Showing results by narrator "Thomas James" in All Categories

So much darkness. At least it made hiding easier. Daniel and his group of close friends barely made it away from the mob and their underhanded allies among the Cabal. Now, they were hunted prey, forced to ditch their beloved floating castle in order to find a place to hide. But where could you possibly hide when the Dawnlight Forest would soon be teeming with people looking for you? That’s right. Underground. Quite literally.

Across the country and in every nation, people are waking up with magical talents. Untrained and panicked, they summon storms, raise the dead, and set everything they touch ablaze. Army officer Oscar Britton sees the worst of it. A lieutenant attached to the military's Supernatural Operations Corps, his mission is to bring order to a world gone mad. Then he abruptly manifests a rare and prohibited magical power, transforming him overnight from government agent to public enemy number one.

With the Summoning Gate under threadbare control and the Stranger defeated, Tira’s sights turn now to the war with Amedia. Their raiding party is en route with the sole intention of crushing what they think is the last surviving Kholvenic Dungeon—her.

Whether you're dealing with a problem employee or praising the good work of a colleague, you need to communicate in a way that promotes positive change in others. Giving Effective Feedback quickly walks you through the basics of delivering feedback that gets results.

The Accidental Minecraft Family now has a mission! They know they must eventually explore the wider world and figure out just what the mysterious book they found was all about. Preparing for a long journey takes a lot of work, though. Kate finally gets to start a farm! Will they be able to make enough armor, food, and more importantly, protect it all from being eaten by Bruce the cat?

So he buys a failing movie studio and dispatches the Mideast's top lethal terrorist to hire Tinseltown's most clueless producers to create the greatest battle epic ever. Thing is, the army of extras are real, the guns are loaded and the California freeway is jammed with camels and tanks. On the other side of the world, Omay is poised to light the powder keg that will spell disaster. The Destroyer races to save Hollywood, not for the sake of the free world, but because Chiun has just penned his screenplay and nothing is about to keep him from the glory of an Oscar.

“We are born adventurers,” Bolitho writes, “and the love of adventures never leaves us till we are very old; old, timid men, in whose interest it is that adventure should quite die out. This is why all the poets are on one side, and all the laws on the other; for laws are made by, and usually for, old men." Though his essays are nearly 100 years old, they encompass the timeless values of perseverance, bravery, and strength of spirit that have proven to resonate with the pioneers and thought leaders of today.

Gun Meister Online is a recently released virtual-reality combat simulator. Players assume the role of a Meister; fighting in matches and ranking up into higher divisions. Within the game, weapons take on human shape. These NPC's use a new Dynamic Distributed Personality System recently implemented, and many are excited by how life-like the AI characters are becoming. Charlie has only just begun to play, and he struggles to grow as a Meister. At the same time, he starts to take charge of his real-life outside.

It's become the fastest - and surest - way to get from here to eternity. Somebody is playing the railroads like a giant train set, causing high-speed derailments that strew the rails with headless victims from coast to coast. And could the repeated sightings of a ghostly samurai swordsman be fact or mass hysteria? As the carnage continues unchecked and the body count mounts, Dr. Harold Smith suspects the train terror is merely a decoy for the real target.

Not that things were so hot before, but when a huge earthquake guts Mexico, nobody wants to hang around, especially with all sorts of demonic doings by the barbaric gods of old Mexico, released from hell when the earth ruptured. Not satisfied with great takeout, the ancient Aztecs are hungry for the lifeblood of the entire continent. It's up to Remo and Chiun to go south of the border and root out the unhuman mind who is uniting downtrodden Indian tribes into a ferocious guerrilla army and leading them into a new dark age of bloodlust and superstition.

What lies beyond Blackmoor Cove and its connected Tower? When two displaced Heroes from the recently fallen Town of Emberstone seek refuge from the advancing corruption, some people begin to believe that Jack’s brazen defiance of traditional ways has terrible consequences. New Buildings, new Townsfolk, and new Heroes bring new opportunities for everyone, and as Jack continues pushing them forward, the virtual entities around him begin to explore the limits of Subroutine Sana.

Budget cuts are every administrator's nightmare, but CURE's own Dr. Harold Smith has a real whopper. A battle over bullion prompts Chiun to seek better pastures and he's dragging Remo along. Word spreads like wildfire: the fabled assassins of the House of Sinanju are hiring out to the highest bidder. While the desperate Dr. Smith is panicking big-time, rogue nations are trying to beat out, burn down and bump off the competition - before the highest bid gets the goods.

Can free speech coexist with an inclusive campus environment? Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry.

Forensic evidence in a couple of assassinations reveals a curious link between the killers: identical fingerprints and genetic code. Could it be twins? But when the next killer's traces show the same result, law enforcement authorities are baffled. The bizarre problem is entrusted to CURE's Dr. Harold Smith and he puts Remo and Chiun on a trail leading back decades to a literal dead end.

On September 17, 1862, the US was on the brink, facing a permanent split into two separate nations. America's very future hung on the outcome of a single battle - and the result reverberates to this day. Given the deep divisions that still rive the nation, and given what unites the country, too, Antietam is more relevant now than ever.

Tad Lonnerman is having a crappy day stuck in crappy traffic late to a crappy meeting. On the bright side, his game development career is the only non-crappy thing he has going for him, so life isn't all bad. At least until he dies. Now Tad finds himself uploaded to a beta test of Haven, an unannounced hyper-immersive MMO where the dead have a second chance at life. It's not virtual reality, it's digital reality. A true afterlife online. Except Haven isn't exactly blissful paradise.

With the defeat of the Elemental, Arbor should be hailed as a hero. Instead, he is shunned, turned away from the Defiants by those seeking power and fearing his own. Having little choice, Arbor sets out with his force of gremlins toward the slave city of Fivora in hopes of finally being reunited with his sister. Meanwhile, strange things are happening in the elven capital of Srila. An Infiltrator is stalking the streets and leaving death in its wake. However, the Infiltrator isn’t the only one with its sights set on the elven homeland.

Charlie and the Misfits have been invited to join the closed beta of the new space-themed VRMMO, Star Nova Online. Together with hundreds of other test pilots, they hope to defend Earth from destruction. The Roth - a lizard-like warrior race - has nearly wiped humanity from the face of the universe and are on the way to finish the job. The test pilots have just seven days to train and prepare themselves.

He could have been way worse off. Sure, Daniel was stuck in-game as the local bard of a quaint village, but people were nice, the quests juicy, and the lore intriguing. Even so, with the mob on the look-out, Daniel would soon find himself sorely tested to avoid detection.

From crackly conference lines to pixelated video, virtual meetings can be problematic. But you can host a productive conversation in which everyone participates.