With six exciting reads to choose from, young readers can seek action and adventure alongside the hero of their choice. Featuring excerpts from: -The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands -Story Thieves by James Riley -Crown of Three by J.D. Rinehart -The Nightsiders: The Orphan Army by Jonathan Maberry -Miles Taylor and the Golden Cape: Attack of the Alien Horde by Robert Venditti & illustrated by Dusty Higgins -MINRS by Kevin Sylvester
When a new friend challenges Alice, who has Asperger’s, to step outside her comfort zone, Alice decides to revise her rules in this novel for middle readers.
Let the adventure begin with this straightforward guide to GURPS! This is it—the key that unlocks the riches of GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) and gives you a wealth of information on how to create your character and fine-tune your play. Produced in partnership with Steve Jackson Games, the game's creator, GURPS For Dummies is the ideal companion to GURPS Basic Set, 4th Edition that explains the rules. It gives you insight into the choices you’ll make in everything from creating a fun, dynamic character using the allotted number of points, to playing in an adventure, to becoming a GM. Whether you want to be an Amazon princess or a stalwart warrior, an old-fashioned swashbuckler or a modern investigator, a tough cop or a cat burglar, a sorcerer casting spells or a cosmic ranger, fighting lawlessness in the asteroids, this guide will help you: Determine your character’s basic attributes: IQ, DX (dexterity), ST (strength) and HT (health) Figure out your character’s secondary characteristics Choose advantages (including powers and perks) and disadvantages (including quirks and disadvantages with a self-control roll modifier) Optimize your points by using talents Select your skills based on functional area or the campaign setting Enhance your character with spells, magic items, magic staves, and powerstones Strategically purchase equipment for different characters, tech levels, and campaign types Create and manage a character sheet, write a character background, keep a character log, and more—all with samples Choose good combat techniques and play with your character If you want to become a GM, this guide gets you going with advice on creating the adventure, managing the character creation process, managing combat, and interpreting the rules. There’s even a handy Cheat Sheet tear-out GM screen in the front of the book. There are tips throughout, plus advice on how to: Create your very own GURPS universe for your campaign, whether it’s dungeon-crawl, high-adventure, combat-focused, puzzle-focused, or masquerade-type Provide a basic write-up of the world for your players, including technology level, supernatural and supernormal abilities and powers, races, setting, character templates, cultural and social information, and limitations Create an electronic combat grid, a battle log, a tactical map, and more—with samples Do mapping, planning, and plotting Create memorable NPC (nonplayer characters), both good guys and bad guys GURPS For Dummies helps you create more detailed, exciting, and interesting characters and take your game to the next level. That’s important whether you’re saving a princess or saving the planet...searching for hidden treasure or for secrets to eliminate disease... fighting crime or combating armies of evil robots...casting spells in medieval castles or destroying terrorist cells in modern day milieus. With GURPS, the only limitation is your imagination.
Covering genres from adventure and fantasy to horror, science fiction, and superheroes, this guide maps the vast terrain of graphic novels, describing and organizing titles to help librarians balance their graphic novel collections and direct patrons to read-alikes. New subgenres, new authors, new artists, and new titles appear daily in the comic book and manga world, joining thousands of existing titles—some of which are very popular and well-known to the enthusiastic readers of books in this genre. How do you determine which graphic novels to purchase, and which to recommend to teen and adult readers? This updated guide is intended to help you start, update, or maintain a graphic novel collection and advise readers about the genre. Containing mostly new information as compared to the previous edition, the book covers iconic super-hero comics and other classic and contemporary crime fighter-based comics; action and adventure comics, including prehistoric, heroic, explorer, and Far East adventure as well as Western adventure; science fiction titles that encompass space opera/fantasy, aliens, post-apocalyptic themes, and comics with storylines revolving around computers, robots, and artificial intelligence. There are also chapters dedicated to fantasy titles; horror titles, such as comics about vampires, werewolves, monsters, ghosts, and the occult; crime and mystery titles regarding detectives, police officers, junior sleuths, and true crime; comics on contemporary life, covering romance, coming-of-age stories, sports, and social and political issues; humorous titles; and various nonfiction graphic novels.
The zombie apocalypse has never been more surreal! A mentally unhinged manga artist witnesses the beginning of a zombie outbreak in Tokyo, and he's certain of only two things: he's destined to be the city's hero, and he possesses something very rare in Japan--an actual firearm! Kengo Hanazawa's award-winning series comes to Dark Horse, and this realistically-drawn international bestseller takes us from initial small battles for survival to a huge, body-horror epidemic that threatens all of humanity! These special omnibus volumes will collect two of the original Japanese books into each Dark Horse edition and include all of the color pages. "Probably the greatest zombie manga ever." --Jason Thompson (Manga: The Complete Guide)
The first novel-writing guide from the best-selling Save the Cat! story-structure series, which reveals the 15 essential plot points needed to make any novel a success. Novelist Jessica Brody presents a comprehensive story-structure guide for novelists that applies the famed Save the Cat! screenwriting methodology to the world of novel writing. Revealing the 15 "beats" (plot points) that comprise a successful story--from the opening image to the finale--this book lays out the Ten Story Genres (Monster in the House; Whydunit; Dude with a Problem) alongside quirky, original insights (Save the Cat; Shard of Glass) to help novelists craft a plot that will captivate--and a novel that will sell.
Class Acts is your hall pass to great kids' books! In this sampler, New York Times bestselling authors Tim Green (Football Genius), Dan Gutman (The Genius Files), Gordon Korman (Ungifted), Adam Rex (The Cold Cereal Saga), and Jon Scieszka (Guys Read) are teaming up with other stellar middle-grade authors: Bryan Chick (The Secret Zoo), Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson (The Familiars), Christopher Healy (The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom), Nils Johnson-Shelton (Otherworld Chronicles), Jeramey Kraatz (The Cloak Society), Christopher Krovatin (Gravediggers), and Maryrose Wood (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place). Preview twelve awesome books, get hooked on favorite series, and decide for yourself which author is "best in class."
'Thinking of writing Romance? You NEED this book' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ reader review Love sells and sex sells and you can earn your living writing about them for novels, novellas and short stories as well as serials for magazines, anthologies and websites. This book holds the secrets of how to achieve success. Recommended by readers! 'A great guide to writing romance' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Genuinely useful . . . I recommend this one' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Packed with information . . . an illuminating book for anyone starting out in the field and well-worth the read' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Definitely a book to keep near to your keyboard! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'As good as a paying for an expensive seminar. Excellent book' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ .................................................... As well as drawing on her experience as a fiction writer and creative writing tutor, in this 'must-have' book Sue Moorcroft has included questions from aspiring writers - with illuminating responses from published writers and industry experts. Romantic fiction encompasses everything from chart-topping chick lit and romantic comedies, through gritty sagas, sweeping historicals and smouldering erotica to liver-twisting affairs with vampires. Bright, emotional, involving, intelligent storytelling about love and desire is what readers want and will pay for. Do you want to know how to create emotional punch? (Or even what emotional punch is?) How to control dual time lines? Spring your work out of the slush pile? Write a tender love scene that excites passion rather than hilarity? This book reveals all. .................................................... Sue Moorcroft is an award-winning novelist. Her emotionally compelling fiction has hit No. 1 on Kindle UK, top 100 on Kindle US and made her a Sunday Times bestseller. Her novels, short stories, serials, courses and writing guides have sold around the world. As a creative writing tutor, she has worked at the University of Leicester, the London School of Journalism, Adult Learning Services Northants, Writing School Leicester, Writing School East Midlands, Writers' News Home Study and various other organisations. She's also delivered workshops and courses in the US, Italy, France and Dubai.
