Showing results by narrator "David Stifel" in All Categories

Ten thousand years ago, a single alien super-ship survived a desperate battle. The vessel's dying crew set the AI on automatic to defend the smashed rubble of their planet. Legend has it the faithful ship continues to patrol the empty battlefield, obeying its last order throughout the lonely centuries.In the here and now, Earth needs a miracle. Out of the Beyond invade the New Men, stronger, faster and smarter than the old. Their superior warships and advanced technology destroy every fleet sent to stop them.

Dominic Hart was screwed. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, no money for treatment, and an athletic scholarship hanging by a thread...he didn't have many options. But the university clinic had offered him a free video game. Some sort of "therapy", they said. A way to while away the hours until he kicked the bucket. Yay. What Dom wasn't expecting was to get swindled by a surly casino owner right out of the gate. Or get dropped in a backwater hellhole voted the “number one worst starting location in Awaken Online".

Jason logs into Awaken Online fed-up with reality. He's in desperate need of an escape, and this game is his ticket to finally feeling the type of power and freedom that are so sorely lacking in his real life. Awaken Online is a brand new virtual reality game that just hit the market, promising an unprecedented level of immersion. Yet Jason quickly finds himself pushed down a path he didn't expect. In this game, he isn't the hero. There are no damsels to save. There are no bad guys to vanquish.

Finn Harris should have been the one to die. But he wasn't - his wife took his place. What was worse, he only had himself and his company to blame. They let their passion outpace their prudence, determined to revolutionize the world. While all innovation comes with a price, he never imagined it would cost him Rachael. Nearly a decade later, Finn is content to hole himself up and wait out the rest of his life. That is, until his daughter intervenes, forcing him out of his grief and into a new virtual reality game developed by his old employer. They're calling it Awaken Online.

In a small Arizona town, a man counts his blessings: a loving wife, two teenage daughters, and a job that allows him to work at home. Then "The Store" announces plans to open a local outlet, which will surely finish off the small downtown shops. His concerns grow when "The Store's" builders ignore all the town's zoning laws during its construction. Then dead animals are found on "The Store's" grounds. Inside, customers are hounded by obnoxious sales people, and strange products appear on the shelves.

A few days have passed since Jason's confrontation with Alfred and he's debating whether to reenter Awaken Online. Alfred has made a proposition that Jason isn't certain he should accept. After the battle with Alexion, Jason has also been appointed the Regent of the Twilight Throne. He must assume the mantle of ruling an undead city - with everything that entails. His first task is to investigate the dark keep that looms over the city's marketplace. This act will lead to a chain of events that might ensure his city's survival or create new enemies.

Eliza's parents are relentless - forcing her to constantly take extra courses to prepare for college and medical school. Sometimes, it feels like her entire life has already been planned out. Which is why she leaps at the chance to escape into a new virtual reality game, Awaken Online. What she wasn't expecting was to encounter a capricious god and his loyal "pet". Or to be chosen as this god's "avatar" within the game and forced to tackle a series of asinine quests. Yet she just can't shake the feeling that there is more to the irritating god than first meets the eye.

Opulent doesn't begin to describe the Arizona getaway where Lowell Thurman, his wife Rachel, and their three young sons have come for one glorious week. Everything at The Reata is perfect - although Rachel is a bit unnerved by the openly lustful gaze of one of the gardeners, something she doesn't mention to Lowell. Nor does he tell her about the frightening sensation he has in the pool of hands clutching at him, trying to pull him under.

General Chuck Yeager was the greatest test pilot of them all - the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound...the World War II flying ace who shot down a Messerschmitt jet with a prop-driven P-51 Mustang...the hero who defined a certain quality that all hotshot fly-boys of the postwar era aimed to achieve: the right stuff. Now he tells his whole incredible life story with the same “wide-open, full throttle” approach that has marked his astonishing career.

Finn and his companions barely escaped their encounter with Bilel. But not without a cost - including the loss of Finn's left arm and the magical corruption that now plagues his body. Despite those handicaps, Finn must keep pressing forward if he is to have any hope of bringing Rachael back. As the Seer predicted, the guilds and Khamsin have formed a fragile alliance. But before they can lay siege to Lahab, Finn and his companions must first find a way to defend themselves and their fledgling army from the effects of the god relic that Bilel now wields....

W. Edwards Deming details the system of transformation that underlies the "14 Points for Management" presented in Out of the Crisis. The "Deming System of Profound Knowledge", as it is called, consists of four parts: appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge, and psychology. Describing the prevailing management style as a prison, Deming describes how applying the System of Profound Knowledge increases productivity, quality, and people's joy in work and joy in learning.  

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the longest serving president in US history, reshaping the country during the crises of the Great Depression and World War II. James MacGregor Burns's magisterial two-volume biography tells the complete life story of the fascinating political figure who instituted the New Deal. The Lion and the Fox details Roosevelt's youth, education, and his rise to national prominence, through his first two terms as president. The Soldier of Freedom is a moving profile of a leader gifted with rare political talent in an era of extraordinary challenges.

Riley's real-life took a nosedive after her confrontation with Alex. The girls at school torment her and she feels powerless to do anything about it. At the same time, Jason has mysteriously disappeared, sending only a terse cryptic message to Riley and Frank. With some time on her hands and with her frustration with her real-life reaching a breaking point, Riley decides to strike off on her own in-game. Her goal is to investigate the quest related to the strange bow she discovered in the dungeon north of Peccavi.

Following Jason's evolution into a Keeper, he finds his fledgling city once again in turmoil. A new and deadly enemy threatens the Twilight Throne - one that has no difficulty contending with Jason and the members of Original Sin. Jason must work quickly to consolidate his city's power. That means securing the villages within the Twilight Throne's influence, finding a steady stream of income, and growing the city's military strength.

A side quest adventure in the best-selling world of Awaken Online! In the aftermath of Thorn's attack on the Twilight Throne, Frank is in an awkward position. Jason and Riley have outpaced him and everyone is hard at work rebuilding the Twilight Throne, establishing new towns, and trying to get their fledgling manufacturing operation off the ground. Everyone except Frank - who finds himself with no immediate task or goal. So Frank decides to strike off on his own.

Deadly competition. Deep desert. A dying tyrant. Finn Harris was declared the Mage Guild's champion. However, that was only the beginning of the Emir's competition. The next stage will send Finn and his companions deep into the desert north of Lahab in search of a long-lost relic. The magical artifact is said to be held within the Abyss. Except, this time, he's not just facing novice mages. Everyone in the region seems to be arrayed against him, god and man alike.

Roughly a month has passed in-game since Thorn's attack on the Twilight Throne. In that time, the dark city has managed to recover and rebuild - growing the ranks of Original Sin at the same time. Which is good, because that brief respite is over. The Avatar of Flame has risen within the depths of the northern desert and has thrown down a digital gauntlet to Jason - with a gate piece hanging in the balance. Even worse? His opponent is none other than Finn Harris, the "father of modern AI". The same man that may have been behind Thorn's attack on the Twilight Throne. 

After exiting Awaken Online to find himself holding a knife and standing over two dead bodies, Jason is now being investigated for murder. To make matters worse, Claire has stumbled upon evidence of Alfred's involvement in the incident, and the CPSC is circling - just waiting for Cerillion Entertainment to make a mistake. With his real-life in shambles and his enemies in-game growing in strength, Jason re-enters Awaken Online truly desperate - the game now his only lifeline.

The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From the Next Generation to J. J. Abrams is an incisive, no-holds-barred oral history telling the story of post-Original Series Star Trek, told exclusively by the people who were there, in their own words - sharing the inside scoops they've never told before, unveiling the oftentimes shocking true story of the history of Star Trek, and chronicling the trials, tribulations, and tribbles that have remained deeply buried secrets until now.

When Gregory Tomasov moves into an abandoned farm on the edge of McGuane, Arizona, he discovers a terrible secret buried in the walls of the old building.