Showing results by narrator "Alex Boyles" in All Categories

Paul Adams is the shortest kid at his high school, and the school bullies relentlessly pick on him. He spends the entire day wishing school would end so he can escape to his favorite sport of rock climbing. Lily Small is athletic, attractive, and, despite her last name, is actually very tall. Another kid, who looks almost like a grown man, introduces himself with a long Polynesian name, but says everyone calls him "Big," and he seems to like the nickname! As they get to know each other, Paul, Big, and Small discover they have a lot in common as outsiders in their high school.

In science fiction, artificial intelligence takes the shape of computers that can speak like people, think for themselves, and sometimes act against us. Reality of course is vastly different, though in many ways computers surpass their fictional counterparts. This book reviews work in the field and covers topics from chess-playing to quantum computing. The writers tackle how to make computers more powerful, how we define consciousness, what the hard problems are, and even how computers might be built once the limits of silicon chips have been reached.

Worst. Birthday. Ever. My first boyfriend dumped me - happy birthday, Josie! - my dad is who knows where; I have some weird virus that makes me want to hurl; and now my ex is licking another girl’s tonsils. Oh, and I’m officially the same age as my brother was when he died. Yeah, today is about as fun-filled as the swamps of Dagobah. But then weird things start happening. Like I make something materialize just by thinking about it.

Something is wrong with Liam. He collapses during soccer practice, he can’t stay awake in class, and he’s starting to see a ghostly white fox that disappears into smoke. His parents and teachers accuse him of being lazy and staying up too late, but he knows it’s something worse. He feels like he’s disappearing bit by bit: his strength, his skills, his mind. No one believes him except for Alaina, a friend and self-proclaimed expert in fantasy and fairy tales. She’s seen this sort of thing before and believes Liam has been cursed with a powerful sleeping spell.

No one predicted the dragon apocalypse. The dragons came suddenly and decimated the world as we knew it, including New York City. Now, three years later, Noah, his hardcore survivalist father, and a ragtag group of survivors are barely scraping by in this new reality. Kids scavenge not only for materials in abandoned homes but also for leftover books at the library. Adults spend their time establishing a make-shift society and defending their shelter… with any means available. At least for the few months the dragons are hibernating, until it’s no longer safe aboveground.

Graysen Foxx is no stranger to the mysteries hidden in Ordinary Elementary—the bat-filled tunnels, the secret passageways, the underground chambers, and the sticky spiderwebs—and he’s on the hunt for a creepy old painting that will guarantee his victory in the school’s Halloween room contest. But finding and claiming the painting is only the beginning of a wild adventure filled with puzzles that will put Graysen’s treasure-hunting skills to the test. When Graysen finds a mysterious symbol on the back of a dusty spelling bee medal, the discovery spreads like creamy peanut butter.

Sam is a charismatic actress with big plans for her future. Rosalyn Shew is the smartest girl in school - but she’s a loner and likes it that way. Then there's Christian Powell, the darling of the soccer team. He’s not the best at communication, which is why he and Sam broke up after dating for six months, but he makes up for it by being genuine and kind, which is why they're still best friends. When Christian falls for Ros on sight, their first interaction is a disaster, so he enlists Sam's help to get through to her.

A fresh post-apocalyptic anthology: the end of the world seen through the salvage and ruins, featuring Emily St. John Mandel, Carmen Maria Machado, and more.

In this brilliant and rigorously researched history, award-winning journalist and author Ken Ellingwood animates the life and times of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy. First to Fall illuminates this flawed yet heroic figure who made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting for free press rights in a time when the First Amendment offered little protection for those who dared to critique America’s “peculiar institution”.

High in the Rockies lay the Bayou Salade, a lush beaver-rich valley so untouched that the few white men who had seen it called it paradise. But for Scratch Bass, his young partner Josiah Paddock, and the two Indian women they loved, this paradise would open up a hell of violence. Pursued by a vengeful Arapaho raiding party, Scratch will lead his small band through a flurry of arrows all the way to Taos itself. Yet the trail of blood will not end there. For in St. Louis an old enemy waits.

Born a slave, Jim Beckwith forged his own path to freedom as a mountain man. But when a wealthy trading company owner offered to pay him to live among the Crow Indians, Beckwith accepted the deal - and discovered another way of life that changed him forever. Here in the Wind River Mountains, amidst blood feuds and blood brothers, he became Bloody Hand, a man sworn to take a hundred scalps - and destined to become the People’s greatest warrior - in a life-or-death struggle that shaped the fate of a nation.

In Matt Braun’s The Last Stand, the land of Five Civilized Tribes is stolen from its people by a Federal government determined to make Oklahoma the 46th state. Chitto Starr, a full-blood Cherokee, will not go gently into the night. Instead, Chitto ignites an armed rebellion - and brings an honest, determined lawman onto his trail. For Deputy US Marshal Owen McLain, hunting down Starr and his rebels is the last job he wants - and the one he has to do right, or die. Now, the two men are locked in a duel of cunning and violence on a tragic, history-scarred land. 

Presley Windsor is preparing for the new season of American Ninja Champions, leaving her zero time for anything as frivolous as a boyfriend. When someone posts a picture of her trying on a diamond ring with a mystery man, they assume she’s getting engaged. Instead of telling the public it was all a misunderstanding, Presley’s publicist decides this is the perfect launch for her career. Things escalate quickly, and the network wants to reveal her fiancé on national TV, leaving Presley scrambling to find someone to play the role long enough for the special to air. 

Deadwood, Dakota Territory, was filled with luckless miners, diggers, and more than its share of lawlessness, and more often than not, there was nothing Marshal Fred Nolan and his two deputy marshals, Wentworth and Grubb, could do. So when a teen hustler, known as "Gitalong" because of his crippled leg, was hoorawed by a trio of Texas drovers, the law wasn’t called in. Besides, two strangers had come to Gitalong’s aid, confronting the drovers and forcing them to give Gitalong three silver dollars. While it was the most money he'd ever had, he knew it would only bring him trouble.

The Book of Revelation, the Maya, Nostradamus - humans have speculated about the end since, well, the beginning. In this book, we look at several “end of the world” scenarios - or at least, things that could make human life really difficult. 

A Civil War soldier survives his battlefield wounds...but a final head shot erases his memory and leaves him comatose. After surviving the bloodiest war in US history, will it be peacetime that finally kills him? Henry Remington awakes from a six-month coma with a Medal of Honor pinned to his pillow, but no recollection of how he got there. When two fellow soldiers insist he saved them and want to repay the favor, Hank accepts their offer of a job on a Texas ranch, and embarks on a ship bound for Galveston.

Instead of “what if the South won the Civil War?” cosmologists ask, “what if the constants that make up the fundamental building blocks of physics were different?” Physicists argue that any slight change to the laws of physics would mean a disruption in the evolution of the universe - and our existence. With the many factors that had to align for us to exist, it can seem like the laws of physics might seem finely tuned to make our existence possible. Instead of a supernatural or divine explanation, this book explores the possibility is that our universe isn’t the only one.

He came off the frontier: a buffalo hunter, a gambler, a loner. In Abilene, he won a saloon at cards and earned the fear of a lawless town. From then on, Jake Kincaid would not be stopped. He began a rampage of ambition and deal-making that forever changed a land called Kansas and the Indian Territories. But along the way, the deeds and misdeeds of Jake Kincaid affected more than the frontier - they shaped the lives of his two sons. One who became a lawman. One who became an outlaw. Both destined to come face-to-face behind blazing guns....

Ride the Cherokee Trail with Callum, three years after a bloody war that divided state against state, town against town, and brother against brother, as he attempts to guide his family from their ravaged horse farm back east to the waiting ranch in Colorado. Accompany him as he battles corrupt officials in Tennessee, greedy thieves in Arkansas, and Indians and bandits on the Great Plains. Will he fulfill his mission to bring his loved ones safely to their new home, nestled in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Colorado?

Callum Logan is a man of quick decision and execution. His fast gun has saved him on more than one occasion. Though hardened by the horrors of the Civil War, he gives each man a chance, unless they prove it’s undeserved. Now, on his way to begin a new life in the Colorado West, Callum is eager to put the killing behind him. But while rescuing a family from despicable outlaws, he is forced to kill the leader of the small band, putting himself in direct conflict with the outlaw’s brother, Elwood Wister, whose gang has become the scourge of Southwest Colorado.