Showing results by narrator "Travis" in All Categories

In the modern world, qi is money. The days of traveling martial artists and mountaintop masters are over. Power is controlled by corporations, modernized martial arts sects, and governments. Those at the bottom of society struggle as second-class citizens in a world in which power is a commodity. Rick has attempted to separate himself from the world of cutthroat killers but is drawn in by a chance to participate in a contest at the highest levels.

Given a chance at immortality, can Wu Ying grasp the fleeting opportunity? Long Wu Ying never expected to join a Sect or become a real cultivator. His days were spent studying, planting rice on the family farm and spending time with his friends. Fate, however, has different plans for Wu Ying and when the army arrives at his village, he and many other members of the village are conscripted.

With regenerative abilities, a badass tail and the potential to evolve his body, how could Art resist choosing a lizard man as his avatar? All’s well until he accidentally joins forces with an acid-spitting, enemy-consuming shadow-bound grub, causing his light-bound guild members turn against him, and a deadly fire mage to wage a vendetta against him. Venturing through enchanted forests, into mage enclaves atop ice-capped mountains, through thief-ridden sewers and into ancient temples, Art must defeat the Legendary Beasts and claim their gems of power before his enemies can stop him.

Digby secured a fragile peace agreement between the empire and Las Vegas. While it’s been only two weeks since then, the city has thrived. A lot can change when no one is trying to smite you off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, more success just means more to lose, and with Henwick hell-bent on finishing what he started, Digby needs power. Enough to protect himself, his friends, and the all-too-fragile peace.

Felix and his friends have escaped the Undermount laden with spoils, a belly full of power, and most importantly: another Unbound at their side. Yet, their triumph is shadowed by the pursuit of the Dwarven Hinterlords, Hierocratic soldiers, and a sinister truth haunting Felix’s Mind.

Long before civilization, there were the gods. And before the gods, there was the earth, the celestial bodies, and air given flesh. They are the Anemoi—the Four Winds—and they have been banished to the four corners of the world. Wren of Edgewood is no stranger to suffering. Her parents are gone. Survival is all she knows. For three hundred years, the land known as the Gray has been encased in ice, surrounded by a great barrier called the Shade, which protects the townsfolk from the Deadlands beyond. But day by day, the Shade weakens.

Hello stranger, my name is Tal, and I’m not an adventurer—those people are crazy. I’m just a sorcerer who is masquerading as a wizard. Oh, and I’m searching for answers about my parents’ mysterious deaths. Also monsters and other foes seem to show up wherever I go. All right, I see it. My new traveling companions are seasoned adventurers and are teaching me their ways—or at least they were before something happened to Time.

In the wake of a cosmic upheaval, Ruwen emerges as an angelic being, his newfound Divinity granting him not just wings, but a destiny intertwined with the fate of the universe. "The Ninth Harbinger" unfolds as a tale of gods and powers beyond comprehension, set against a backdrop where the fabric of reality itself is at stake.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

The ultimate resource for experiencing the backcountry! Written by survivalist expert Dave Canterbury, Bushcraft 101 gets you ready for your next back-country trip with advice on making the most of your time outdoors. Based on the 5Cs of Survivability - cutting tools, covering, combustion devices, containers, and cordages - this valuable guide offers only the most important survival skills to help you craft resources from your surroundings and truly experience the beauty and thrill of the wilderness.

Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity. These phrases have stayed with them over the years. Some are deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or offensive, some celebratory; sentences that have impacted them for better and for worse; sentences that speak to the broader issues raised by a world that insists that gender must be a binary. Through these seven phrases, which include some of their most transformative experiences as a Black, mixed-race, non-binary person, Travis Alabanza turns a mirror back on society.

From the town’s founder, a brave young woman from England who has no fear of blizzards or bears, to the young man who runs away to New York City, the characters in The Red Garden are extraordinary and vivid: a young wounded Civil War soldier who is saved by a neighbor, a woman who meets a fiercely human historical character, a poet who falls in love with a blind man, a mysterious traveler who comes to town in the year when summer never arrives.

Wu Ying's idle winter, one filled with training and recovery, is thrown awry when his Master and Elder Yang return, injured. The Three Seasons poison fills Master Cheng's veins, slowly killing the powerful Elder. His only hope - a rare antidote. But the ingredients for such an antidote are scarce and located in the deepest wilds.

In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts.

Felix Cross is no stranger to demons. He's traveled the globe, studying under the world's most foremost demonologists and exorcists with one goal: Open a door to Hell to retrieve the soul of an innocent man. After he's hired to perform an exorcism on Raina Hemlock, a Kentucky senator's daughter, Felix may have found what he needs. The possessed girl claims to have been to Hell and back...literally. Now all he has to do is interrogate the demon before it destroys the girl he was hired to save.

Clay Jaeger finally has the chance to become the spellslinger he always wanted to be—the one his family needs him to be to survive the dangers of the wasteland. A teacup pig claiming to be a cursed Great Blue Wyrm has offered them a quest to take out a Dungeon Lord with the exact power set Clay’s been looking for. There’s just one problem. The Dungeon Lord can steal the souls of his enemies and summon them to fight his battles for him. Clay is more than willing to lay down his life to protect his family, but is he willing to risk his eternal soul on a gamble that might not pay off?

Argent Mettlebright knows how to keep a secret safe, but it's only a matter of time before someone notices that Hisoka Twineshaft has disappeared from the political arena. With tensions on the rise, the world needs his leadership more than ever. Nobody wants to help Sensei more than Isla Ward, but his door is barred against her. Right, then. She has a plan, and she has a co-writer. Maybe with their next book, her hopes will finally reach her mentor.

Returning to the Verdant Green Waters sect over a decade after his exile, Wu Ying finds his position and place within the Sect in flux. Strong enough to be an Elder but not having achieved his rank via the normal methods, he has jealous and worried rivals to contend with. It is reminiscent of his own past, but now, he's an Elder and able to enact transformation in a broader sense. Wu Ying must find his own place in the sect or leave it once and for all. The cultivation wounds he received in the south trouble him, and it will require time and resources - resources the Sect is able to provide.

Alex Rogers is a young, intelligent workaholic who jumped from high school to college to a technical career with little time for a personal life. With his dog Kinsey, he pursues his only vice, wandering in the wilderness areas of Washington State, dreaming of adventure. Without warning, he and Kinsey find themselves in an unfamiliar land, unable to speak the language and fighting for their lives.

Tsumiko inherits an ancestral home, a vast fortune, and a butler who isn't exactly human. Humanity is rocked by the Emergence of a people who call themselves the Amaranthine. They are our myths and legends come to life. Neither human nor animal, yet embracing qualities of both, the inhuman races inspire both awe and fear. Every newsfeed is clogged with updates about the peace process, but some places don't concern themselves with worldly affairs. Like the girls' school run by Saint Midori's of the Heavenly Lights, where Tsumiko Hajime grew up.