fall apart.