Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Sleep" in All Categories

In the wake of their recent loss, the Caverns and Creatures gang are left hanging. Do their choices amount to more than waiting around to die of thirst and leaping to a quicker death? Probably, or else this would have been a much shorter story.

His experiment shouldn't have wrecked his lab, created a portal to another dimension, or sucked him through said portal. Despite all that, Charles Smith found himself landing atop the emissary of an evil group of mages called the Shadow Council. Literally on top of him, along with half the gear from his lab, which had the fortunate side-effect of turning the evil sorcerer into paste.

Over a century after Darwin published the Origin of Species, Darwinian theory is in a "vibrantly healthy state," writes Stephen Jay Gould, its most engaging and illuminating exponent. Exploring the "peculiar and mysterious particulars of nature," Gould introduces the listener to some of the many and wonderful manifestations of evolutionary biology.

Short-order cook and ethical relativist Claude is fascinated by the secret art of Chinese cuisine. But as he delves deeper into the mysterious culture of the surrealized "Chinesians", his revelations threaten to uproot his entire code of values. What is the weight of sacredness on the relative scale of ethics? Are our morals God-given, or merely a matter of taste?

The role and range of the American presidency has undergone significant changes in the twenty-first century, with George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden transforming the office in distinct ways. Many but not all of these changes stem from the numerous crises of this young century: 9/11 and the resulting war on terror, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the social unrest of 2020.

The Shadow Council have found new allies: shadowy creatures called wraiths. Summoned from another dimension, the wraiths are immune to most forms of attack-and they eat life force. A deadly threat to everyone in Kortall, the wraiths change the balance of power completely.

Ikarion Gate is an isekai LitRPG adventure novel – Book One in the Ikarion trilogy. The novel follows the exploits of Tito, a down-on-his-luck and anonymous Imago slummer. Daily, he logs in to Monad’s Ikarion VR MMO to earn survival “gang protection” money in his alter ego identity as Card, the Hedge Merchant. With his fellow player friend Perk, the cheerful Agrarian Dwarf, and a host of other unlikely companions, Card is about to discover there is much more to the Ikarion game and its mysterious gate than he could have ever imagined.

Charles must beat the Wraith Queen to at least one of the three Stones, or she'll open a portal and summon an unending horde, enough wraiths to suck all life from the world. At all costs-no matter how great the loss might be-at least one of the Stones must be obtained, or all is lost!

Charles Smith brought magic back with him to Earth, but will even that be enough to end the Reaper threat? The reapers have brought a Queen through the dimensional barrier. With her magic behind them, the reapers intend to open a massive portal, allowing tens of thousands more of their kind to pour into Earth. They have to be stopped—no matter the cost. As governments of the world gird themselves to use their most terrible weapons to stop the reaper threat, Smith and his allies throw everything they have into one final attempt to defeat the enemy with more conventional means.

Charles has returned to a land devastated by war with the wraiths. Alone in a desolate land, seeking his friends and allies, he faces one peril after another. But finding his allies is only the beginning of the journey. A wraith queen has invaded Kortall, her legions wiping all life from the land. Worse, she's awoken ancient magics which will allow her to bring an even greater flood of wraiths across the dimensional barrier.

From cultish rituals to cosmic horror, Michael Jess Alexander's collection of horror fiction will leave you disquieted and unsettled. In "Chatterbox", a college professor is haunted by the spirit of a former student. "A Profound Impact" tells the story of a lost group of people who finally find a place they belong. In "Space for Amateurs", a science experiment goes horribly awry. These tales and six others await you in this haunting volume of horror fiction.

The novel continues the exploits of Tito, an anonymous Imago slummer who was mysteriously transported through the Ikarion VR MMO game into the real fantasy world of Ikaris as his alter ego identity, Card the Hedge Merchant. Trapped in a virtual realm with no way to log out, Card’s journey will soon force him to confront his newfound destiny.

In this short story collection, award-winning writer Michael Jess Alexander serves up a morbid menagerie of aliens, cultists, murderers, and more.

To end the wraith threat, the dimensional barrier must be healed. But to do that, Charles will need to find a way back to Earth again! Only then can a combination of magic and technology repair the damage his arrival in Kortall caused. The quest to return to Earth is only the beginning of his troubles. Because the wraiths have been very busy, and not just in Kortall. They've invaded Earth as well! Smith quickly finds himself embroiled in two wars on two worlds against an implacable foe determined to spread across the multiverse until all life is devoured.

Not only do individuals have core beliefs about what the government should or should not do, but individuals have become more likely to support the party that best matches their policy attitudes by both identifying as a member of that party and voting for that party in elections. However, as Zingher demonstrates, voters' ability to match their attitudes to a party or candidate varies according to signals sent by elites and increases as parties become more polarized.