Deploying Dragons


Book Description

A BIOTECH RACE AGAINST TIME TO DEVELOP MILITARY-GRADE DRAGONS. Brilliant genetic engineer Noah Parker is pitted head-to-head against the founder of Build-a-Dragon to design custom dragons for the military. Genetic engineer Noah Parker has at last landed the job he's long coveted: director of dragon design for the Build-A-Dragon Company. With a combination of genetic engineering and a cryptic device known as the Redwood Codex, he and his team can produce living, breathing dragons made-to-order. But sales of dragons have plummeted, and the Build-A-Dragon Company will have to find new revenue streams if it hopes to stay in business. A contract to develop dragons for the U.S. military promises a much-needed lifeline. Yet the specs are more challenging than anything Noah has ever designed. Worse, he learns that a shadow company headed by former CEO Robert Greaves has stolen the dragon-making technology to make a competing bid. Noah’s dragons will face off against those of his old adversary. It’s a head-to-head design competition, with the ethical future of domesticated dragons hanging in the balance. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About Domesticating Dragons: “Koboldt delivers a funny and immersive look at the world of genetic engineering. . . . With characteristic verve, Koboldt contrasts the playful adventure plot with eerie dystopian setting and a searing examination of corporate greed and ambition. Fans of inventive speculative fiction are sure to be pleased.” —Publishers Weekly About Dan Koboldt: “. . . very readable and highly enjoyable. . . . Characters that are more than the sum of their parts, a world that has so much to offer, and a story that races along apace . . . ” —SFF World on The World Awakening




Hordes of the Things Version 2. 1


Book Description

Hordes of the Things is a fast-play heroic fantasy wargame rule set for miniature figures. Using the successful DB rule system, but based on classical fantasy fiction rather than strict history, the rules have been used since 1991 and enjoy an international player base.




Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds


Book Description

Stories about dragons, serpents, and their slayers make up a rich and varied tradition within ancient mythology and folklore. In this sourcebook, Daniel Ogden presents a comprehensive and easily accessible collection of dragon myths from Greek, Roman, and early Christian sources. Some of the dragons featured are well known: the Hydra, slain by Heracles; the Dragon of Colchis, the guardian of the golden fleece overcome by Jason and Medea; and the great sea-serpent from which Perseus rescues Andromeda. But the less well known dragons are often equally enthralling, like the Dragon of Thespiae, which Menestratus slays by feeding himself to it in armor covered in fish-hooks, or the lamias of Libya, who entice young men into their striking-range by wiggling their tails, shaped like beautiful women, at them. The texts are arranged in such a way as to allow readers to witness the continuity of and evolution in dragon stories between the Classical and Christian worlds, and to understand the genesis of saintly dragon-slaying stories of the sort now characteristically associated with St George, whose earliest dragon-fight concludes the volume. All texts, a considerable number of which have not previously been available in English, are offered in new translations and accompanied by lucid commentaries that place the source-passages into their mythical, folkloric, literary, and cultural contexts. A sampling of the ancient iconography of dragons and an appendix on dragon slaying myths from the ancient Near East and India, particularly those with a bearing upon the Greco-Roman material, are also included. This volume promises to be the most authoritative sourcebook on this perennially fascinating and influential body of ancient myth.




Power and Subversion in Game of Thrones


Book Description

This collection of essays examines the structures of power and the ways in which power is exercised and felt in the fantasy world of Game of Thrones. It considers how the expectations of viewers, particularly within the genre of epic fantasy, are subverted across the full 8 seasons of the series. The assembled team of international scholars, representing a variety of disciplines, addresses such topics as the power of speech and magic; the role of nationality and politics; disability, race and gender; and the ways in which each reinforces or subverts power in Westeros and Essos.




Domesticating Dragons


Book Description

BUILD-A-BEAR WORKSHOP MEETS JURASSIC PARK WHEN A NEWLY GRADUATED GENETIC ENGINEER GOES TO WORK FOR A COMPANY THAT AIMS TO PRODUCE CUSTOM-MADE DRAGONS Noah Parker, a newly minted Ph.D., is thrilled to land a dream job at Reptilian Corp., the hottest tech company in the American Southwest. He’s eager to put his genetic engineering expertise to use designing new lines of Reptilian’s feature product: living, breathing dragons. Although highly specialized dragons have been used for industrial purposes for years, Reptilian is desperate to crack the general retail market. By creating a dragon that can be the perfect family pet, Reptilian hopes to put a dragon into every home. While Noah’s research may help Reptilian create truly domesticated dragons, Noah has a secret goal. With his access to the company’s equipment and resources, Noah plans to slip changes into the dragons’ genetic code, bending the company’s products to another purpose entirely . . . At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About Dan Koboldt: ". . . very readable and highly enjoyable. . . . Characters that are more than the sum of their parts, a world that has so much to offer, and a story that races along apace . . . ” —SFF World on The World Awakening




Field Artillery


Book Description




Ice Dragons Bundle


Book Description

Secrets lay deep beneath the Antarctic ice. Dark, dragonesque ones. Bundled for the first time! Feral Ice Scientists don’t believe in dragons. Dragons never think much about humans at all. Doctor and biochemist, Erin signed up for six months aboard an Antarctic research ship to escape her stifling surgery practice. Jerked from her cozy cabin, she’s dumped in an ice cave by men who assume she’s dead. Konstantin and Katya, twins and dragon shifters, have lived miles beneath the polar ice cap for hundreds of years. Other dragons left, but they stuck it out. When several humans—all but two of them dead—end up not far from their lair, the opportunity is too good to pass up. Cursed Ice By his own admission, Johan’s always been one stubborn bastard. He’s wedded to his freedom, and the thought of bonding with a dragon has some pretty serious downsides. If he doesn’t sign on to become magical, though, he’ll be left behind—also not an acceptable outcome. Katya, dragon shifter and twin to the dragons’ prince, thought she wanted Johan as her mate, but he has more rough edges than she counted on. Besides, the serpent problem supersedes everything. She’s used to dragons being in charge, but when a serpent almost steals her will, it’s quite the wakeup call her magic isn’t as potent as she always assumed. Is the age of dragons drawing to a close? If that’s true, what will come next? Primal Ice Renegade dragons. A dying Earth. The magic powering all worlds is fading, and no one knows why. As the life he’s known for millennia hovers on the brink of ruin, the dragon prince, Konstantin, gathers allies. He would have liked to be better prepared for all-out war, but time grows short. Waiting is no longer an option. Working with his twin sister, a seer, he unearths a shocking sequence of prophecies. Visions that shake the foundations of everything he believed was true. Seduced by a madman, driven by greed, wicked creatures have become bold. Shifters, Sidhe, and land-linked magic are determined to crush the threat eager to steal their power, but even their combined forces might not be enough to bail them out




Continuous Deployment


Book Description

Methods of delivering software are constantly evolving in order to increase speed to market without sacrificing reliability and stability. Mastering development end to end, from version control to production, and building production-ready code is now more important than ever. Continuous deployment takes it one step further. This method for delivering software automates the final step to production and enables faster feedback and safer releases. Based on years of work with medium to large organizations at Thoughtworks, author Valentina Servile explains how to perform safe and reliable deployments with no manual gate to production. You'll learn a framework to perform incremental, safe releases during everyday development work, structured exclusively around the challenges of continuous deployment in nontrivial, distributed systems. Complete with interviews and case studies from fellow industry professionals. Close the feedback loop and leverage the production environment to manage your end-to-end development lifecycle efficiently. This book helps you: Take observability, performance, test automation, and security into account when splitting work into increments Create a daily development plan that takes immediate deployments to production into account Deploy work in progress to production incrementally without causing regressions Use patterns to refactor live functionality and alter persistence layers Test and release features in production using different feature toggle configurations




Dragons & Dinosaurs


Book Description

Jim is a small-town police officer, proudly doing his duty like any law enforcement agent would. When a call comes in reporting the grizzly deaths of several animals from a local farm; Jim begins an investigation that will change his life forever. After crashing his vehicle following a bloody trail in the woods , he wakes up and realizes that he is not only lost, but he's in a dangerous land where dragons, dinosaurs and magic exist. Jim's continuing adventures as he helps to ensure the future for the family he is building. A fast paced adventure filled with dwarves, elves, & dragons. From the cold and snow in the North to the depths of the oceans in search of the legendary dragon crystal which might give Jim just enough power to defeat the deadly Malum and the evil wizard Chavez. He relies on his training and survival instincts to continues to cheat death. Will he finally be able to balance the power before the dark forces take over. An evil wizard and the creatures he has aligned with must be destroyed before they bring ruin to the entire world he has grown to love. This world has waited for a long time for someone.... a leader . . . . a hero. Can Jim be this person? Things certainly are heating up in more ways than ever expected!




Guardians of the Universe


Book Description

Life on Earth was progressing to Utopia watched over by the Guardians, all was under control. But the Gods had decided that the Guardians of Earth were to undertake the guidance of the Universe, and this meant change within their order. Even the lives of the Guardians were not to run smoothly and this episode of their life has been chronicled. Eventually order was resumed by the battle of the dragons.