Showing results by narrator "Vikas Adams" in All Categories

Pacific Hills, California: Gated communities, ocean views, well-tended lawns, serene pools, and now the new home of the Shah family. For the Shah parents, who came to America twenty years earlier with little more than an education and their new marriage, this move represents the culmination of years of hard work and dreaming. For their children, born and raised in America, success is not so simple. For the most part, these differences are minor irritants, arguments between parents and children, older and younger siblings. But one night, the twelve-year-old son is arrested.

In 2013, Edward Snowden shocked the world when he revealed that the United States government was secretly building a system of mass surveillance with the ability to gaze into the private lives of every person on earth. Phone calls, text messages, emails - nothing was safe from prying eyes. Now the man who risked everything to expose the truth about government spying describes for a new generation how he helped build that system, what motivated him to try to bring it down, and how young people can strive to protect their privacy in the digital age.

Casualties. That's how I refer to the guys who've had the bad fortune to fall for me. They see only long legs that they wish were wrapped around them, a catlike smile, and the reckless abandon to take on any wild dare. It's all a game to me. Show me a bridge, and I'll leap over the side. Give me a car, and I'll race it. Give me a heart, and I'll break it. I always win. I even showed Death who was boss a long time ago. Or so I thought. Now time is running out, and I'm losing fast...and big.

Headshot has just gone live and the whole world's playing the new Artificial Reality blockbuster. Unfortunately, unless you can buy your way onto the Survivor's side, you can only participate as a Zombie. Each week, the forces gather to tear each other down to the bone...until, at week's end, the Apocalypse is reset. Ryan's played the Beta for months, but now that his favorite game has launched, he finds it consuming his life - even as he struggles to decipher whether or not there's actually a way to succeed if you're not willing to Pay to Win.

The Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the most famous of all Indian scriptures, is universally regarded as one of the world's spiritual and literary masterpieces. Richard Davis tells the story of this venerable and enduring book, from its origins in ancient India to its reception today as a spiritual classic that has been translated into more than 75 languages. The Gita opens on the eve of a mighty battle, when the warrior Arjuna is overwhelmed by despair and refuses to fight.

From Nebula Award winner Gregory Benford comes this ambitious hard SF anthology that collects five original novellas. Each one takes the very long view - all are set at least ten thousand years in the future. The authors take a rigorously scientific view of such grand panoramas, confronting the largest issues of cosmology, astronomy, evolution, and biology.

In seventy-two hours, a blockbuster expose will reveal Victoria Stevens's multibillion-dollar startup as a massive fraud. And Victoria has gone missing. Has she faked her death, leaving her husband, Guy Sarvananthan, to face the fallout—and potential jail time? Should Guy flee to his native Sri Lanka, an outcast and a failure? Or embrace denial? Opting for the latter, he takes the corporate jet to a private Caribbean island, where the 0.0001% have gathered to decide which one of the world's biggest problems to "eradicate forever."

In this book, Arun Sundararajan, an expert on the sharing economy, explains the transition to what he describes as "crowd-based capitalism" - a new way of organizing economic activity that may supplant the traditional corporate-centered model. As peer-to-peer commercial exchange blurs the lines between the personal and the professional, how will the economy, government regulation, what it means to have a job, and our social fabric be affected?

Discover stories of fear, triumph, and spectacular celebration in the fictional town of Maple Grove, New Jersey, where the local kids gather at the community center to discover new crushes, fight against ignorance, and even save a life. Cheer for Chaya as she wins chess tournaments (unlike Andrew, she knows stupid sugary soda won't make you better at chess), and follow as Jeevan learns how to cook traditional food (it turns out he can cook sabji—he just can't eat it).

Michael Koresky's most formative memories were simple ones. A movie rental. A mug of tea. And a few shared hours with his mother. Years later and now a successful film critic, Koresky set out on a journey with his mother to discover more about their shared cinematic past. They rewatched ten films that she first introduced to him as a child, one from every year of the '80s, each featuring women leads.

Running from his past and living in fear of being discovered, Ion knows he will never be an average college student. But when Hawk, the beautiful, mysterious girl next door unearths his darkest secret, Ion’s life is flipped upside-down. He’s shocked to discover a whole world of people just like him; a world in another dimension, where things like levitation, shape-shifting, and immortality are not only possible, they’re normal. Ion struggles to control his powers in the real world while commuting between realms...until his arch enemy starts a fight he can’t escape.

If it looks too easy, it probably is. The sequel to WebMage sends Ravirn and Melchior on a mission to Hell and back to rescue Cerice’s familiar and her dissertation. CyberMancy also sees Ravirn learning what it means to be the Raven and coping with his new status among the descendants of the Titan’s as he interacts with old "friends" like the Furies and meets new ones like Hades and Persephone.

Selena Montez, the “aristocrat whisperer,” needs to complete one last job before she can leave New York City. After a disastrous experience with another socialite family, she needs this account to be a win. Even if Henry pulls her guard down with his authenticity and kindness—this has to be just business. But as she and Henry grow closer, her secret connection to high society starts to catch up to her. That, paired with an attraction they can’t fight, means Selena herself might be the greatest threat to Henry’s reputation.

Kitty thinks she might be a unicorn. She feels so perfectly unicorn-y! “Neigh!” says Kitty. But when Unicorn clop clop clops over, sweeping his magnificent tail and neighing a mighty neigh, Kitty feels no bigger than a ball of lint. Can this unlikely pair embrace who they are and truly see one another?

After being dumped, Ashish Patel's mojo goes AWOL. Even worse, his parents are annoyingly, smugly confident they could find him a better match. So, in a moment of weakness, Ash challenges them to set him up. Sweetie Nair is many things: a formidable track athlete who can outrun most people in California, a loyal friend, a shower-singing champion. Oh, and she’s also fat. To Sweetie’s traditional parents, this last detail is the kiss of death. Ashish and Sweetie both have something to prove. But with each date, they realize there’s an unexpected magic growing between them.

Kitty has a grand idea: “Let’s throw a kitty-corn party!” But when newcomer Puppy messes up Kitty’s perfectly laid plans and steals Unicorn’s attention and affection, Kitty is NOT pleased. When jealousy takes hold, can Unicorn help Kitty see that nothing will ever threaten a friendship as strong as theirs? Reassuring kids that true friends never run out of love for each other, the magical, best-selling team of Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham reunite for another heart-bursting story featuring an utterly adorable kitty-corn pair—plus Puppy too! ARF!

In the 21st century, magic has advanced with the times and gone digital. But when Ravirn - a computer savvy sorcerer - is thrown into a parallel world where magic runs on a different operating system, he'll need mad skills to get out alive.

The Transpop Rebellion ended 10 years ago with now-Secretary General Nicholas Seafort as a hero. With that political capital, Seafort stepped into place as one of the most powerful men in the world. But political clout isn't all it seems to be. While Seafort tries to stay true to his moral code, he's being pulled in every direction. His former colleagues in the navy demand more ships, while the enviro lobbyists plead with him to repair the planet's broken ecosystem. Patriarch's Hope returns the focus to the Seafort Saga's charismatic and troubled title character.

Elliot lives in America, and Kailash lives in India. They are pen pals. By exchanging letters and pictures, they learn that they both love to climb trees, have pets, and go to school. Their worlds might look different, but they were actually similar. Same, same - but different!

Every school has them: the cool kids. The insiders. Gavin Meeks is one of them. He lives an easy life of parties, girls, snowboarding adventures, and whatever else comes his way. But when dark, dramatic Antoinette crash-lands at Evergreen High, the entire school feels the impact. Antoinette has seen things, been places, experienced deep tragedy firsthand. She's not just a rebel; she's a force of nature. Gavin, for one, is captivated and is soon pursuing interests he never knew he had.