Some heroes are taught, while others are born. When a prince leaves home to learn to become a better person for his people, he not only learns many new lessons but he also makes a lot of good friends along the way. Unknowingly to him and others, he rescues some children from an evil necromancer. From that day his life has never been the same. Will he ever see his home again, or will his life as Prince Jacob Scottie end here?
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “The stories in this book make for a fascinating and remarkably complete pantheon of just about every common despair and every joy related to game development.” — Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer and developer of Nuclear Throne 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 readers 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 the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous. Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart. Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.
Stanley Hauerwas is a distinctive and controversial theologian. His work demands attention in every debate on theological ethics today. His project is to transform Christian ethics from the fate of the individual in crisis to the destiny of the Church in its faithfulness. In this critical evaluation of Hauerwas' work, Samuel Wells sets out the drama and debate of Hauerwas' new agenda. He agrees that the Christian story is at the heart of the Church's practice. Yet he goes beyond Hauerwas. He draws attention to the neglect, in narrative ethics, of the way the Church's story ends. Wells intends that Christians finally see their lives in the context, not of blind fate, but of divine destiny.
Illusion of Power is about a boy that is heartbroken about a certain situation and lashes out at the world, asking, "Why me?" and "Why did this happen to me?" It's only when destiny and fate have their way with him that everything changes for the better, and this boy suddenly finds himself in the dreamworld where he faces tests, encounters allies, and confronts enemies as well as learns about this new world that he is encountering. He takes a break from this world to understand if he is actually doing the right thing. His friends that he has bonded with show him that he is on the right path for his destiny. All of this traveling from different worlds lead up to an epic battle that leaves him unsettled at the end of it. It's only when he has finally conquered his fears that he must come back to the real world and save the human species from an evil that wants to destroy the Earth in the process. Now that he has come back, he has only a little bit of time before his memory is wiped clean. But it's in the real world that he uses all the tools that he has acquired to save the human population from going extinct. Only the world is forever changed by this outcome, and the hero is no longer needed on this planet but on other planets that will need help as well.
Heads You Win is international #1 bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s most ambitious and creative work since Kane and Abel, with a final twist that will shock even his most ardent of fans. Leningrad, Russia, 1968: From an early age it is clear that Alexander Karpenko is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, Alexander and his mother will have to escape Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they have an irreversible choice: board a container ship bound for America or one bound for Great Britain. Alexander leaves the choice to a toss of a coin... In a single moment, a double twist decides Alexander’s future. During an epic tale, spanning two continents and thirty years, we follow Alexander through triumph and defeat as he sets out on parallel lives as Alex in New York and Sasha in London. As this unique story unfolds, both come to realize that to find their destiny they must face the past they left behind as Alexander in Russia.
A critical error. A Cinderella season cut short. A star player murdered. D.C. is recovering from angry riots after one player’s mistake blew the D.C. Federals’ chance at the World Series, and Lt. Sam Holland is determined to unravel the twisted web of motives behind the star center fielder’s death. Was it a disgruntled fan, a spurned lover or a furious teammate? While Sam digs through clues, her husband, U.S. Senator Nick Cappuano, fights for his political life in the final days of his reelection campaign as financial irregularities threaten his future. It’s a distraction Nick can ill afford with Sam in the midst of another high-profile murder investigation and both of them trying to help their adopted son, Scotty, cope with the murder of a ball player he admired. Determined to bring the killer to justice, Sam must root out the truth before another mistake proves fatal.
