Showing results by narrator "Steve Marvel" in All Categories

The Longest Con tells the fascinating story of the partisan con artists who have corrupted conservative politics in our time, creating a toxic phenomenon that culminated in the election of Donald Trump, a bumptious fraud whose checkered career and tawdry retinue, including his presidential cabinet, have featured almost every variety of scam. But long before he appeared, Trump's path to power was blazed by the motley horde of swindlers and quacks who preceded him.

Artificial intelligence surrounds us. More and more of the systems and services you interact with every day are based on AI technology. Most AI is narrowly specific; that is, it can only do a single thing, in a single context. Human intelligence is different. We can solve a variety of tasks, including those we have not seen before. In Artificial General Intelligence, Julian Togelius explores technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence and asks what general AI would mean for human civilization.

The Bronx-born son of a Jewish bootlegger, "Joey the Hit Man" was introduced to crime when he was just eleven years old. For the next thirty years he was a numbers king, scalper, loan shark, enforcer, and drug smuggler. He hijacked trucks, fenced stolen goods, and trafficked in pornography. But Joey really made his name as a Mafia assassin, racking up thirty-eight cold-blooded hits-thirty-five for cash, three for revenge.

There I was, surrounded by beautiful college girls and tribeswomen, enjoying the fruits of my labor and the occasional consensual spanking, when a volcano threatened a different kind of eruption. A more dangerous one. Needless to say, it's up to me, the professor with an armful of gingers, to keep everybody safe. Because if we don't get off this island, it'll be an extinction-level event. That's it. Those are all the spoilers you're getting.

The mission was straightforward enough. Infiltrate civil-war-torn Slovakia, rescue the hostage, then get out undetected. Except that it's not Matt Bowen's first rodeo. He and his teammates know well just how badly things can go once the metal meets the meat. But even these hardened combat veterans aren't ready for what's about to go down.... A coordinated surprise attack. Massacres in the countryside. The next world war might have just kicked off, in a storm of blood, fire, and betrayal.

Harney County, Oregon, 1968: Nick Drake has a chest full of medals and enough demons to fill a duffel bag. He's been trained to kill but was never retrained to rejoin society. Drake flees to the lonesome high desert in search of redemption and takes a job patrolling wildlife refuges where the only conflicts are keeping out stray cows and ticketing poachers. But then he stumbles across a girl's body ritually placed in a gully. Her murder is only the beginning, and Drake must face humanity's heart of darkness once again if he's to stop a killer from turning even more gullies into graves.

Birding for Boomers is a friendly, accessible, and humorous guide to discovering the joys of bird watching. Beginning birders of all ages will get answers to every question they may have, like which birds like feeders, the difference between a finch and a flicker, or which birding app to use. The guide also helps birders plan everything from local explorations to exciting "bird-cations."

The United States is under siege, and the enemy has help from the White House! Scott Stiletto is one of the CIA's toughest assets, a veteran of numerous missions, an operative with compassion and ruthlessness in equal parts. His enemy is the New World Revolutionary Front, a terrorist organization seeking to overthrow the government of the United States and install their own puppet who is already very close to the president he wishes to replace. With freedom and justice hanging in the balance, Scott Stiletto will give the enemy a one-way ticket to hell!

Matt Bowen and his team made it out of Slovakia by the skin of their teeth. But the fight's not over. And there's no rest for the weary. The European Defense Council, desperate to salvage their dream of a Europe reshaped in their image, threaten invasion of Poland. The Triarii and what is left of American forces in Northern Europe stand by their Polish allies. But they're outnumbered and outgunned. And they might well be watching the wrong part of the border.

When 14-year-old Brittany disappears one night, her parents are devastated, certain she has been taken. They can't bear to think about who has done this and what might be happening to their precious girl. Even worse, the police seem to see them as suspects, implying that they may have had a part in their own daughter's disappearance. Only their neighbor, Taylor, is a rock. She organizes search parties, feeds the volunteers, works night and day to help them find Brittany.

Drake Woolf is the perfect throwaway agent - a deadly, invisible force able to handle the blackest of black-ops missions. No one's better when it comes to search and destroy. But his lethal drive feeds a relentless hunger. It's all his handlers at Task Force Orange can do to point him at the right targets. This time, he's up against a massive, global conspiracy. In his deadly crosshairs are a Venezuelan terrorist, hordes of elite Iranian assassins, and a beautiful and wily FBI counterintelligence agent.

What would the world be like without America? The attack only takes a few minutes to sweep from coast to coast. When it ends, nearly everyone on mainland USA is gone. Every policeman. Every housewife. Every trucker. Everyone. A continent free for the taking.... Ted MacInnis is a backup pilot on Air Force Two, over the Atlantic, when it happens. A warrior by nature, he can do little but listen as the radio signals from his homeland fade away and die.

Dakota Bombay prided himself on his Bond-like image-bad-guy killer by day, lady-killer by night. But his life gets both shaken and stirred by an irate grandmother demanding a marketing plan for the family assassination business, a precocious six-year-old son he never knew he had, and a mysterious redheaded funeral director who's got him intrigued in more ways than one.

If laughter is the best medicine, then this book is your prescription. Turn off the news and spend a few days not following current events. Instead, return to the basics - humanity's ability to laugh at itself. Maybe you should even do a news cleanse for a few days! Hide under the covers and listen to these stories instead. Or listen to a chapter a day, or a story a day for 101 days. This book contains the antidote to whatever is troubling you. They will definitely put you in a good mood.

Ten-year-old Nem has just witnessed her mother's brutal murder and her life appears destined for tragedy. Until, that is, she finds her mother‘s old green journal which holds an incredible secret. This innocent looking book seems to contain the power over luck. As she uses it, Nem discovers the diary keeps a strange kind of karmic balance, that in gifting someone good fortune she must steal another's first. All it takes is a simple entry. There's dangers though, and not just for others but also for Nem.

A cave-diving expedition gone wrong. Oh so wrong. But there just might be a few perks... When a hidden portal opens into a prehistoric world, it's up to me, Professor Jake Montblanc, to save my all-girl college class from extinction. With danger lurking in the jungle and survival on the line, what am I supposed to do with twelve horny college babes? Protect them. Build them shelter. Make them as happy as possible.

Chris Grant had taken the close protection gig for a finance guy as a break from the last two decades spent in war zones around the world. When a coordinated attempt is made on the client’s life, however, he finds that this job isn’t as simple as it seemed. Things only get more complicated from there. The Pallas Group Solutions contractors haven’t been selected because they’ll sit on their hands. As they begin to gather more intelligence, and as the bodies stack up, they discover that there’s more to both the client and their own company than meets the eye.

Reflections of a Vintner recounts the lessons learned, relationships forged, and observations made from an insider's nearly 50-year journey through the burgeoning wine industry in Napa Valley. From the mid-'70s, when there were less than 50 wineries, to the present, with over 800, Tor Kenward shares his recollections as the region became a world-class wine destination.

What explains the massive worldwide success of video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Pokemon Go? Game companies and their popularity are poorly understood and often ignored from the standpoint of traditional business strategy. What lessons can we draw from its major successes and failures about the future of entertainment?

Ted and Emily flee the enemy, but the noose continues to close, even as he makes contact with his niece. While rescuing her is always a priority, he might have a lead on the nuclear briefcase stolen from him on day one. Hard choices are ahead. Tabby accepts her family is gone, but she has no intention of giving up her home. Does she have what it takes to fight back against an enemy hidden behind technological superiority? Dwight finds himself at the tip of the spear of the enemy invasion. He may be powerless to stop it, but he begins to think he might be able to slow it down.