Showing results by narrator "John Lee" in All Categories

When Minalan the Spellmonger was exiled from his beloved mageland of Sevendor by Prince Tavard, his friend Duke Anguin made him Count Palatine of the Magelaw, a vast realm in the Alshari Wilderlands that Minalan is all too familiar with. After the goblin invasion, the province is devastated, ruined, and peopled almost only by freed slaves. But Minalan has brought his recovering wife and family into exile with him, and he views their impoverished fief as an opportunity to build a new City of Magi in the wilderness.

1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn’t approach but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally—the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke—a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved.

Minalan the Spellmonger has a problem: Mycin Amana, the undead consort of Korbal the Necromancer, is not only occupying one of the largest castles in the kingdom; she’s also occupying the recently-dead body of his former lover, rapist, and mother of his children, Isily of Greenflower. As the crises in the heart of the kingdom grows, Minalan is tasked to force the so-called Witch Queen of Darkfaller from her new stronghold using any means necessary. Unfortunately, the castle belongs to his rival in the royal court and future monarch Prince Tavard, whose ideas are doomed to failure.

In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.

But those seven bottles of mead were more than just a folk blessing. As Lord Minalan the Spellmonger began his honeymoon on a decadent river barge with his very pregnant bride, he had no idea that the occasion would have anything more complicated than eating, drinking, and making love on the agenda. But a frantic message from one of the Tree Folk indicating he and Alya may be in danger compels him to skip the lazy repose and travel to a far away ruin to speak with a possibly crazy Alka Alon mage - Lilastien, the Sorceress of Sartha Wood.

Andrew Roberts' Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon's thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine.

In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that the Objectives and Key Results system has spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect turned soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the US Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by goddess Aphrodite, who must spin the tale or face judgment on Mount Olympus, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though war is a formidable force, it's no match for the transcendent power of love.

AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome.

Over the span of 24 fascinating lectures, you'll take on the role of a history detective to discover the truth about the Persian Empire. You'll discover the key to the empire's success lay in its greatest rulers, each of whom played a critical role in shaping and strengthening a civilization we still remember today. Take this opportunity to complete your understanding of the ancient world and discover the humanity of the ancient Persians.

Opposites attack! When the Magelord Minalan the Spellmonger’s two apprentices, Tyndal and Rondal, were knighted after the battle of Timberwatch, they were dubbed Knights Magi: A new class of nobility for distinguished High Magi. Designed to combine the pursuit of arcane knowledge with the noble aspirations of chivalry, it elevated them above common warmage...in theory. The problem was they had no idea how to be a Knight Mage...because no one had ever been one before.

When Tyndal and Rondal, journeymen wizards and knights errant, travel to southern Alshar to rescue a helpless boy and his mother, it sets in motion a series of events that will shake the foundations of the Five Duchies! While they are beginning their quest against the vast criminal gang known as the Brotherhood of the Rat, the two knights encounter the Cats of Enultramar, a family of shadowmagi and high-class thieves who help them discover a plot to attack the rich lands and prosperous people of Alshar, from the Wilderlands to the Great Bay...and only Rondal and Tyndal can stop them.

Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

After winning two wars against the Nemovorti, Minalan plans an expedition to The Lost Valley of Anghysbel, in the far north of his realm. It's there, in the caldera of a supervolcano at the edge of the tundra, he suspects many of the answers he so desperately needs might be hidden. The only problem is that thanks to the anti-magical properties of the jevolar, his spells won’t work; he’ll be without magic for the first time since he came into his Talent.

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason.

2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it. The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed.

The Hunter's legend conceals cold, dark truths. Half-demon bastard. A butcher with the blade, assassin, monster. For millennia he has stalked the world, conquering all in his path and wading through rivers of his enemies' blood. But he remembers none of it. Now, an oath made in bitterness and regret thrusts him into a new role to which he is entirely unsuited: guardian of a young boy touched by gods and hunted by demons.

The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies. Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.

After Alshari Court Wizard Pentandra survives her third assassination attempt in the Tower of Sorcery, she sends her deputy, Sir Rondal, to investigate the mysterious origins of the attempt while she contends with Alshari court politics. Matters come to a head when he and Kitten rescue an old woman and her grandson from certain death...only to discover she is the lost hedgewitch who gave Pentandra a book of secret prophecies about the future.

Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter....