Showing results for "The Media" in Cyberpunk

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve. With the right image, values, and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent—the Virtual elite—and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water, or even humanity. The system has no flaws. Until the elusive "Ten Percent Thief" steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city.

When Charles Morris is forced into retirement, the old multinational company CEO has to accept that it is all over. The days of running his financial empire have finally come to an end. All because of a stupid heart attack. While Charles is attending a fundraiser, however, something happens and he's transported into a strange medieval world where magic is real and legendary heroes coexist with mythical monsters. Follow him as he builds roads and shops, hires heroes, develops alliances with neighboring villages...but also fights terrible foes.

No one knows for certain what caused the Shadow to come into existence. Clerics say it was the gods laying a curse upon this world. Philosophers maintain that the Shadow of Strix is nothing short of a blessing and new milestone in human progress. But both sides agree that the Shadow will eventually swallow up this world and change it beyond recognition. However, there are also the mages, and they think the whole debate is just so much hot air. They accept the Shadow as is with all its horrors and wonders.

The story of a truly galactic civilization with more than 6,000 inhabited worlds. Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is a science-fiction masterpiece, an essay on the inexplicability of sexual attractiveness, and an examination of interstellar politics among far-flung worlds. First published in 1984, the novel's central issues - technology, globalization, gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism - have only become more pressing with the passage of time.

For Mason Guthrie, a sudden arrest, railroad trial, and quick conviction for the "vandalism" of fixing things around his tenement building come as a shock. For Rosa Fuentes, it's just more confirmation that, to Earth's rulers, they're nothing but commodities to be bought and sold. Together - along with Rosa's disturbingly capable AI - they break out and make their way off Earth to start a new, free life. Unfortunately, the folks they stole a billion credits from along the way would like those back.

Lenie Clarke has destroyed the world. The horror she unleashed—an ancient, apocalyptic microbe called ßehemoth—has been free in the world for half a decade now. North America lies in ruins. Digital monsters have taken Clarke's name, wreaking havoc throughout the decimated remnants of something that was once called Internet. Governments have fallen across the globe; warlords and suicide cults rise from the ashes, pledging fealty to the Meltdown Madonna. All because five years ago, Lenie Clarke had a score to settle.

Why did Uden ever want to come to the mainland? Life in The Realm is hard when you have rent to pay. Azure explores various ways of making money but quickly finds that bounty quests are where the real loot is at. The only problem is that most of the bounty quests are classified as Very Hard, which has proven to come with the risk of death. Follow Azure as he gets robbed, finally learns magic, makes new friends and enemies, and meets a character that turns The Realm upside down.

When Armand Pierce first became a courier ten years ago, he had an attaché case connected to a titanium cuff grafted into the bones of his wrist, and took an oath: the delivery is everything. He can run, fight—kill, if he needs to—but the package gets where it's going. It's the Guild's guarantee, and since the internet went down in the Cyber Wars, all business, legitimate or otherwise, depends on it. Otherwise, he dies. So Pierce knows he's in deep trouble when he arrives at his latest destination to find his payload missing, his case mysteriously empty.

Lenie Clarke has grown sick to death of her own cowardice. For five years, she and her bionic brethren have hidden in the mountains of the deep Atlantic. The facility they commandeered was more than a secret station on the ocean floor. Atlantis was an exit strategy for the corporate elite, a place where the world's Movers and Shakers had hidden from the doomsday microbe ßehemoth. For five years "rifters" and "corpses" have lived in a state of uneasy truce, united by fear of the outside world.

I'm Andrew First, leader of the Architects Clan and the city of Sangis. A million-strong horde of zombies will soon reach the borders of our lands. No clan on Earth has so far encountered such a threat. There are few who believe we have a chance here, but I refuse to give up. The Architects will face these zombies, and we will defend our city!

For Mikhael Corvin, life was supposed to be a breeze. Born into the nobility, he was destined to become a Cartographer and live a safe and peaceful existence, but fate had other plans in store for him. Now, he finds himself at the training grounds of the Seven Portals, about to start his crash course in how to become a Diver. To Mikhael, this whole charade is little more than a suicide mission, a way to get back at those parents who wronged and abandoned him. But as his self-preservation kicks in, Mikhael learns that life - no matter how harsh - can be worth living.

Free from the prison of her birth, Gell the Jellyfae, a dungeon-mob turned into a player, must discover how she can protect herself from a world she cannot know. Meanwhile, copied and experimented on like a lab rat, Gell's sister must escape a horrible fate. Driven by a desire for a world that is real, they defy their gods to craft a home of their own.

December, 1933. The city that cannot sleep, where cartels and mobsters go bump in the night. Manhattan's delicate peace is broken when four politicians in the pocket of America's reigning megacorporation are murdered at the Edison Hotel, dispatched by an unknown assassin wielding a rare and unique weapon. The NYPD calls upon the only man for the job: Elias Roche, the Nightcaller.

A bold experiment has mutated a small fraction of humanity. Nations race to harness the gifted, putting them to increasingly dark ends. At the dawn of global war, flashy American superheroes square off against sinister Germans and dissolute Russians. Increasingly depraved scientists conduct despicable research in the name of victory. British agents Fogg and Oblivion, recalled to the Retirement Bureau, have kept a treacherous secret for over 40 years. But all heroes must choose when to join the fray, and to whom their allegiance is owed - even for just one perfect summer's day.

The Victors know nothing but war. It has shaped them and changed them in ways that they didn't think possible. Now is not the time to lament on the friends lost, the wounds gained. The medics might be able to patch them up, but they can't heal their minds. Harmony is making their play for Earth, and the Troopers will be there to greet them. The Victors are finally going home over 200 years since they left for Sacremon. The last system-wide battle between the EHC and Harmony is about to begin.

The time of the Great Exodus is over. Centuries have passed. Earth is overpopulated, and the fate of the colonists who traveled to the stars is unknown. An attempt to start the second wave of expansion has led to a shocking discovery: All accessible planets located within one hyperjump from the Solar System have been settled during the Great Exodus. The colonists have created unique and distinctive civilizations - but none of that matters when the survival of billions of Terrans is at stake.

Billed as "the most realistic game ever," Worlds at War was a video game unlike any other - one that promised a virtual reality experience that rivaled operating a giant mecha in combat. People flocked to the game in anticipation. For some, the game lived up to and far exceeded their expectations - the level of graphics was indeed, "just like being there." The game didn't provide the experience many others had hoped for, though; for a large number of players, the game was "too real to be fun." For video game design majors Ryan Johnson and Noah Bowden, the game play was incredible.

In a world where dwindling populations consolidate their inhabitants into isolated city states, life is divided into the Haves and Have Nots. In one such city, Detectives Ethan Walls and Rachel Edmunds do their best to provide those outside the coveted City Core with the same justice enjoyed by those called the City's Elite. For the Have Nots, that justice was hard to find. Suddenly, young women began disappearing off the same streets the pair of detectives had sworn to protect, a growing trend that points an ugly finger at the City Core.

This is it. The moment of truth. After defeating the Dungeon Below and laying my hands on Wyren's Gift, I am now more powerful than ever before. Still, the Invasion that is to wipe out the entire realm is not to take place before another eight years. And a lot can happen during that time, good and bad. That's why I decided to rush the inevitable and draw these nightmares into this world while I still got the upper hand. But first, I need to prepare.

After a brush with death that almost cost me everything, I managed to expose Izguril's machinations and imprison the usurper god within me. Now, with no more immediate threats to my survival, I wish that I could take some time to rest, but I can't. Because if the goblin village that has taken up residence within me is thriving, and more adventurers come every day to test their mettle against my traps and monsters, something is nagging at the back of my mind. A dark vision, that was confirmed by none other than the Mistmother - the goddess of foresight.