Showing results by narrator "Kevin T. Collins" in All Categories

Sometimes things don't work out exactly as planned. The Mesan Alignment has a plan - one it's been working on for centuries. A plan to remake the galaxy and genetically improve the human race - its way. Until recently things have gone pretty much as scheduled, but then the Alignment hit a minor bump in the road called the Star Empire of Manticore. So the Alignment engineered a war between the Solarian League, the biggest and most formidable interstellar power in human history.

How well can you ever really know someone? As Ben Casper watches his best friend plummet from her sixth-floor apartment balcony, he realises his life is about to change. Diana had no reason to kill herself, she had to have been pushed. Diana worked for the CIA, so the investigation into her...

Star-trading Clan Korval - known to Terrans as the Tree-and-Dragon Family and to the locals simply as the Dragon - has been convicted of crimes against the homeworld. No matter that one of the "crimes" consisted of saving the elitist planet of Liad from very real internal threats, the Council of Clans wanted Korval heads to roll. Unfortunately for the council, the Dragon's allies conspired to impose a milder punishment for saving the world: banishment rather than execution.

During an unacknowledged mission inside the Syrian border, a government operative had unwittingly triggered an incredible worldwide event that irrevocably shaped the future of the United States. In the aftermath of the crisis, families have struggled to survive in a world short on food, water, and electricity. Hyperinflation cripples the United States economy, and postwar armored military vehicles are patrolling the streets. One man has now stepped forward and continues to push back the dark wave of tyranny.

His name is Hadjar Darkhan, and he still follows the call of his dragon heart. The War Games ended a few months ago, and the various generals of Darnassus, led by the Emperor, realized that just the disciples of the best martial arts schools and even the smaller, lesser schools wouldn't be able to strengthen the Darnassian Army enough to prepare it for what was coming. A war was on the horizon, and every weapon would matter, so losing even the most inexperienced warriors was an unthinkable prospect.

Diplomacy is the bane of Bud's life these days.

As riots rage across the Human Federation space, what he'd been told on Sanctuary accelerates. Everyone wants his help.

The consequences of losing your temper for a moment grow with your power.

But is this a good thing or bad? Only time will tell, but suddenly everything seems to be happening at once.

Convicted criminal James Griffin-Mars is no one's hero. In his time, Earth is a toxic, abandoned world, and humans have fled into the outer solar system to survive, eking out a fragile, doomed existence among the other planets and their moons. Those responsible for delaying humanity's demise believe time travel holds the key, and they have identified James, troubled though he is, as one of a select and expendable few ideally suited for the most dangerous job in history.

The dark "doomed soldier" Max, formerly Baron Maximilian Valevsky, has committed an act of heroism. The emperor wants to personally reward him, and a meeting with the leader of the empire means only one thing: Max will regain his former name. But the mysterious forces circling the throne of the Zarask Empire have their own opinions about how best to utilize Max and his abilities. Their task is simple: bend our hero to their will and force him to do their bidding. But will Max agree to dance like a marionette with someone else pulling the strings?

At once elegant and riveting, Sync tells the story of the dawn of a new science. Steven Strogatz, a leading mathematician in the fields of chaos and complexity theory, explains how enormous systems can synchronize themselves, from the electrons in a superconductor to the pacemaker cells in our hearts. He shows that although these phenomena might seem unrelated on the surface, at a deeper level there is a connection, forged by the unifying power of mathematics.

Winter's life has been turned upside down since finding out that all the fairy tales exist, and she doesn't know who to turn to. When everything is against her, can the men who love her keep her alive? The rules are changing, and Winter needs to fight to protect what is hers and avoid the destruction of everyone she has come to love.

Winter finally has the answers to who she is, but everything else in her life is in question as she is thrown into the world of witches. How much of her past can control her future? Can Winter make the decisions she needs to save the future?

Thorn is back. He's lost one civilization, and is still trying to fix two others. But fixing something when you don't know how it broke is never as simple as you'd think. The future is threatened by his own past, and to fix everything, he thinks he has to undo what he's already done. But what if what you did cannot be undone, and the future has more riding on it than anyone knows? Yesterday's Spacemage was the cause. Today's Spacemage was the effect. But can tomorrow's Spacemage save everyone?

It is Earth year 2256 - but the fate of the few who even remember Earth is perilously in doubt. Mina Saunders-Chang and many of the surviving humans are stranded in the Centauri system, having barely survived their confrontation with the Telphon refugees. Now everyone - human and Telphon alike - is caught in the blast zone of the Centauri supernova. And yet there's only one question Mina is asking: Where are Liam and Phoebe?

Warfield hires Chad Hunter, a private weapons designer who had worked for the German company, to go to Germany to convince the company that Warfield is the perfect partner. To sweeten the deal, Hunter must first convince Frank Baldwin, a struggling optics engineer from Wyoming, who has developed the most advanced rifle scope ever conceived, that his scope would be the perfect match for this new German rifle.

The war with the Raven Sect is taking Hadjar further and further away from his original goal. This time, he's ended up in another world—the world of the Spirits and Fae. The General has already been here before, but he's never tried to do something as audacious as stealing a treasure from one of the Queens. What will this latest adventure lead to?

Max, formerly Maximilian Valevsky, begins to understand what it means to exist in a dark world dominated by light. People hate him, exploit him, fear him, and try to kill him the first chance they get. But our hero is willing to endure all trials and tribulations in pursuit of his goal: killing Duke Odoevsky and avenging his family. And he'll let nothing stand in his way.

His deal with the Demon Prince has taken Hadjar deeper and deeper into the Strange Lands, where every step could be his last. With the aid of Abraham's squad, he's looking for clues and uncovering all sorts of secrets and mysteries, but the Raven Sect's fanatics are on their trail. What will this new twist of fate bring? Will Hadjar be able to fulfill his part of the deal? Did he make a mistake when he agreed to destroy the oldest and most powerful sect of the mortal realm?

In the bestselling tradition ofthe The Eighty-Dollar Champion, the propulsive, inspiring Cinderella story of Stymie, an unwanted Thoroughbred, and Hirsch Jacobs, the once dirt-poor trainer who bought the colt on the cheap and molded him into the most popular horse of his time and the richest...

New York Times best-selling and Hugo Award-winning author John Scalzi gift-wraps 15 short takes on the holiday season - interviews with holiday notables, "informational" articles about TV specials and Christmas carols, short stories and poems, and even a couple of nods to Thanksgiving and New Year’s - and puts them all into a stocking stuffer-sized package that makes the perfect gift for friends, family, or yourself.

In the early 1980s, Brian O'Dea was operating a $100 million a year, 120-man drug smuggling business, and had developed a terrifying cocaine addiction. Under increasing threat from the DEA in 1986 for importing seventy-five tons of marijuana into the United States, he quit the trade - and the drugs - and began working with recovering addicts in Santa Barbara. Despite his life change, the authorities caught up with him years later and O'Dea was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years at Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary in Los Angeles Harbor.