Dick Thornby is not Hollywood's idea of a spy. In his rough and tumble job there are no tailored Italian suits, no bimbos eager to please, and no massive underground fortresses built by evil overlords seeking world domination-just an endless series of sinister threats to the safety and security of the billions of mundane citizens of the planet. Sure, Dick's tough and he knows a few tricks to help him get out of a tight spot, even if his boss accuses him of over-reliance on explosives. But he's also got a mortgage, a wife upset by his frequent absences on "business" trips, and an increasingly alienated teen-age son who spends way too much time playing in gaming worlds on the computer.When a mission to bust up an arms exchange in New Zealand goes spectacularly bad, Dick is thrown into a maze of conflict involving Hong Kong arms dealers, cyber-criminals, Chinese government goons, and even militant Maoris. When a young computer expert back at the Philadelphia headquarters for The Subsidiary, an international espionage agency created in the aftermath of 9/11, discovers that the bad guys are involved in a vast conspiracy. Dick is forced to partner with the espionage neophyte to battle evil on multiple fronts, leading to a final confrontation that incorporates real-world conspiracy theories and cutting-edge technology.In the end, Dick can save his partner, save his marriage, save his son, or save the world, but he can't do it all.Says Game Knight Reviews: "This is a spy novel that intersects with the world of MMORPGs and combines a set of topics I haven't seen before. It is a bit of The DaVinci Code with some James Bond and a modern virtual reality spin. We are not talking Lawnmower Man here. Bingle gets it right, making it more Second Life than true interactive virtual reality.Looking for a modern spy novel to sink your teeth into? Net Impact is a great way to while away some time."Available in trade paperback, ebook, and audiobook versions.Want to continue the action? Look for Wet Work, the next adventure in the Dick Thornby Thriller series by Writer on Demand TM, Donald J. Bingle.
Dick Thornby is not Hollywood's idea of a spy. He's not a supercool guy in a tuxedo or a crazed loner who does nothing but kill and drive fast. He's just a regular guy with some skills for a job that needs doing. He also has a wife, a teenaged kid, a mortgage, and all the mundane problems associated with life. His friends from the New Jersey subdivision where he lives all think he is a wastewater treatment consultant. But instead of dealing with the dirty job of processing sewage in third world countries, he is really on missions, some mundane and dirty, others of vital importance and even dirtier.After taking personal revenge on the criminal behind both his son's injuries and the continued disintegration of his marriage, Dick Thornby is teamed with Acacia ("Ace") Zyreb, a young, female agent from the East European office of the Subsidiary, to deal with the mystery behind coordinated hacking of the braking systems of several car models.Doing his best to maintain his vows to his wife, Dick struggles to deal with the inexperience and provocative attitude of Ace on her first non-European mission. Their somewhat combative investigation takes a left turn by uncovering a much more sinister threat to the world and to Dick's family. He's willing to risk his job, his partner, and his life to eliminate the threat, but the clock is ticking.From the author of Net Impact, plus other fine thrillers, including Forced Conversion, GREENSWORD, and Frame Shop.
Roads have been around for centuries, allowing mankind a convenient path to arrive at their destination-be it a lengthy vacation getaway with family or merely to their own inviting home after an exhausting day at work. These roadway treks can bring with them a lifetime of memories. But not all memories are good. And some things are best left forgotten. Join our storytellers as they share the morbid, woeful, and disturbing outcomes of an otherwise normal commute, as we watch each of these unfortunate souls fall victim to their own little bumps in the road. A unique horror anthology.
The Beast Within 4: Gears & Growls showcases stories about the conflicts of clockwork and flesh, steampunk societies clashing with were-creature culture, the rejection of metal in a bestial society, and the acceptance of the beast within the clockwork city. Can the sentient automaton, who shifts form and dons taxidermy skin, find acceptance? Will the bestial man find victory in a world of metal and machines? Can the clockwork princess love the man who shifts? Is there room for both in the same world? This collection of short stories explores the world of shapeshifters and clockwork, how they fight, love, and interact with each other. The Beast Within 4: Gears & Growls features stories by Ken Liu, Don Bingle, Lillian Cohen-Moore, Folly Blaine, and many more. It also features interior artwork by Jenna Fowler.
The launch of a wild new urban fantasy series! San Francisco. Haight-Ashbury. It is midnight in the Summer of Love. Thomas Brock and Evelyn Love are attorneys who crusade for the rights of OTs-Other-Than-Humans. Their clients include ghosts, gargoyles, vampires, and things that have not yet been given names. The city's OT element is sometimes malevolent, sometimes misunderstood, and often discriminated against. Brock and Love represent them, whatever the case, whatever the species. Magic hangs heavy in San Francisco, and danger and intrigue is as thick as the fog around the Golden Gate Bridge. Love-Haight is a comedy, locked within a mystery, hidden in a horror story... Wonderfully clever, stylish, and ghoulish. Delightfully twisted fun! -William C. Dietz, New York Times bestselling creator of The Legion of the Damned(R) Making the freakiest burg in the nation ten times freakier is a considerable achievement. -Glen Cook, bestselling author of The Black Company series
Magic fills the Blue Kingdoms.Its tendrils reach through the islands, ensnaring the denizens of the World-Sea with effects both sublime and monstrous. Magic . . . * Pulses with the pull of the oars on a zombie slave ship.* Flows from a dying wizard into an unsuspecting princess.* Plagues a half-ogress blessed with uncanny strength.* Manifests as a seductive and deadly guardian.* Reveals itself too late to a shipwrecked mage.* Fuels the alchemical battle for the Philosopher's Stone.* Appears in many forms . . . always when least expected.Delve into these pages and let our authors surprise and ensorcell you!Stephen D. Sullivan - Jean RabeDonald J. Bingle - Kelly Swails - Steven Saus Ramsey & Margaret Lundock - Annette LeggettBrandie Tarvin - Robert Farnsworth - Steve Rouse Marc Tassin - Kathleen Watness
-- Walk the darkened alleys of an ancient city where a dragon rules! -- Grab your blade, and fight the forces of evil in a war at the end of time! -- Recoil with horror as a serial killer carries out his quest to silence the voices that torment him! -- Learn the true meaning of honor as you witness the steadfast virtue of a samurai faced with an impossible choice! You'll experience all that and more in this gripping collection from the authors of the Gen Con Writer's Symposium. Fourteen amazing tales await you, including brand-new stories from Jean Rabe, Anton Strout, Stephen D. Sullivan, Matt Forbeck, and more! Plus, for the first time in print, New York Times Best Selling author Michael A. Stackpole's "Jed and the Titanium Turtle" -- an inspiring science fiction fable about occupation and resistance in the land of the free. Authors include: 2011 Gen Con Author Guest of Honor Anton Strout Michael A. Stackpole Jean Rabe Stephen D. Sullivan Matt Forbeck Donald J. Bingle Linda P. Baker Kelly Swails Wes Nicholson Maurice Broaddus Jennifer Brozek Dylan Birtolo Mary Louise Eklund Marc Tassin Edited by Marc Tassin.
It is no coincidence that Donald Robertson, known as @drawbertson to his hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, has become the fashion world’s favorite art bomber of the Instagram era.
Fast, furious, unforgettable and set against the backdrop of a crumbling civilization, NIGHT TRAIN follows arch-outsider Jerzy Mulvaney in an audacious account of what it means to be homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.
Donald Judd Interviews presents sixty interviews with the artist over the course of four decades, and is the first compilation of its kind. It is the companion volume to the critically acclaimed and bestselling Donald Judd Writings. This collection of interviews engages a diverse range of topics, from philosophy and politics to Judd’s insightful critiques of his own work and the work of others such as Mark di Suvero, Edward Hopper, Yayoi Kusama, Barnett Newman, and Jackson Pollock. The opening discussion of the volume between Judd, Dan Flavin, and Frank Stella provides the foundation for many of the succeeding conversations, focusing on the nature and material conditions of the new art developing in the 1960s. The publication also gathers a substantial body of unpublished material across a range of mediums including extensive interviews with art historians Lucy R. Lippard and Barbara Rose. Judd’s contributions in interviews, panels, and extemporaneous conversations are marked by his forthright manner and rigorous thinking, whether in dialogue with art critics, art historians, or his contemporaries. In one of the last interviews, he observed, “Generally expensive art is in expensive, chic circumstances; it’s a falsification. The society is basically not interested in art. And most people who are artists do that because they like the work; they like to do that [make art]. Art has an integrity of its own and a purpose of its own, and it’s not to serve the society. That’s been tried now, in the Soviet Union and lots of places, and it doesn’t work. The only role I can think of, in a very general way, for the artist is that they tend to shake up the society a little bit just by their existence, in which case it helps undermine the general political stagnation and, perhaps by providing a little freedom, supports science, which requires freedom. If the artist isn’t free, you won’t have any art.” Donald Judd Interviews is co-published by Judd Foundation and David Zwirner Books. The interviews expand upon the artist’s thinking present in Donald Judd Writings (Judd Foundation/David Zwirner Books, 2016).
Before Hitchcock and Herrmann, before Herzog and Kinski, there was Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Despite their shared nickname, writer-producer Charles Brackett and writer-director Billy Wilder were not, in fact, the “happiest couple in Hollywood.” Actually, they disliked each other intensely, even as they collaborated on some of the most iconic films of Hollywood’s Golden Age, including Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity (from which Brackett eventually withdrew), The Lost Weekend, and A Foreign Affair. Just how two men who found each other so irritating could together make such enduring contributions to cinematic history is the subject of Double Solitaire, a joint biography of a fascinating and explosive creative collaboration. In the course of making their mark on genres ranging from film noir to the screwball comedy, they achieved an almost inexplicable alchemy that highlights the paradoxical nature of shared genius. Author Donald Brackett—whose great-great-grandfather was Charles Brackett’s cousin—delves into family lore, correspondence, contemporary media reports, and all other manner of historical records to reconstruct the strange magic of Brackett & Wilder’s combustible partnership, showing how their creative tensions yielded one classic film after another, and how their entrepreneurial drive pushed against the constraints of the studio system, anticipating the independent-producer models of today.
Comparing the major Pacific Rim cities of Sydney, Hong Kong and Shanghai, this book examines world city branding. Whilst all three cities compete on the world's stage for events, tourists and investment, they are also at the centre of distinct film traditions and their identities are thus strongly connected with a cinematic impression. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book not only analyses the city branding of these cities from the more widely researched perspectives of tourism, marketing and regional development, but also draws in cultural studies and psychology approaches which offer fresh and useful insights to place branding and marketing in general. The authors compare and contrast qualitative and quantitative original data as well as critically analyzing current texts and debates on city branding. In conclusion, they argue that city branding should contribute not only to regional development and identity, but also to sustainable economic well-being and public happiness.
Welcome to A SMATTERING OF STUFF, a collection of columns I have written in recent years. If youre interested in such things as Money, History, Science or Show Business, youll find Rosser columns to your liking. But, first, Ill introduce myself. I was born in 1927, when Calvin Coolidge presided, and slept in diapers while Lindbergh flew the Atlantic. I grew up in Brooklyn, on a penny-a-day allowance, during the Depression., and I fondly remember my public schooling at P.S. 217 and the Brooklyn Technical High School. In 1944, I enlisted in the Army Air Force and plotted meteorological charts in the Weather Service. On the GI Bill, I attended Alfred University, where I ran on the track and cross-country teams and met wife Helen. My career was in journalism and education, on the Pierre, S.D., Capital Journal, the Rapid City Journal, and the Atlantic City Press. I taught senior English at Atlantic City High School until the New Jersey Eduation Assn. recruited me as its press officer/house writer. I have lived in South Jersey since 1954 in the towns of Brigantine, Willingboro, Moorestown, and Mount Laurel. After moving to a retirement development in 2007, I was asked to write for the communitys newsletter, THE VILLAGER. This collection of columns is the result. Topics include matters of general interest back to the Stone Age. Some address my experiences in events like the Depression, Pearl Harbor Day. and World War 2. Duplicate bridge and cycling are my main recreational activities. I have toured Europe many times with the Lafayette Riders and, after I qualified for the 75-and-above category, I won five gold medals in the annual New Jersey state time trial. My bridge rank is Life Master. Now I do crossword puzzles and nap a lot. Finally, its your turn read on. I trust that my essays will not put YOU to sleep.
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