Showing results by narrator "Victor Bevine" in All Categories

Václav Havel was one of the most prominent figures of the 20th century: iconoclast and intellectual, renowned playwright turned political dissident, president of a united then divided nation, and dedicated human rights activist. Written by Michael Zantovsky Havel's former press secretary, advisor, and longtime friend, Havel: A Life presents a revelatory portrait of this giant among men and the turbulent times through which he prevailed.

By the 1890s, Wilmington was North Carolina’s largest city and a shining example of a mixed-race community. It was a bustling port city with a burgeoning African American middle class and a Fusionist government of Republicans and Populists that included black aldermen, police officers, and magistrates. There were successful black-owned businesses and an African American newspaper, The Record. But across the state - and the South - white supremacist Democrats were working to reverse the advances made by former slaves and their progeny.

Once a student of alchemy with the dark scholars of the Technic League, Alaeron fled their arcane order when his conscience got the better of him, taking with him a few strange devices of unknown function. Now in hiding in a distant city, he's happy to use his skills creating minor potions and wonders - at least until the back-alley rescue of an adventurer named Jaya lands him in trouble with a powerful crime lord.

The drow city of Menzoberranzan has fallen into discontent, sowed by the growing legend of the one who escaped: Drizzt Do’Urden. Now many of the drow—including the city’s most powerful house, led by the Matron Mother—are questioning the influence of the Spider Queen and the very history of the city’s founding. What secrets lie ahead? The drow are determined to find out, and they’ll stop at nothing to dismantle the very structure they’ve called home.

Maintaining stability in a city full of pirates is a delicate balancing act, particularly when one is motivated by making sure the common folk are taken care of instead of simple personal greed. Jarlaxle and his band of rogues known as Bregan D'aerthe are doing their best, stabilizing the city after warding off a terrible attack by demonic and gnoll forces. But now three merchant ships have been destroyed and sent to the ocean floor - obliterated in such a quick and brutal manner that it makes little sense it’s pirates seeking plunder.

They were the DeMeo gang - the most deadly hit men in organized crime. Their Mafia higher-ups came to know, use, and ultimately fear them as the Murder Machine. They killed for profit and for pleasure, following cold-blooded plans and wild whims, from the mean streets of New York to the Florida Gold Coast, and from coast to coast. Now complete with personal revelations of one of the key players, this is the savage story that leaves no corpse unturned in its terrifying telling.

In this utterly immersive volume, Mike Wallace captures the swings of prosperity and downturn, from the 1898 skyscraper-driven boom to the Bankers' Panic of 1907, the labor upheaval, and violent repression during and after the First World War. Here is New York on a whole new scale, moving from national to global prominence - an urban dynamo driven by restless ambition, boundless energy, immigrant dreams, and Wall Street greed.

The Earth lies in ruins in the aftermath of an extraterrestrial invasion, the land devastated by a desperate war with no winners between mankind and a race of vicious, intelligent creatures. The seas are drying up while the atmosphere corrodes and slowly cooks any life remaining on the now desolate rock. Food is scarce, trust even more so, and the only people left alive all have done horrific things to stay that way.

The tyrannical Alliance continues its war against the Republic of Cinnabar, and Daniel Leary, newly promoted to Commander, and his crew have a new mission: stop Dunbar's World from falling to an invasion by the planet Pellegrino. Nataniel Arruns, son of the dictator of Pellegrino, has landed with a large contingent, intending to set himself up as the ruling warlord, with the planet's population becoming serfs of the Pellegrinian overlords.

Welcome to my own personal hell. Name: Heathcliff. Occupation: Vampyre Warrior - one of the deadliest in the world. I plan. I fight. I win. Always. However, it's never taken me this damned long to get what I want before. Only I would be blessed with a Vampyre mate I'd have to chase for two centuries. The chemistry between us is steamy, and the sex is sizzling, but I want more - I want it all. Now, just as I'm finally wearing Raquel down, I find I have competition, not for my mate's hand but for her very existence.

A mysterious epidemic holds the city in its thrall and the chaos is contagious. Black oil spews from fire hydrants, rats have taken over Brooklyn, and every day more people disappear. But all that matters to Pearl, Moz, and Zahler is their new band. They ignore the madness around them and join forces with a vampire lead singer and a drummer whose fractured mind can glimpse the coming darkness. Will their music stave off the end of the world...or summon it?

Noah, an orphan from Earth's last days who, as a child, was smuggled to safety across the stars, is now nearly a man and a leader to the young enclave of Earthborn who reside on Sora. When the tranquility of their settlement is shattered by a shocking assassination attempt, Noah turns to his combative younger brother, Erik, Lucas and Asha's only child by blood, for aid.

The head of Egypt's State Internal Security is brutally murdered in a Cairo café, his assailant a faceless killer known only as "the Palestinian". It is the opening move in a chilling game of terror that has caught the international intelligence community completely off guard, and the CIA turns to the one man they believe can get to the twisted roots of a looming nightmare shrouded in mystery: a former company operative code named Scorpion.

What if you could travel back in time 100 years and right the wrongs of the past—would you take the risk? “Sundown: A Time Travel Society Mystery” is a wildly imaginative podcast from Michael Dante DiMartino, the co-creator of the animated classics “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “The Legend of Korra.” “Sundown” explores the story of a group of teens who go back into the past and uncover secrets about themselves, their families, their town—and America. 17-year-old Darius Hightower (played by Emmy-nominated actor Asante Blackk of “When They See Us”) is just about the only Black person in his small New England town of Norhaven. Adopted by a wealthy white family when he was a baby, Darius has learned to keep his head down and not challenge his family or its history. But when the outspoken Sanaa Starr (played by NAACP Image Award-winner Storm Reid of “Euphoria”) transfers to his high school and starts asking questions, Darius re-examines the truth about his ancestors’ involvement in the town’s most infamous murder. A time capsule from 1920 may hold some clues, but when Norhaven’s most powerful conspire to destroy its contents, it’s up to Darius, Sanaa, and their friends (including “Reservation Dogs” star Devery Jacobs) to investigate what really happened. After a strange incident sends them back 100 years to the scene of the crime, their fact-finding mission becomes life-or-death. Forced to confront their town’s prejudiced past, the teens race against time in order save an innocent man’s life and clear his name. “Sundown” is a sci-fi mystery adventure like you’ve never heard before.

The author of the immortal Lolita and Pale Fire, born to an eminent Russian family, conjures the apotheosis of the high modernist artist: cultured, refined - as European as they come. But Vladimir Nabokov, who came to America fleeing the Nazis, came to think of his time here as the richest of his life. Indeed, Nabokov was not only happiest here, but his best work flowed from his response to this exotic land.

Growing up in the chaos of Menzoberranzan, one young drow elf tries to make sense of the conflict between the traditions he must serve and the protestations of his own conscience. To lay bare the injustices he sees and to strengthen his own resolve to follow the ethical call of his heart, Drizzt Do'Urden is both an agent of action and self-reflection.

The truce between Cinnabar and the Alliance is holding, and the Republic of Cinnabar Navy is able to explore regions of the galaxy without the explorers being swept up in great power conflict. The Far Traveller is probing sponge space to open routes for Cinnabar traders - and for RCN warships if war breaks out again. But besides astrogation, the Far Traveller is to survey and catalog life forms on the worlds it touches.

Dave Richards, an alum of Yale, sheds some light on the lesser known stories of Yale's secret societies. He takes us through the history from Phi Beta Kappa in the American Revolution (originally a social and drinking society) through Skull and Bones and its rivals in the 19th and 20th centuries. While there have been articles and books on some of those societies, there has never been a scholarly history of the system as a whole.

When Michael Finnegan gets a panicked call that Sally Blue is in trouble, he and Katalin head to Rome to help. Sally’s a friend, and her outfit of thieves had proved themselves invaluable to St. Nicholas on numerous ops in the past. During a daring rescue in a shadowy Roman plaza, Michael recognizes Bobby McCool, aider and abettor of a notorious drug lord. McCool was once the partner of Michael’s disgraced father, police detective Patrick Finnegan, now under house arrest in New York. Nabbing McCool would not only make the world safer, it might help Patrick Finnegan’s legal woes.

Poke Rafferty was writing offbeat travel guides for the young and terminally bored when Bangkok stole his heart. Now the American expat is assembling a new family with Rose, the former go-go dancer he wants to marry, and Miaow, the tiny, streetwise urchin he wants to adopt. But trouble in the guise of good intentions comes calling just when everything is beginning to work out.