Bart Vale was the "bad guy" in a lot of professional wrestling organizations in Japan. They sell the matches as real, but they are as real as Hulk Hogan and the NWO. They are called "stiff" or "shoot" matches. Vale can teach you to be a great "stiff" pro wrestler but as a martial artist his skills are questionable. A lot of these techniques only work on a non resisting opponent, others are brute strength. Best part of the book is the old pictures if you are into the Japan thing, but as an instructional book, get a wrestling book or Renzo Gracie's great book

Considering that there is very little on shootfighting in the way of books out there this was a good start.I'm sure they could have added a lot more material but maybe Mr.Vale has a contract to do a series of books.A short book doesn't always mean that it is a bad book (an example would be one of the greatest grappling books there is-"My study of Judo" by Gunji Koizumi.Short but comparable if not better than anything currently availabe.I'd say if you have a martial arts library,grab "Shootfighting".If you're looking for advanced techniques or enough to try to incorporate it into your fighting repretoire,you might want to wait and see if a second volume that is more advanced comes out.

It's ture, shoot fighting is great. I've used it both in and out of the ring. This book has some good stuff. money

In my humble opinion, Mark A. Lause has published a piece of garbage "history." Trying to read this thing is worse than getting nibbled to death by a bunch of geese with dull teeth. It seems to me that he had the nerve to imply that the vast majority of Union Craftsman from 1778-1815 had homosexual tendencies. I think the author should leave his personal preferences out of it, because I have done research to indicate that the unionists were not gay.

It is also clear in this book that the author despises America and that he is clearly persuing an avenue to degrade American honor.

This book is terrible.

It is regrettable (and unethical) that Prof. Lause's colleague Hartman offers a 5 star review after Lause was forced to withdraw a similar unsigned review of his own book here. Such things indicate little concern for honest scholarship. Despite this I found it an interesting read. I am unable to judge what contribution it makes to the literature.

"Some Degree of Power" is a close examination of primary sources from the American revolutionary printing trade, and is the first coherent attempt to create a database of the active, political American working class. The project antedates Sean Wilentz's "Chants Democratic", and undertakes a larger mission.

Dr Lause recovers, from their own voices, the political life and discourse of the radical printing elite of the Atlantic Enlightenment. This book tracks the employment, political associations, publications, military and revolutionary activity of almost one thousand printers from the eighteenth into nineteenth century.

He demonstrates that workers were articulate, organised and made their own significant contributions to civic culture and political events, other than as "the crowd in history." It is evident from this work that printers were the literate and organising elite among workers in the eighteenth century as weavers and masons were in medieval work forces. This corrects the concept of worker as "tool of the bourgeoisie, and follows the interpretive tradition of E.P.Thompson.

If you want to know what early American printers read,wrote, and believed, and what they did as citizens, this is your portal into their world.

This book has more errors than should ever be allowed in a professional product. There are typo's in both text and examples. The CD does not contain the source code from the book and I vote this the worst source ever of any computer based information I have found to date. It has left me very unsure of the publishers (QUE) standards and I may never purchase another QUE book again. I simply do not trust them. Spend your hard earned money on a different choice

"Special Edition Using Java, Second Edition" is an excellent reference to JDK 1.0.2. However, today (April 15), only a month and a half after being billed as "Computer Programming Expert Editor's Recommended Book, 03/01/97", it is a dated reference and the cover claims of JDK 1.1 coverage fall short--they are preliminary and peripheral to primary Java programming topics. For example, there is no coverage of the major changes in the Java event model of JDK 1.1, which permeate almost every application. I recommend waiting for better JDK 1.1 coverage, hopefully in Joseph Weber's new version, "Special Edition Using Java 1.1" which has not yet been released, but for which Amazon is taking orders today

This book is nothing if not large. This was QUEs attempt to capture the entire spectrum of JAVA and make it easy to understand (a task that they accomplished) but then the standards changed again. This is still a great book for learning Java; but, you will have to move on to other resources for news on the updates

This was a HUGE disappointment. I do not understand why readers love this guy. It cant be his writing. It just cant! The characters were so cliche here. Like they were pulled from another book of his, given a different name and hair color and yet they're the same. The exact same. Check out Brothers of Blood or Desmond for a good gay vampire story.

I read this over a week's time...and though it held my interest...i wondered about a few things. 1. Why was it necessary to constantly remind the reader that the main character was puny? We figured it out the first few times. 2. Where did the author locate his information on vampire's? 3. Why did the rules change so much regarding how many times it took one to be bitten before turning into a vampire? 4. If Kelly is the main character's best friend, where was she in the entire novel? I understand the author wanted to lead the reader into the heartache of vampire and desired to compare the life of a vampire and a gay boy...all in which I believe was done well, but I hoped to learn more about Josiah...and not just how he became a vampire (which was clumped together all too quickly and finally lost me at the end) but the other part of Josiah..the boy trapped inside. And what were this boy's interests? And why was the main character's gay uncle only assessed at one point in the script...I was hoping to see their bond grow. The ending seemed a bit contrived and wasn't explained in depth. I won't ruin in for other readers, but I'm sure other's could see it. I commend Mark for a smooth read that was delightful at moments. It's nice to see a gay book on the market that isn't all about sex and I loved the innocence surrounding the main character. Mark is definately on his way as a great gay writer...just keep them coming...

If you're looking for an Anne Rice clone or have a hankering for blood, cruelty and horror, I don't think "The Vampire's Heart" is for you. However, if you have a taste for "gay teen romance" with a uniquely supernatural flavour, VH is definitely a darned good read.

I have read all of Mark's books, finishing VH last night. In all honesty, I can say that it is not his absolute best. But I include it with "A Better Place" and "Someone Is Watching" as among my top three favourites. Its "defects" (if one can use that misleading term) lie not in any failure in the writing or plot or handling of the theme. Rather, VH's sole shortcoming is that it is ... well ... too *short*. VH seems to be a case where the storyteller does not take quite as long to go into the depth of his tale and its characters as he (and his readers) might have actually wished. To my mind, it is an "abridged" version of a longer story which cries out to be told in full. Perhaps Mark will do us that favour one of these days.

I highly recommend "The Vampire's Heart" to all readers who enjoy positive and ultimately heart-warming stories about gay teens. It is fun; it is suspenseful; it is a thoroughly enjoyable (albeit all too short) adventure.

That said, I must however disagree with Mark on one point. The author states in the book's Introduction that VH is *not* a part of the Gay Youth Chronicles set in and around Verona, Indiana. I believe that other fans of GYC who read "The Vampire's Heart" will understand my rather bold and presumptuous disagreement with the author's disavowal. Based on many "coincidences" in VH and on a plethora of speculations that arise about "what if...", this story definitely *could* be a part of GYC. In my opinion, it *should* be a part of them. In my heart and mind, it *is* a part of them. In other words, if you are a fan of the Gay Youth Chronicles, you will not need to fear that VH is entirely divorced from them. Indeed, if your imagination and love for Mark's other characters and creations matches my own, you will find subtle and perhaps even ethereal links to GYC. And as was the case for me, perhaps these links will make "The Vampire's Heart" an even more enjoyable reading adventure than it already is.

Not a great novel at all, and not satisfying to someone looking for fiction concerning poker in particular.

Five childhood friends live their lives obsessed by poker and haunted by a secret tragedy. Every year, four of them get together for a weekend-long reunion in San Fransisco where they play an epic game of poker and relive their youths. Only one -- Bobby McCorkle -- has refused to attend these games until finally, the details of that hidden tragedy threaten to bubble to the surface. This year, Bobby attends the game and, over the course of one chaotic weekend, the truth is finally revealed. Its a good premise for a thriller but Mark Joseph's The Wild Card ends up promising more than it delivers.

Probably the most important element of any thriller are creating credible, believable characters. If you can buy the characters and their motivations, even the most improbable of twists can be accepted. Unfortunately, with the exception of Bobby and occasionally gambling addicted Alex, the main characters never really stand out from each other. Each is given one trait to set them apart (one is gay, another Chinese) but otherwise, they're basically interchangeable. Since very little seems to be happening inside the characters (and most of their dialouge feels forced and leaden), the book's attempts at creating a psychological thriller fall flat. As well, the deep, dark secret should be obvious to most readers as soon as they read the first chapter. With a few noteable exceptions, the book lacks a certain element of surprise that a succesful thriller needs to keep the reader on the edge of his seat.

That said, there are also a few elements that work quite well. The author is, himself, a poker player and the game scenes crackle with a vibrancy that the rest of the book lacks. (Though, by the end, his oft-repeated message that poker represents the twists and turns of life starts to feel just a bit heavy handed and forced.) Though he's hardly a master of prose, Joseph is a good story teller and the book is a quick read. Even if it didn't enthrall me, the Wild Card certainly didn't bore me either. As well, the ending's final twist, if a little improbable (as most final twists are), is a genuine surprise and does stick in the reader's mind after he finishes the book. On the whole, an uneven thriller that certainly has its moments. One could do worse when looking for a book to pass a rainy afternoon with.

Joseph's new book, "The Wild card," finds the author taking an interesting break from his usual techno-thriller style of writing and exploring new territory as a spinner of more broadly accessible suspense yarns. The result is a rather winning piece of work, at least in terms of storytelling. First of all, the whole book has a sort of Americana, meat-and-potatoes ambience in terms of its writing--Joseph brings to mind Stephen King's knack for evoking eras, places, and events in the recent American past and in the present, and the ability to capture the straightforward emotions of individual characters embroiled in those "snapshots of time,"--especially in somewhat questionable, shady situations.The feel reminds me of King's short story "The Body," upon which "Stand By me" was based, and this is a favorable comparison, obviously. The book starts right off the bat with suspense; within two pages Joseph conjures the indelible image of a busy riverside suburb in northern California--an image suddenly twisted by the problematic discovery of a skeleton. 'The Wild Card' is a character-driven tale, so it helps that the reader can't help but take a liking to the very first character Joseph draws: a female bulldozer operator who discovers the bones and is forced to take a ten-minute cigarette break in the cab of her vehicle, pondering in the workday heat while her inner-moral compass decides whether to report the finding or simply "ditch" the cadaver and keep her paycheck secure. Being, as Joseph describes, "an honest sort," she spills the beans and sets in motion the typically American brand of frantic investigative activity that usually leads to the suspicion of foul play. Now, the stage is set for the heart of the story: five men with a potentially shattering secret in their pre-Vietnam era past--four of these men still meet annually for a raucous poker game in a San Francisco hotel suite, but ONE of the former clique, a near-vagabond gambling addict named Bobby, has ostracized himself from his friends' yearly revelries. Trust me: he has good reason. However, with the grisly discovery, the jig is suddenly up and Joseph successfully creates the tense, charged atmosphere of an almost ritualistic poker gathering. Instead of halting their good time, the discovery of the skeleton brings this bunch of guys together in a palpably tense, almost frightening manner. Joseph's writing is effective enough here that you almost want to reach in and wipe the sweat from their foreheads. What each of them has to reveal about their recollection of poor Sally (and her long-ago fate) seems designed by the author to show the nature of the tricky business we might call "individual human perspective." Of course, card game imagery is "shuffled" into the plot at a number of turns, but it doesn't come off as being too contrived because Joseph is sort of churning toward a conclusion that brings these images into union with his number one image: *THE* wild card--poor, enigmatic Bobby McCorkle. Obviously, the story whips up the suspense quotient at a swift pace, and the whole point is to make you salivate for the conclusion (and believe me, you do). Also of note:the San Francisco setting is used to extremely good effect throughout the tale--if the author is planning another thriller set in the city by the bay, then that is good news, because his particular vision of San Francisco grabs. On a very minor note, the dialogue of Joseph's characters can be inexplicably clunky, but only on a few occasions, and their use of profanity is often so gratuitous as to be genuinely irritating and too contrived. This book is, without question, the ideal read for a man who wants to kick back in his easy chair after a hard-day's work, drink a Scotch (or a Bud), and sink into a fast-paced, gripping tale about five other guys who are knee-deep in some potentially serious manure ...basically,this book has "guy" written all over it. It's hard to find a man who hasn't taken part in the thrill of a poker game at some time or another, so "Wild card" is probably the best book out right now to buy as a gift for a man--whether he reads a great deal or not. Buy it, and watch how easy it is for your husband or boyfriend to really bond with a book.

I love all of the other Serrated Edge books, but this one is a definate flop. It featured a young boy being slowly starved and tortured to death by a Koreshian/NeoNazi cult. That made me sick. Most of the characters were very flat also. In short, a dull, depressing book.

I found this book to be an entertaining example of its kind, and worth reading, especially if you are a Lackey fan. I did, however, find fault with some of the character developement. While the cases of Joe and especially Cindy are poignant, many of the other characters are less multi-faceted than one would expect. Good and evil are absolutes, with little room to explore the gray area of the different characters' consciences. However, these faults are far from dire, and I would not want to discourage a potential reader from enjoying this book for what it is; a side trip, as opposed to a journey, through an imaginary landscape.

Mercedes Lackey handles elves like no one else. She's always fun and entertaining. The SERRAted edge books are some of my favorites (though the first one was slightly inferior). Wheels of Fire is anothe prime crazy-elves book--but it was unfinished. Though one of the character's lives is traced into Chrome Circle, which I actually read before this one, the rest seem to be dropped. I expect a sequel. It's always a sequel...but all the character build up led to a disappointing flop in the end. I wanted to see more from Cindy, more from Jamie, more from Bob, more from Al, more from Frank, more from Joe! The ending felt hurried, as if Misty was on a tight deadline and realized it a chapter away from the book's conclusion. The only character I was even partially satisfied with in the end was Sarah, a ghost.

So, I would say that this book is good, and definitely worth a read (or five), but not Lackey's best, and requires a sequel.

Had hoped for much more... it's the type of book that sets up the conflict for 200 pages, massages it for 60 more, and then resolves it in only 10!! VERY unsatisfying ending.

Although Sisko and O'Brien are on the cover, this DS9 novel is about the trials and errors of Quark. Greed and the need for more profit are the evils which bring about the plot of this novel.

Although not the best of the DS9 novels, a definate must for Quark fans.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Trial by Error written by Mark Garland is a Quark book, as Quark hatches another scheme and his greed brings Deep Space Nine under attack.

This book lays a ground work and starts out slow, but don't lose heart as it wraps-up with plenty of action. Quarks is known for his enterprising schemes some of which are suspect for being legal. Odo wouldn't mind seeing Quark falling flat on his face while a scheme backfires, we see Quark trading with a Gamma Quadrant race... a lucrative deal to trade trellium crystals from the gamma Quadrant for gold-pressed latinum. Quark will realize enormous profits, but there is a catch.

Quark thinks this is too good to be true... and of course it is as we see Quarks scheme beginning to fall apart as the Gamma Quadant race, Quarks trading partners has enemies. Now, this distrust begins to tarnish the deal as a third alien race from the Gamma Quadrant begins to suspect theft, piracy or worse... as we known things that a Ferengi is good at including guile, cunning, trickery, and deceitfulness.

Now, all three alien races begin to distrust each other and the well-being of Deep Space Nine is in jeopardy. Klingons and Ferengi also get involved and now a shooting war breaks out and the action really gets heated-up. I found the book to be a quick, fast read as Quark's brokering gets him into trouble. The book fleshs out the character of Quark and we get a better sense of to what extent Quark will go to make gold-pressed latinum.

The Story Knife is a bit of a disappointment. The descriptive history of Alaska and Native American culture is informative and sensitively treated, but the characterization of women and the language used to describe them is antiquated and shallow, even for this genre. For this line to succeed, the priest, the women and the married relationships require more depth and less cliche. Fr. Townsend is supposed to be the protagonist, but in actuality, the mystery solves itself. We need a little more wheat and a little less chaff.

For a first mystery, this is extremely good. The story drags at times, and more editing would have helped, but the author has vivid descriptions, lively action, and an unusual setting. The local touches are occasionally overdone; one more description of someone as "white" was about to make me scream, especially as I never thought of Eskimos as "non-white"! But the language, arts, and culture are handled well.

This book was a very good mystery, but it took a while to get into the suspense and excitement. I thought the author could've maybe gotten into a better mood and started things faster. The author also added a lot of unneeded information. Most of the facts about the Eskimos were interesting, but pretty much useless. The author definitely showed his knowledge about Eskimo lifestyle, but a lot of the Eskimo speaking and reference to it was not needed. If you read this book you will know a lot more about Eskimos, but a lot of the time you will just want to get to the story. I did like the author's description and I thought that it made this story interesting. The story was very exciting and kept you on the edge of your seat when the author stayed on the story line. I think that during the first one hundred pages, the author could've maybe made a small reference to who the exact killer could be so the reader could be thinking. I know that after the explanation of the murder and characters the book went no where for a while. A little hint or clue in these first pages could have improved this book enormously. After reading the book and getting a resolution to it, I think that it was pretty good. I think that the book could have been a little more exciting and shorter without as many Eskimo facts and information. The end feeling of this book is pretty good though, once the book got started it was very good. The only bad parts were at the beginning. I would recommend this book to people who like mysteries and would like to know a little Eskimo culture. If you want a book that gets right into the plot and reads fast, I think you should try a different book.

Fascinated by constitutional law, I approached Tushnet's book interested in a stand against the notion of judicial review, a central tenet of American jurisprudence. Tushnet's approach, although fleshed out, is not particularly useful to those interested in the theoretical underpinnings of judicial review.

Instead, the book maintains a fairly consistent position that is dubiously supported throughout. Through inconsistent use of caselaw, and little analysis of the legal reasoning of the cases he cites, Tushnet does create an comprehensible position against judicial review, but it is not particularly well argued. Just the fact of being against judicial review does not make for a usable book. The exercise of judicial power does not alone invalidate judicial review as a doctrine. The serious constitutional, historical, logical, and even utilitarian analysis necessary for developing a persuasive opinion is absent from the work.

He typically falls on attempting to undermine the pro-judicial review position as a method of making his case, but it is untenable. Criticizing extreme contemporary positions and labelling them as liberal (read: 'elitist'), does not make the case. By taking quotes out of context, he is moderately successful at creating the image of a sustainable position, but the grand scheme fails. He arduously quotes Madison, after severely paring the quotes to fit his point, but it is not enough. The index does not even cite Alexander Hamilton once; there is no rigorous treatment of the 'Federalist Papers,' the most succint and thorough exploration of US Constitutional theory; there is no sustained theoretical analysis of the powers of government and the utility of republicanism, and the nature of separated and mixed powers.

Essentially, he is making an argument for populism using a populist technique: "the liberals support judicial review because they think you're too dumb to decide for yourself, therefore judicial review is bad." This is hardly sufficient for making a defensible argument with such radical overtones. Tushnet's approach is reminiscent of William Jennings Bryan's majoritarianism, and is certainly bryanesque in its idealistic appeals and its logical inadequacies.

With severely questionable positions on constitutional amendment, which he supports only by criticising the extremes of his opposition as arrogant, he ignores the whole theoretical underpinning of the amendment process of Article V. He then presents some appalingly idealistic support of the populist majority alteration of the Constitution. Any first-year political science student studying state and local politics knows what cumbersome bludgeons state constitutions are. Opinion is still out on popular referenda, and how effective they are at both serving the public good and representing the popular will. I suggest taking a look at the monstrously huge Indian constitution to appreciate the brevity of the American constitution and its demanding amendment process.

Residing somewhere between scholarly and demagoguery is the best address for this effort. The attempt to foster innovative thought is obvious, but the book does little more than that. More troubling is the tendency to quote Madison and Lincoln from context, asserting points that perplex the issue, without ever giving equal time to either voice that might help decide the issue. Deliberation may well benefit from this work but it spends enormous time dealing with unconstitutional remedies for constitutional issues. Certain assumptions advanced by Tushnet, tend to foster an apathy towards seperated tripartite government, if that apathy evoked an investigation of core republican (note the small 'r')principles the point of his book might be visible, lacking that it remains obscure. The book is affably written, and a good read, but an additional quote from Lincoln may have guided this hypothetical offering " Now, and here, let me guard a little against being misunderstood. I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly whatever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience-to reject all progress-all improvement. What I do say is, that we should supplant the opinions and policy of our fathers in any case, we should do so upon evidence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand; and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they understood the question better than we.."

The author states "We can take the Constitution away from the courts in several ways." He then lists those methods, suggests a move to "populist constitutional law" which is "a law oriented to realizing the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution's Preamble" and give scant clues about what any of the above really mean or how they can be carried out. He also says that his arguments for a populist constitutional law "is [not] the only, or even the best, interpretation of the Constitution." Reduced to simplicity then, the author is unhappy with the concept of judicial review and has nothing with which to replace it. I don't believe the author takes the arguments he propounds too seriously and neither should his readers.

I must admit, my intigue waned about halfway through this book, but it had enough reserve fuel from early on to keep my interest through the last chapters. I think less of the "narrative" approach McMahon takes in the writing would have made for a more stimulating read; I felt a certain distance from the characters, because of this.

If you are a Pre-Med or Medical Student, intern, resident, or practicing physician, or the "significant other" of one of these, you owe it to yourself to read and understand this book as well as the more famous "House of God". Ned's experience is shared by the large majority of doctors in training, and Dr. McMahon has captured it quite well.

I must admit, I also fell in love with the character Roxanne, just as Ned had. I found the book not only interesting, but provocative as well. We all have the internal pull of finding our own "Venice Beach." I'd be curious to know if this book is autobigraphical of the author.