Showing results by narrator "Grover Gardner" in All Categories

The great spheres and probes of Artifice, humankind's enemy, haunt every inhabited world near and far. The Omnians' long and arduous search for Artifice has ended. They've located Artifice's lair in the Talus system.

Alex Racine, who led an elite group of humans and SADEs (self-ware digital entities), left the newly discovered planet of Celus-5 under difficult circumstances. Few of the Harakens with Alex thought there was little he could do to bring peace to the embroiled planet. From their viewpoint, the demands of the Celus-5 Swei Swee, the six-legged aliens of the ocean, and the Dischnya, the warring, doglike, intelligent creatures who inhabited the dry plains, were too convoluted to solve.

In this sequel to the novella Penric's Mission, the injured Penric, a Temple sorcerer and learned divine, tries to guide the betrayed General Arisaydia and his widowed sister, Nikys, across the last 100 miles of hostile Cedonia to safety in the Duchy of Orbas. In the town of Sosie, the fugitive party encounters unexpected delays, and even more unexpected opportunities and hazards, as the courtesan Mira of Adria comes to the fore with her own special expertise.

Early one morning, Silvio Lupanello, a big shot in the village of Vigata, is found dead in his car with his pants around his knees. The car happens to be parked in a rough part of town frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers, and as the news of his death spreads, the rumors begin. Enter Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Vigata's most respected detective, who has his doubts about the way Silvio died.

On a gloomy morning in Vigàta, a call from Fazio rouses Inspector Montalbano from a nightmare. A man called Giugiù Nicotra has been found dead in the skeletal workings of a construction site, a place now entombed by a sea of mud from recent days of rain and floods. Shot in the back, he had fled into a water supply system tunnel. The investigation gets off to a slow start, but all the evidence points to the world of construction and public contracts, a world just as slimy and impenetrable as mud.

Food has power to nourish your mind, supporting emotional wellness through both nutrients and pleasure. In this groundbreaking book, journalist Mary Beth Albright draws on cutting-edge research to explain the food/mood connection. She redefines “emotional eating” based on the science, revealing how eating triggers biological responses that affect humans’ emotional states both immediately and long-term.

When the Cetagandan empress dies, Miles Vorkosigan and his cousin Ivan are sent to Cetaganda for her funeral as diplomatic representatives of Barrayar. Upon arrival, the two men are inexplicably attacked by a servant of the late empress. When the same servant turns up dead the next day, Miles and Ivan find themselves in the middle of a mystery.

Exploring the boundaries of the genre, Bova not only writes of spaceships, aliens, and time travel in most of his titles, but also speculates on the beginnings of science fiction in “Scheherazade and the Storytellers,” as well as the morality of man in “The Angel’s Gift.” Stories such as “The Café Coup” and “We’ll Always Have Paris” dip into speculative historical fiction, asking questions about what would happen if someone could change history for the better. This expansive collection is a key addition for Bova fans and sci-fi lovers alike!

On his way to his betrothal, young Lord Penric comes upon a riding accident with an elderly lady on the ground, her maidservant and guardsmen distraught. As he approaches to help, he discovers that the lady is a Temple divine, servant to the five gods of this world. Her avowed god is the Bastard, "master of all disasters out of season", and with her dying breath she bequeaths her mysterious powers to Penric.

Viktor Frankl is known to millions of listeners as a psychotherapist who has transcended his field in his search for answers to the ultimate questions of life, death, and suffering. Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning explores the sometimes unconscious basic human desire for inspiration or revelation and illustrates how life can offer profound meaning at every turn.

Satantango, the novel that inspired Béla Tarr’s classic film, is proof that the devil has all the good times. Set in an isolated hamlet, the novel unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden hopes, and aborted dreams. “Their world,” in the words of the translator George Szirtes is “rough and ready, lost somewhere between the cosmic and tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos. Theirs is the dance of death.”

In the spring of 1864, Robert E. Lee faced a new adversary: Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. Named commander of all Union armies in March, Grant quickly went on the offensive against Lee in Virginia. On May 4th, Grant's army struck hard across the Rapidan River into north central Virginia, with Lee's army contesting every mile. They fought for 40 days until, finally, the Union army crossed the James River and began the siege of Petersburg. The campaign cost 90,000 men - the largest loss the war had seen.

In the festive season of Winterfair on the planet Barrayar, Lord Miles Vorkosigan is making elaborate preparations for his wedding. The long-awaited event stirs up romance and intrigue among his eccentric family and friends, particularly for bioengineered space mercenary Sergeant Taura and shy, diffident Armsman Roic.

When America was attacked on 9/11, its citizens almost unanimously rallied behind its new, untested president as he went to war. What they didn't know at the time was that the Bush administration's highest priority was not to vanquish Al Qaeda, but to consolidate its own power at any cost. It was a mission that could be accomplished only by a propaganda presidency in which reality was steadily replaced by a scenario of the White House's own invention.

In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th.

In the wake of interplanetary war, former commander Cordelia Naismith has deserted her own planet to marry the leader of the defeated enemy, Aral Vorkosigan. On his home planet of Barrayar, two rival factions are eyeing the recently vacated throne, and Aral, recently appointed Regent of Barrayar by the Emperor on his deathbed, must stand between them. Lord and Lady Vorkosigan, Aral and Cordelia struggle to establish stability in a fragile government thrown into confusion by the transition of power.

A wave of refugees has arrived on the Sicilian coast, and Inspector Montalbano and his team have been stationed at port, alongside countless volunteers, to receive and assist the newcomers. Meanwhile, Livia has promised their presence at a friend's wedding, and the inspector, agreeing to get a new suit tailored, meets the charming master seamstress Elena Biasini. But while on duty at the dock one late night, tragedy strikes, and Elena is found gruesomely murdered. Between managing the growing crowds at port, Montalbano works to weave together the loose threads of the unsolved crimes.

Written in clear, simple terms, this guide explains golf 's rules and etiquette by taking listeners through a round of golf. From dressing properly to putting the final ball on the 18th green, Jim Corbett (nationally recognized as "Mr. Golf Etiquette") covers all the do's and don'ts - and even lets listeners know which rules are safe to bend when playing with friends.

In the 1850s, gold fever swept the West, but people had to walk, sail, or ride horses for months on end to seek their fortune. The question of faster, safer transportation was posed by national leaders. But with 1,800 miles of seemingly impenetrable mountains, searing deserts, and endless plains between the Missouri River and San Francisco, could a transcontinental railroad be built? It seemed impossible.

This extraordinary one-volume biography vividly portrays the unbreakable link between George Washington and the nation he helped create, defend, and govern. From his military career's beginnings with the Virginia Regiment, here is the exceptional decisiveness that led him to fire the opening shots in the 1754 war between England and France, the unshakable determination which, in the darkest winter of the American Revolution, demanded total victory and yielded to nothing less.