Showing results by narrator "Eric Martin" in All Categories

China's Belt and Road Initiative is the world's most ambitious and misunderstood geoeconomic vision. To carry out President Xi's flagship foreign-policy effort, China promises to spend more than one trillion dollars for new ports, railways, fiber-optic cables, power plants, and other connections. It touches more than 130 countries and has expanded into the Arctic, cyberspace, and even outer space. Beijing promises that it is promoting global development, but Washington warns that it is charting a path to global dominance.

R. K. Billiau presents book three in the PrimeVerse series.

As the first humans granted permission to explore Tslamaina, Etienne and Lyra Redowl should have been ecstatic. The planet's massive river valley is like no other in the known universe, with three intelligent species living along its waters—a dream expedition for the geologist-anthropologist duo. But the intolerable climate makes their research arduous, as does the growing tension between them. Fortunately, the husband-and-wife team are well prepared for their adventure, with a state-of-the-art hydrofoil and the assistance of the native inhabitants.

No one understands the "Make America Great Again" effort with more insight and more experience than former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In Trump's America: The Truth About Our Nation's Great Comeback, Gingrich describes our country's tremendous turnaround under President Donald Trump's leadership - and confronts the desperate efforts by the elites in academia, the media, and the Washington establishment to undermine and distort his achievements.

Most of us have heard of such popular butterflies as the Monarch or Painted Lady. But what about the Fender's Blue? Or the St. Francis' Satyr? Because of their extreme rarity, these butterflies are not well-known, yet they are remarkable species with important lessons to teach us. The Last Butterflies spotlights the rarest of these creatures - some numbering no more than what can be held in one hand.

The ancient portals have been unlocked, restoring fast travel to Isle of Mythos. No longer the outsider, Chod enjoys his newfound acceptance as a hero and troll. New lands and adventures await with the promise of gold and glory. But every opportunity offers the chance of misfortune. Several portals still remain closed, hiding dire threats behind their veils of dark energy. Enemies have disappeared into parts unknown, and rumors of the return of the greatest villain Mythos has ever known grow louder by the day. Chod has one goal - unite the heroes of Mythos.

Big, blue, and ugly. Who says a troll can’t be the hero? Chad’s 30-day sentence may be over, but his trolling has just begun. Forsaking his old ways, he fully embraces a future as Chod, the hero of the forest trolls. But life in Isle of Mythos isn’t easy for the barbarian summoner. Chod has angered more than one felon on his quest to save his people from extinction, and they’ve sworn vengeance. With a target on his back, Chod is about to find out how difficult the world can be for a hero that looks like a monster.

After three decades as a successful ear surgeon, William Wright, MD is bored beyond belief. He dabbles with retirement, but finds idleness infuriating. He has to do something. Then he sees an ad for a doctor’s position from the Colorado Department of Corrections at a supermax prison. Now that, he thinks, would be different. His wife has some thoughts on the matter too. She thinks her husband just lost his mind and is on a collision course with a prison shiv.

Obsessive and compulsive, Valerie Mayberry is the FBI’s counterintelligence expert on domestic terrorism. Brett Garrett is a dishonorably discharged ex-Navy SEAL coming off a secret opioid addiction and a gun for hire working as a security contractor in Eastern Europe. When a high-ranking Kremlin official with knowledge of a plan to attack the US must be smuggled out under the nose of a kleptocratic Putin-like Russian president and a ruthless general, Mayberry and Garret are thrown together to exfiltrate him and preempt a deadly poisonous strike.

Continue Calron's gripping journey as he confronts his haunting past, unravels enigmatic secrets within, and fights his inner demons as his true heritage is revealed. Could he still maintain his sanity after finding out? Equipped with a troubling legacy from his Master, Calron needs to quickly find a way to control its power before it devours his mind. Meanwhile, mysterious foes lurk within The Beast City, pulling strings to pull Calron deeper into their webs. Do they know something about himself that he has yet to realize?

You will say, "OMG That's Me!" Meet six people who transformed their struggles with bipolar disorder, depression, PTSD, and more... through their strength, perseverance and by finding humor in their challenges. This poignant, funny and refreshing book let's us know we are not alone by sharing challenges, and heartbreak along with the ridiculous moments of life with mental illness.

It seems Max is one of many people abducted from Earth to participate in the Cosmic Games, conducted by the Intergalactic Consortium of Civilized Beings. Humanity and three alien species have been recruited to wage war on behalf of ICCB members in a conflict over resources. The species that wins the game for their benefactors will return to their home planets, rewarded with the knowledge to guide them to peace and immortality. The other, losing species will be made extinct.

Since he was a boy, Rae Kelthannis has dreamed of being a stormbinder like his father, with an air elemental stitched into the fabric of his soul and the winds of heaven at his command. Those dreams died when his father, through no fault of his own, fell into disgrace and was banned by the justicars of the Iron Council. The family fled to the edge of the Ordered World, to live in fear in the shadow of encroaching Chaos.

Elected officials answer to public employees. Basic tools of good government have been eliminated. There's no accountability, detailed union entitlements make government largely unmanageable and unaffordable, and public policies are driven by what is good for public employees, not what is good for the public. Public unions keep it that way by brute political force—harnessing the huge cohort of public employees into a political force dedicated to preventing the reform of government. The solution, Howard argues, is not political but constitutional.

Daniel Chai has fallen into a routine of adventuring and dungeon-delving with his friends. They aren't making quick progress, but it's steady improvements and honest work. Unfortunately, Daniel's ability as a healer, and one who is truly gifted, has come home to roost with a vengeance. As his secret is exposed, Daniel's greatest fears come to play and adventuring guilds of all stripes attempt to recruit him and his friends, whether he wants it or not. Forced to navigate guild politics and noble interest, Daniel's simple life has once more grown complicated.

Hudson, Madison, and Kai are thrilled when they come across something that shouldn't even exist yet in the new world of PrimeVerse: a village! Finally, they will have time to slow down and take a break. Or not. They can't gain entry without first completing a challenging quest that the villagers couldn't. Nothing is ever easy, is it? Especially when their quest takes them into uncharted territory: a dungeon with a hard and fast death limit.

When an exiled Iranian scientist is assassinated in Washington, DC, the former FBI counterintelligence agent and ex-SEAL are pulled back into the world of clandestine ops - and the fate of the entire East Coast is at stake. Joining ranks with a heralded Mossad agent, Mayberry and Garrett pursue a skilled international killer hired to murder a legendary Israeli spymaster. Their pursuit draws them into an international conspiracy led by a power-hungry Russian oligarch intent on destroying Washington, DC, and the Navy's most important Atlantic base.

Nothing has changed more in the last few decades than our concept and perception of reality. The effects have manifested in our news, entertainment, and Google searches; we're finding that a lot of things we thought were objective aren't automatically so. Reality is not a concept we want to flush down the toilet with yesterday's food, though. However, we must begin to understand how it works in a world where profit is the driving force.

Darwin developed the theory of sexual selection to explain why the animal world abounds in stunning beauty, from the brilliant colors of butterflies and fishes to the songs of birds and frogs. He argued that animals have "a taste for the beautiful" that drives their potential mates to evolve features that make them more sexually attractive and reproductively successful. But if Darwin explained why sexual beauty evolved in animals, he struggled to understand how.

Everything Happens in Chillicothe is an authentic, behind-the-scenes look at the lowest rung of professional baseball, and a biography of Max McLeary, the one-eyed umpire and a most intriguing individual. Author Mike Shannon spent the 2000 Frontier League season attending games with McLeary and gives his account of the season here. The audiobook speaks volumes about umpiring as a profession, relationships (particularly between Max and his estranged son, a minor league player.