Showing results by narrator "David Stifel" in All Categories

The world of Awaken Online has been reborn. Ancient avatars and their cities have returned, unleashing chaos and armies from the game world's savage past. Jason and his allies are beset on all sides—by the original avatars, an unrelenting tide of travelers, and even their own secrets. However, Jason is done playing defense; he’s done reacting. It’s time to take the fight to his enemies in both worlds. And that starts by using their own weapons against them, including the relics Jason stole from the ancient avatars.

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.

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.

The world of Awaken Online has been transformed. Gloria Bastion's attempt to destroy the game world failed, yet she unleashed a power that has brought the former avatars forward in time. And accompanying them are their cities and armies. Creatures, warriors, and mages from a time when the game world was fresh and new...but also more savage and unrelenting.

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.

A new threat has emerged, but this one is coming from inside Awaken Online. An unknown guild has somehow managed to threaten the game world. Yet, unlike Jason's former battles, his enemies are unclear—hidden in the shadows and hiring others to do their dirty work, including the infamous Death and Taxes. Without a clear enemy or way to stop this threat, Jason is forced to do something he never thought he would...ask for help.

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.

A man finds himself on the top step of a stepladder; a woman removes the guard to her machine; a worker is not wearing her safety glasses in the plant. Why do these folks do these things? One tendency is to blame workers for safety errors and label their personal failings as the cause. Labeling does not solve the problems. These tendencies build dysfunctional management practices that create fear associated with your safety programs. I want to teach you a better way to analyze behaviors to understand why your employees were put in a position to take the risk in the first place.

The new heart of the Milky Way is a quasar, enclosed by a huge shell. It will provide energy to humankind for a long time. But then one maintenance probe after another disappears. Is someone trying to manipulate the quasar to destroy our galaxy in a giant explosion? Or is it just a few outlaws who are trying to steal some of the quasar's energy for themselves? Kepler and Zhenyi, with the help of some unexpected friends, discover that the stakes are much, much higher. They encounter new and at the same time ancient foes that they never dreamt of in their worst nightmares.

"These are the times that try men's souls." With these words, Thomas Paine began a series of 13 extraordinary pamphlets reporting on the American Revolution. Part newsfeed, part op-ed, these pieces were widely circulated in the States and in Britain during the war. They reported on the progress of the war, argued for the reasons for the war, made recommendations on the conduct of the war, and taught citizens of a new country just what their obligations and duties were in support of their new country. A sobering series of lessons on beginning American civics 101.

Miskatonic University has a long-whispered reputation of being strongly connected to all things occult and supernatural. From the faculty to the students, the fascination with other-worldly legends and objects runs rampant. So, when Carter Weston's professor Dr. Thayerson asks him to search a nearby village for a book that is believed to control the inhuman forces that rule the Earth, Incendium Maleficarum, the student doesn't hesitate to begin the quest.

Ordered to relieve an alcoholic skipper, Dan finds he has inherited a damaged ship, an untrustworthy crew, and an ambiguous mission. He is to take the USS Oliver C. Gaddis, soon to become the PNS Tughril, on her final voyage to be donated to Pakistan. But in Kirachi, Dan gets new orders: take Gaddis still further east, and operate against modern pirates preying on commercial shipping in the remote, dangerous South China Sea.

Two Depression-battered nations confronted destiny in 1932, going to the polls in their own way to anoint new leaders, to rescue their people from starvation and hopelessness. America would elect a Congress and a president - ebullient aristocrat Franklin Roosevelt or tarnished "Wonder Boy" Herbert Hoover. Decadent, divided Weimar Germany faced two rounds of bloody Reichstag elections and two presidential contests - doddering reactionary Paul von Hindenburg against rising radical hate-monger Adolf Hitler.

In this second installment of her breathtaking De Montforte Brothers series, critically acclaimed author Danelle Harmon introduces us to Englishman Lord Charles de Montforte, who awakens in the tender care of an American beauty after being wounded in battle. Amy Leighton has long wished for someone special to enter her life and take her away from a cruel, unloving step-family, but the handsome stranger is from an enemy land...and he's sworn to love another. A 1775-era Cinderella story sure to enthrall!

Financial Valuation: Applications and Models provides authoritative reference and practical guidance on the appropriate, defensible way to prepare and present business valuations.

This crescent of bottomlands between Memphis and Vicksburg, lined by the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, remains in some ways what it was in 1860: a land of rich soil, wealthy planters, and desperate poverty - the blackest and poorest counties in all the South. And yet it is a cultural treasure house as well - the home of Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Charley Pride, Walker Percy, Elizabeth Spencer, and Shelby Foote.

For five hundred years the Gods have united the Three Lands in harmony. Now that balance has been shattered, and chaos threatens. A town burns and flames light the night sky. Hunted and alone, seventeen year old Eric flees through the wreckage. The mob grows closer, baying for the blood of their tormentor. Guilt weighs on his soul, but he cannot stop, cannot turn back. If he stops, they die.

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.

Austria's fate held major ramifications for postwar Europe and the entire free world, yet there is no complete account of the campaign written in English. Given the scale of the fighting and the scope of the consequences, this book fills a major gap in the literature of World War Two. On VE Day Army Group South listed 450,000 men still under arms in four armies. It was this massive force that made General Dwight Eisenhower change the entire focus of American ground operations to cut off Germans from retreating into the National Redoubt.