Showing results by narrator "Ralph Lister" in All Categories

He's a PI trying to put his life in perspective after his last go-round with the ultimate evil, but the chilling phrase returns again: "Your sister is going to hell, Jack Nightingale." This time it is uttered by a dead woman hanging over a staircase, her neck broken by the laundry cord she tied around it before tossing herself over the banister. But Jack and his sister have been separated since birth. How can he save someone he’s never met?

Weakened by events in Darujhistan, the Malazan Empire teeters on the brink of anarchy. In the vast dominion of Seven Cities, in the Holy Desert Raraku, the seer Sha'ik gathers an army around her in preparation for the long-prophesied uprising named the Whirlwind. Unprecedented in its size and savagery, it will embroil in one of the bloodiest conflicts it has ever known: a maelstrom of fanaticism and bloodlust that will shape destinies and give birth to legends....

"Earthlight" was first published in the August 1951 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. It was later expanded into the novel of the same name. Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) is regarded as one of the most-influential science fiction writers of all time. He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Kanderon Crux has fallen. The traitors who brought the powerful sphinx down have fled with plagues and other magical weapons stolen from Skyhold's Vault, intending to use them against the Havath Dominion, no matter the cost to the rest of the Ithonian continent. Havath teeters on the edge of collapse after their failed invasion of Skyhold, and the nations and monsters of Ithos circle like vultures. The Dominion has no interest in going down without a fight, however, and there are few depths they're unwilling to sink to for survival.

The possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the most profound subjects that human beings can ponder. In this book, astrophysicist Andrew May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale “signatures” it produces, and how such signatures might be detected elsewhere in the solar system or on the many “exoplanets” now being discovered by the Kepler and TESS missions.

HMS Vanguard is the most powerful battleship ever to be commissioned by the Royal Navy, but she is not a happy ship. Her commanding officer is eccentric, rarely seen on the bridge; her former XO has deserted his post; and her first middy is resentful because he hasn't been promoted as he deserves.... But when a first contact mission goes badly wrong, HMS Vanguard and her crew are plunged into an interstellar war against a new and deadly alien threat.

Returning to the Scottish Highlands after a fierce battle with the English, Tayg Munro receives a hero’s welcome - and an ultimatum. To take his place as heir to the chiefdom, he must choose a wife or have one chosen for him. Furious and stalling for time, the brooding warrior volunteers for a mission that takes him deep into the Highlands, with no hint of the fateful encounter that awaits him.... Catriona MacLeod is known as the Shrew of Assynt, thanks to her razor-sharp tongue and her unwillingness to yield to her five brothers. When she learns that her eldest brother has promised her hand in marriage to a loathsome man, she flees....

N. T. Wright argues that every world view must explain seven “signposts”, indicators inherent to humanity. Using the Gospel of John as his source, Wright shows how Christianity defines each signpost and illuminates why we so often see them as being "broken" and unattainable. Drawing on the wisdom of the Gospels, Wright explains why these signposts are fractured and damaged and how Christianity provides the vision, guidance, and hope for making them whole once again, ultimately healing ourselves and our world.

Tarl has dedicated his life to ensuring that the Priest-Kings survive the harsh lands of Gor, but a savage tribe that closely guards its secrets has halted his quest. To continue it, Tarl must unravel the mysteries of this strange, private band of nomads called the Wagon People at risk of his life. He is the only man alive who has not trembled in the presence of this mysterious tribe. Now he is embarking on the most perilous adventure of his time on the counter-world of Gor....

The Bible is the central book in Western culture, yet extraordinarily there is no proper history of it. This exceptional work, by one of the world's leading Biblical scholars, provides a full account of how the different parts of the Bible came to be written; how some writings which were regarded as holy became canonical and were included in the Bible, and others were not; what the relationship is of the different parts of the Bible to each other; and how, once it became a stable text, the Bible has been disseminated and interpreted around the world.

One September morning in 2008, an investment banker approaching forty, his career in collapse and his marriage unraveling, receives a surprise visitor at his West London townhouse. In the disheveled figure of a South Asian male carrying a backpack the banker recognizes a long-lost friend, a mathematics prodigy who disappeared years earlier under mysterious circumstances. The friend has resurfaced to make a confession of unsettling power.

This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia.

The alliance between the Great Powers is starting to fall apart, the human economy cannot keep up with the urgent need for newer and better starships, and politicians are demanding an end to military spending. When a generation starship is detected approaching a British colony world, HMS Invincible is dispatched to intercept the aliens before they can make landfall. But the newcomers bring with them tidings of a new and deadly threat, an expansionist alien race far too close to the Human Sphere for comfort...and a sinister horror beyond human understanding.

Uttered by the abusive father of a nine-year-old girl, that phrase ended Jack’s career as a police negotiator and has been haunting him ever since. Now that he is a struggling private detective, those words return with a vengeance when he inherits a mansion - and some terrifying information. Apparently Jack’s soul was sold at birth, and a devil will come to claim it on his thirty-third birthday just weeks away. It’s a hard pill to swallow, given that Jack doesn’t believe in hell (heaven, either).

When Winston Churchill was a boy of 16, he already had a vision for his purpose in life. "This country will be subjected somehow to a tremendous invasion...I shall be in command of the defenses of London...it will fall to me to save the Capital, to save the Empire." It was a most unlikely prediction. Perceived as a failure for much of his life, Churchill was the last person anyone would have expected to rise to national prominence as prime minister and influence the fate of the world during World War II.

When Adelko is assigned to legendary exorcist and witch hunter Horskram, he expects an adventurous life. Death by adventure isn’t what he had in mind - but it seems the only outcome when they learn of a sorcerous theft that threatens the world. The thief wants to silence them - permanently. And so, Horskram and Adelko flee from one danger to another as the Jarl of Thule leads a rebel army against the King of Northalde, plunging the realm into conflict. And on the Other Side, demonkind reawakens.

Thousands of people leave Christian ministry every month. They have not lost their love for Christ or their desire to serve him. But for one reason or another, they are exhausted and simply cannot carry on. Christopher Ash knows this experience all too well. As a pastor of a growing church, and then in his role training people for ministry, he has found himself on the edge of burnout a number of times and has pastored many younger ministers who have reached the ends of their tethers.

Drawing on the wisdom of Pope Francis and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Austen Ivereigh has written a captivating spiritual guide for our turbulent age. Designed as an eight-day Ignatian retreat, First Belong to God serves as a roadmap to deeper discipleship. It does this by focusing on the three foundational forms of belonging: to God, to creation, and to others. Whether you’re embarking on a solitary spiritual expedition or a journey with like-minded individuals, First Belong to God offers the next best thing to a personal retreat with Pope Francis.

In the darkness of a vast cave system, cut off from the world for millennia, blind creatures hunt by sound. Then there is light, there are voices, and they feed. Swarming from their prison, they multiply and thrive. To scream, even to whisper, is to summon death. Deaf for many years, Ally knows how to live in silence. Now, it is her family's only chance of survival. They must leave their home, shun others, and find a remote haven where they can sit out the plague. But will it ever end? And what kind of world will be left?

Drawing on new archival research, Robert Service's gripping new investigation of the final years of the Cold War - the first to give equal attention to the internal deliberations from both sides of the Iron Curtain - opens a window onto the dramatic years that would irrevocably alter the world's geopolitical landscape and the men at their fore.