He doesn’t know that his mind is purely digital, he doesn’t know he is only a copy of the original, and he certainly doesn’t remember Sasha’s betrayal. When his personal assistant in sex-demon form breaks into the game world, scarred from her own ordeals and professing her remorse, Jezebel has no choice but to make another deal. With Mark still wondering what the hell is going on, they both agree to share him as they explore the new world Jezebel has created to acclimate his human mind to its new existence as pure energy. The Mark 2.0 series contains graphic sex. Length ~ 108,300 words

    Now, for the first time, Waitzkin reveals the aggressive tactics and psychological techniques that have propelled him to the forefront of the chess world. His unique introduction to the game combines solid instruction with stories about his personal experiences that capture all the excitement and tension of playing chess at the championship level. Josh Waitzkin's Attacking Chess presents nineteen different offensive strategies, progressing from the most elementary, including forks, pins, skewers, and double threats, to the more advanced and sophisticated moves used by the world's best players. Chapters such as Minor Traps, The Seventh Rank and the Pig, Mating Nets, and Quiet Moves in Attack show how anyone can develop a more aggressive and creative style of play. Each strategy is illustrated with examples taken from actual games Waitzkin has played, described with all the gusto and competitive intensity this young master brings to his craft. You can feel the heat of battle throughout this action-packed manual -- it's guaranteed to entertain and inspire all students of chess who want to learn how to emerge victorious from the black and white jungle.

    More like a bounty hunter, but I still put a foot up the @$$ of injustice and bring criminals down. Only, this time things didn't go as planned. This time, as I was delivering my criminals to be placed in the Abaddon Asylum, everything fell apart when an uprising tore down the system and led to my ship exploding before I could get out of there. Now it's up to me and some sexy lady allies (and then some!) I've teamed up with along the way to put things right. But we're not just going to stop the uprising. Our mission goes much deeper than that, into the planet itself where all manner of horrors await. Oh, and we call ourselves the Psychobitches. And yeah, I f@cking own it like a crown. NOTE: Read on, friend, if you're a fan of explosions galore, superpowers and leveling up, monster girls and tiny fairies who are all freaks in the sheets, and crazy ladies who could just as easily slit your throat as bring you to the point of more bliss than you've ever thought possible. Take it, it's yours!

    The Westerfield Trilogy includes: The Westerfield Affair Reserved to the point of being aloof, Lord Westerfield never attended balls or even considered taking a wife... until he met Miss Kitty Stanley and his orderly world turned on end. Determined to have the beautiful and animated sister of his friend from the gambling hall, but doubting his ability to effectively court her, Westerfield strikes a bargain with her brother for her hand.When the gentlemen present Kitty with the deal, she is furious with them both for neglecting to consult her, but her brother insists he will withdraw his support if she does not comply. Angry, she acts out at a ball, causing a scandal that mushrooms further when Lord Westerfield drags her unchaperoned to his home for a firm spanking.Upon baring her for chastisement, Westerfield is swept away by desire, and before he can stop himself he has completed the ruin of her reputation. He offers to release her from the betrothal contract, but her brother insists instead on a hasty marriage. As they attempt to recover from the scandal, their marriage is clouded by his shame and her insecurities. Will they have the courage to move past their rough beginning to kindle the passion they both crave? The Reddington Scandal When Phoebe's brother-in-law catches the notorious rake Lord Fenton in his home late at night, half-dressed and obviously attempting escape, he flies into a rage. In a desperate measure to avert bloodshed, Phoebe claims she is Lord Fenton's lover, thereby forcing him to take her as his wife to avoid a scandal.Knowing full well a philanderer like Teddy Fenton could never remain faithful, Phoebe intends to resist his charm rather than fall in love. Her handsome husband respects her request for a marriage in name only, but his marital dominance manifests itself in other ways. She soon learns that while he will not force her to his bed, Teddy is more than willing to take her over his knee and spank her bare bottom when her behavior warrants it.Teddy had never intended to take a wife, but upon having wed Phoebe, he is perplexed to discover that he now wants nothing more than to win the affection of his new bride. But just when it seems he might succeed, secrets from her past threaten to destroy their chance at happiness. Can this couple come to love one another as befits a man and wife, or will their marriage end in scandal after all? The Darlington Incident When spymaster John Andrews receives word that plans are afoot to sell England's secrets to her enemies during the Ides of March ball at the Westerfield Estate, he is determined to bring an end to this treasonous game. Posing as a gentleman by the name of Lord Darlington to stake out the event, he is ready for anything as he mingles with the members of the ton... except falling for his prime suspect, the lovely wallflower Miss Eliza Hunt, in whose trunk the secret documents are soon found.After new evidence leads him to believe Eliza may be innocent, John cannot wait to catch the traitors, clear her of all suspicion, and then ask for her hand. Though he fears he is not the sort of man worth having as a husband, he knows that if he wants Eliza as his own he will need to face the demons of his past and lay claim to the title and the birthright he abandoned long ago.Eliza knows Lord Darlington is not the gentleman he purports to be, but he is the first man to see beyond the birthmark on her face and treat her like a beautiful woman.

    But the galaxy is spiraling into all-out war.Captain Chhun's Dark Ops squad is reunited with Wraith. When their mission to deny Goth Sulluss the shipyards he so eagerly desires goes awry, Chhun and Wraith must find a way to stop the Black Fleet's advance - even if it costs them their lives.Meanwhile, an old friend from Nether Ops executes a covert operation that will turn the focus of the Last War of the Republic in a terrible new direction.Following Goth Sullus's ruthless onslaughts against the Republic, a desperate House of Reason searches for scapegoats - and finds one, deserving or not, in Commander Ellek Owens. His sentence is cruel, unjust - and final. Unless Victory Squad has anything to say about it.In the Umnar system, the soulless menace known as the Cybar seeks to break Prisma Maydoon - and to set the stage for the total annihilation of not only the Republic, but all life in the galaxy.

    Their father was murdered, leaving them sitting in their spaceship waiting for his return. They remember almost nothing from before that time, when two Calavari who were business associates of their father took them in and told them they could never be seen outside their full body armor. They've honored their father's dying wish, living and working on the Calavari's farm while exploring the barren wastelands looking for bits of technological salvage from the time before the great cataclysm. They don't know they're Human, just that they're different and they can't show their skin in pubic. The two siblings have lived almost their entire lives in their self-styled body armor and dream of leaving the farm and doing something that mattered...but there's nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Then one day that all changes and Esna is set forth on a rollercoaster ride of a life she could never have expected once the word 'Human' is once again spoken on the planet...only its a word of rage and fear, with the local aliens trying to kill whoever it is applied to, though they've never seen one before. Regardless, the word is tagged to her and she must run...with a little help. -------------- Excerpt from 'Lost Destiny': “Donovan!” he called out, running towards him with plodding footsteps as his nose picked up the scent of burnt flesh even before he saw the hole in the chest plate of the full body armor the man wore. Whatever race he was his blood flowed a sickly red, a fact that he’d prefer to not have known as he leaned over and gripped the man’s shoulders, prying him up into a sitting position. “What happened?” A shaking hand rose up to the neck of his armor, fumbling for the latch that Yammar finally helped him with. The helmet cracked opened with a hiss and the Calavari helped him pull it off, revealing the pale skin beneath that had alarmingly become even more so, now nearly white. “Gladers,” he said, wincing horribly as he half bent over. “Jumped me from behind. I got two of them, but the third…” “Where’s the latch for the chest piece?” Yammar asked, pulling back the cloak that covered most of the hard plates as he looked, but the man took a death grip on his lower arm and locked eyes with him. “My children. In the ship. You have to…please. I’m all they’ve got. They’re dead without you.” “Where’s the latch?” he repeated, searching around with his other three hands and finally finding something that looked promising. He pressed and turned the small button, being rewarded with another hiss as a crack formed along the side beneath the man’s left arm, but suddenly that arm went straight to Yammar’s giant head and gripped it tightly, forcing him to look into the dying man’s eyes. “Promise me. Promise me…” he said, wincing again. “I don’t know anything about your race,” Yammar said, feeling helpless. “Good…” the man spat in a cough but no blood came out of his mouth, though it was continuing to pour out of his chest and seep down over his waistband plates in spurts every time he jerked in pain. “Good. Don’t ask questions…just…make sure they wear armor…in public. Promise me.” “I promise.

    Its leader, a charismatic and eccentric millionaire/ex--car salesman named Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a former chess prodigy and the most recent president of FIDE, the world's controlling chess body. Despite credible allegations of his involvement in drug running, embezzlement, and murder, the impoverished Kalmykian people have rallied around their leader's obsession---chess is played on Kalmykian prime-time television and is compulsory in Kalmykian schools. In addition, Kalmyk women have been known to alter their traditional costumes of pillbox hats and satin gowns to include chessboard-patterned sashes.The Chess Artist is both an intellectual journey and first-rate travel writing dedicated to the love of chess and all of its related oddities, writer and chess enthusiast J. C. Hallman explores the obsessive hold chess exerts on its followers by examining the history and evolution of the game and the people who dedicate their lives to it. Together with his friend Glenn Umstead, an African-American chessmaster who is arguably as chess obsessed as Ilyumzhinov, Hallman tours New York City's legendary chess district, crashes a Princeton Math Department game party, challenges a convicted murderer to a chess match in prison, and travels to Kalmykia, where they are confronted with members of the Russian intelligence service, beautiful translators who may be spies, seven-year-old chess prodigies, and the sad blight of a land struggling toward capitalism.In the tradition of The Professor and the Madman, Longitude, and The Orchid Thief, Hallman transforms an obsessive quest for obscure things into a compulsively readable and entertaining weaving of travelogue, journalism, and chess history.

    It is essential to play purposefully and to avoid falling into traps or reaching a position that you don't understand.This is not a book that provides masses of variations to memorize. Paul van der Sterren instead offers a wealth of ideas and explanation, together with the basic variations of each and every opening. This knowledge will equip players to succeed in the opening up to good club level, and provide a superb grounding in opening play on which to build a more sophisticated repertoire. The strategies he explains will, unlike ever-changing chess opening theory, remain valid as long as chess is played, and so the time spent studying this book will be rewarded many times over.

    She came from what is perhaps the world's most mysterious and imaginatively-crafted chess set -- 73 carved pieces probably dating to the 1200's. The famous Chess men (and women) comprise the world's oldest complete chess set (or parts of several sets). The treasure trove was discovered 15 feet deep in the sand in Lewis in Scotland's northern Outer Hebrides in the late 19th century. Scandinavian outposts were known to be there as early as the 1200's when the pieces were probably crafted. That chess was played in the Middle Ages with such extraordinary works of art tantalizes the imagination. Who were these people whose likenesses have been so whimsically and realistically depicted that they come alive for us today? Who played the game? These kings and queens, bishops with miters on their heads, knights mounted on rather small horses and holding spears and shields, rooks with shields and a wild expression, and pawns in the shape of obelisks -- all so very human. Some of the pieces contain red stains, suggesting perhaps that the sets had some colorings unlike modern black and white pieces. "This is the first forensic account of modern research into the Chessmen," according to Ancientchess.com. The "unmasked" in the book's title refers to new controversies about their origin and about who might have owned - and lost - them - and about the trade and state of society where they were crafted.

    The way a teaching machine works is: It asks you a question. If you give the right answer, it goes on to the next question. If you give the wrong answer, it tells you why the answer is wrong and tells you to go back and try again. This is called "programmed learning". The real authors were experts and authorities in the field of programmed learning. Bobby Fischer lent his name to the project. Stuart Margulies is a chess master and also a recognized authority on programmed learning. He is a widely published author of more than 40 books, all in the field of programmed learning, especially in learning how to read. For example, one of his books is "Critical reading for proficiency 1 : introductory level". Donn Mosenfelder is not a known or recognized chess player, but he was the owner of the company that developed and designed this book. He has written more than 25 books, almost all on basic reading, writing and math.

    By isolating the basic elements and illustrating them through a selection of Master and Grand Master games, Simple Chess breaks down the mystique of strategy into plain, easy-to-understand ideas — only a knowledge of basic chess terminology is assumed.More than a lesson in chess fundamentals, this book illustrates an increasingly prevalent and successful style of play — a method that begins by slowly accumulating small but permanent advantages, saving the outright attack for later in the game. Newly converted into the current algebraic chess notation, this edition of Simple Chess offers a strategic weapon for players at every level of expertise.

    The author of Big Deal takes his game on the worldwide tournament circuit once more to see if his famed card skills can hold up against the vastly changed world of poker in the 21st century.

    After discovering and exploiting a dungeon-breaking cheat, Markos maxes out his dungeon level and begins to explore the world above his dungeon.When his dungeon helper, Jessica, comes across a dying young man being sexually tormented by a female ogre, Markos' decision to save his life becomes the turning point in Markos' new existence. Upon learning the truth of this new world as one where females dominate in both numbers and social status, Markos settles on a new goal: to conquer the land of Enwald and reassert male dominance as its king! Markos' first target of conquest is the Kingdom of Vessar, where his dungeon is located. Borrowing the body of Sibalt, the young man he saved, Markos journeys across the kingdom in search of information, allies, and companions to help achieve his goal to conquer the kingdom. WARNING: This 93,000 words book contains profanities and numerous mature situations involving sex and violence. In particular, the opening chapter depicts the violent murder of the main character. Furthermore, there are numerous explicit sex scenes as well as the enslavement of the MC's enemies. Reader discretion is advised.

    He certainly didn’t expect to be plunged into a world of politics, demons, monsters, petty drama and angry primordial deities, all while being guided by an off kilter, rant-happy warlock, who has more secrets than Quinn has problems. Nothing he can’t handle, right?

    In this volume, Tal sets the stage and explains every one of the 21 games, telling both the on- and off-the-board story of this clash of styles and thought.