Showing results by narrator "Steve Marvel" in All Categories

What explains the massive worldwide success of video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Pokemon Go? Game companies and their popularity are poorly understood and often ignored from the standpoint of traditional business strategy. What lessons can we draw from its major successes and failures about the future of entertainment?

I thought I had grown powerful enough. I thought I'd managed to tame all my enemies. But as the saying goes, there's always a bigger fish. And that means I no longer have a choice. I have to risk everything I've accomplished until now. Because I'm no longer a low-status loser, and I will not accept anything less than total victory. It's either that or death. Look out world. Here I come.

Harney County, Oregon, 1968: Nick Drake has a chest full of medals and enough demons to fill a duffel bag. He's been trained to kill but was never retrained to rejoin society. Drake flees to the lonesome high desert in search of redemption and takes a job patrolling wildlife refuges where the only conflicts are keeping out stray cows and ticketing poachers. But then he stumbles across a girl's body ritually placed in a gully. Her murder is only the beginning, and Drake must face humanity's heart of darkness once again if he's to stop a killer from turning even more gullies into graves.

The enemy demands Americans be kicked out of every nation. Germany. England. France. Every US citizen must leave. The high seas are their only refuge. Ted and Emily crash into the middle of the enemy camp, but they've all been betrayed by David and his Legion. While Americans were the first to fall, it becomes clear the enemy leader has his sights set on a much larger target.

Jaxon Jennings. Cop. Homicide detective. Partner. He always had your back and rarely made mistakes. Until the death of his son. Until the night he couldn't save him. Until everything he held dear was taken away from him. Now, a shell of a man, his reckless actions mark him as a burn-out. A Loner. A dangerous man whom many in the Fairfax County Police Department cannot trust.

Raine Meyers is alive today only because of the heroic efforts of the Delta Force Echo Team. It's time to pay that debt. As an undercover defense intelligence officer, Raine tracks a Russian threat to the Delta Force wives left vulnerable while their husbands are downrange protecting the US. FBI Special Agent in Charge Damian Prescott, former Delta Force operator - also Raine's former fiance - falls quite literally into the middle of her operation.

South Korea's extraordinary economic and technological transformation after the Korean War (1950-1953) is often referred to by observers and historians as the "Miracle on the Han River." The nation underwent an astonishing makeover from being one of the poorest countries to become the 12th largest economy in the world and 4th in Asia. South Korea also became one of the most technologically advanced countries in a short span. As in other capitalist economies, some people have benefited from the economic and technological attainments, while others have been left out....

Adam Plantinga, author of the acclaimed 400 Things Cops Know and a 17-year veteran sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department, gives an inside view of the police officer's job, from handling evidence and conducting interrogations to coping with danger, violence, and death. Not hesitating to confront controversial issues, Plantinga presents the police officer's views on police shootings, racial profiling, and relationships between police and the community.

Drake Woolf is the perfect throwaway agent - a deadly, invisible force able to handle the blackest of black-ops missions. No one's better when it comes to search and destroy. But his lethal drive feeds a relentless hunger. It's all his handlers at Task Force Orange can do to point him at the right targets. This time, he's up against a massive, global conspiracy. In his deadly crosshairs are a Venezuelan terrorist, hordes of elite Iranian assassins, and a beautiful and wily FBI counterintelligence agent.

More murders, more ambition, and a whole lot more women. My life changed for the better when I bonded with an ancient, powerful Incubus. My status improved in leaps and bounds, I got to sleep with multiple women at once, and I even turned the tables on the Syndicate's most deadly hitman. As it turns out, being the bad guy can be fun if you don't mind killing a whole bunch of people. Trouble is, that type of overnight success tends to attract attention. And not the good kind. A mid-level Syndicate boss is out to destroy everything I hold dear.

Two ghostwriters walk into a Key West bar and decide to swap gigs....

Evelyn Lewis's secret dream of marrying her brother's best friend is shattered when he leaves their home town to seek his fortune elsewhere. For six long years, she's waited and wondered if he would return. After the shocking murder of her parents, her brother is the only family she has left. Refusing to accept a betrothal to a man she doesn't love, she decides to take control of her destiny and confront her parents' killer.

Dragged to an unfamiliar continent transformed by war and monstrous creatures, Cleve's path home has never been less clear. With a place in a king's plot, a princess who wants to marry him, and the companionship of a brash Sartious mage, Cleve learns that--while some battles are won with a sword - others are played out through a more delicate dance. But Cleve has never been one for delicacy. Soon he's making tidal waves in every puddle he crosses on his path to return home.

With humanity facing its greatest series of simultaneous crises, Ervin Laszlo offers a scientifically based perspective on what is called for at this critical juncture of our existence: a phase of upshift to higher levels of order and coherence to keep us on our evolutionary path. This book lays out why this upshift is needed, what resources we possess to draw upon, and what the action steps are that will move us all toward this achievable vision of well-being and wholeness.

When I took my place as a mid-level boss for a crime syndicate, I thought my life would be easy. Turns out, I just attracted a much more powerful enemy, one that could literally drag my demon-powered ass all the way down into Hell. Looks like I'm going to need to find out just how far murders and mayhem can take me. Good thing I have my own personal Incubus along for the ride, and that leveling up is an absolute pleasure!

In June of 1961, A. E. Hotchner visited an old friend in the psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Hospital. It would be the last time they spoke: a few weeks later, Ernest Hemingway was released home, where he took his own life. Their final conversation was also the final installment in a story whose telling Hemingway had spread over nearly a decade.

Ten-year-old Nem has just witnessed her mother's brutal murder and her life appears destined for tragedy. Until, that is, she finds her mother‘s old green journal which holds an incredible secret. This innocent looking book seems to contain the power over luck. As she uses it, Nem discovers the diary keeps a strange kind of karmic balance, that in gifting someone good fortune she must steal another's first. All it takes is a simple entry. There's dangers though, and not just for others but also for Nem.

The war came back at Pallas Group Solutions. Chris and Nick both found themselves fighting for their families’ lives. In response, they struck back. Now, with two major underworld figures dead, who had facilitated crimes for the People’s Republic of China, the cartels, and others, the war has entered a new phase.

If laughter is the best medicine, then this book is your prescription. Turn off the news and spend a few days not following current events. Instead, return to the basics - humanity's ability to laugh at itself. Maybe you should even do a news cleanse for a few days! Hide under the covers and listen to these stories instead. Or listen to a chapter a day, or a story a day for 101 days. This book contains the antidote to whatever is troubling you. They will definitely put you in a good mood.

Defeat a sea monster. Kill a legendary man-eater. Protect my harem from an old enemy. We escaped the cannibals and the volcano, and are now headed to a promising new island. It's going to be great. A bigger island to explore, a new tribe to meet, and endless possibilities for our growing family. But it's no longer just about having shelter and finding food. We have bigger plans than ever. It's no longer adapt or die. Now, it's adapt and thrive.