Showing results by narrator "Shawn Compton" in All Categories

A trio of vicious World War One veterans descend on the farm in the Adirondack mountains where one of them grew up and his father now lives alone. They embark on, happily wreaking drunken havoc at the old man's place and in the nearby town. But when a naïve, mail-order bride arrives, she ignites a tinderbox of resentment, lust, and betrayal among the men that explodes in brutal depravity, bloody violence, and shocking death. This hard-boiled, literary masterpiece includes a new introduction by Jack Mearns, author of John Sanford: An Annotated Bibliography.

Aaron Platt has spent every day of his life breaking his back to scrape a living from the rocky, played-out fields of the Adirondack farm he inherited from his sadistic father. One winter morning, he follows footprints in the snow to his barn and discovers a man freezing to death in a horse stall. What unfolds between the two men, past and present, is a brisk, gritty depiction of crime and punishment. But their harrowing story is more than that, exposing the shocking hypocrisy of the people who live in the nearby bucolic town.

Jack suffered from an attack by the Blue Caps. He sued the RSN and won. He also sued the Royal Family and won. Now he’s acquired his own warship and his first mission is to rescue the princess. What? Yes, Sofia is missing. The Queen has taken an intense dislike to her daughter’s ambitions, and Sofia has disappeared. Jack sets out to rescue her with the assistance of Black Company marines. The task is not as easy as it seems. Join Jack and his bot and AI friends as they search for the missing princess.

He was a flashy, high-rolling con man...a militant street hustler...a front man for the mob.... On TV and in the movies, FBI undercover agents are a dime a dozen. But in reality, only an elite handful have the unique combination of wit, instinct, and daring to work these highly dangerous scams. For 10 years, Larry Wansley was one of them.

Mike Reynolds is a Necromancer in a post-apocalypse world where an RPG system has been imposed on planet Earth. The former gas station clerk has risen to the challenges of the game and continues to stay ahead of the level curve imposed by whoever controls the game.

Aliens are seizing planets at the edge of Berantz space. Earth Fleet sends an armada to investigate. They're never heard from again. Word reaches the Vestrall home planet of the encroachment. Declan Payne knows what has to be done—convince Leviathan to investigate. Peace through superior firepower, through the threat of annihilation. But Lev is retired. And so is Payne and his team. The choice is taken out of their hands.

Most of us never get to test ourselves in combat. As a UH-1 Helicopter pilot flying in the jungle highlands of South Vietnam, Warrant Officer Jim Crigler and the men he flew with were tested daily. Coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s was challenging for most young men of that era. Throw in drugs, free love, draft notices, the Vietnam War, and a country deeply divided, and you have one of the most important books of this genre. This true story is a raw, bold, introspective autobiography.

The exact qualities that bring an individual to found a start-up company (their brilliance and expertise) are what prevent them from achieving the success they are looking for - this is the paradox that is entrepreneurship. What starts out as freedom and financial independence turns into grueling hours and added stress and bills. But successful five-time entrepreneur Curtis Morley is here to help. He shares that every entrepreneur is typically doing the same 15 things wrong or just not doing them at all - regardless of industry or business type.

This Very Short Introduction looks at the science of nuclear weapons and how they differ from conventional weapons. Tracing the story of the nuclear bomb, Joseph Siracusa chronicles the race to acquire the H-bomb, a thermonuclear weapon with revolutionary implications; and the history of early arms control, nuclear deterrence, and nonproliferation. He also tracks the development of nuclear weapons from the origins of the Cold War in 1945 to the end of Moscow-dominated Communism in 1991, and examines the promise and prospect of missile defense.

Captain David Shaw and fellow Marine Raider John Wyatt endure brutal captivity in a Congolese cobalt mine—hostages not of chance, but of design. Their imprisonment is orchestrated by the Czar's Brotherhood, a secret network manipulating world events for decades. When Shaw uncovers the truth, survival alone won't cut it—he must turn the fight against those who put him there.

From the dawn of history onward, commanding the most powerful ship around has been a dream of admirals, sultans, emperors, kings, generalissimos, and sea captains everywhere. For what the intimidation factor alone doesn't achieve, a massive barrage from super-weapons probably will.

Jack has undertaken to return rescued Tirarge, a hitherto unknown species, to their home planet. The first problem? The Tirarge cannot speak—they're telepathic. The second problem? They don't know where their home system is located. The third problem? Another starship is following Fearless, likely seeking revenge. Oh wait, there's another problem. Two other species also inhabit this unknown planet, and they can't speak either. Surprisingly, that's not the end of Jack's problems.

In 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks assaulted Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the United States Capitol, defending his family's honor and the rights of slaveholders. In beating Sumner unconscious, Brooks fueled a nationwide clash over slavery that ended in civil war. Southern historian Paul Quigley brings Brooks to life more vividly than ever, revealing how his personal struggles shaped the fateful decision to attack Sumner.

Too often people hold the dream of starting their own business and pursuing their destiny, but they are overcome not just by fear, but by the practical reality that they can not afford to take a financial risk. Third Shift Entrepreneur overcomes that false choice of settling for less or taking a financial risk and instead reveals a third path - one that allows you to fulfill your creative entrepreneurial potential while maintaining financial stability in your life.

The celebrated author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets Wagner, James Au, delivers an engrossing exploration of how nascent metaverse platforms have already captured the imagination of millions. Featuring powerful stories and dozens of incisive interviews with insiders including Metaverse creator Neal Stephenson himself, the author uses his unique, grassroots-level perspective as the first reporter embedded in a metaverse platform.

World affairs expert and intrepid travel journalist Robert D. Kaplan braved the dangers of war-ravaged Afghanistan in the 1980s, living among the mujahidin-the "soldiers of god"-whose unwavering devotion to Islam fueled their mission to oust the formidable Soviet invaders. In Soldiers of God, we follow Kaplan's extraordinary journey and learn how the thwarted Soviet invasion gave rise to the ruthless Taliban and the defining international conflagration of the twenty-first century.

A tribute to the glorious slasher movies of the 1980s.

Life's gotten better for hard-edged security guard Sean Coleman. With personal affairs in order and relationships rekindled, he travels to Las Vegas to help celebrate his buddy's last days as a bachelor. Soon after he arrives, however, a twist of fate spawns a reunion with an old flame. Curiosity and a desire to make amends unexpectedly lead Sean down a dark path into the Vegas underground, where another face from the past emerges---a federal fugitive whose family, years earlier, altered the course of Sean's life.

North Carolina represents a perfect distillation of the promise and peril of modern American democracy: hyperpartisanship, gerrymandering, dissatisfaction with the two-party system, the urban-rural divide—these issues are all brought into sharp relief in the Tar Heel State. For that reason, North Carolina politics and government are increasingly of interest not just to North Carolina citizens but to journalists, political observers, and people across the country. 

In his path-breaking Killer High, Peter Andreas shows how six psychoactive drugs - ranging from old to relatively new, mild to potent, licit to illicit, natural to synthetic - have proven to be particularly important war ingredients. This sweeping history tells the story of war from antiquity to the modern age through the lens of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, opium, amphetamines, and cocaine.