Showing results by author "James A. Hunter" in All Categories

Dan has accidentally "Noclipped" into the Backrooms—a bizarro, extra-dimensional Alice-in-Wonderland world, overrun with horrific nightmare creatures known as the Dwellers. No one ever gets out. Hell, forget about leaving, if Dan wants to survive the week, he's going to need to harness the strange game-like magic of the Backrooms, make some very sketchy allies, and carve out a little safe haven to call his own.

Dan just wanted to run a shop. Now he’s knee-deep in holiday hellscapes, corporate hydras, and powers that definitely violate the Geneva Conventions. The Flayed Monarch is on the move, spreading his corrupt influence through the lower levels of the Backrooms. To stop him, Dan and his crew must take out one of the Monarch’s key allies—the Franchisor, a multi-headed marketing monstrosity who rules the 99th Floor. But Dan, Croc, and the rest of his ragtag band of misfits might be in for more than they bargained for.

With the shadow of the Flayed Monarch looming ever closer, Dan must prepare the store and himself for the battle to come. To stand a chance, he’ll need to expand his operations, broker a precarious trade deal with the Delvers of Howlers Hold, and transform his stash of relics into an arsenal of magical war crimes.

Recent college grad Sam King was hoping for a backpacking trip across Europe as a graduation present. Instead, he’s going to get a different kind of trip: a three-month stint in the ultimate immersive gaming experience. As a lifelong geek, gamer, and outsider, it’s a better gift then he’d ever dreamed.

The Resistance is fractured. The remaining survivors are buckling under the might of the malicious Tyrant King. Enter Roark von Graf, hedge mage, lesser noble of Traisbin, and one of the last freedom fighters. Desperate and unhinged, Roark crafts one final attempt to overthrow the king. The plan goes awry, and Roark finds himself tumbling headfirst into an interdimensional portal. On the other side, he finds himself stranded in an unexpected place - an ultra-immersive fantasy video game called Hearthworld.

All 18 episodes of Radio 4's word-obsessed comedy panel game hosted by Gyles Brandreth, where stars from across the world of wordplay come together to guess the meanings of now-obsolete words, invent their own clichés and cockney rhyming slang, discuss their own favourite words and phrases -...

October, 2042. In two weeks, the world will die, murdered by a nine-mile-wide, extinction-level asteroid. And Robert Osmark—billionaire and savvy tech-—couldn't be readier for the fiery apocalypse. Unlike the shortsighted masses, he's been diligently preparing for this day from the moment the asteroid first appeared. Through his relentless efforts, digital salvation now awaits anyone bold enough to take the leap and permanently transition into the brand-new, ultra-immersive, fantasy-based VRMMORPG, Viridian Gate Online. And Robert Osmark will lead this new world he has created.

Boyd Knight found his calling when he joined the Marines and qualified for the elite Force Recon. He'd found a tribe and a family, so when a hand grenade landed near his team, he jumped on it without thought or regret. But instead of winding up dead, he wakes up butt-naked in a cave full of monsters with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. He's been chosen by Raguel, the Five-Faced God of Justice, and entrusted with the power of the Vigil Bound.

Alan Campbell thought he'd gotten his dream job working on a revolutionary VRMMORPG with Osmark Technologies, until the project was canceled. He has one weekend to dive into an untested world full of intrigue, violence, and corruption to prove that Viridian Gate Online works, but the AIs running the game have their own plans for his soul. Set a year before the events of Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm, Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul takes you back to when VGO was just a game, or so it seemed.

Twenty years ago, the Merge brought armies of monsters flooding into the West Coast. Dungeons popped up in shopping malls, airports, and Starbucks. Walls were built to contain the spread, but the promise of priceless loot dropped by the creatures inspired a new type of gold rush. Clay Jaeger has nothing left outside the walls. Civilization took everything he worked for, chewed it up, and spat it out. Now Clay, his wife Alex, and his beer-loving, chainsaw-toting brother, Joe, are going west to try their hand at monster killing.

Two months ago, Clay Jaeger, his wife Alex, and his chainsaw-toting brother Joe came to the Infested Zone on a mission: kill a Dungeon Lord. What they found along the way was a land of opportunity. Gold-dropping monsters, magical weapons, and best of all, freedom—all there for the taking. If they can live long enough to grab it. Surviving in the wasteland has been a constant fight, but thriving in it, that’s going to take something more. Not just power, but the brains to use it in ways nobody’s seen before.

After saving the people of Ironmoor, Boyd Knight thought he was finally getting a handle on this whole Vigil thing. Bounties were rolling up. Monsters were dying in droves. Plus, he convinced his chaotic pixie familiar, Renholm, to stop committing random acts of arson. But defeating the fabled Hexblight of Ironmoor is child’s play compared to the tests Boyd will face in Wildespell, home to the Citadel of the Vigilant. Something foul has infiltrated the city.

In this absorbing tale, you watch the timeless principles of servant leadership unfold through the story of John Daily, a businessman whose outwardly successful life is spiraling out of control. He is failing miserably in each of his leadership roles as boss, husband, father, and coach. To get his life back on track, he reluctantly attends a week-long leadership retreat at a remote Benedictine monastery.

Jack Mitchell knows he won't survive the impact of the massive asteroid hurtling towards Earth. He's not one of the handful of lucky lottery winners scheduled for rescue. But he did luck into a NexGenVR capsule, which means Jack can risk a one-way trip to the world of Viridan Gate Online (V.G.O.), an ultra-immersive fantasy role-playing game. Taking that leap of faith, though, means permanently trapping his mind in the game and killing his body in the process.

Roark von Graf - former noble and hedge mage, current mid-level mob in a MMORPG - has his sights set on taking down the tyrannical dungeon lord. But the reigning troll despot is nearly as devious as Roark, and his followers are at a much higher level. With forever-death on the line, civil war breaks out in the Citadel, pitting Roark’s new regime against Azibek’s horde of loyalists. To survive, Roark will have to outfox the dungeon lord, forge new, dirtier weapons and shady alliances, and above all, evolve....

Roark von Graf built a nation on the bodies of griefed players and disgruntled mobs who wanted him dead. He grinded his way up to the level cap of the Troll Evolutionary Path and made powerful underhanded alliances along the way, but even all of that isn’t enough to defeat the Tyrant King’s right-hand mage, Lowen, and the Divine armies of the most powerful dungeon in the game. When Lowen and the Vault of the Radiant Shield go on the attack, Roark’s only hope of survival lies in the stolen World Stone Pendant and its mysterious transmutation magic.

Build. Evolve. Conquer. The dawn of the Troll Nation has begun.... Roark von Graf - former noble and hedge-mage, current mid-level mob in a MMORPG - has taken down the dungeon Lord of the Cruel Citadel, but the battle has only started. Lowen, right hand to the Tyrant King, has come to Hearthworld, and he is building an army of his own. Worse, Lowen and company have taken over one of the most powerful dungeons in the game, The Vault of the Radiant Shield. Even as a Jotnar and a newly minted Dungeon Lord, Roark is supremely outclassed and he bloody well knows it.

Clay Jaeger and his family have faced down hordes of mobs, evil forces, and deadly Dungeon Lords since they came to the IZ, but this is the first time all of Civilization has been turned against them. Framed for heinous crimes they didn’t commit, Clay, Alex, and Joe will have to fight back with every resource the wasteland has at its disposal. If that includes taking over a dungeon and turning it against their enemies, so be it. This time, it’s not just the Jaegers’ lives on the line. This is bigger than them. The freedom of every wastelander and mob in the IZ is at stake.

Clay Jaeger finally has the chance to become the spellslinger he always wanted to be—the one his family needs him to be to survive the dangers of the wasteland. A teacup pig claiming to be a cursed Great Blue Wyrm has offered them a quest to take out a Dungeon Lord with the exact power set Clay’s been looking for. There’s just one problem. The Dungeon Lord can steal the souls of his enemies and summon them to fight his battles for him. Clay is more than willing to lay down his life to protect his family, but is he willing to risk his eternal soul on a gamble that might not pay off?

The Jaeger squad has finally tracked down Griff’s kidnapped daughter. The problem? She’s locked away in the deadliest dungeon in the wasteland—the Supermax. A magical prison for the mobs and Incants too dangerous to go free, but too valuable to kill off. None of the magical prisoners who have disappeared into the dungeon turned prison have ever been heard from again, but the Jaeger squad is looking to be the first. It’s time for a jailbreak in the IZ. But the Supermax is hiding a deep, dark secret. One that just might get the Jaegers killed. Or worse.