Showing results by narrator " Michael David  Axtell " in All Categories

You are no one. Level zero. Empty of mind and memory. Even your past has been stripped from your brain by the inscrutable System. A long, difficult road lies between you and remembering any part of who you are. A road punctuated with one death after another. You are too puny to survive by might alone. Information is the single resource that might keep you alive, but the brainless “digis” have none of it. Only those with experience can give you what you need, but most care nothing about you or your plight. In fact, some make it their mission to kill you.

Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is determined to break Darlington out of hell—even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale. But Alex is playing with forces far beyond her control, and when faculty members begin to die off, she knows these aren't just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if Alex is going to survive, she'll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university's very walls.

Adam Binder has the Sight. It’s a power that runs in his bloodline: the ability to see beyond this world and into another, a realm of magic populated by elves, gnomes, and spirits of every kind. Years after his brother Bobby had him committed to a psych ward, Adam is ready to come to grips with who he is, to live his life on his terms, to find love, and maybe even use his magic to do some good. Hoping to track down his missing father, Adam follows a trail of cursed artifacts to Denver, only to discover that an ancient and horrifying spirit has taken possession of Bobby’s wife.

Evan Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He fights loneliness and believes his ‘condition’ is unique, until he meets Poppy. She recognises his struggle because she has the same ‘condition’, except that she is much older, remembering back seven consecutive lives. But there is something else she must share with Evan - she is a member of a secret society of others like them. They are, in effect, near immortals.

This volume is the definitive collection of the best science fiction novellas published between 1929 and 1964, containing 11 great classics. No anthology better captures the birth of science fiction as a literary field. Published in 1973 to honor stories that had appeared before the institution of the Nebula Awards, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame introduced tens of thousands to the wonders of science fiction and was a favorite of libraries across the country.

Skree loved playing Massively Multiplayer online role-playing games. When he becomes the first player to reach level 100 in his favorite game, he is offered the chance to test a brand new game. Never one to read the fine print, he jumped at the chance to be the very first player to see the brand new game. But some opportunities are just too good to be true. Awaking to find himself trapped in a brand new world and struggling to survive, James must find a way to master the game and escape the world of Raiya.

On August 5th, 2003, Ryan Atwood found himself a long way from his home in Chino—he was in The O.C., an exclusive suburb full of beautiful girls, wealthy bullies, corrupt real-estate tycoons, and a new family helmed by his public defender, Sandy Cohen. Ryan soon warms up to his nerdy, indie band-loving new best friend Seth, and quickly falls for Marissa, the stunning girl next door who has secrets of her own. Completing the group is Summer, Seth’s dream girl and Marissa’s loyal—and fearless—best friend.

Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale's freshman class. A dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved crime, Alex was hoping for a fresh start. But a free ride to one of the world's most prestigious universities was bound to come with a catch. Alex has been tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale's secret societies - well-known haunts of the rich and powerful. Now there's a dead girl on campus and Alex seems to be the only person who won't accept the neat answer the police and campus administration have come up with for her murder.

Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the best seller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.

The first oral biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. is an extraordinarily intimate, comprehensive look at the real man behind the myth. Sharing never-before-told stories and insights, his closest friends, confidantes, lovers, classmates, teachers, and colleagues paint a vivid portrait of one of the most beloved figures of the 20th century, revealing how the boy who saluted became the man America came to know and love who still captures public imagination twenty-five years after his tragic death.

Harbor Lights is a story collection from one of the most popular and widely acclaimed icons of American fiction, featuring a never-before-published novella. These eight stories move from the marshlands on the Gulf of Mexico to the sweeping plains of Colorado to prisons, saloons, and trailer parks across the South, weaving together love, friendship, violence, survival, and revenge.

The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men”—members of the billionaire class—chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization.

When Phoebe, goddess of the moon, is killed by the knights of the sun god, Hyperion, all who follow her are branded heretics. With Phoebe gone, the souls of the dead are no longer ferried to the underworld, and instead linger on as shades who feast on the blood of the living. Raef is a child of the night. He lives in the shadows, on scraps, eking out a meager existence as a thief. But when an ornate box is sequestered in the Temple of Hyperion, the chance of a big score proves too great to resist. What he finds within propels him on an odyssey across the sea and back again.

Some $65 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoff’s epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Scheme’s exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now. Shocking, infuriating, riveting (and at times absurdly funny), Madoff shows us how Bernie ensnared thousands of investors. As Behar’s dogged reporting over the last fifteen years makes clear, however, there aren’t many innocents left standing by the end of this tale.

Adam Binder has lost what matters most to him. Having finally learned the true identity of the warlock preying on his family, what was supposed to be a final confrontation with the fiend instead became a trap that sent Adam’s beloved Vicente into the realm of the dead, where none living are meant to be. Bound by debt, oath, and love, Adam blazes his own trail into the underworld to get Vicente back, and to end the threat of the warlock once and for all. But the road to hell is paved with far more than good intentions.

Returning to Guthrie, Oklahoma, for the funeral of his mysterious and beloved aunt, Sue, Adam Binder once again finds himself in the path of deadly magic when a dark druid begins to prey on members of Adam’s family. It all seems linked to the death of Adam’s father many years ago - a man who may have somehow survived as a warlock. Watched by the police, separated from the man who may be the love of his life, compelled to seek the truth about his connection to the druid, Adam learns more about his family and its troubled history than he ever bargained for.

In November 2012, Showtime debuted a ten-part documentary series based on Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s The Untold History of the United States. The book and documentary looked back at human events that, at the time, went underreported, but also crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history over the 20th century. The book and documentary looked back at human events that, at the time, went underreported, but also crucially shaped America’s unique and complex history over the twentieth century.

In this landmark work, investigative journalist David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave labourers and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burnt around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how the wider world’s political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was a political strategist who rose to prominence as an intellectual architect of US foreign policy during the Cold War. As National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter and a trusted advisor to US presidents from John F. Kennedy onwards, Brzezinski’s expertise helped shape global strategy at critical moments—most significantly as a key figure in the downfall of the Soviet Union.

Off the beaten path, following unmarked trails, we are wired to explore. More than just a need to get outside, the search for the unknown is a primal urge that has shaped the history of our species and continues to mold our behavior in ways we are only beginning to understand. In fact, the latest neuroscience suggests that exploration in any form—whether it’s trying a new restaurant, changing careers, or deciding to run a marathon—is an essential ingredient of human life. Exploration, it turns out, isn’t merely a hobby—it’s our story.