Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Cyberpunk

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

A corporate mercenary wakes in a reconstructed body, a beautiful woman by his side. Then Hosaka Corporation reactivates him, for a mission more dangerous than the one he's recovering from: to get a defecting chief of R&D-and the biochip he's perfected-out intact. But this proves to be of supreme interest to certain other parties-some of whom aren't remotely human.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps", robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real, and the crowds love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

The award-winning William Gibson goes beyond science fiction to the broader mainstream fiction audience. His unique world features multinational corporations and high-tech outlaws vying for power, traveling the computer-generated universe.

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent - and nearly five million souls in the United States alone - the disease causes "Lock In": Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps", robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real, and the crowds love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Eric McCaffrey is very good at VRMMORPGs; he's played most of them, but the lack of funds is starting to affect his ability to play popular games. It's time to move on to something more...obscure. Battlegrounds Online is the only game of its kind. A VRMMOFPS. A military warfare game so realistic that it scares away most players daring enough to try it.

The Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from this safe distance, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. There are too many people and too few resources, and they need 12 billion to die before Earth can be stabilised. So corruption is rife, people starve, and the poor are policed by mechanised overseers and identity-reader guns. Citizens already fear the brutal Inspectorate with its pain inducers. But to reach its goals, the Committee will unleash satellite laser weaponry, taking carnage to a new level. This is the world Alan Saul wakes to.

The flames of war spread through the Cursed Princedom to devastating effect. Bound by powerful centuries-old magic, the Great Essences yearn to regain their freedom. In the face of an impossible mission, Krian has no choice but to keep going while risking everything that's become dear to him. The only solution is to become stronger and forget the meaning of the word impossible. And so a plangent wolf's howl soars over the battlefield as a plate-clad cavalry rushes the enemy ranks....

What kind of god would you be? Deep beneath the earth, Corey finds himself reborn as a God Core - a sentient crystal with unusual powers. His new worshippers? A colony of incompetent gnomes, scratching out an existence in their underground grotto. If that wasn’t bad enough, Corey soon realises that his gnome denizens are about to become extinct. They are threatened by groups of blundering adventurers and abducted by raiding kobolds to be sacrificed to their own dark god: an ancient, mysterious foe who does not take kindly to Corey’s arrival.

Once a seasoned gamer, Max has cheated fate, swapping his dying body for an immortal avatar in the world of sword and sorcery MMORPGs. He joins the ranks of a new race of people: perma players, forever stuck in the virtual castles and cities of AlterWorld. Now they have to obey the ever-changing rules of their new home while learning to live together in peace, love, and justice. But freedom and immortality are a poisoned chalice. Some of Max's new friends crave power; others become traitors and spies.

When Martin's raiding guild join the latest virtual reality MMO, they discover a challenge like no other. Strata Online is a 100-floor mega-dungeon, filled with an ever-shifting ecosystem of monsters. Martin's team soon find themselves in a race against the world’s strongest guilds, all competing to be the first to reach the unbeatable game's lowest depths. But unlike other games, Martin will need as much courage as skill to progress. Because the deeper he goes, the darker Strata gets.

Eric McCaffrey has been playing Zag in the VR-MMOFPS Battlegrounds Online for a while now. The more he plays, the more entrenched into the game he gets. It hardly even feels like a game anymore. Zag, now one of the commandos for the Knights of the Tactical Operations Group, is tasked with freeing Punta del Muerta from the terrorist group Wyvern. Along with the rest of the Knights, Zag will dive deep into the jungles, war-torn cities, and concrete bunkers, but will he be able to complete all the missions in time?

Trapped inside the game that they once loved, Iron Riot are now faced with a slow death by dehydration as their bodies in the real world are left to rot. The Masters, enigmatic creators of Strata, are willing to let anyone die so long as it preserves their perfect imaginary world. But there was one thing that they haven’t accounted for: A rat with a plan. If Iron Riot can finish the game before the timer runs out, defeat the Archdukes, beat the system, and show everyone what they are capable of, then they’ll have the attention of the whole world.

Now a Level 10 ronin, Seiki is slowly coming to terms with the death of Master Tsujihara and his new life in Shinshioka. Spending his days in the Wilderness, he’s venting his remaining frustration while staying away from the city drama and those griefers, like the Rogami Clan, who had made his in-game experience so challenging thus far. He has even taken up a trade skill. But when he’s presented with an offer he can’t refuse and accepts a simple mission to deliver a message to Kano Castle, he quickly finds his troubles are only just beginning.

Roman was never supposed to escape the locked plane that was his prison. And yet, somehow the impossible task became possible with the help of new friends, and despite the tricks of old enemies. Too intrepid was the demon driven by the fury of battle, the sorrow of defeat, the bonds of unbreakable friendship, and the longing for his beloved. But when gods themselves join the fray, the chances of victory fall from slim to none.

The Keiko is a ship of smugglers, soldiers of fortune and adventurers, travelling Earth's colony planets, searching for the next job. And nobody talks about their past. But when a face from Captain Ichabod Drift's former life sends them on a run to Old Earth, all the rules change. Trust will be broken, and blood will be spilled.

With his play style now known to all and Aetherius’ older brother, Magnitude, gaining a stranglehold on high-level content, Damien struggles to maintain his relevance in the ever-changing world of Saga Online. In order to regain his notoriety and fight back against Magnitude’s growing power, Damien must undertake a quest that is far beyond his level. If he succeeds, his occultist character will be changed forever.

Dirk's epic run of success in King's League has drawn new gamers to Dawnshire, but not all of them are there to play nice. Rumors about mysterious Graydon's Armor pieces are quietly spreading across the Realms. It isn't long before someone attempts to take away everything Dirk possess as powerful forces conspire against King's League's newest player sensation.

The direct sequel to the Hugo Award-winning novel Cyteen, Regenesis continues the story of Ariane Emory PR, the genetic clone of one of the greatest scientists humanity has ever produced, and of her search for the murderer of her progenitor - the original Ariane Emory. Murder, politics, deception, and genetic and psychological manipulation combine against a backdrop of interstellar human societies at odds to create a mesmerizing and major work in Regenesis.