Showing results by narrator "Nick Podehl" in All Categories

This CliffsNotes study guide on J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye supplements the original literary work, giving you background information about the author, an introduction to the work, a graphical character map, critical commentaries, expanded glossaries, and a comprehensive index, all for you to use as an educational tool that will allow you to better understand the work.

Powerful beings from the fringes of Chaos have come to the realm of Alorin. Fate bends to their will, and their will is set upon Alorin's destruction. Alone in understanding the threat they pose, Alorin's Fifth Vestal, Björn val Gelderan, has launched a desperate plan to stop them: a "great game" played upon the tapestry of mortal life. Now, in Paths of Alir, Björn's Players have taken the field.

FBI Special Agent Ava McLane solves crimes; she doesn’t witness them. When she’s trapped in a mall without her weapon as a shooter picks off victims, she hides with a wounded teen and prays for her survival. But that’s only the beginning.... An epidemic of mass shootings has has swept across Oregon. The young shooters terrify the public, committing random murders before taking their own lives.

They are just children when they first meet: Charlotte, daughter of the French ambassador, and Hiroshi, a laundress’s son. One day in the playground, Hiroshi declares that he has an idea that will change the world. An idea that will sweep away all differences between rich and poor. When Hiroshi runs into Charlotte several years later, he is trying to build a brighter future through robotics.

The Earth has changed. War is now fought in an alien virtual reality - the Game - where many of the players are anything but human. Now part of the Black Rose guild, Alan heads to the Academy to level up and get stronger. He hopes to make allies and learn skills to win the battles to come. But with everyone pursuing their own agendas, what can one gamer do in a universe he still doesn't fully understand?

To gain his Master Class, John Lee made a deal with the Erethran Empire. Now, the empire has come to collect on the debt, forcing him to appear in their capital after his last fight. Thrown into Galactic politics of a militarized, system-based society, John will have to weigh consequences of the decisions he's been asked to make and confront the warped reality of a system-created empire. When politics, self-interest, and a human's stubbornness collide, the very stars are threatened.

Roark von Graf built a nation on the bodies of griefed players and disgruntled mobs who wanted him dead. He grinded his way up to the level cap of the Troll Evolutionary Path and made powerful underhanded alliances along the way, but even all of that isn’t enough to defeat the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage, Lowen, and the Divine armies of the most powerful dungeon in the game. When Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield go on the attack, Roark’s only hope of survival lies in the stolen World Stone Pendant and its mysterious transmutation magic.

This is a quintessentially American story of one man's journey through his career and life. Wall Street veteran Ben Carpenter chronicles the people he met, the experiences he had, the mistakes he made, and what he learned along the way. Listeners will encounter a colorful cast of real-life characters which include Big Hank, Hoops, Sweater Girl, The Zombies, Mr. Nuts, The Cheese, Deep Throat, and The RAT.

Alex is broke. He's pretty much always been broke. A misspent youth led to mistakes that led to convictions and plea deals. No career, no education, no hope. Now he has a chance to make things right for him and his family when the newest immersive MMO comes with the ability to convert money earned in the game into real currency. Well, it's cryptocurrency, but that's real-ish, right?

Paige Langford has it all: wealth, beauty, and ambition. Yet when her boyfriend’s betrayal costs her both her dream job and her reputation, she retreats to her brother’s rural home in Indiana to heal and figure out the rest of her life. There she meets Ryan Malloy, a gruff, hard-drinking cowboy whose surly temper can’t hide the pain in his eyes.

In 2004, Doctor Damien Howard's 131st birthday celebration took an unexpected turn. His personal SETI project detected an extraterrestrial signal directed at Earth. Unfortunately, Dr. Howard's long-hoped-for communication contained a message of dire warning rather than greeting. In 1945, humanity had become a species of galactic interest and was given 100 years to address the issue.

Having survived the monster, Kohl Obsidian, Wiliam Wilde had hoped his life would settle down - that he'd finish his senior year of high school with no further adventures. But life isn't so simple for a potential magus, especially one who's overcome as deadly an enemy as Kohl. Instead, William has unwittingly earned the raptor gaze of even greater foes.

Out of the smoldering ruins of the war in heaven Archangels Raphael and Michael cannot believe the agreement made between God and his morning star, Lucifer. Unwilling to either destroy the fallen angel or leave him with a free hand upon the world, God sets in motion a struggle that will span the millennia from creation to present day. Two Sentinels are invested with the ability to bend the laws of creation to their will and each represents the primal forces of order and chaos.

Something has been asleep in forty-year-old cattle rancher Aiden Delacorte for a long time. It all comes back in a rush during a hunting trip, when he's suddenly attuned to the animals around him, feeling their pain and fear as if it were his own. But the newfound sensitivity of Aiden's "wake up" has its price. He can no longer sleepwalk through life, holding everyone at arm's length. As he struggles to cope with a trait he's buried since childhood, Aiden falls in love with Gwen, a single mother whose young son bears a burden of his own.

At long last, the reason for the blessed Adept race's decline has been discovered: powerful beings known as Malorin'athgul are disrupting the Balance and preventing Alorin's Adepts from awakening to their gifts. Who are they? Where are they? And how can they be stopped when they wield a power meant to unmake the universe itself? In T'khendar, Prince Ean val Lorian has forsaken his companions in blood and battle to join the traitorous Fifth Vestal in T'khendar in the hopes of gaining some insight into the tragedies that plagued his return.

Recent college grad Sam King was hoping for a backpacking trip across Europe as a graduation present. Instead, he’s going to get a different kind of trip: a three-month stint in the ultimate immersive gaming experience. As a lifelong geek, gamer, and outsider, it’s a better gift then he’d ever dreamed.

In all the ways that matter, Mark is a normal kid. He's got a dog named Beau and a best friend, Jessie. He likes to take photos and write haiku poems in his notebook. He dreams of climbing a mountain one day. But in one important way, Mark is not like other kids at all. Mark is sick. The kind of sick that means hospitals. And treatments. The kind of sick some people never get better from.

Thirteen-year-old Prince Kyril and Mags and Amily's 14-year-old son, Tory, "share" the Gift of Farsight - although neither of them are Chosen. They are self-trained, though currently, their shared Gift only allows them to see what is happening with their immediate family members. After much debate, the Herald's Collegium has decided to test and train them anyway. That's when the surprises start. They do not share a single Gift; they have two complementary Gifts working together in a way that the Heralds have never seen before.

Tensions are mounting after a devastating battle before the walls of Shaliyah, birthplace of the Prophet. The East is rising, bringing equal measures of hope and despair to the magical world of Urte. For some Salim's victory is a call to arms, for others it is evidence of a world gone mad. While the armies of East and West clash in brutal conflict, emperors, inquisitors, Souldrinkers, and assassins all have their attention turned elsewhere as they hunt the Scytale of Corineus.

John Lee has come far from his time as a struggling survivor of the System Apocalypse. But now, his actions have gone too far, and he has drawn the ire of the Galactic Council. Not only he and his friends, but Earth itself, are faced with the displeasure of the Council. With the whole galaxy turned against them, John will have to scramble for allies and make Faustian deals to save Earth. But against the might of multiple empires, will it be enough?