"Gives detailed information on some of history's most dangerous sports"--Provided by publisher.

The long-awaited sequel to Willing Victim. Eight months ago, Laurel walked into an underground boxing gym and found herself mesmerized by a stranger named Flynn-a man who fights hard and loves harder. Since then he's taken her places where fear and curiosity clash in exquisite pleasure, where trust is the price of ecstasy, and in time their brutal games have become her kink as much as his. But when real life intrudes and hard decisions demand action, will these two whose bond is rooted in fantasy take shelter in each other's arms, or discover that lust is no substitute for a lasting commitment?

The ï¬?rst monograph by the art director for leading video game company Blizzard Entertainment Brütal: The Art of Samwise is a career-spanning art book that assembles the many artistic creations of world renowned artist Samwise Didier into one volume. For nearly thirty years, Samwise’s unique art style, which combines the use of bold colors, visual storytelling, and a touch of humor, has been featured in numerous art books, illustrated novels, album covers, comic books, and video games, and is instantly recognizable to his legions of fans. Brütal: The Art of Samwise celebrates all the artistic creations of Samwise’s imagination, including many images never seen before from his personal archives. This book also contains selections of Samwise’s favorite and most iconic images he created for the video game company, Blizzard Entertainment, where he has worked since 1991. As a senior art director for Blizzard, Samwise was responsible for directing the art style for Warcraft, StarCraft, and Heroes of the Storm, as well as for creating artwork for the World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Diablo franchises.

University of Pennsylvania professor Rafael Robb was in a class of his own. An expert on game theory, his colleagues and students marveled over his brilliance. But his wife, Ellen, knew his dark, calculating side...and in December 2006, after years of alleged psychological abuse, she was finally ready to leave him. Her divorce papers were nearly in order and she was about to sign a lease on a new home—and a new life. Until she was found dead in the home she shared with Rafael and their daughter, Olivia. Rafael claimed that Ellen was the victim of a fatal intrusion. Many of Ellen's friends and family suspected that Rafael committed the crime. Now, a high-stakes showdown was about to begin between local investigators and one of academic world's greatest masterminds. But the police had almost no evidence—and the professor had only one strategy: to win at all costs... Cruel Games: A Brilliant Professor, A Loving Mother, A Brutal Murder is Rose Ciotta's shocking true crime book about an intelligent man who used his genius to kill ...

It was over a decade ago that experimental psychologists and media-effects researchers declared the debate on the effects of violent video gaming as “essentially over,” referring to the way violence in videogames increases aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors in players. Despite the decisive tone of this statement, neither the presence nor popularity of digital games has since diminished, with games continuing to attract new generations of players to experience its technological advancements in the narration of violence and its techniques of depiction. Drawing on new insights achieved from research located at an intersection between humanities, social and computer sciences, Gareth Schott's addition to the Approaches in Digital Game Studies series interrogates the nature and meaning of the “violence” encountered and experienced by game players. In focusing on the various ways "violence" is mediated by both the rule system and the semiotic layer of games, the aim is to draw out the distinctiveness of games' exploitation of violence or violent themes. An important if not canonical text in the debates about video games and violence, Violent Games constitutes an essential book for those wishing to make sense of the experience offered by games as technological, aesthetic, and communicational phenomena in the context of issues of media regulation and the classification of game content “as” violence.

For the past couple years Laurel's been coasting, hiding in the backseat while her life drifts off course. Then one summer afternoon a tall, built bruiser named Flynn strides in and steers her straight into an infatuation she never saw coming. Flynn introduces Laurel to things she's never imagined before-to the violent but exciting realm of the underground boxing circuit, to rough sex and even rougher role-playing, and to an attraction she craves even as it intimidates her. As Flynn invites her deeper into his world and his life, Laurel has to make a choice-let fear keep her holed up where it's safe, or take a chance and fight for the man who makes her feel more alive than she'd dreamed possible.

Many of today's most commercially successful videogames, from Call of Duty to Company of Heroes, are war-themed titles that play out in what are framed as authentic real-world settings inspired by recent news headlines or drawn from history. While such games are marketed as authentic representations of war, they often provide a selective form of realism that eschews problematic, yet salient aspects of war. In addition, changes in the way Western states wage and frame actual wars makes contemporary conflicts increasingly resemble videogames when perceived from the vantage point of Western audiences. This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars from games studies, media and cultural studies, politics and international relations, and related fields to examine the complex relationships between military-themed videogames and real-world conflict, and to consider how videogames might deal with history, memory, and conflict in alternative ways. It asks: What is the role of videogames in the formation and negotiation of cultural memory of past wars? How do game narratives and designs position the gaming subject in relation to history, war and militarism? And how far do critical, anti-war/peace games offer an alternative or challenge to mainstream commercial titles?