Showing results by narrator "Todd Boyce" in All Categories

Sherman McCoy is a WASP, bond trader and self-appointed 'Master of the Universe'. He has a fashionable wife, a Park Avenue apartment and a Southern mistress. His spectacular fall begins the moment he is involved in a hit-and-run accident in the Bronx. Prosecutors, newspaper hacks, politicians and clergy close in on him, determined to bring him down. Exuberant, scandalous and exceptionally discerning, The Bonfire of the Vanities was Tom Wolfe's first venture into fiction and cemented his reputation as the foremost chronicler of his age.

Gabrielle is sitting in an apartment in Manhattan, watching the clock. Her daughter has been kidnapped, she's shot and killed a man, and is trying to negotiate with the kidnapper. He wants the October List, and he wants money. The doorbell rings... That is the end of Gabrielle's story, and the first chapter of the novel. The next chapter is the scene which came before, and what follows is what happened before that.

Imprisoned for a murder he didn’t commit, Kaiden’s only hope of early release is in serving as a Warden in the game-world of Nova Online. Playing as a unique class while surrounded by aliens, pirates and warring guilds, he and his squad are tasked with protecting new players and enforcing the rule of law. But Kaiden has other ideas; he is intent on proving his innocence. The keys to his freedom lie hidden in the game’s seedy underbelly. And as he’ll soon discover, the bloody trail that led to his arrest is more twisted than he could have ever imagined.

Without quantum physics, your breakfast - and so many other things we take for granted - wouldn't be possible. International best-selling author and physicist Chad Orzel shows us why. Just beneath the surface of our ordinary lives, strange phenomena lurk. Exciting physics doesn’t only show up in the big bang or a black hole or in the guts of giant particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider - it’s all around us. Beginning at sunrise, Chad Orzel embarks upon a fascinating tour of the exotic science that underlies each moment of our day.

The First World War is over and air mechanic Wally Shiers has promised to return home to his fiancée, Helena Alford. But Wally never reckoned on charismatic fighter pilot Ross Smith and an invitation to compete in the world's most audacious air race. A £10,000 prize has been offered for the first airmen to fly from England to Australia. Smith is banking on an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy, a biplane with a fuselage that looks ominously like a coffin. And who can resist a hero?

The Party must fall. Kaiden and his friends have finally unlocked Bernstein’s database, giving them evidence of the government’s heinous crimes. They now must share that evidence with the world by broadcasting the files to every player in NOVA Online. The catch? The broadcast system is locked away in the Warden HQ - one of the most heavily fortified places in the game. The only option is a full-on assault. It is a battle they cannot win alone.

After three tours of duty in Afghanistan, Liam Andrews is home safe in Queensland. His weekly life drawing class, full of colourful local artists, helps him manage his post-traumatic stress disorder. But he's struggling to open up about a past that still haunts him. Belourine, 'Billy', is an Afghan refugee who lost everything before arriving in Australia as a child. She finds joy in her daily swims in the lake. After years of upheaval, she's still searching for a place to call home. But her past makes it hard to trust people.

Tom and Clara are two struggling academics in their mid-30s who decide to take their first holiday in 10 years. On the flight over to Indonesia, Tom experiences a debilitating panic attack, which he keeps hidden from Clara. At the resort, they meet Madeleine, Jeremy and their five-year-old son, Ollie, and the two couples strike up an easy friendship. The holiday starts to look up, but when Clara and Madeleine become trapped in the maze-like grounds of the hotel during 'the fogging' - a routine spraying of pesticide - the dynamics suddenly shift between Tom and Clara.

A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb's northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and the local Indigenous community, between immigrants and the townies. Still mourning the recent death of his father, Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate. Within minutes of his arrival, it's clear that Cobb is not the same place he left. Once it thrived, but now it's a poor and derelict dusthole, with the local police chief it deserves.

Kaiden Moore is on the run. A fugitive both in real life and the game world of Nova Online, his only hope is to follow the trail of virtual breadcrumbs left behind by Bernstein, the man whose murder Kaiden was framed and jailed for. The data Bernstein gathered may be the only way to expose the corruption of the Party and finally clear his name. With a new ship and crew of their own, Kaiden, Titus and Zelda will travel to the furthest reaches of Nova Online and push their classes to the limit to defeat threats intended for players much higher level than them.

Dave Martin is down on his luck: his wife’s left him; his farm is a failure; his house is a mess; he’s withdrawn from his community and friends; and tragedy has stolen his capacity to care. He passes the time drinking too much and buying cheap tools online, treating the delivered parcels as gifts from people who care about him. And then boxes begin to arrive in the mail: boxes that he didn’t order, but ones that everyone around him seems to want desperately.

Early one Christmas morning, in a small town deep in rural Australia, Graeme Sweetapple is heading home with a truck full of stolen steers when he comes across an upended ute that has hit a tree. He is about to get involved with Luke, an environmental protestor who isn't what he seems; a washed-up local politician, Caroline Statham, who is searching for a sense of purpose, but whose businessman husband seems to be sliding into corruption; and Carson, who is wild, bound to no one, and determined to escape her circumstances.

If a man beats you, you never let your anger show, never at the time. You wait until he least expects it, until nobody remembers that you were angry at all.... In 1860s Southern California, life on the Burn ranch has been peaceful for 15-year-old John Evert since the death of his father. But recently there have been violent raids on nearby properties, where it's not just cattle and horses that are taken but women, too. And when the white-painted men arrive at the Burn ranch on horses in the dead of night, John Evert is near-fatally injured, his beloved mother spirited away, and their house torched to the ground.

Imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit, Kaiden's only hope of early release is in serving as a Warden in the game-world of Nova Online. Playing as a unique class while surrounded by aliens, pirates and warring guilds, he and his squad are tasked with protecting new players and enforcing the rule of law. But Kaiden has other ideas; he is intent on proving his innocence. The keys to his freedom lie hidden in the game's seedy underbelly. And as he'll soon discover, the bloody trail that led to his arrest is more twisted than he could have ever imagined.

Downsized by the CIA, Max Rushmore is rehired by a private contractor - operating on a tightened budget in a world of ratcheting tensions - to return to Moscow and investigate the death of a beautiful nuclear waste disposal expert. But Max, whose nontransferable skills include never having met a Russian he couldn't drink under the table, soon uncovers all sorts of inconsistencies: could it be that she is not dead at all? So begins a game of cat and mouse that takes the agent across Russia as he follows his only clue: a rare Siberian diamond.

When Leah and her husband, Clay, move from Seattle to Maine, she envisions a vibrant new neighbourhood packed with families - playmates for her twins, new friends she can confide in and bond with. But while Clay works long hours to establish his brewery, Leah is left alone each day in a nearly deserted housing development where the only other occupants are aloof and standoffish.

The fourth book in the best-selling The World Walker series. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Maybe Seb Varden is in a good position to find out. Depending on your point of view, he has either spent a few days, six months, or 17 years playing a potentially deadly game. At stake: the freedom of the alien who saved his life, the future of all intelligent species in the universe, and his sanity. Not only does Seb not fully understand the rules, but it's just possible the game itself is rigged.

Joni, the daughter of World Walker Seb Varden, has never met her father. And the world he left behind has become a dangerous place for the last generation of Manna users. Mee and John insist Seb will return, but what if they're wrong? Could it be possible she has none of Seb Varden's powers? Or might her abilities reveal themselves as she leaves childhood behind? In her 17th year, Joni will be forced to leave those she loves, face a great evil, and finally learn the truth about her father.

Near the end of the 21st century, Earth is in chaos from environmental devastation and a vicious undeclared war against binaries, genetically engineered assassins. Composed of a single consciousness inhabiting two human bodies (tways), binaries are ruled by an alpha breed, the Royal Caste. Nick Smith, computer programmer and brilliant strategist, hooks up with Annabel Bakana, the savvy new director of E-Tech, an organization dedicated to limiting runaway technological growth.

Just outside Los Angeles, a prisoner hidden away for 70 years sits up, gets off the bed and disappears through a solid wall. In Australia, a magician impresses audiences by producing real elephants. Nobody realizes it's not an illusion. Across the world, individuals and organizations with supernatural power suddenly detect the presence of something even they can't understand. At the center of it all, Seb Varden, a 32-year old musician with a secret in his past, slits his wrists, is shot dead and run over on the freeway.