When the average person thinks of the automobile industry, thefollowing names like Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota,Saab, etc. are likely to leap to mind. But what MIT's report points out is that the modern automobile industry is not represented just by these finished-product assemblers, but by suppliers and component craftsmen that constitute an extremely complex web that make up "the automobile industry." But the complexity of the automobile industry rests not only on the composition of the industry itself, but also the international environment within which the industry must operate. Domestic auto industries hold a special position in most countries in that most governments see the very existence of domestic auto producers as a good unto itself. For example, if a Japanese producer can engineer and produce a better widget, chances are that that producer will be able to market that product domestically and internationally with great success if widgets are not seen as a major threat to an important industry of another nation. But with automobiles (as was the case for Japanese producers in the early 1970's), the prospects for successful international competition is not so clear-cut. Automobile producers are therefore constrained not only by the forces of the market and competitors, but also by domestic and foreign governments that take a special interest in the success or failure of their firms.

Murasaki star system contains a duo of inhabitable planets that orbit each other: Genji - a high-gravity world with a dense, soupy atmosphere; and Chujo - an arid, wintry world of canyons and wind-swept plains. Neither is perfect for humans - on Genji they must wear pressure suits in addition to getting used to gravity levels half-again as high as on Earth; Chujo is more forgiving, though it can be intensely cold. Both planets serve home to sapient races: the Ihrdizu of Genji - low-tech amphibians that congregate in small villages; and the humanoids of Chujo - aloof, mysterious beings that ignore the humans entirely. It is here that the first manned interstellar expeditions will arrive, bearing humans of all frames of mind - Earthlings and off-worlders, atheists and philosophers, mystics and iconoclasts...

Instead of being a collaborative novel, "Murasaki" is a mixed bag of science fiction stories that share a setting, each written by a different award-winning author. Mind the fact that the only interesting part is the fairly in-depth world-creation notes (included as appendices), and that the stories are pathetically shallow and lead virtually nowhere...

...That is precisely what I though about this "science fiction novel in six parts" prior to reading the last two parts, which are so refreshingly, profoundly excellent that I almost wept with awe. A mystery of interplanetary proportions is suddenly built up and then revealed in flying colors.

It's really a pity that the rest of Murasaki doesn't follow suit.

I became interested in this book after reading Otherness by David Brin. One of the short stories in Otherness is actually a chapter in Murasaki. The book itself is has a very intruiging storyline and I enjoyed reading much of it. The only problam I had was the mental transition I had to make with each chapter of the book, as they are all written by different authors.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who likes the work of Brin, Bear, Anderson, Pohl, Kress etc etc etc.. They all wrote parts of it.

A good read.

Anderson's Imposter in the Temple raises a number of very interesting points about the problems facing higher education. In many ways, his comments are correct and document issues that need to be faced.

The problem, however, is one of consistency. In one section, Anderson slams higher education for paying corporate like salaries to the presidents of the multibillion dollar academic corporations. In the conclusions and recommendations section, he recommends that higher education follow the mold of corporations and pay the trustees. Which model should higher education follow - corporate or non-corporate?

The corporate example is only one of many items where Anderson appears to contradict himself. The book is an interesting read, but one has to read it with a critical eye.

Decades ago sci-fi grandmaster Isaac Asimov noted the similarity between detective stories (whodunit?) and science fiction "puzzle" stories (how do you solve the problem?). Avoiding some of the obvious pitfalls, he began to write stories that contain elements of both of these popular genres. But of the various stories in this collection, only Larry Niven's "ARM" really lives up to the title, combining the imagination of science fiction with the action and drama of a detective story. Asimov's "The Singing Bell" comes close, and shows off the master's skill with "puzzle" stories, but the armchair detective doesn't really lend itself to exciting reading and would be a serious disappointment to fans who expect some action. As for the rest, only Poul Anderson's "The Martian Crown Jewels" and "Time Exposures" by Wilson Tucker are bona fide sci-fi detective stories, and both are eminently forgettable. Donald Westlake's "The Winner", Robert Silverberg's "Getting Across", and Philip K. Dick's "War Games" are all very good science fiction stories, indeed are the highlights of the collection, but there are no detectives in them. Perhaps the most memorable sci-fi detective is Philip Jose Farmer's Herr Ralph Von Wau Wau, the intelligent canine of "A Scarletin Study", a humorous send up of the whole cross-genre concept. In sum, while perhaps the blame lies more with the form than with the editing, this book fails to deliver what it promises; the overall collection isn't that strong as "just" science fiction, and the advertised combination of sci-fi and private detective fiction never really coalesces. Readers interested in this idea would do better to pick up one of Asimov's many fine collections.

I thought the book was very good describing the plot, storyline, and characters. However, the book was pretty easy to predict. It's whole storyline was old and boring. The absence of twists and any new developments killed any suspense. Overall the story gets a 3 out of 5.

I wouldn't give the book even one star, if there were a "no stars" category. Reading it is sheer drudgery. I'm a quick reader and very fond of true crime, so plowing through it for two weeks was quite unusual and quite unsatisfying. There are few facts - instead, lots of "if", "maybe", "perhaps", and "might" - the author has built an air castle on his own conjecture. Finally I just checked the back of the book for the verdict (normally verboten) and threw it away. What a total waste of money and time! I'm going to be allergic to the name Carlton Smith from now on. Too bad he shares the first name of a good true-crime writer!

Working at this book was sheer drudgery. I'm a quick reader, and I love true crime, so taking two weeks to plow through the first half of the book was most unusual. Most frustrating, too. Finally, I gave up, checked the back of the book for the verdict (normally verboten) and just threw it away. The author built an air castle on conjecture. "If", "maybe", "perhaps", "possibly", are the main words. There's hardly a sentence without one of these, and a notable scarcity of facts and evidence. It was a big waste of money and time, and I'm going to be pretty allergic to the name Carlton Smith from now on! (Too bad he shares a first name with another true crime author who's consistently good!) Yuk.

True crime is tough to write about, but filling page after page after page ... with complicated legal wranglings and accounting practices that no one but an accountant could understand or even care about takes this book from about 10 pages of interesting information about the lives of these people to however many it ended up being. Sorry, I ramble.