Showing results by narrator "Nick Podehl" in All Categories

The end of the world has come not with a bang or a whimper, but with the guttural snarl of walking corpses hungry for human flesh. The "lucky" survivors flee an unstoppable virus spreading death and societal collapse across the globe. As the rules of civilization crumble, a lawyer, a pilot, and a nurse become comrades-in-arms in the fight against extinction. But not every enemy wears a rotting face, and anyone who doesn’t have your back just might have your head. Humankind’s twilight is at hand, and these are indeed... dark days.

Mags was once an enslaved orphan living a harsh life in the mines, until the King's Own Herald discovered his talent and trained him as a spy. Now a Herald in his own right, at the newly established Heralds' Collegium, Mags has found a supportive family, including his Companion Dallen.Although normally a Herald in his first year of Whites would be sent off on circuit, Mags is needed close to home for his abilities as a spy and his powerful Mindspeech gift.

A mysterious incident in Russia, a blip buried in the news - it’s the only warning humanity receives that civilization will soon be destroyed by a single, voracious virus that creates monsters of men. A lawyer, still grieving over the death of his young wife, begins to write as a form of therapy. But he never expected that his anonymous blog and journal would ultimately record humanity’s last days. Governments scramble to stop the zombie virus, people panic, so-called Safe Havens are established, the world erupts into chaos; soon it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves.

With more than 10 stories from exciting new voices and a few veterans of the universe, the second anthology highlights the lives and struggles of humanity's best and worst years after system advent.

In the near future, to escape the crush and clutter of a packed and polluted Earth, the world’s elite flock to Atopia, an enormous corporate-owned artificial island in the Pacific Ocean. It is there that Dr. Patricia Killiam rushes to perfect the ultimate in virtual reality: a program to save the ravaged Earth from mankind’s insatiable appetite for natural resources.

From the acclaimed author of the Chaos Walking trilogy and A Monster Calls comes one of the most provocative teen novels of our time. A boy named Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is this possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he here? And where is this place? The street seems familiar, but everything is abandoned, overgrown, covered in dust.

Donovan Curtis has never been what anyone would call "gifted". But his genius friend Noah Youkilis is actually supergifted, with one of the highest IQs around. After years at the Academy for Scholastic Distinction, all Noah dreams of is the opportunity to fail if he wants to. And he's landed in the perfect place to do it - Donovan's school. Almost immediately, Noah finds himself on the wrong side of cheerleading captain Megan Mercury and alpha jock Hash "Hashtag" Taggart.

School discipline is broken. Too often, the kids who need our help the most are viewed as disrespectful, out of control, and beyond help, and are often the recipients of our most ineffective, most punitive interventions. These students - and their parents, teachers, and administrators - are frustrated and desperate for answers. Dr. Ross W. Greene, author of the acclaimed book The Explosive Child, offers educators and parents a different framework for understanding challenging behavior.

In How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, veteran journalist Chris Taylor traces the series from the difficult birth of the original film through its sequels, the franchise’s death and rebirth, the prequels, and the preparations for a new trilogy. Taylor provides portraits of the friends, writers, artists, producers, and marketers who labored behind the scenes to turn Lucas’s idea into a legend.

In the aftermath of a critical World War II battle, Father Gaetano is assigned as the sole priest at the Church of San Domenico in the small seaside Sicilian village of Tringale. The previous pastor has died and there is a shortage of clergy at the moment, so until another can be spared, the young priest must say all of the masses himself. Mass is not Father Gaetano’s only responsibility, however. The war has created many orphans, and thus the San Domenico rectory has been converted into an orphanage.

Meet Will Carter, but feel free to call him Carter. (Yes, he knows it's a lazy nickname, but he didn't have much say in the matter.) He has a stuttering problem, particularly around boobs and belly buttons. He battles Attention Deficit Disorder every minute of every day...unless he gets distracted. He's a virgin, mostly because he's no good at talking to girls.

Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Sean and Coop, always set themselves a summer-time goal. This year’s? To see a real-live naked girl for the first time. As far as Matt is concerned, they’d have better luck finding the lost city of Atlantis. But seeing a girl in the buff starts to seem like child’s play compared to the other summertime goal Matt sets for himself: to swim the 100-yard butterfly (the hardest stroke known to God or man) in order to impress Kelly West, the hot new girl. So what if he can’t manage a single lap, let alone four?

It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths - for good and evil - of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies.

When driven by a goal, the impossible oft becomes doable, like slaughtering an entire coven of the Twice Cursed God’s adepts without mercy, or leading a legion of demons to storm the last bastion of the Cursed Princedom. But as the impossible hurdles keep on coming, even that drive may not be enough for Krian to escape Demon Grounds, make it to the higher plane, reunite with his sister and friend, and exact vengeance on his mortal enemy....

Thanksgiving time is here again, but there's a turkey on the run! Can you catch this tricky bird and enjoy all the holiday fun? A turkey is running loose in a school right before a Thanksgiving play. Can you help catch it? Fun and chaos ensue as students turn their school upside down trying to catch the turkey, ending with a twist that ensures no turkeys are harmed (or eaten)!

Taemon has always known he’s a bit different. But in the walled city of Deliverance, where everyone possesses a form of telekinesis known as psi, being different is dangerous. Being different can get you labeled a freakling. Or worse, see you banished to the Powerless Colony, where even the simplest tasks, like getting dressed or turning on the lights, must be done by hand.

Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

Less than three months have passed since Captain Charlotte Omandi and the crew of Earth’s first starship, the TSS Bladerunner, narrowly prevented an extinction-level event from wiping out humanity. Omandi knows Earth remains on borrowed time, until she meets with leaders of the Galactic Confederation to convince them that our planet no longer represents a threat. As she and her crew prepare to become the first humans to travel outside our solar system, a string of assassination attempts lead them to an unlikely mystery.

Egil and Nix have retired, as they always said they would. No, really - they have! No more sword - and hammer - play for them! But when two recent acquaintances come calling for help, our hapless heroes find themselves up against the might of the entire Thieves Guild. And when kidnapping the leader of the most powerful guild in the land seems like the best course of action, you know you’re in over your head....

After failing to take down the United World Government, Alan is a wanted fugitive on Earth. With nowhere else to go, he leads the Black Rose guild into the Abyss Labyrinth. But hidden agendas thrive within the mercenary guild, and Alan soon discovers larger forces at play.