This is the worst example of cultural studies. The book is full of vague, insubstantiated claims, tenuous theoretical and historical connections, sweeping generalizations, and marred by a fatal lack of basic organization. Cultural studies doesn't have to be this simplistic and thin. Each chapter reads like a series of promises ("I will deal with this issue later in this chapter") that remain unfulfilled, as though the writer couldn't actually deliver on the task of real analysis, but can only give vague and hollow summary. Avoid it.

Curiously missing from this text is a discussion of the fiction of Poppy Z. Brite--particularly her novel Exquisite Corpse. This novel,strangely enough,prefigures the Andrew Cunanan(I hope I'm spelling his last name correctly)murder spree. Also, Seltzer shows no evidence of having read the work of intellectual historian Louis Kern. His essay on the splatterpunk phenomenon would have been useful to Seltzer's arguments.

Mark Seltzer's fascinating book is not for the faithhearted. It is not an easy read, but it is therefore also not to be dismissed (as some reviewers here seem to do).

Seltzer's mind is quite keen. He is a penetrating reader of texts and culture. And he sees relationships where others might see separate phenomena. In many ways building on his previous book about machine culture in America and its relationship to various texts (_Bodies and Machines_), Seltzer here probes the interaction between serial violence in real life and in novels and film. Among other things, he maps the generative influence of the one upon the other, and vice versa.

This book will probably appeal more to scholars and graduate students than to a general readership, for along the way Seltzer does draw on various critical theorists, whom those uninitiated into the world of theory will no doubt find obscure. A recommendation for them might be a book by Seltzer's former colleague at Cornell, Jonathan Culler, _Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction_.

If, however, you are not searching for beach reading, but rather a serious, challenging, and often macabre, look at the ways in which our society is obsessed with violence, this is a book that will repay your close and sustained attention. Moreover, it will probably, like Seltzer's other work, rub off on you in some way and help you read texts -- and culture -- with a more critical eye.

I had to return this book for lack of substance. Lots and lots of pages but nothing helpful. If I could give it less than 1 star I would.

agree with one of your other reviewers--a lot of pages, several facsimilies, and the most useful section being the introductory forward by Stephen Raab and the description of paper, ink, etc. What is surprising is the virtual complete lack of mention and certainly no text regarding the founding fathers, signers of the declaration, signers of the constitution, famous historical figures who were not signers such as Revere, John Paul Jones, Arnold, Jay, Marshall etc. Any "advanced" collector immediately comes to grip with these names. Presidents do have a section but it is modest considering the fact that this category is the overwhelmingly most popular collecting topic for most "advanced" collectors with American history, historical authors and composers next in line.

ANyone who does not find this book worth while is crazy! This book is very helpful... and its great for any autograph colector who wants to figure out if his signatures are authentic. This is truely a great source of information. Buy this book!

What a discrace. The art work was terrible and the story was laughable. This Comic series marked the downfall of the Aliens comics that has yet to stop.

While the story is quite interesting, the artwork depicted in the
"Earth War" series is nothing short of ludicrous. Do not be fooled by the lovely cover artwork pictured here! Sam Kieth's artwork is laughably unsuitable for anything concerned with the "Alien" series. Instead of the streamlined androgynous grace Ripley should embody, here we get a haggard, false-eyelash wearing Ripley who resembles an ageing barfly. Her lack of undergarments is not titillating, just stupid. How out of character can you get?! The Colonial Marines are a disgrace to anyone remembering the realistic depictions in the film; not to mention they go into battle clad in t-shirts. No body armor, no uniforms. Ludicrous! Perhaps the best indication I can give you is to say this artist makes all the characters look like Neandertals or drunken shrews, depending upon the sex of the character.

Den Beauvais, rest easy. There's no threat to your unforgettable
work here. My advice to readers? Take off and nuke this book from orbit: it's the only way to be sure. (Perhaps you might want to rip off the front cover first - it's the only thing worth saving.)

I give this two stars only because of the storyline only. What a waste of a potentially wonderful series.

Aliens Earth War is the third in the original Dark Horse trilogy following the movie, ALIENS. After the subsequent movies, the comics were redone, and the remasterd version of this particular comic is called The Female War. The remastered versions are a waste of time.

Aliens Earth War is a beautiful comic, living up to the standard the original two set. It brings full circle the continuing stories of Newt and Hicks, and ushers the return and full story of our hero, Ripley. This trilogy of comics, and this final one, are how the story should have ended (or continued...).

Aside from not coinciding with the movies, which you should be able to handle, this is a heck of an ALIENS story. A must have for ALIENS and especially ALIENS comics fans.

Good guide for 1997, but 3 years later it is out of date and does not contain many new sites. Web directorys should be updated yearly at the least.

I was very unhappy when I saw the cheap quality of The Big Basics Web Directory published by Que.. The paper is the kind used for coloring books, and the printing is poorly done. In some instances it is all but impossible to read the black print on dark gray background. I had expected to receive a book of at least as good quality as Que's Complete Idiot's Guide to Windows 95. Sorry about this poor review. This is the first time in a long time I've been so disappointed in a book I had ordered sight unseen.

     There are literally millions of Websites online today that provide a wealth of information on a variety of topics. There are a handful of good Internet Website directories available that can help surfers find the information they need. Most of these are bulky, though, and can take a while to thumb through. Que and Macmillan Computer Publishing has published The Big Basics Web Directory to provide readers with reviews of their top picks!

     Que's editors have selected the best Website in each of the 101 categories covered in the book. Additionally, four more (best of the rest) Websites in each of these categories are also reviewed. Topics include business, car buying, computers, cooking, education, government, health, hobbies, humor, investing, job searching, news, pets, religion, software, sports, travel, as well as a number of controversial issues.

     This large 8 1/2" by 11" directory features quarter-page screen shots of every Website reviewed. A convenient listing at the back of the book lists every Website and its URL to provide quick and easy access to them. Website reviewers will find this directory to be a great reference tool for review material when facing a deadline. Website designers can pick up some top-notch Website design ideas as well!

     This concise directory will point readers to some of the best Websites available at the turn of a page. Thumb through it at your leisure. There is something of interest here for everyone! Highly recommended!

I like sci-fi, and I love time travel stories, but ...

With all the flaws tmm2112 noted, I can't believe he still gave 4 stars! I won't reiterate - check tmm's review! I will add that the digressions tmm cited were provided at the expense of key scenes of the story! He expounded on the theory of time travel, then skipped the whole experience!

Worst of all for me was the hideous overuse of the exclamation point! It was painful at first - now I'm afraid I am inured and that it will take several (edited) books before I will again notice the difference between a statement and an exclamatory!

And was that an ending, or was the author interrupted before completing this tale?!

It could have been, if it had an editor to hold the author's feet to the fire. The problem with self-published books like this one, there isn't anyone to tell the author to take this out or expand on the other bit. This could have been a great book, if someone had done so.

A time travel story in which the hero discovers the method to returning to the past, and does so in order to save his grandmother from a fatal genetic disorder. So far, so good.

Burgauer is an excellent writer, his dialog is crisp, his charecters are reasonably believable. But then, despite the superb writing, the whole book is dragged down by its flaws.

The story repeatedly screeches to a halt while Burgauer uses page after page to go off on a tangent, usally in the form of an essay plugged into the body of the story. First, when the hero finds the time travel technique, we have 12 pages of exposition, including charts, on how to do it. Just as dull as it sounds. Six pages about the science of poker, which didn't contribute anything to the story. It was followed by a couple of pages that basically just said "Using her telepathy, the women from the future made a killing in poker". Later, after the hero gets involved in the American Civil War, 18 pages about the Battle of Shiloh, including maps, with nary a mention of our fictional charecters. Now, I'm even a bit of a Civil War buff, but if I wanted this, I'd just go read Shelby Foote. No matter how well paced a book is otherwise, digressions like these just stop the narrative flow dead.

Other flaws. The depiction of Samuel Clemens, an important part of the last part of the book. The majority of Clemens' dialog seems to have been cut-and-pasted from his "Life on the Mississippi" and "Roughing It". Burgauer demonstrated in the rest of the book he could write good dialog, I do think he could have put something more original in the voice of Mark Twain for the story. A faintly ridiculous sex scene, basically beautiful female triplets who have never seen a male before our hero... Future villians drawn as the kind of bigoted buffoons you expect to find in the KKK.

If only a good editor had gotten ahold of this book, slashed the chaff away without mercy, browbeat Burgauer into expanding on the interplay between the two main charecters and everyone else, and maybe made the future bad guys a little less two dimensional. This book might have been a contender for an award.

A fun read
by tmm2112 Jul 28 '02 (Updated Jul 29 '02)

Pros: A fun time/space travel romp with dashes of American history thrown in
Cons: Too wordy in places, too little info in others

The Bottom Line: If you like light-hearted SF space travel and time travel stories, read it.

Recommended: Yes

This was my first time to read a book by Steven Burgauer, and it was not a disappointment. Long a fan of science fiction and historical fiction, I found this book to satisfy both desires. Steven clearly has a good grasp of space travel and time travel theories and puts them to good use as his protagonists traverse the galaxy and the time stream to reach their goals.

This is not a cyberpunk novel. You'll find no computer controlled society of people with cybernetic implants. No Matrix and no Terminators. It's more reminiscent of SF from the 60's and 70's, light-hearted with adventure and fun at its core.

The protagonist is Andu, a former Afghan freedom fighter and spaceship propulsion inventor who has a dark family secret; there's a defect in his DNA that has befuddled even modern (25th century) medical science. So his only hope is to travel back in time and retrieve a donor in his family line who does not have the defect. Would you believe he has to travel all the way back to the American Civil War? But wait a minute, even in the 25th century, time travel is only a theory. No one's ever actually done it. But the theory was developed by a rebellious religious faction who migrated away from earth long ago. Who were they? Why, the Mormons, of course. Only, they got lost in space and have never been heard from since, and the secret to time travel was lost with them.

The title is slightly misleading, if you are familiar with the term "the grandfather paradox" as it relates to time travel. It implies that the paradox plays a significant role in the story and it does not. It does not detract from this rousing tale, but I would have recommended a title emphasizing the role of the missing gene or the Tachyon Drive.

Andu is a survivor and encounters obstacles from crew members, aliens, nature and his own heart to complete his mission. We don't meet his main companion until almost halfway through the book, but once we do the chemistry is fantastic. The book strikes a nice balance between characterization and action. The surreal nature of the adventure itself and some of the creatures Andu encounters along the way give the book a feel not unlike the work of Piers Anthony in some of his older SF work (Macroscope, Cthon and Orn). But the detailed discussions of time travel theory and gravity wells (complete with graphs) better resemble the hard science fiction of Isaac Asimov. The juxtaposition of the two styles is curiously entertaining which gave me the feel of wild adventure and a physics lesson in the same book.

One of the two faults the novel has is the extraneous exposition Steven divulges at times. The appearance of a young Sam Clemens is charming, that is until he's told you one too many of his tall tales and expounded on the human condition a little too often. And their ultimate clash with the American Civil War was tastefully handled except for the vast amount of detail Steven indulges in. Most of this exposition was at a birds eye view to the reader and did not directly affect the protagonist. Though it was clear that Steven knows a little about the Civil War, perhaps a better place to demonstrate it would be in a true historical fiction tale based in that era. And I would be glad to give it a try.

Some plot details were strangely missing or glossed over with the wave of a hand. The characters get from point A to point B with the simple turning of a page. These missing plot steps would have been more interesting to read than the many pages of war maneuvers by Union and Rebel troops that I did read. I also found the ending to be particularly abrupt and unsatisfying. There should have been numerous questions raised by their sudden appearance

Overall I enjoyed the book and will probably read another work of his. It was a good SF romp through time and space in the tradition of Isaac Asimov and Piers Anthony.
Mark
Columbus, MS

As one reviewer already stated, this book is full of inaccuracies and was probably hastily thrown together to make a buck. The first 2 of the 5 total chapters are background info on the pre-PJ Seattle scene, at least 50% of which doesn't even feed into and is inconsequential to the story of PJ.

At the time of this writing, the book is now 9 years out of date as well. It was published just after the release of Vs., so obviously this was a way for the author to cash in on the overnight success of PJ rather than waiting for the band to establish itself and become more worthy journalist fare.

In short, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are on a quest to own every book ever written about Pearl Jam (or if you're interested in learning about how the city of Seattle was settled, how Sub-Pop records was founded, or various other things that have virtually nothing to do with the Pearl Jam story).

filled with inaccuracies, seemed like a quick way to make a buck. will satisfy only the fan who has to constantly read about them, even if the info is wrong. reading this after "five against one" is almost comical. do not waste hard earned money.

This book was really interesting if you are a Pearl Jam maniac such as myself. It has a lot of history involved including the Green River and Mother Love Bone eras. If you want to find out the amazing story of how Pearl Jam came to be, this is a definite read.

Been a Wrox fan for some time. This is the worst book their team has produced. The material is cursory at best and totally theoretical. Very few practical examples. Never thought I would point to an MSPress Step-by-Step book, however it is far superior to this junk.

I found this book to be helpful in understanding how to utilize multidimensional database design. It was nice to see that Microsoft has some affordable alternatives one can turn to in the data mining and data warehousing market. Once again WROX has produced a helpful product for professionals in the computer industry.

I bought Sakhrs version of this book for SQL Server 7. This is not just an upgrade but a look at the new functionlity found within SQL Server 2000.

This book is a dream if you are involved within Analysis and even looking at the new DTS Analysis functions has helped me.

Comparing this with other books, by far this is the one that is well written and doesnt just come out with the obvious.

What a complete waste of space in any bookcase. The wonder of this book is not that the publisher consented to print it, but didnt demand their retainer back. A fatuous subject (a 'journalist' devoid of originality) with poor attempts at humour and is downright patronsing as only the English abroad know how to be. I want my money back!

I read this book and thought Why on earth does this guy think anyone is going to find this interesting?, a question one never thinks to ask of Bill Bryson or Dave Barry. Yes, it's informative and very well written. The fact that there is no cohesive force in the book is not the main problem. The main problem is that it's not funny enough, and even when it is funny, it's not funny enough. OK, so-so and not too bad, but this guy is no Bill Bryson.

Are you fed up with people kayaking across the Sahara or absailing down the North Pole. Do Redmond O'Hanlon, Bruce Chatwin and Dervla Murphy make you feel guiltily like a boring couch potato? Here is a travel writer with a difference. Lawson visits only safe places, where nothing ever happens (Dead Horse, Alaska, to give one example) but describes them in a way that, while it doesn't exactly make you want to visit, makes you glad he did. He is witty, observant, tongue-in-cheek and possessed of an acute sense of irony. If you like Bill Bryson, you will love this book.

The Employment Guide for The Military,Intelligence and Special Operations Communities by Mr. Merritt; falls very short in assisting SOF personnel with job hunting. This book is primarily for the techno/crypto personnel(NSA or NRO types) rather than the SOF operaters on the ground. The only thing applicable to the operator utilizing this book is possibly their experience with SR missions. This book does not assist the SOF operators out there looking for DA, UW,CA or FID related assignments or jobs. Again the book falls very short for SOF personnel - very low-speed/high-drag!

This book provides little help for people with a SOF background (I cannot speak on the Military Intelligence side of the house). It is mainly a primer on how to write a resume, and contains little helpful information about jobs available in the civilian world. Almost all of the contacts listed are some type of software/computer/communications company. In fact, I thought the title should be changed to "Employment guide for personnel in the electronics, communication, or computer MOS's". I was hoping to find security or consulting contacts that I had not previously known, but even the most basic contacts (such as Brown and Root or Dynacorps) were not listed. The only contact listed for anyone with strictly SOF experience is MPRI. The rest are all some type of crypto/commo/aerospace stuff. The only reason to buy this book is for the contact information, and it fails in this area. There are better books on resume writing on the market. My advice: shop elswhere.

This book is a one of a kind resource for people with a Military Intelligence or Special Operations background. I am currently using this guide to develop a resume/cover letter, network with old collegues and make contact with prospective employers. This book contains lists of key government agencies, defense contractors and headhunter agencies that are looking for people with SOF/MI skills. If you are looking to market your unique skills as a civilian, this is the guide for you.