Showing results by narrator "Eric Jason" in All Categories

Paul Wood and his girlfriend, Talena, were just tourists in Sarajevo, a city still reeling from the aftermath of civil war. But an unexpected encounter makes them a desperate woman's only hope of escape. Now, to get her to safety, they must navigate through the minefield of warlords, criminals, and peacekeepers that is postwar Bosnia. Pursued by brutal gangsters and unable to leave the country legally, Paul agrees to do a job for a shadowy group of people – smugglers - in exchange for safe passage.

This gripping book traces the evolution of brainwashing from its beginnings in torture and religious conversion into the age of neuroscience and social media. When Pavlov introduced scientific approaches, his research was enthusiastically supported by Lenin and Stalin, setting the stage for major breakthroughs in tools for social, political, and religious control.

For two years, I have been thinking of this place and how to get here. Every step in my grand masterplan was but a waystation en route to the main prize: the door. And what a special door it is! Behind it lies what will not only make me strong, but put me at the very top of this world...or at least close. At the moment, the door is as good as locked for me. Unapproachable. To get access, I will have to do my damnedest, because you cannot just buy your way to it using regular cash. One needs a special currency here: points. Rating points.

In the aftermath of the Apocalypse, humanity struggles to survive in a world newly introduced to mysterious particles. Preparing for the moment when Earth's planetary protections will cease and open the planet up to invasion by alien species, Liam and his companions transformed the Beacon, their sanctuary, into a fortress. As the last line of defense, they strive to train and empower the Beacon's residents, raising their levels and strength to withstand the impending onslaught.

From facial recognition—capable of checking us onto flights or identifying undocumented residents—to automated decision systems that inform everything from who gets loans to who receives bail, each of us moves through a world determined by data-empowered algorithms. But these technologies didn't just appear: they are part of a history that goes back centuries, from the census enshrined in the US Constitution to the birth of eugenics in Victorian Britain to the development of Google search.

Rumor has it that this year's leaders will receive an unusual reward from the Emperor himself. The exact nature of that reward is a mystery to everyone. What is absolutely clear, though, is that the number of prizes is limited, and just about everyone wants them. So let the battle begin—in the hearts and minds, within the school walls, on training grounds, and even in the streets of the capital city. This will be the ultimate test of one's strength and cunning. It will be fair, and not. It will be bloodless and the stuff of one's worst gory nightmares. And the winner will take all.

A stunning exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach but may hold the key to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century “Engaging . . . Even those who resist Kaplan’s tragic sensibility have much to learn from his look at the...

Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations.

In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States - by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey, Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.

Benjamin Franklin once said, "There never was a good war or a bad peace." But what determines whether war or peace is chosen? Award-winning sociologist Michael Mann concludes that it is a handful of political leaders—people with emotions and ideologies, and constrained by inherited culture and institutions—who undertake such decisions, usually irrationally choosing war and seldom achieving their desired results.

When woke-minded political officials take a man's pet fox and raccoon and kill them, it's too much for Braxton Knox and his allies. What they find in the Adirondacks is a rogue state police unit, a politician who used the death of the animals to advance his career, and an eco-terrorist group that feels that the government didn't go far enough.

An unexpected roadmap—or better yet, a book—makes looking for treasure so much easier. Reading into it what the authors have never even thought about makes for a welcome bonus. These are all but lucky waystations on my journey to the doorsteps of this world's greatest mystery. There's a catch: everyone and his brother has already been there, and even the worst losers know the way. So, is this the end of the road? The demise of the Great Plan? Or have they all knocked on the door the wrong way?

The technology industry regularly invests billions of dollars into products that will never find mainstream consumer success. They fail because of one simple reason: poor marketing. The industry is leaving billions of dollars on the table because most companies don’t know how to turn their customers into brand evangelists.

Somalia was Tom Pecora's first deployment as a CIA Protective Operations Cadre (POC) officer, responsible for providing protective operations support in hostile areas of the world. He later headed up a series of the Agency's undisclosed protective operations teams. From 1989 until his retirement in 2013, he was assigned to multiple war zones across Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, doing the kind of work few are even aware exists.

A bracing assessment of U.S. foreign policy and world disorder over the past two decades from the bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography and The Coming Anarchy “[Kaplan] has emerged not only as an eloquent defender of foreign-policy realism but as a grand strategist to whom the...

Former detective Elijah Wade faces a two thousand mile trek across a lawless, decimated country to rescue his daughter. If she's still alive. Meanwhile, astronomer Hannah Redman must survive this brutal new world while she attempts to unravel the startling truth behind the appearance of the deadly aurora. Two sisters struggle to survive at their family cabin deep in the woods, having rescued a potential killer. An old woman finds she's not quite as prepared for the end of the world as she thought. Mankind is on its knees, and the clock is ticking.

The curse of the lost goddess Inanna would not allow Lukas Aguilar to hide out in obscurity for long. To become the conquering invader, the protective monster, and the selfish Outsider who would risk the end of the world itself, he must instead embrace audacity.

In the first months of 1936, Adolf Hitler risked everything by ordering his untrained military to reoccupy the Rhineland. It was a bluff. The Germans would have been forced to retreat if the French or British had offered the slightest opposition. But the bluff succeeded. History changed decisively. Hitler quieted the opposition at home, and marched the world relentlessly on, to the edge of destruction and beyond.

Lt. Col. Ed “Fast Eddie” Cobleigh flew as a fighter pilot with the US Air Force, the US Navy (TOPGUN), the Royal Air Force, the Imperial Iranian Air Force, and the French Air Force. This is his story--a prequel and a sequel to his number-one best-selling memoir, War for the Hell of It: A Fighter Pilot’s View of Vietnam.

For Hudson, the virtual world of PrimeVerse isn't all bad. It's beautiful, much nicer than overpopulated Earth. It almost feels like a vacation except for the volatile wildlife, lack of any amenities, and—oh yeah—the inability to log out. Exploring the world, learning his class, and leveling skills is all fun and games until a powerful rogue player with a vendetta shows up to wipe out Hudson and his primitive tribe. Thrust into a conflict he didn't create, Hudson is forced into a cycle of respawning where he learns that even death can be used as a tool. So much for that vacation.