From a New York Times bestselling author and investigative journalist comes The Social Network for the video game industry: a riveting examination of Blizzard Entertainment's rise and shocking downfall—"A fast paced thrill ride, perfect for anyone who has ever played a video game" (Ben Mezrich).For video game fans, the name Blizzard Entertainment was once synonymous with perfection. The renowned company behind classics like Diablo and World of War...

Summer 1978. A young boy disappears without a trace from a summer cabin. His mother claims he was carried away by a giant. He is never found.Twenty-five years later, another child goes missing. This time there’s a lead: a single photograph taken by Susso Myrén. Myrén has devoted her life to the search for trolls, legendary giants known as stallo, who can control human thoughts and assume animal form. Convinced that trolls are real, she follows the trail of missing children...

Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes listeners on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring th...

This intimate and revealing love story is told through the eyes of Lowen as he experiences the heights and depths that come with meeting his beloved, Sarah. In this remarkably engaging story, we walk beside the lovers as they touch the divine and struggle to ground their love in daily life.From the heights of sacred sexuality to the depths of human foible, they ultimately have to choose: surrender to this love or shrink back to mediocrity, work through their emotional baggage or fl...

In New York, Walt Lawson is about to lose his girlfriend Vanessa.In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter. When Vanessa dies of the flu, Walt is devastated. But she isn't the last. The virus quickly kills billions, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. As Raymond and Mia hole up in an abandoned mansion, where they learn to function without electricity,...

Gothic master Edgar Allan Poe’s complete works are collected in this multivolume set by Blackstone Audio. Here are his short stories, detective fiction, and poems in all their mysterious and macabre glory. Also included are Poe’s literary reviews and editorial musings, comprising an often caustic analysis of the poetry, drama, and fiction of the period. This collection includes Poe’s famous stories “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Poe’s ...

The dark heart of the city is on display in Sarah Cain’s gripping debut thriller, The 8th Circle.A year ago, Danny Ryan lost his wife and son in a car accident. He’s still reeling from the tragedy when Michael Cohen, his friend and fellow journalist, drives into the pond in front of his house with a bullet through his gut.With Michael’s death ruled a murder, Danny must work to get his name crossed off the list of suspects, and that means digging into Michael’s last...

Although based on historical persons from the ninth century, Ragnar Lodbrok and his sons are the subjects of compelling legends dating from the Viking era. Warriors, raiders, and rulers, Ragnar and his sons inspired unknown writers to set down their stories over seven centuries ago. This volume presents new and original translations of the three major Old Norse texts that tell Ragnar’s story: The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, The Tale of Ragnar’s Sons, and The Sögubrot...

As an agent of the Department of Advance Analysis, she's one of a handful of people who knows about the spread of a new virus - one she believes will wipe out mankind.With her bosses in denial, she flies to New York to get her ex-fiancé, Chip, to safety. But he's already been scooped up and quarantined - and so has his adopted daughter. Pursued by her own agency, Ellie will stop at nothing to break Chip out before the virus claims them all.

In 1951, the second year of the Korean War, a studious, law-abiding, and intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner, begins his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio’s Winesburg College. And why is he there and not at a local college in Newark where he originally enrolled? Because his father, the sturdy, hardworking neighborhood butcher, seems to have gone mad—mad with fear and apprehension of the dangers of adult life, the dangers of the world, the dan...

In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi’s past and present.Mississippi Noir features brand-new stories by Ace Atkins, William Boyle, Megan Abbott, Jack Pendarvis, Dominiqua Dickey, Michael Kardos, Jamie Paige, Jimmy Caj...

Frederick is a demon living life to the fullest...except, it's other people's lives.Hailed as "...the next Michael Crichton", no one was expecting best-selling new author Michael Siemsen ( The Dig, 2011; The Opal, 2012) to swing a left turn like Frederick. With little-to-no fanfare or announcements, Siemsen quietly released A Warm Place to Call Home (A Demon's Story) in 2013, surprising fans and drawing in a horde of new listeners. Overwh...