This book lives up to its title. It is an exciting and seductive story that will keep you turning the pages. The story and characters are riveting.

So much fun to read, every word captivates you to keep reading. The story magnifies as you keep reading, difficult to put down!

Mark R. Hawthorne's "First Unit Responder," CRC Press 1999, ISBN 0-9493-002-1, is a 6 chapter 98-page guide book for uniformed officers working in the field who frequently are the first to arrive for a potential crime scene investigation(CSI).
Hawthorne gives us an easy-to-read introduction to basic CSI response that includes definition of various physical evidence characteristics (individual versus class), implementation of CSI response protocol (ARISN), identification & documentation of evidence, evidence collection (do's & don'ts), fingerprint/glove appreciation, case review with ADA and testimony tips for the non-specialist officer & a 12-page illustrated appendix showing evidentiary items. Each chapter didactic is followed with a (dozen or so) basic question & answer section with explanations.
The author's impressive credentials in both field and teaching experiences helped condense important basic CSI issues into a short and easily-read synopsis that includes 20 good bibliographic entries and a thorough 6-page index. A few trivial grammatical flaws are readily discharged, but difficult to justify given computers with spell-checkers, etc.

As a law enforcement instructor at a police training facility, I found this book to be fantastic for the new recruits we train. As a retired police officer/Crime Scene Analyst, I also realized it would be great for some veteren officers and non-law enforcement personnel to review. Mark Hawthorne has kept the technical information on an easily understandable level. He has covered, in 90 pages, what would take hours of personal instruction. I found the test questions and answers extremely helpful in preparing reviews. This book can be picked up by the patrol officer, and if READ, could furnish much of the information to properly document most any crime scene. I would recommend this book to any basic law enforcement instructor or new police officer.

I've been an amateur breadmaker for years, but tend to bake irregularly because of the effort involved. No more! Mark Miller's recipes for bread both plain and exotic, healthful and richly delicious, have rekindled my enthusiasm for bread. I'm baking almost all my own bread now and making breakfast and lunch special occasions. From genuine sourdough, comforting cornbreads, spicy cheesey flatbreads and foccacia, to tempting quickbreads and breakfast treats (try Cream Cheese and Blueberry Bread, or Scottish Scones with honey, cream and Drambuie) No tedious copying of recipes from a library book this time: there are so many delicious recipes (and I've tried a lot of them) that I need to buy this book!

This is chock full of wonderful recipes. Not one that we've tried has disappointed. A batch of Blue Corn-Maple Muffins never lasts long in our house. Nothing out of this book ever does.

This book has great photography and discription of various insects, however. this is a large book so you can't take it outdoors to try to identify a certain insect. It is a very good reference book

Wonderful photos and quite interesting text...and here I thought this was going to be a hokey little book.

I particulary enjoyed this book by my favorite picture book author because I was able to take my children to see Ms. Wood and Mr. Teague when it came out. I have used it in my classroom as a springboard for a writing activity because it is a wonderful reminder that with imagination and books you can go anywhere and do anything. The characters drift from room to room without any particular plot, but it is forgivable because the book celebrates the "can-do" spirit of childhood. My three year old wants to read it over and over to watch where "Baby Sarah" ends up and look at the cornucopia of images on every page. I always prefer Don Wood's illustrations with her books, but if you can relinquish that expectation the pictures are a lot of fun.

This is an excellent, imaginative book that my 3 1/2 year-old son absolutely loved. We are big fans of Mark Teague's illustrations and found this book because of him, but we now love Audrey Wood, as well. This book is adventurous, but not scarey, as well as fun and playful. It would be an excellent gift for ages 2.5-5 years.

The text is good & well researched, but only if you are looking for an indepth history of the breed ... it's a book that requires careful reading to bring out the best ...

The Editorial Review by Dr. Bernard W. Ziessow provides a very precise summary of its content, read the Editorial Review and make sure the book serves your purpose and interest before committing to a purchase.

As far as the photography goes, the book doesn't quite make the grade, there are several coffee tables books on the market that contain much better photographs of Labradors ...

The superb color photos of Labs led me to choose this book as a gift for a fellow Lab-lover. But I found I could not part with it bacause the text is equally captivating and one I want to refer to again and again. The author's very careful research and citations of source material befits the scientist he is; his delightful writing style entices the reader to continue reading to delve deeper into this historic puzzle. Hutchinson's conclusion is like the surprise ending of a mystery story - perfectly reasonable in light of the evidence and explanations presented, but still unexpected, and a fascinatingly different extension on the usual story. Buy two copies - one to give, one to keep!

Forge: Out of Chaos is a labor of love, that much is obvious. Everything is well thought-out; the authors put a lot of effort into the game world and it shows. The cosmology--fallen, banished, and "disappeared" gods--is detailed, brief, and not at all overblown. That's a rarity for fantasy cosmologies. After reading through the book, I was ready to play, and in fact my gaming group is preparing to sit down soon and do just that.

This is the way role-playing games should be written and presented. Everything you need, mechanics-wise is presented right here, in this one book. Character creation, magic, combat, monsters, it's all *here*. You don't need to spend $100 just to get enough rules to run a game, like you do with many other systems.

In addition, Basement Games supplies what seems like a marvelous level of support. E.mail them with a question, and the authors will answer it quickly and graciously. They have an online membership program; for $10/year, you'll have access to what promises to be a ton of information on the World of Juravia, including empire packets, mini-modules, new skills and spells and items, you name it. Compare that with another well-known fantasy system, where you'll spend $30 for a world setting alone that has less than half of what Basement Games will have.

Taken as a rulebook, and as a complete package with the rest of Basement's offerings, this book is easily worth five stars. Why, then, did I only give it four?

I subtracted two stars because some of the rules and mechanics are kind of strange, at least to me. When I generated a sample character--which is done with dice rolls, thank you very much; it's good to see somebody stand up to the tyranny of the "character point" advocates, all weirdnesses aside--I came up with a speed of 2. Looking at the table, 2 is 120 yd/min. Running. I'm fat and out of shape, and I walk faster than that. I honestly don't think that an adventurer's top running speed should be a fast walk.

Similarly, your "Luck" factor, which is critical in saving throws, is also randomly determined. I can understand the reasoning behind this, because some people are just luckier than others (at dice, for example :), but it was a little frustrating.

Also, the races seem a little unbalanced; there are so many drawbacks to playing a non-human that I honestly couldn't come up with a valid reason to play anything but a human. That could be just me, though; I tend to bias towards human characters in RPGs. Non-humans in Forge have a combination of saving-throw and racial disadvantages and advantages--but mostly disadvantages. Even just for the role-playing experience, I don't think I want to play a race like the Higmoni, for example, who emit a foul odor. Hmm, or maybe that just hits too close to home :)

Finally, I also couldn't come up with a reason to play a mage. There are so many restrictions to Berethenu Knights (basically, paladins) and other magic users that it seems like it would distract from your enjoyment. For example, most spells have a possibility of harmful side effects, determined randomly, and side effects apply every time you cast that spell. Having said that, though, the magic system is *incredibly* innovative, and I may run a mage or two just to see it in action.

And that's the key. See, this game is a lot better than three stars. Or four stars. Or even five stars. And that's all because it's so darn innovative. I finally settled for four stars, because the game isn't perfect. There are things not to like, even as there are things to be enthusiastic about.

Let me mention the combat system briefly. Here is where the creativity and innovation really shine through for me. In another well-known FRPG, a fighter could theoretically wade into a pack of kobolds and lay waste to them without taking a scratch. In Forge, that almost certainly won't happen, because every character has two defensive values, one that takes into account Dexterity and armor, the other which doesn't. Only one opponent at a time takes on the main, modified defensive value; the rest fight against the unmodified value. As you can imagine, this makes for severe problems when taking on two or more opponents, as it should. My little testing group loved this.

The method of skill advancement is also quite good; you have opportunities after every adventure to increase your skills in certain areas. I don't have enough space to go into it here, unfortunately. The system itself is a hybrid of skills-based RPGs and class-and-level RPGs, and for the most part manages to do both fairly well.

In short, I would recommend purchasing this book; for twenty bucks, you get a complete game system, and how many RPGs offer you that anymore? There are lots of innovations here that make it worth at least reading, even if you never play. For the student of game design, it's a valuable text. Some of the mechanics are strange, but ultimately the sheer originality of the game outweighs what's strange.

Forge: Out of Chaos is the core rulebook for Basement Games' fantasy roleplaying game set in the World of Juravia. A great variety of player character races, a point-based skill system rather than "professions," and new spins on game mechanics such as experience points and spell-casting highlight this worthwhile fantasy milieu.

Open this book and you're immediately surprised: while they were bending game rules, the guys at Basement Games went ahead and broke the usual table-of-contents-etc. order of book creation. Mythology of the world's beginnings fills the first few pages, explaining how the first god Enigwa shaped the sun, the world, the other gods, and finally, humankind. How the squabbling younger gods warped the basic shape of human life into other races and also created monsters, disease, and undead horrors sets the scene for the whole World of Juravia campaign.

There are eleven races for players to pick from, including humans--for me, this and the point-based skill system are among the strongest arguments for trying this system.

Humans are the base from which the other racial statistics vary--but the nonhuman choices are rich indeed. For the combat-lovers, there are the many races created by the fallen god of war: the tall Berserkers, with ridged foreheads (very Klingon in appearence) and extraordinary combat bonuses; the Higmoni, with boar-like features, rapid healing, and infrared vision; and the one-eyed, hairy Ghantu, over seven feet tall with massive combat damage. There are also Dwarves, children of the god of justice and honorable combat: their sturdy physique grants them many bonuses.

For the wizard fanciers, there are the lizard-like Kithsara, children of the god of the elements, with naturally enhanced magic talents and a powerful biting attack; the light-shunning Dunnar, created by the goddess of enchantment, with weird, almost undead appearances, exceptional night vision, and innate abilities to detect magic & shield against mind magic; and your basic, magical Elves.

More unusual character choices are the Merikii, the territorial feathered, flightless children of the goddess of beasts, Sprites (courtesy of the goddess of the harvest), and the shrew-like bipeds called Jher-ems--excellent trackers and natural empaths. Curiously enough, we are not given the mythological origins of either Elves or the Jher-ems--perhaps this is deliberate on Basement Games' part. I'd like to see a module or online rules addition covering that eventually. Basement Games has made its new rules public and free, rather than issuing scads of expensive new editions.

This multi-racial world flows naturally through the World of Juravia modules offered by Basement Games, such as The Vemora, Tales That Dead Men Tell, and The Temple of Nanghetti.

Characters are built by purchasing skills (or acquiring them through opportunities during adventures) and building them through use. If you don't use it, you don't advance in it--a much more logical approach to "experience points" to my mind. Magic itself is treated as a skill, making the profession of mage a result of learned skills (more below on mages). Resulting characters are much richer in abilities than the straightforward "I'm a fighter, I can't do that" model of some systems in which advancement is quick but capabilities are rigidly limited.

Ability to advance in skills in Forge has some built-in brakes, preventing some of these super-monster deity characters that are typical in long AD&D campaigns: in Forge, advancement is not automatic. For "experience points" the player receives chances to dice for skill advances. Also, a skill has a base score which is calculated differently for a high-level character than for a low one, changing the mechanics of advancement when base scores pass 100%. This keeps even a long campaign from acquiring the yawning "easy victory" boredom disease.

Mages, or characters who have acquired the magic skill, are of two types: practitioners of Divine Magic or of Pagan Magic. Mages of Divine Magic are of two types, requiring a bond to one's deity and adherence to particular principles: Berethenu Knights follow the god of justice and must live according to rules of Poverty, Self-sacrifice, and Honor, while Grom Warriors follow the god of war imprisoned in the underworld, and live through Personal Glory, Selfishness, and Pride. Failure to adher to the divine principles causes the Knight or Warrior to lose his magical ability, permanently in the Warrior's case. Pagan magics require spell components to activate spells and may specialize in Beast Magic, Elemental Magic, Enchantment, or Necromancy. Interesting game mechanics add variable destruction/preservation of spell components and the ability to "pump" a spell several levels in strength.

Physcial combat involves two defensive values instead of one, allowing for you AND your armor to be damaged or destroyed. Monsters run a huge gamut from various mythologies to originals from Basement Games. Minotaurs, phoenixes, and dragons share the world with various demons, scaly Mul-Hounds, Rhino Lizards, and elemental creatures such as Frost Heaves.

At Basement Games itself, you will find many additional free campaign materials and may also try the World of Juravia membership program, in which you'll receive Empire packets, ready-to-play mini-adventures, floor plans for temples and dungeons, new monsters, and much, much more.

An excellent game system--well worth it.

--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

I found this work to be one of the more enjoyable and interesting works by Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet- it compiles different aspects of their teachings from an overview of their unique chakra system to their unique verson of astrology called the Cosmic Clock- although I don't agree with everything in this book personally I found many interesting ideas in it

If ever you thought the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden was just Biblical myth, think again!! The story in Genesis is simply an allegorical retelling of something that really took place, not only for Adam and Eve, but for a number of other highly evolved spiritual souls who were also chelas (students) of the Guru Maitreya, who were in the same mystery school with them. "Foundations of the Path" delves into the loss of divinity suffered by these souls in a scientific fashion, combining the use of astrology, as well as the Science of the Cosmic Clock, detailing the right use and the misuses of the energy of God. This book goes on to tell you that what happened in the Garden of Eden is not just a one-time historical event!! It still applies today, and how it is possible to return to that same Edenic state if you have the courage to make it happen!!

Franklin and his friends are going on a searh through the woods to find interseting things and bring them back to share with the class. Snail and Franklin set out with the rest of the group, everyone is finding things, except for Snail. Franklin seems to be doing everything for Snail, and this makes Snail feel very helpless, and very angry. He is trying to do things on his own, and he keeps getting interuppted. Snail finally gets up the nerve to tell Franklin that he can do things by himself. Franklin gets hurt by thins and doesn't really understand, but his friends help him understand when they show him what Snail can do. Franklin understands, and feels bad. He tells Snail he is sorry, and trys to help Snail from now on only when he feels he really needs help.

In this story Franklin helps out his friend snail. Franklin assumes snail wants his help and leaves snail feeling helpless, dependent and frustrated. A excellent story illustrating how helpful intentions may not be wanted and how the person on the receiving end feels about it.

Franklin the turtle loves to play in trees, so when he hears about Mr. Heron
giving away trees for Earth Day, he digs a big hole and plans to build a
treehouse and a swing the same day. He is sorely disappointed to get a mere sapling!
Through the story he learns from other animals and his parents about patience
and hope and tree care. Franklin thinks and feels like a real kid, and the
message does not overpower the story. Maybe not a classic re-read at home, but highly recommended for school libraries.

As a paraprofessional in a public school system, I would highly recommend this book for any young child. This story represents an excellent teaching example to children about the importance of responsibility and their role in accepting responsibility. It also demonstrates how children can benefit from each other's friendship. With spring almost here, I feel every child would benefit having this book. These Franklin books, published by Scholastic, in my opinion, are an excellent educational resource for all young children.