Showing results by narrator "Nicol Zanzarella"

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairy tale. Rather, it offers a deeply reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization in the 21st century. The stark issue at hand is whether we will be the masters of information and machines or its slaves.  

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it's what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt - kill or be killed. Here are fifteen all-new stories of such "close encounters", written by many of today's most extraordinary authors. Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe's most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing - one way or another.

Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie educate listeners on one of the hottest trends in business development: "design thinking", or the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for maximal business growth. Jeanne Liedtka's recent book, The Catalyst: How YOU Can Lead Extraordinary Growth, was named a Top Innovation and Design Thinking Book by Business Week. Tim Ogilvie has been hailed as a visionary for his pioneering contributions to service innovation, business model innovation, and customer experience design.

From BSFA award-winning author Gareth L. Powell comes the first in a new epic sci-fi trilogy exploring the legacies of war. The sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, yet following a brutal war, she is disgusted by her role in a genocide. Stripped of her weaponry and seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organization dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. When a civilian ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, are sent on a rescue mission.

One of the nation's leading psychologists asks why today's corporate leaders desire but reject creative solutions - and finds some surprising conclusions.

As team captain and enforcer, Patrick O'Doul puts the bruise in the Brooklyn Bruisers. But after years of hard hits, O'Doul is feeling the burn, both physically and mentally. He conceals his pain from his coach and trainers, but when his chronic hip injury becomes too obvious to ignore, they send him for sessions with the team's massage therapist.

Jane’s days at a Midwest insurance company are perfectly ordinary. She blends in well, unremarkably pretty and extra efficient. She’s just the kind of woman middle manager Steven Hepsworth likes - meek, insecure, and willing to defer to a man. No one has any idea who Jane really is. Least of all Steven. But plain Jane is hiding something. Nothing can distract Jane from going straight for his heart: allowing herself to be seduced into Steven’s bed, to insinuate herself into his career and his family, and to expose all his dirty secrets. So she can take it all away. Just as he did to her.

Hockey player Leo Trevi has spent the last six years trying to do two things: get over the girl who broke his heart, and succeed in the NHL. But on the first day he's called up to the newly franchised Brooklyn Bruisers, Leo gets checked on both sides, first by the team's coach - who has a long simmering grudge - and then by the Bruisers' sexy, icy publicist - his former girlfriend, Georgia Worthington. Saying goodbye to Leo was one of the hardest things Georgia ever had to do - and saying hello again isn't much easier.

All Aubrey Ellis wants is a normal life, one that doesn't include desperate pleas from the dead. Her remarkable gift may help others rest in peace, but it also made for an unsettling childhood and destroyed her marriage. Finally content as the real estate writer for a local newspaper, Aubrey keeps her extraordinary ability hidden - until she is unexpectedly assigned the story of a decades-old murder.

Two things haunt forensic anthropologist Hazel MacLeod: the bones of victims of genocide she examines for her work, and former SEAL Sean Logan's rejection. But within days of moving to her cousin's estate to take a much-needed break, she finds herself faced with both. First, she's called in to examine a mass grave in Virginia; then, her politician cousin receives a threatening letter and insists Hazel needs around-the-clock protection - from none other than Sean Logan. To make matters worse, because the threat to her is classified, Hazel and Sean must pretend to be lovers.

Sheriff Reese Conlon and Doctor Tory King face the challenges of personal change as they define their lives and future together. Dr. Tory King’s pregnancy forces her to examine her personal needs and goals while her partner, Sheriff Reese Conlon, struggles with her escalating anxieties over conditions she cannot control. Twenty-year-old Brianna Parker makes a sacrifice for love that threatens not just her happiness, but her life, when she returns home as the newest member of the Sheriff's department.

When Laura Fry returns to her childhood home to care for her invalid mother, she hopes the writer’s block that has swallowed her writing career will disappear. She doesn’t plan on turning into a “yard girl” but her mother’s long neglected lawn beckons her to return it to the lush and colorful display it had been before her mother’s accident. She also doesn’t plan on making friends with the “nympho lesbian” next door but she finds it impossible not to watch the parade of playmates the neighbor brings to her pool.

All contact is lost with the first human colony on Mars during a long and destructive sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility. The 54 colonists who called it home are presumed dead. Three years later, a new mission sets down on the surface to investigate what remains of the derelict site. But it's not long before they realize the colony is not as lifeless as everyone thought. Someone is still alive - hiding out somewhere. Yet, before they can find the elusive colonist, a strange illness starts to affect the crew.

No matter how much we plan, life - and people - have a way of surprising us. For Doctor KT O’Bannon, a near-fatal tragedy derails a career and disrupts everything she thought she knew about herself and her future. Battered and nearly broken, she turns for solace to the one woman who knows her best, her ex-lover Doctor Tory King. Their unexpected reunion in Provincetown uncovers old wounds, forges new bonds, and awakens long-buried passions.

Sierra Cody is on fire. A rising star in women's professional downhill mountain bike racing, she has all the tools to become a world champion. All she needs to do is fully commit herself. Something far easier said than done. Dr. Kara Davies, a highly regarded and accomplished physician, is well on her way to achieving her dreams in chiropractic research. Commitment to her goals has never been an issue, but her personal life is a different story.

When a colonist dies in tragic circumstances, just a few sols before a major terraforming experiment, Dr. Jann Malbec begins to suspect that all is not what it seems. Her fears begin to grow when every attempt she makes to investigate the death is thwarted by the ruling council on Mars. In desperation, she resorts to secretly recruiting a recently arrived colonist, Mia Sorelli, an ex-cop with a troubled past, to quietly look into the incident. But Mia has some very good reasons why she left her old life on Earth behind.

A mysterious newcomer, a reclusive doctor, and a troubled gay teenager learn about love, friendship, and trust during one tumultuous summer in Provincetown. Reese Conlon, LtCol USMCR, is the new sheriff who has heads turning amidst speculation as to who will be the first woman to capture her attentions. Doctor Victoria King has been betrayed by love once and refuses to risk heartbreak again. Brianna Parker, the teenaged daughter of Reese's chief, fears her father’s wrath when he learns that she loves another girl.

An art dealer and owner of her own design studio, Perfect Touch, Sarah "Sam" Maddox travels the world to find the ideal artwork for her clients. Her sophisticated, comfortable life in San Francisco is light years away from the poverty of her family's dairy farm, and Sam will do whatever it takes to keep her business strong. A dedicated urban career woman focused on her work, she doesn't have time or energy for a family or distracting romantic entanglements.

Ivy MacLeod has the perfect opportunity to test her advanced remote sensing technology: mapping a World War II battle site in the islands of Palau. The project is more than an all-expenses-paid trip to paradise. It's also an opportunity to distance her reputation from her traitorous ex-husband. But foreign intelligence agencies will kill to possess her invention, and paradise turns deadly when her ex-husband's vicious allies attack. In desperation, she turns to Air Force pilot Jack Keaton. But is he the bigger threat?

The only thing Navy underwater archaeologist Undine Gray fears more than facing former SEAL Luke Sevick is never scuba diving again. But when a dive on a Cold War-era US Navy submarine ends with an accidental explosion, she's terrified of going into the deep, forcing her to beg the most experienced diver she knows to take her back to the bottom of the cold Salish Sea. Luke wants nothing to do with the woman who destroyed his career a dozen years ago but finds it impossible to turn his back on her plea.