Showing results by narrator "Jay Snyder" in All Categories

On May 25, 1977, a problem-plagued, budget-straining, independent science-fiction film opened in a mere 32 American movie theatres. Conceived, written, and directed by a little-known filmmaker named George Lucas, Star Wars reinvented the cinematic landscape, ushering in a new way for movies to be made, marketed, and merchandised. Simply put, George Lucas is one of the most influential filmmakers of the past 50 years.

William Gibson's dark visions of computer cowboys, bio-enhanced soldiers of fortune, and hi-tech lowlifes have won unprecedented praise. Included here are some of the most famous short fiction and novellas by the author of Count Zero and Neuromancer.

Stealth. Gorgon. Regenerator. Cerberus. Zzzap. The Mighty Dragon. They were heroes. Vigilantes. Crusaders for justice, using their superhuman abilites to make Los Angeles a better place. Then the plague of living death spread around the globe. Despite the best efforts of the superheroes, the police, and the military, the hungry corpses rose up and overwhelmed the country. The population was decimated, heroes fell, and the city of angels was left a desolate zombie wasteland like so many others.

Two years ago Jack Morgan - the head of the renowned worldwide investigation firm Private - was in charge of security for the World Cup. During the championship match, the action nearly spilled from the field into the stands. Fortunately, Jack and his Private team averted disaster on soccer's biggest stage. Now he has returned to Rio to secure the Olympics. But before the torch is lit, the threats come fast and furious when Jack discovers that someone in Brazil will stop at nothing to sabotage the games.

Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former lifestyle in those largely traditional societies still or recently in existence.

Daniel Hunt is the deadliest mercenary in the galaxy if he can just remember. Five years before, he woke up with nothing more than his name. Now his present is on a violent collision with his past and the future of the galaxy. The Earth is dead. Humanity has taken to the moon and Mars to have a chance. On what’s left of Earth, primal gangs war for dominance.

Imagine your least favorite class from school. The one you hate showing up to because you can’t stand the teacher - and maybe the feeling is mutual, even though they can’t admit it. You hate the subject, and you’re miserable the entire period, every day, every second. None of your friends are there, and even if they are, you can’t hang with them. You just sit and do your work. No talking. No bathroom breaks. Now, imagine that the class has several aggressively strict teachers, and those teachers have superpowers. In fact, they’re the most powerful people on the planet.

When a viral apocalypse kills 97 percent of the people on the planet, the survivors' humanity is hanging by a thread. Amid the leftovers of civilization, ex-Army Ranger Jason Larsen is reminded of the meaning of hope, family, and loyalty by a dog and a young boy who are as alone as he is. The survivors he seems to collect become family, and that is very bad news for those who think they run the apocalypse.

Earth Two is a world beset by dangers, inside and out. Its genetic groupings, the cloned “Tanks”, the “Natural Borns”, and the hybrid “Mules” exist uneasily, each wary of the others, even as they rally to face the deadly threat of the First Imperium’s robot warriors. President Max Harmon and his inner circle have played an elaborate game of chess for 12 years, a deadly battle of wits with the genocidal alien intelligence known as the Regent. They have moved fleets, spread deceptions, built decoy planets...all to hide Earth Two’s location, to protect it from the deadly onslaught of the enemy.

The fate of the Alliance hangs in the balance as the masterminds behind the Anniversary Day bombings trigger the final stages of a plan decades in the making. A plan that will bring about the total destruction of every dome on the Moon.

If you think Saddam and Satan make a kinky couple, wait till you get a load of South Park and Philosophy. Get your Big Wheels ready, because we're going for a ride, as 22 philosophers take us down the road to understanding the big-picture issues in this small mountain town.

Trevor, Randy, Ben, and Carl grew up together in the small town of Grimshaw as many boys do, playing hockey and forging friendships that run deep. Twenty-four years later, when Ben commits suicide, the three remaining friends gather once again in their hometown. But going home means going back, and that's not always easy. The three men are forced to confront their memories of a sinister crime that happened in an abandoned house in their neighbourhood, a crime that claws its way into the present...

In the year 2021 a multinational fleet - experimenting with untested weapons technology - pitched through time, crash-landing in 1942. The world is thrown into chaos as Roosevelt, Hitler, Churchill, Tojo, and Stalin scramble to adapt to new, high-tech killing tools, and twenty-first-century ways of war.

Nick Woods and your favorite members of S3 (Marcus, Truck, and Red) plunge back into action again. This time he and his team are deployed to Afghanistan, where the Taliban is poised to seize the capital city of Kabul and take over the country for good. The Taliban is well led by an impressive spiritual warrior, and, making matter worse, America's political leadership is sick of investing men and resources into a war that's now lasted 15 years.

Can the fate of a forgotten starbase hold the key to the moon’s survival? Long before the Anniversary Day bombings brought the moon to its knees, a far-flung starbase became the testing ground for a diabolical plan: the annihilation of every human inhabitant by an army of clones.

A battered group of human ships, fighting for survival, fleeing deeper into the far unknown, pursued by the deadly forces of the genocidal artificial intelligence known as the Regent. A legendary commander, the man who has saved his people time and time again, struggling to lead the fleet ever forward, fighting through every attack the enemy throws at them.

Georgia: Using primary source documents, this fascinating book traces the history of the colony from its founding to becoming the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1788.

Forensic anthropologist Aisha Costard has been summoned to Mars to examine skeletal remains recently discovered beneath a building erected by the Disty aliens. The bones belong to a human woman who vanished 30 years ago with her children.

When NYPD Red arrives at a crime scene, everyone takes notice. Known as the protectors of the rich, famous, and connected, NYPD Red is the elite task force called in only for New York City's most high-profile crimes. And Detective Zach Jordan is the best of the best, a brilliant and relentless pursuer of justice. He puts professionalism above all, ignoring his feelings for his partner, Detective Kylie MacDonald, the woman who broke his heart when they first met in the academy.

The question of artificial intelligence and how far we, as a people, should take the technology is one of our society's biggest debates at the moment; as AI generated art, texts, and even communications have increased as the technology grows altogether. The insight which each chapter provides into the concept of human consciousness and the evolution of that consciousness was so beautifully explored in this book, and the way evolution plays into the idea of adapting consciousness into the development of AI is remarkable.