Showing results by narrator "Derek Shoales" in All Categories

It started with a girl. Her father, as it turned out, was a barbaric maniac. Decades into the 21st century, the madman seemed terribly out of place. Yet he was also a powerful mogul - and determined to turn the life of every man who had ever been romantically involved with his daughter into a particular variant of hell only made possible by the latest VR technology. All 17 of his girl's former lovers would suffer in virtual reality until they snapped. For the first 16, the project succeeded. But the 17th was different. The 17th was Dark.

Taylor McFadden is in a military hospital recovering, and Niki is on the warpath, with Jennie visiting him in the hospital. Will Taylor live through an operation in which a helicopter dropped on him only to die when Niki gets hold of him? Further, he has decided to have the final word with the crime lord attacking his people. You know, his friends? Like...Vickie?

After wiping out the drak nest, Eric finds himself now also in a trap. In order to avoid dying in a cave-in, he activates the manuscript he received for defeating the Lady of the Anomaly. A portal then whisks Eric away to the lookout point atop the mysterious Citadel of Chaos.

We all know a visionary leader when we see one. They're bold and prophetic and at the same time pragmatic. They don't just promote change - they drive it, while inspiring and mobilizing others to do the same. Visionaries like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos possess a host of innate qualities that make them extraordinary, but what truly sets them apart is their ability to turn vision into action. Here, Innosight's Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz introduce a new way of thinking and managing, called "future-back", that enables any manager to become a practical visionary.

Phillip Pliant is the wealthy opportunist plastics dealer, and CEO of Pliant Industries. He’s also a master thief—creating a pervasive threat to the manufacturing infrastructure in the Caribbean islands markets. With the cartel as his stealth client, the naïve city leaders have been seduced, enabling the production of more than 3-dimensional building materials.

Marc and his party have finished their zeppelin and taken it out to try to discover other Safe Zones. Their intent is to set up trade routes between all the different Safe Zones in order to give them a better chance to survive. The second Safe Zone they discover with the zeppelin is nearly as large as Any Port. It even has its own ring of outlier Safe Zones, or a partial ring at least. It appears that several of the smaller Safe Zones have been taken and converted into dungeons. With the safety of the larger Safe Zone at stake, they bring the zeppelin down to help the larger Safe Zone.

With Earth's acclimatization year ticking away, Marc and his party share the desire to grow stronger. Based on their previous experiences, they theorize where they might find spawns that would be powerful enough to give them good experience, then head out to prove their theory. Along the way they discover another fairly large Safe Zone with a population of hundreds of people. On their return to their home Safe Zone, Marc finds that he's received messages from powerful, potential allies from off world. Allies who are aware of the satellite and what it's been doing.

His name is Taylor McFadden, survivor of eighty-three trips into the ZOO. Now, he's retired, and yet his country needs his skills to save people in the country he calls home.

For Marc and his party, their current quest seems to drag on and on. Clearing the Labyrinth, defeating Circe, destroying Medusa, and more have become a grind. The main factor that keeps them going is that Zeus is keeping his promise by helping their levels shoot up. Meanwhile, Marc's Safe Zone, Any Port, and the accompanying Safe Zone network continue expanding and growing. They keep him busy whenever he manages to get back home on breaks from the quest.

His name is Taylor McFadden, survivor of 83 trips into the ZOO. Now, he's retired, and yet his country needs his skills to save people in the country he calls home. Can he build a company, put down roots, and still bring the pain when the FBI calls? When they tag him as The Cryptid Assassin, they weren't wrong. For monsters that go bump in the night, he is death incarnate.

After a long and arduous journey spanning the breadth of the empire, Belgrieve has finally laid his regrets to rest and can begin thinking about what the future holds for his steadily growing circle of family and friends. With the defeat of the imposter Benjamin and the restoration of the true prince to his rightful rule, Belgrieve returns home with Satie as his bride and quickly settles back into the rhythm of country living-too quickly, if Kasim, Percival, and Angeline have anything to say about it.

After reuniting with his old friend Kasim and solving Charlotte's problem, Belgrieve and company return to Turnera. Angeline immediately warms up to her new little brother Mit, and the growing family spends their days in peace. Their happy time together, however, is cut short when the forest near the village suddenly gains sentience and begins to attack people-worse yet, it seems to be after Mit and his demonic powers! As the situation grows dire, the Paladin Graham makes a stand! How will the father and daughter duo overcome the crisis threatening their home?

Taylor McFadden is willing to go against any monster thrown at him. But something Niki threw at him has got him off his game. Niki must build a consultant team to figure out if she has a problem with another company. But will Dr. Salinger Jacobs of Heavy Metal take her call? Does she have the clout to get him to believe her if he picks up the phone?

Influencers have always deployed the power of hype to get what they want. But never in history have people been so susceptible to propaganda and persuasion as they are now. Hype truly runs our world. Imagine if you could generate and leverage hype for positive purposes - like legitimate business success, helping people, or effecting positive change in your community. Michael F. Schein teaches you how.

Marc and his party are seeking the sarcophagus that they were sent on a quest to find, only to discover that it is now protected by far more than just the Guardian they'd been told would await them. When they return to Any Port, Marc discovers that Bastet's obsession with Beggar has reached new heights, forcing Beggar and Marc into taking action to foil Bastet's plan to kidnap the raccoon.

Decades after the last footprints were left on the Moon, the US was preparing to return to the Lunar surface in a new class of rockets, when the mission suddenly became much more urgent. It would have to be a rescue mission. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world China had sent its own Lunar expedition. A manned expedition. Until a distress call was received, no human outside of China even knew that the mission was manned - or that their ship had crash-landed and couldn't take off again.

The skies of the Dark Continent teem with ravening beasts. Thousands of refugees are at the gates of Foreston seeking salvation from a mysterious scourge. The Wastes are infested with herds of bloodthirsty necromorphs that devour every living thing in their path. A Dark Gateway has opened in the Stone Forest, allowing a horde of otherworldly monsters to come flooding through.

While intensely attentive to its own tradition, Japanese literature has also embraced the outside world, particularly the influence of China. Beyond this, Japan boasts a powerful literary culture, made up of cultivated reading publics, both aristocratic and bourgeois, literary salons, specialized presses, authoritative judges of talent who cultivated and celebrated particular writers and styles, and a canon consisting of classics. This Very Short Introduction traces the rich history of Japanese literature from its beginnings over a millennium ago to the present day.

When I was young, a powerful mage killed my family, and I had no way to stop him. But at fifty, having lived a safe but miserable life, I find a way to start over. To be reincarnated into my younger self's body. And to take my revenge. Using a unique training style, I will: Learn to cultivate my Ki and use it to fight. Level up my skills and keep them secret. Kill the men who ruined my life. And I'll have a little fun along the way.

Johnson provides an eminently practical framework for understanding how a business model actually works. Identifying its four fundamental building blocks, he lays out a structured and repeatable process for reinventing an existing business model or creating a new one and then incubating and scaling it into a profitable and thriving enterprise. In a new chapter on digital transformation, he shows how serial transformers like Amazon leverage business model innovation so successfully.