Olympic contests between the Soviet bloc and America were often exploited for propaganda purposes, the outcome of an athletic event supposedly saying something significant about the victor's country. This 1984 anthology, from the height of the Cold War, has several stories built around that notion.

Tom Sullivan's "The Mickey Mouse Olympics" and Nicholas V. Yermakov's "A Glint of Gold" both feature Soviet and American Olympic athletes genetically modified for their events. Sullivan plays the notion for genuine laughs. Yermakov's story is much more serious and shows the price the competitors pay as propaganda pawns. He also works in a defection subplot.

Walter F. Moudy's "The Survivor" abandons all together the notion of mere symbolic combat in the Olympics. In his future, the USSR and USA each put 100 man combat teams into the arena, and they don't come out till one side is annihilated. It's all televised, of course. Moudy is not content to just do a story of future gladiatorial matches. He also delves into what the combat conditioning does to the soldier, what kind of person it produces. It isn't idle speculation, either, because all the survivors of an Olympic War Game get to do whatever they want with no legal sanctions. It's one of the highpoints of the anthology.

Not all of the stories deal with future Olympics; the general theme is competition.

In the case of the dentist in Piers Anthony "Getting Through University", basis for his novel PROSTHO PLUS, the competition is to get accepted to galactic University, School of Dentistry. Anthony creates an entertaining story out of the complexities of dentistry on the galaxy's aliens.

Other highpoints are Norman Spinrad's "The National Pastime", "The Wind from the Sun" by Arthur C. Clarke, and "Prose Bowl" from the team of Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg. Spinrad's story tells of the invention of Combat Football and its fans very violent enthusiasm for it. It's a 1973 story but hasn't dated that much, especially since wrestling promoters now talk of starting their own football league. Clarke's story combines hard science and melancholy in a solar sail race. Also titled "Sunjammer", it was probably the first story to use the idea of solar sails. "Prose Bowl" makes hack writing into an hilarious spectator sport, but it also says some serious things about writers and their audiences.

On the decidely low end of the anthology are Jack Vance's "The Kokod Warriors", about aliens who fight elaborate combats and the humans who bet on them, and Charles Nuetzel's "A Day for Dying", one of those stories with a decadent society of televised bloodsports and an unconvincing revolution to topple it. George Alec Effinger's "From Downtown at the Buzzer", about some aliens fascination with basketball, is marred by a vague ending.

In the entertaining-but-nothing-special category are the rest of the anthology's works. George R.R. Martin's "Run to Starlight" has aliens playing football against humans. The aliens turn out to have a more realistic view of the games' ultimate significance than the humans. Bob Shaw's "Dream Fighter" is another one of those stories where combatants assault each other mentally with horrifying symbols. Suzette Haden Elgin's "For the Sake of Grace" is a feminist story about a poetry contest on a world with an Arab-type culture and the young girl who dares to enter it despite the horrifying consequences of failing. Robert Sheckley's "The People Trap" is a witty, grim tale of a race for land in an overpopulated world. "Why Johnny Can't Speed" by Alan Dean Foster is another combat on the highways story. It was possibly a response to Harlan Ellison's classic "Along the Scenic Route". "Nothing in the Rules" by L. Sprague de Camp is about the chaos caused by a mermaid entering a swimming match. "The Olympians" by Mike Resnick is not, despite the title, a future Olympics tale. The Olympians are an elite group of humans who specialize in humiliating aliens in athletic competitions.

There are enough good stories here to justify taking a look at this anthology.

You know what the twist will be, but that doesn't diminish it much. Easy to read and a page-turner.

Robots in Judgment was editor Asimov's preferred title for this anthology since the stories cover more ground than just robot detectives.

Oh, there are robot detectives here all right. Asimov's famous human and robot detective team of Lije Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw are here for their only short story appearance, "Mirror Image." The murderous mobile law enforcer of Ron Goulart's "Into the Shop" captures the same criminal -- again and again. A robotic Sherlock Holmes, his Cockney-rhyming robot dog, and a Watson of mysterious origins investigate the case of a possibly mad industrialist on a future greenhouse Earth in Edward Wellen's "Voiceover".

Wellen also gives us an interesting, proto-cyberpunk story, "Finger of Fate", with its hard-boiled, if immobile, computer who prowls databases and public records to solve his cases. The machines of Harry Harrison's "Arm of the Law" and Harlan Ellison's and Ben Bova's "Brillo" are not exactly detectives but robot cops, and each must deal with police corruption and the difference between theoretical law enforcement and carrying a badge in the real world of humans. "Brillo" also deals with bluecollar fears of being replaced by machines. The tin stars of Larry Niven's famous "Cloak of Anarchy" supervise a Free Park where anything except physical violence goes -- until an artist decides to put his political ideas into effect and disable them. Stephen R. Donaldson's "Animal Lover" is a cyborg federal cop sent to investigate a hunting preserve with an oddly high body count of hunters.

Stories that don't feature robotic investigators and law enforcers are Christopher Anvil's tedious "The King's Legions", a tale of political machinations and a nearly-magical, sentient spaceship. Technological innovations since its original publication date of 1963 make Larry Eisenberg's "The Fastest Draw" a fully realistic story. In it, a man obsessively tries to make his fast draw competitions with a gunfighter simulcra more realistic. Harry Harrison's "The Powers of Observation" is a predictable but involving tale of espionage and androids in a Cold War Yugoslavia. "Faithfully Yours" by Lou Tabakow, about a convict fleeing some implacable retribution, is flawed by an irrelevant beginning and an ending that stops at the point where things get interesting. The strength of Donald Wismer's "Safe Harbor" is undercut by the rather unbelievable motivation of a central character who opts out of a world largely automated and administered with the help of "bugs", skull implants that monitor health and track their users in case they need emergency aid. Henry Slesar's "Examination Day" is famous but doesn't really work. Its surprise ending is probably there to make a satirical point but about what, exactly, is unclear.

Robert Sheckley's "The Cruel Equations", though, is a clever and funny story about an inflexible guard robot and the man who has forgotten his password but must pass by it -- or die on a desert world.

Not every story is perfect but, with the exception of Slesar's and Anvil's, they're all worth reading, and readers should, especially with the Wellen stories, find some overlooked gems here.

I recently bought this book for a school sponsered summer reading program and i enjoyed very much. SO much so that i had finished in under two hours. I wish the book had gone on longer brnging me evidence to support both cases on whether or not UFO's exist. However, over all i would recommend to others.

This book is a great introduction into an overlooked topic. Far too often, Jews and Gentiles alike are ignorant or choose to ignore the history of Jews as people willing to defend itself.

Unfortunately, this book sparsely documented and is rather jingoistic. This is not an academic work, but one meant for mass consumption.

Finally, certain subjects have inaccuracies. The section on the Khazars, for instance, is based on outdated research. The authors would have done well to read DM Dunlop's research.

I hope that this book is reprinted so that more people can read it. I also hope that someone does more serious academic work on this forgotten subject.

I'd never had any accounting courses before. This textbook was required for my financial accounting course in an MBA program. The book does a good job of logically explaining all the important topics. Unfortunately, it takes a Herculean effort to sit down and study the material due to the dry subject matter.

The authors did a good job of using examples from real firms, which, I think, makes it more interesting. I've decided to keep this book after the course for a reference.

The book is concise, precise. The book explains in one page what other do in many pages. The authors Stickney and Weil do a superb job in explaining the Concepts and Methods. I've followed this book since its third edition, when the great Sidney Davidson was on the team. They have always use a Conceptual approach rather than a procedural. When I need to review a concept, I open this book first, and then maybe I may open others. This book is more suitable for graduate level. It is not for undergraduate.

I recently used this book for an accounting class. I am not really an "accounting head", having come from a computing background, and I had to do the course as a graduate degree requirement. I found the book to be very thorough and well written. The authors took their time to explain every new term throughout. The book also has numerous exercises [maybe too many]. I do not expect to "do accounting" in the future, but if I have to, I'll get a copy of this book again. In reading this book, I found my professor's advice quite handy: 1. start off with the learning objectives for each chapter; 2. read the chapter summary; 3. check all the diagrams in the chapter; 4. read the text; 5. practice as many exercises as you can; 6. finally, review your work. I did this and smashed the course [B+--not bad for a "non-accounting head"]. I found the accompanying study guide [By LeBronne Harris and James Moon] invaluable also. This is probably the best book out there on Financial Accounting.

The photographs, in particular, are really terrible. I would not recommend this book to anyone!!

COORG: Land of the Kodavas is a beautiful and thorough picture narrative that documents and celebrates the Coorgis people in South India. It's thrilling to see how these photos have captured the uniqueness of a small community and placed them center stage as a remarkable part of Indian culture. A recommended read!

COORG: Land of the Kodavas is an excellent, well researched book about the Coorgis, a small community in my home state of Karnataka in South India. The beautiful photographs depict a wide cross section of their lifetyles as well as the terrain. I loved the photographs of their weddings which are very unique. Many of my Coorgi friends treasure this book as it has put them on the world map! And indeed, they are lucky to have a book about their culture as India is home to thousands of diverse communities and few have been documented in such detail. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the richness of Indian culture.

As a historical linguist specializing in Hebrew and Semitic languages, I can assure you that this book is simply ridiculous. The author makes no attempt at using linguistic method. He simply finds an English word that sounds like an English one and makes up a connection. For example, he posits the Hebrew word for 'roof' (gag) as the source of the English word 'gag', citing involvement of the 'roof of the mouth'. The one star I give is for the entertainment value of the book. It is good for a laugh. Please do not believe anything in the book -- see the Oxford English Dictionary for English etymologies and E. Klein's "Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew language" for Hebrew ones.

Very interesting ... look at the Edenics website for some good examples to whet your appetite. The origins of many words whose etymology is/was unknown is pretty convincing.

Very good book! The author is more than adequately trained and familiar with his subject matter. No doubt, most critics with an agenda will strongly dislike this book. With a work like this, one cannot help but realize the accuracy of the Biblical record and the beginning of man and the language of man in the Garden of Eden.

I am presently a student of the Hebrew language, and I would definitely recommend this book to any serious student or truth-seeking scholar.

I found this book to be very confusing. It was filled with typographical errors and grammar mistakes. I am not a writer but I spotted grammar errors immediately. The author rambles and changes thought in a paragraph. One example is when he is discussing Diana's loving to eat and always wanted seconds. Next paragraph, he jumps to the history of Queen Victoria. It is a very difficult and boring read. I wasted my money on this one.

The author is almost incoherent in his rambling style and very limited discussion of conspiracy theories in the death of Princess Diana, very poorly written, and filled with spelling errors or typographical errors, and often ungrammatical... False claims of an investigation by the author; the book merely asks a few questions and gives very incomplete answers. A waste of time and money.

I can't take a book seriously that is full of typos and misspelled words. At one point, the author refers to Diana's friend James Gilby as "James Gibby".

What a colossal waste of paper, time, and money! This book, if you can call it a book, was the most poorly written and edited document that I have ever had the misfortune to order. It offers absolutely nothing new to understanding the events of Columbine and the two people who carried out the violence. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!

If you are looking for a thoughtful analysis of the Columbine tragedy, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. It is full of spelling errors(was this edited at all?) and offers little to no new details about the shooting, let alone any meaningful insight. I can't believe someone was paid to write this.

Causes of school violence made easy to understand. Social ills and neglect of children understood as the rise or fall of any great civilization. Children are our investment.