This volume, 'The Land of the Dead' opens with Nicholas' return to Egypt. For those of us who are not well acquainted with the mummies of the World of Darkness this turns out to be an education. After a quick aside while Nicholas carries out the gratuitous slaughter of the entire lair of an Egyptian vampire. This reestablishes for us that Sforza-Ankhotep as a creature to be reckoned with, since his performance against Carpenter was utterly lackluster. Then we are off to the Mummy hideaway beneath the Cities of the Dead in Cairo. Here we are given far more information than is usual for White Wolf about immortal mummies. Compared to a lot of the vampires, this is genuinely interesting.

Now the story the shifts back to Thea and her friend Jake. They are trying to figure out what they can do about Thea's roommate, Margie, who is temporarily a basket case. This is difficult since every vampire in Chicago is avidly hunting for them. They, in turn, are hunting for Carpenter, who betrayed the hunter team. Computer whiz Jake manages to discover that Carpenter has apparently left for Egypt. Thea convinces the vampires the Margie is dead and returns her to her folks for safe keeping. Then Jake and Thea head for Egypt, broke, but determined to kick zombie.

Carpenter is indeed heading for Egypt. He is convinced that he can use the Heart to gain immortality, a considerable improvement over being an undying zombie that is having trouble staying together in one piece. Equipped with his magic hammer and knife, and the Heart of Osiris, Carpenter manages to keep together and begins to mount his attack on the mysteries of ancient Egypt. With everyone having some sort of psychic connection with everyone else this is a recipe for a series of titanic collisions. Not the least of which is a major disaster at Port Said. If the reader is looking for a lot of violent action, he (or she) has come to the right place,

It is something of a shame that this series came out in what is otherwise White Wolf's worst year as a fiction publisher. Andrew Bates is an interesting, if purely plot oriented writer who deserves better than what has recently been done in for the World of Darkness. Hopefully he is the sign of a revival of the energies what once inhabited the produces of this game publisher, and just their last, undying gasp.

In my opinion, Tom Smail's 1st chapter on "The Cross and the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Renewal" is one of the best articles/messages I've read/listened to as it relates to the pros and cons of charismatic theology. It's worth the price of the book!

Other topics touched on include signs and wonders, demonology, worship, prophecy.

Overall a good book for those interested in the charismatic movement

The Azanians set up the first Outpost in the Wolf 359 system, and called it "Nyotekundu". This Sourcebook covers Inferno, the two Outposts on it, the Nyotekundu system, and the Orbital Mining Station Andrew Carnegie.

Included are a couple of adventures (including a sub-plot that can be used for players who've read the module), extensive information on the OMS, its crew, equipment, and systems. Different ways to bring the PCs into the adventure are also included.

One of the more interesting aspects of this module is the Medusa This race is unknown to man, in 2300.

The _Nyotekundu Sourcebook_ also has new rules and new skills, such as Robotics, Spin Operations, Zero-G, and Scooter Pilot. Lots of neat new stuff appears in this module!

For PCs who prefer a more investigative campaign, as opposed to Kafer-killing, this adventure is made-to-order. Perfect for that team of Troubleshooters. END

The book's premise is straightforward: Jesus Christ is both Creator and King, and therefore all of life, both private and public, is subject to the author's interpretation. That is, the authors are pretending to be god. The implications of this should be obvious, but alas are not: today 1/2 of the U.S. Senate would sleep soundly at if the reigns of goverment were turned over to Pat Robertson- or, e.g., if John Ashcroft were to become attorney general.

Every ideology is inherently hubris, since it inevitably makes assumptions concerning creation and the nature of reality and the source and meaning of right and wrong.

Hopefully Americans will learn of the diabolical nature of these Reconstructionist theocrats before it's too late.

The book's premise is straightforward: Jesus Christ is both Creator and King, and therefore all of life, both private and public, is subject to His rule. The implications of this should be obvious, but alas are not: modern society becomes hysterical at the very thought of anything which might, in modern terms, "mix politics with religion." Of course this hysteria is nonsense. Every ideology is inherently religious, since it inevitably makes assumptions concerning creation and the nature of reality and the source and meaning of right and wrong. But the Christian religion and its trappings are out of vogue in this century, while the cults of the all-powerful state and the relativistic individual reign supreme, and it should surprise no one that the acolytes of the modern polytheism should seek to silence the ancient monotheism at every opportunity.

So just what are the implications of a consistently Christian political theory? Perhaps it is best first to understand what the implications are not. While the authors call for a Constitutional amendment recognizing Jesus Christ as Lord and as the Source of its life, liberty and law -- much the same as almost every other Western nation has -- they emphatically do not call for what moderns refer to as a "theocracy". "Theocracy," which is to say, rule by God, already exists: Christ's kingdom is "not of this world", and He rules the affairs of men no matter what they do or say. Rather, the authors believe a consistently Biblical social theory requires a separation of church and state, that the two institutions, along with the family, are ordained by God and meant to operate in very different spheres. They do not call for the submission of government to the church, or any earthly clergy: what they want is conformity of civil life, and indeed of civilization, to the teachings of Christ.

In practice, this means that the authors do not favor a change in the form of American government; they favor a change in its character and beliefs. It is an ideological and spiritual revolution they seek, not a revolution of the modern sort, and it is entirely based on principles familiar. The authors stake the claim of Jesus Christ's rights as King, but do not call for an Earthly king to rule in His stead; instead, they call for repentance and conversion on the part of those who do rule on Earth -- the electorate -- and for the election of leaders who will faithfully discharge their Constitutional duties not as faithful humanists or faithful Marxists but as faithful Christians.

And what does leadership as a faithful Christian mean, aside from not committing adultery, not breaking campaign promises, and not selling secrets to the Chinese? Well, actually, it means a change in worldviews, just as did the shift from the old order to New Deal statism in the 1930s. The authors take time to explore the Christian foundations of liberty in the modern world, noting correctly that of all the ideologies in history, only Christianity produced modern political and economic freedom. They detail the depravity which results (and which has resulted) from an abandonment of absolute right and wrong, and show why no adequate legal standard -- and certainly no truly free one -- can be built apart from the standard of Scripture. They trace the free market's roots in Biblical law and show why government must be both very small and very unintrusive. They offer a completely new paradigm for education, and call for reason over "sentimentalism." In short, they address, and address well, most of the vital issues of the day.

One cannot come away from Explicitly Christian Politics without a deepened realization of the religious nature of the "isms" of our time and the abysmally bad politics that flows from them; likewise, one cannot read this volume without an appreciation for the fact that these Christians have devised a better model. Quibble with the details all you like: Explicitly Christian Politics is nothing short of the rebirth of a vital Christian social theory, far beyond the "me-too" pluralism of the Christian Right to date. There's something special here. it is very clearly not going away.

Copyright: Rod D. Martin, 8 May 1998.

I understand that LP are in the process of producing further separate guides thus breaking down this region again, which will be excellent. The guide itself, however, is a good read though!

For those who are new to C++ all together, you are going to have to learn the language before you even think of "jumping into" Windows programming. There's no way around it. The best book I've come across for learning the basics is: 'Core C++ A Software Engineering Approach' by Victor Shtern. Once you break away from the GUI crutch, you will find that the C++ language is exciting and fun.

ISAPI's big promise was better performance and memory usage...ironic that it has now fallen in favor to the biggest performance pig of all web applications...ASP. In an age of fast machines and small web apps, rapid development and ease of use wins out over performance.

ISAPI is hard to learn, harder to get right, unstable, bug ridden (if written in MFC) and surprisingly inflexible.

Look, you're a smart person. You want to do the right thing. You don't need to subject yourself to the torture of learning ISAPI. Only hard-core programmers who are tasked with writing a custom web app that is going to get some VERY heavy traffic should even bother with ISAPI.

So why did I give this book 4 stars? There are no good ISAPI books out there. This one has the most information in it and will allow you the best chance to actually develop something that works. Get this book and hit Genusa's (now dusty) ISAPI site. Also spend a lot of time in the Microsoft knowledge base...there are plenty of workarounds and bugs to learn about too.

Keep in mind that with ISAPI you had better be a damn good programmer. If your DLL ever crashes...bye bye web server. This is harder than you think if you are doing "serious" web programming which includes database access.

Smart managers will not allow mission-critical web apps to be developed in ISAPI by a web punk who has never done this before. Do everyone a favor and get a clue. There is a reason why nobody is doing this stuff anymore!

Game over. Go home and don't look back. Go off and learn ASP and Cold Fusion like a good little web programmer. You will have a marketable skill and will actually get things done.