With chapters on creating gods, species/races, plants, animals, monsters, heroes, villains, and even undead, it draws on the author’s quarter century of world building experience. Pointed questions, and an examination of answers and their repercussions, will help readers decide on goals, how to reach them, and whether they are even worth pursuing. Always practical, Creating Life will quickly improve the skills of beginners and experts alike, making a time consuming project more fun, easier, faster, and skillfully done.Unlike other world building guides, the series discusses how to use your inventions in stories while balancing narrative flow with the need for explaining your world. Tailored examples illustrate this. Extensive, culled research on life forms is provided to classify and understand options without overwhelming world builders with extraneous details.Storytellers, game designers, gamers, and hobbyists will benefit from seven free templates that can be downloaded and reused. CREATING LIFE will help your setting stand out from the multitude of fantasy and science fiction worlds audiences see. THE ART OF WORLD BUILDING is the only multi-volume series of its kind and is three times the length, depth, and breadth of other guides.Endorsement from Bestselling Author Piers Anthony:"I read Creating Life (The Art of World Building, #1), by Randy Ellefson...It is exhaustive, well written, and knowledgeable...I, as a successful science fiction and fantasy writer, have generated many worlds, so this material is familiar, but it would have been easier and probably better had I had a reference like this. It is realistic, recognizing that the average writer may not have the patience to work out all the details before getting into the action..."

     What began as a grassroots fundraiser, "UNeducation, Vol 1: A Residential School Graphic Novel" is now used in school curriculum, university syllabus', treatment/corrections centre resources, healing initiatives, government agencies and educational trainings worldwide. Now available to the public, in softcover and ebook form, for the first time. Gain a full and proper education about a dark episode in North American history. The highly anticipated next chapter in the series, "UNeducation, Vol 2: The Side of Society You Don't See On TV" is coming soon.

    But in New York City, two young Irish immigrants are fleeing something else. For Evelyn Brennan, an impending marriage she doesn’t want. For Lucius Flynn, the burden of a life in business and trade under his tyrannical father. Brash and adventurous, Lucius decides the only way to be free of his doomed future as a bored tradesman is to risk everything on the burgeoning and dangerous gold fields of California. However, that “everything” that he plans on risking is in fact the dowry of his headstrong bride, Evelyn. The truth that they were once childhood friends is something Evelyn sorely tries to forget as her new husband drags her along the quickest but deadliest path to the California gold rush: the Panama Route. Under the pretense of honeymooning in New Orleans, Lucius and Evelyn board a steamship bound for California, where they bear each other’s company with little grace and frequent bickering. Evelyn’s contempt for Lucius’ adventure is soothed, however, when she meets an Australian named Brock Donnigan. Sharp, handsome, and heartless, Brock sets out to seduce Evelyn just as Lucius finds himself falling in love with her. Through their adventures and misadventures over land and sea, the two men try to win Evelyn’s affections. But as they draw nearer to Panama City, where a mass migration of Argonauts lies in wait for transportation to California, a battle of wits and wills escalates into a war where all fortunes, dreams, and innocence may be lost; where lust demands blood, and love inspires sacrifice.From the black cliffs of Ireland to the streets of New York, from the Spanish fortress of Havana to the beaches of Panama, Liberty Hill is a sweeping historical romance that combines what we love most about the West- guns, saloons, horses, and handsome outlaws- with the tropic heat of Central America.The first young adult fiction in her Western Tide series, Sonja Heisinger molds a fresh and epic literary experience from an old world setting. Liberty Hill awakens the past with the exciting elements of drama, comedy, and action, with the additional zests of forbidden pleasure and unrequited love. This adventure book takes you on a wild journey that anyone looking for an exciting historical fiction will love!

    A pregnant woman left by her husband cooks obsessively to cope with her loss, but never tastes a morsel. In an attempt to stay sober, a young alcoholic seduces her priest and embarks on a tour of caverns with him. An adolescent girl picks up bird-watching as a hobby and, in her newfound habit of observing others, discovers a budding romance between her mother and her neighbor. These stories, many published in The Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Story, and The Colorado Review, are full of characters seeking an escape from their lives while uncovering small moments of understanding that often have huge implications and consequences. They discover that they can only find peace once they stop searching for a way out. Through diverse voices and lively storytelling, Hood creates authentic, personal, secret worlds full of eccentric detail.

    But, after developing the indie author mindset, he was earning $3,500 a day within a matter of weeks.The Indie Author Mindset shows you how simply changing your way of thinking about your writing business can revolutionise your career. Using Adam's personal experiences and examples, you'll be able to think differently about the business side of your writing career and lay down the foundations for long-term success.In The Indie Author Mindset, you'll discover: How to decide who to listen to — and who not to listen to How to unlock the power of residuals How to create more than half a dozen income streams from one book Lessons and advice from Bryan Cohen, David Gaughran, Brian Meeks and Mark Dawson Why almost every writer misunderstands profit and is doing advertising wrong And much, much more! This life-changing book is the motivational kick-up-the-backside all authors need. If you like a non-fiction book with a personal touch, practical tips you can apply every day and all the motivation you need to kick your career on to the next stage, The Indie Author Mindset is for you.

    from Preface to the Fourth Edition:The object of this treatise is not so much to give a narrative history of the countries included in the Romano-Germanic Empire -- Italy during the Middle Ages, Germany from the ninth century to the nineteenth -- as to describe the Holy Empire itself as an institution or system, the wonderful offspring of a body of beliefs and traditions which have almost wholly passed away from the world.

    Rocket Man: Elon Musk In His Own Words is a comprehensive guide to the inner workings of the man dubbed "the real Tony Stark." Hundreds of his best quotes, comprising thoughts on business, clean energy, innovation, engineering, technology, space, electric vehicles, entrepreneurship, life lessons, and more, provide an intimate and direct look into Silicon Valley's most ambitious industrialist.Even with no prior experience in the complex, ultra-high-barrier-of-entry automotive and space industries, Musk has excelled. Tesla, the first successful American car startup in more than 90 years, received more than 325,000 reservations for its economical Model 3 in a single week—advancing the company’s cause to “accelerate the advent of sustainable transport” via affordable, reliable electric vehicles. SpaceX, the first private company to launch, orbit, and recover a rocket and dock at the International Space Station, has drastically reduced the cost of launching and manufacturing reusable spacecraft, which the company sees as the first step toward its "ultimate goal" of making life multiplanetary. In the words of Richard Branson, "Whatever skeptics have said can’t be done, Elon has gone out and made real."How could a young man who at one time seemed like "just" another Internet entrepreneur have gone on to build two highly disruptive companies and innovate technologies related to everything from electric batteries to rocket manufacturing? There's no better way to learn than through his own words.This book curates Musk quotes from interviews, public appearances, online postings, company blogs, press releases, and more. What emerges is a 'word portrait' of the man whose companies' swift rise to the top will undoubtedly keep their status-quo competitors scrambling to keep up.

    When Brian Castner, an Iraq War vet, learns that his friend and EOD brother Matt has been killed by an IED in Afghanistan, he goes to console Matt's widow, but he also begins a personal investigation. Is the bomb maker who killed Matt the same man American forces have been hunting since Iraq, known as the Engineer?In this nonfiction thriller Castner takes us inside the manhunt for this elusive figure, meeting maimed survivors, interviewing the forensics teams who gather post-blast evidence, the wonks who collect intelligence, the drone pilots and contractors tasked to kill. His investigation reveals how warfare has changed since Iraq, becoming individualized even as it has become hi-tech, with our drones, bomb disposal robots, and CSI-like techniques. As we use technology to identify, locate, and take out the planners and bomb makers, the chilling lesson is that the hunters are also being hunted, and the other side—from Al-Qaeda to ISIS— has been selecting its own high-value targets.Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    Made possible by the purest form of patriotism, led by a soldier whom everyone adored - George Washington - who, in turn, was guided by a caucus of political geniuses in Philadelphia - the Continental Congress - sturdy farmers raced from their plows to hurl themselves into conflict with British mercenaries. Never have so many great men, magnetic leaders, sprung from nowhere to guide a people infused with a beautiful enthusiasm for liberty.In this book, New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming explodes this myth by examining all the dimensions of that year - particularly the least known aspects of the common, fallible humanity of the men and women of the Revolution.The year 1776 ended with both the Americans and the British stripped of their illusions. Both sides had been forced to abandon the myth of their invincibility and to confront the realities of human nature on the battlefield and in the struggle for allegiance to their causes.For the Americans, it had been a shock to discover that it was easy to persuade people to cheer for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but it was another matter to persuade them to take large risks, to make real sacrifices for these ideals. For the British, their goal of achieving proper subordination of America to England was frustrated forever.Seventeen seventy-six was a traffic year: Americans fighting in the name of liberty persecuted and sometimes killed fellow Americans who chose to remain loyal to the old order and its more circumscribed, yet sincere, commitment to freedom. Seventeen seventy-six was a heroic year: It brought forth the leaders who had the courage to fight for freedom. Seventeen seventy-six was a disgraceful year: Americans revealed a capacity for cowardice, disorganization, and incompetence.Here, in this masterful book, is the true story of 1776.

    Happily ever after. Such are the classic promises of fairy tales. Yet in Texas we find a twist to the familiar storyline. In If the Devil Had a Wife, there is still the battle of Good vs. Evil, a beautiful maiden, a wealthy suitor, a kingdom of riches and the wicked witch, but any similarity with Cinderella and Snow White ends there. With the help of her life partner and an attorney (always necessary in these modern times), Nelda Stark executes a devious plan that elevates fraud and theft to a new high. A massive coverup reaches into the Texas Attorney General's Office, stealing from not only the Stark family, but the federal and state governments.

    But when the veterinarian says my precious fur baby Wilson needs surgery, I need to come up with some cash and fast. After all, he’s the only family I have left. I mean, how bad could it be? I just have to be this stranger’s wedding date—no romance, no funny business, just pretend to be his girlfriend in front of his family. Just one weekend away and I’ll have the money I need. He seems pretty normal in his emails; no serial killer or pervert vibes.But now I’m sitting here, meeting up with this stranger for the first time, and who shows up? Robbie Marshall—the obnoxious, wise cracking, stupid handsome guy from my office. The guy whom I hate, and who hates me back. Turns out both of us using aliases has its drawbacks. But it’s too late to back out now. We’re both out of options. It’s just one weekend… right?

    Feedback, compensation, coaching, promotion, and legal documentation are all covered, as well as a variety of new alternatives that produce better results for both managers and employees.

    In the countryside, illiterate peasants - the majority of the population - still scratched out a living from the soil, while in the cities, merchants hawked their wares in open-air market stalls and nobles led lives of opulent leisure. Yet everywhere were unmistakable signs that all of this would soon change forever. Spread by France's seemingly invincible citizens' army, the seeds of republicanism had been planted throughout Europe. In the Americas, the United States had proved to the world the feasibility of a government of, by, and for the people, and Mexico was threatening to follow its lead. And while it still took four months for an official dispatch to travel from London to Calcutta, Europe's leading nations - France and England - had established global empire-building strategies. In the year 1800, the world suddenly found itself enmeshed in a web of money, war, and political intrigue, out of which a new world - our world - was struggling to be born. Bringing all his talents as a first-rate storyteller to bear, Bernier takes us inside the courts and parliaments of the major powers to listen in on the political discourse of the day. He leads us into the boudoirs and ballrooms of the rich, the cramped homes of the middle class, and the hovels of the poor to provide an intimate glimpse of the private lives of the first modern men and women. A spellbinding account of one of the most momentous chapters in the story of civilization, The World in 1800 is a singular achievement by a premier historian and an irresistible read.

    When the New Alliance leadership asks Eric King to join Alpha Squad, a joint taskforce supposed to promote cooperation between the shifters and human authorities, his loyalty to the cause doesn’t give him any choice but to agree. But is the squad actually supposed to be relevant, or is it just an eyewash, set up by the new Secretary for Shifter Affairs to make himself look good? And how is he going to concentrate on his training, when his inner bear is insisting that the squad leader is his true mate?Major Janine Williams is not at all pleased when she is ordered to set up Alpha Squad. The initiative is just a gimmick, meant to pacify the shifter community, plus none of her male colleagues had wanted the job. But when she starts getting to know her team, especially tough East London bear shifter, Eric, she starts to wonder if perhaps it will be possible to make this task force a success, so long as everyone works together. And so long as she can manage to keep her relationship with Eric strictly professional..