Showing results by narrator "Shawn Compton" in All Categories

Are you preparing to take the gospel to the nations? You’ve said “yes” to God’s call to go, and now you will pack up your things and step into the unknown of a new location, people, and culture. The following years will likely include great joy, frustration, homesickness, difficulty, and excitement. In this book, ten men who have served in missions in various ways share what they wish they had known before they began.

In crisp prose and sharp detail, Darling offers a moment-by-moment account of a one-day mission to track down and kill Taliban insurgents in the Zabul Province of southeastern Afghanistan. A rare day-in-the-life narrative that captures the mundane realities of deployment - the waiting, the heat, the heavy gear, the 0345 wake-up - along with the high-octane experience of crossing foreign terrain where every turn, every decision might have life or death consequences.

In a near-future New York City, where self-driving cars roam the city streets, rival entrepreneurs Brandon and Tyler compete to produce the smartest AIs, training them in a virtual game world. As the two rivals struggle to dominate the market, their personal enmity pushes them to attack each other's reputations, hack each other's cars, and develop ever more sophisticated algorithms to keep their customers safe. The result? Intelligent computers that excel at using all available data to determine which humans should live, and which should die.

Dying in virtual reality isn't fun, but facing bullets from real-world criminal overlords is really the pits. In such a desperate scenario, their demand to render them a service in VR doesn't sound like such a bad alternative. The problem is, the games played by spook agencies follow much harsher rules. For them, the absence of choice doesn't sound like a good excuse - not if you end up in the grindstones of their undercover schemes.

Seventeen-year-old Riggle is living in rural Indiana with his uncle and uncle's girlfriend after the death of both of his parents. Now his uncle has gone missing, probably on a drug binge. It's Monday, and $800 in rent is due Friday. Riggle, who's been suspended from school, has to either find his uncle or get the money together himself. His mission exposes him to a motley group of Opioid locals - encounters by turns perplexing, harrowing, and heartening. Meanwhile, Riggle marks each day by remembering the mythology his late mother invented for him about how the days got their names.

Jack has undertaken to return rescued Tirarge, a hitherto unknown species, to their home planet. The first problem? The Tirarge cannot speak—they're telepathic. The second problem? They don't know where their home system is located. The third problem? Another starship is following Fearless, likely seeking revenge. Oh wait, there's another problem. Two other species also inhabit this unknown planet, and they can't speak either. Surprisingly, that's not the end of Jack's problems.

In today's digital-first economy, marketplaces are growing at twice the rate of overall eCommerce—and proving that traditional eCommerce is no longer enough. With The Online Marketplace Advantage: Sell More, Scale Faster, and Create a World-Class Digital Customer Experience, the duo behind more than 300 of the world's most successful marketplaces reveals the strategies every enterprise needs to take the lead.

Afterwards, Basil Castellan was always certain that it had all begun the day he'd been rescued by the dragon. Oh, it hadn't been a real dragon, of course, or so he hastily assured everyone to whom he told the story. Only...it had been a real dragon....The Empire had preserved peace and order throughout human-inhabited space, but it had grown weak with the passing of the centuries, and now the self styled New Humans were rising in open rebellion, striving to seize control and impose their fanatical grand design on all humans everywhere.

Avoided by the Coast Salish tribes for generations, Hurst Island is one of the last remnants of untracked wilderness on the British Columbia coastal frontier. Not yet overtaken by logging or commercial fishing, it is a final outpost where myth lives on, heedless of human progress or desire. As their boat sinks, Amy and Ian find themselves stranded on this island, unaware of what they are about to face.

Most of us never get to test ourselves in combat. As a UH-1 Helicopter pilot flying in the jungle highlands of South Vietnam, Warrant Officer Jim Crigler and the men he flew with were tested daily. Coming of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s was challenging for most young men of that era. Throw in drugs, free love, draft notices, the Vietnam War, and a country deeply divided, and you have one of the most important books of this genre. This true story is a raw, bold, introspective autobiography.

When Metcalfe boarded the C-47 which would drop him at Groesbeek Heights, just outside of Nijmegen, Holland, he was handed a box of twelve dozen condoms by an overconfident British lieutenant. He was to be among the first to jump into what should have been a picture-book meadow, free of German troops. Instead, it was defended by three German antiaircraft cannon emplacements. As he jumped into a hail of bullets and exploding shells, he watched his plane roll over and plummet into the ground.

He was a flashy, high-rolling con man...a militant street hustler...a front man for the mob.... On TV and in the movies, FBI undercover agents are a dime a dozen. But in reality, only an elite handful have the unique combination of wit, instinct, and daring to work these highly dangerous scams. For 10 years, Larry Wansley was one of them.

The 1830 murder of wealthy slaver Joseph White shook all of Salem, Massachusetts. Soon the crime drew national attention when it was discovered that two of the conspirators came from Salem's influential Crowninshield family: a clan of millionaire shipowners, cabinet secretaries, and congressmen.

In 1972, America was completing its withdrawal from the long and divisive war in Vietnam. Air power covered the departure of ground forces, and search and rescue teams from all services and Air America covered the airmen and soldiers still in the fight. Day and night these military and civilian aircrews stood alert to respond to "Mayday" calls. The rescue forces were the answer to every man's prayer, and those forces brought home airmen, sailors, marines, and soldiers downed or trapped across the breadth and depth of the entire Southeast Asia theater.

At the close of 1917, the Germans introduced a new type of gas, T-Leiche - "corpse gas" - a revolutionary weapon that changed the war. Instead of killing the living, T-Leiche resurrected the bodies of the dead. For those who survived the killing fields of France, the danger has only just begun. Veteran Michael "Madman" Burke and his company have just been assigned a daring new mission by the president himself: rescue the members of the British royal family.

Authors Imran Rashid and Soren Kenner have sparked an international debate by revealing the "mind hacks" Facebook, Apple, Google, and Instagram use to get you and your children hooked on their products. In Offline, they deliver an eye-opening, research-based journey into the world of tech giants, smartphones, social engineering, and subconscious manipulation. This provocative work reveals how digital devices change individuals and communities for better and worse.

The celebrated author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets Wagner, James Au, delivers an engrossing exploration of how nascent metaverse platforms have already captured the imagination of millions. Featuring powerful stories and dozens of incisive interviews with insiders including Metaverse creator Neal Stephenson himself, the author uses his unique, grassroots-level perspective as the first reporter embedded in a metaverse platform.

Too often people hold the dream of starting their own business and pursuing their destiny, but they are overcome not just by fear, but by the practical reality that they can not afford to take a financial risk. Third Shift Entrepreneur overcomes that false choice of settling for less or taking a financial risk and instead reveals a third path - one that allows you to fulfill your creative entrepreneurial potential while maintaining financial stability in your life.

The year is 2283. Though more than a quarter-century has passed since the end of the last war, the Galactic Confederation is still busy picking up the pieces. Whole sectors of the galaxy remain lawless, rife with corruption and greed. The criminal element has a well-established foothold on these sectors. It is a good time to be a bounty hunter.

The Overdrive Corporation has announced another Selection, the exclusive tryout process for aspiring Fortress Masters. Designing maps for the Mech-battling virtual-reality RPG is Julian's dream come true, but a brutal defeat against superstar sniper called Dynamic has destroyed his confidence. Hoping to find a stronger machine, Julian enters an immensely challenging map that promises ultra-rare Mech frames. During the ill-fated mission, he finally learns what it takes to get better. It's not the strength of the machine that matters most, it's the skill of the pilot.