The concept behing the Geodessy is compeling and the first book was great. This one didn't add that much to it.

I do admire the way Anthony changed his focus. This novel focuses on the role of the family and family members in struggle. This is not as dynamic or suspenseful a focus as that of Isle of Woman and therefore the book lacks a little in the suspense department. You will probably always know what the characters will do - they stick together 'cause their a family.

That being said, the stories are fun and the concept behind the book still carries it further than you'd expect (the concept of the same characters being reborn in various places and times).

If you like Isle of Woman, you'll probably like this one. If you thought it was so-so, you may be in for a long, dull night.

The second Geodyssey volume from Piers Anthony, 'Shame of Man' follows the lives of Hugh and Ann, illuminating as they do eight million years of history. The self-contained formula of 'Isle of Woman' is maintained; however, characters from that novel usefully return as occasional backdrop. The scenery remains wonderfully varied, with the narrative opening in the Great Rift Valley and continuing as far afield as Vietnam, Newfoundland and Scotland's Orkney Islands.The strongest of the twenty scenarios occurs 3,000 years ago, around the time of King David. Anthony's choice of Philistine characters here illustrates his approach: he doesn't always avoid the history textbooks' ground, but is nonetheless loath to retread conventional paths. Thus we see Japan visited in the third century AD, and on Genghis Khan's rise to fame we see an enemy's colossal misjudgment where other authors might substitute triumphant slaughter. The requisite Mediterranean setting is not Rome but New Carthage; similarly, when the story touches down in 1862 the siege is not of Richmond but of Shanghai, where millions died in the Taiping rebellion.Anthony expresses concern that global catastrophe lurks around the corner, and this is brought home to the reader most clearly in the microcosm of Easter Island (neatly sandwiched between Genghis and Scheherazade). Indeed, even the characters gradually become aware of it. The future of the sensible ones is glimpsed in Tasmania half a century hence. The use to which they put their technology, and their need to do so, is rich food for thought.

This book really makes you think about how our insticts guide us and human existence in general. It caused me to realize a lot of things I had taken for granted. Excellent!

Each story herein, except "The Second Gong", has also appeared in either _The Hound of Death_ or _The Listerdale Mystery_. Some of the stories are fantasy fiction rather than mysteries, but don't be *too* quick to assign supernatural causes to anything.

"Accident" (1929) - Evans (formerly Inspector Evans of the CID) recognizes in the six-years-married Merrowdenes the notorious Mrs. Anthony, acquitted of poisoning her first husband - judged to have died of an accidental overdose of arsenic. As a girl, her stepfather accidentally fell to his death from a cliff during a walk. Not looking good for *Mr.* Merrowdene...

"The Fourth Man" (December 1925) As a supernatural story, best appreciated in Christie's fantasy-dominated collection _The Hound of Death_. Three ever-so-superior professional men - minister, physician, and lawyer - begin discussing a famous multiple personality case during a night train journey. Even though they're missing a fourth point of view - that of the man in the street - they ignore the fourth man in their compartment...

"The Mystery of the Blue Jar" (1933) Jack Hartington lives for golf; since he's 24 and has to earn a living, he lives near a golf course where he can practice every morning before work. Then screams no one else hears begin coming from a cottage near the course, every morning at the same time - and whatever's going on centers around the image of a woman holding a blue jar.

"The Mystery of the Spanish Shawl" a.k.a. "Mr. Eastwood's Adventure" (August 1924) Anthony Eastwood is stuck, trying to create a plot for the title "The Mystery of the Second Cucumber", when a mysterious phone call with 1 word - 'cucumber' - entangles him in a *real* mystery.

"Philomel Cottage" (November 1924) Businesslike Alix King expected to marry Dick Windyford, fellow clerk, when they could afford it - but he was too proud to propose when she got a windfall inheritance. Then Gerald Martin swept her off her feet in a whirlwind courtship - a perfect stranger. But like Bluebeard's wives, Alix gets curious about his past...

"The Red Signal" (June 1924) Sir Alington West, a distinguished alienist, has no time for ESP. His nephew Dermot has had a few 'red signals' in his life, but as his uncle points out, he'd seen signs of impending mortal peril and just hadn't consciously put them together. But why should he have it during a party - when the only danger is his hidden love for his best friend's wife?

"The Second Gong" - An early version of "Dead Man's Mirror", written first but published later. I recommend the expanded rewrite in the _Dead Man's Mirror_ collection.

"Sing a Song of Sixpence" (1934) Elderly Sir Edward Palliser, K.C., never expected to see Magdalen Vaughn again after a shipboard romance - let alone to be taken up on his offer to help if she ever needed it! Her family sponged off Great-aunt Lily Crabtree, who has been brutally murdered - and they're the chief suspects.

"S.O.S." (February 1926) The Dinsmead family - pompous father, worn-down mother, and 3 grown children - moved to a lonely country home rather abruptly upon Mr. Dinsmead's retirement from the building trade. They're all unhappy, except the father, who seems to have something up his sleeve. Then a stranger (parapsychologist Mortimer Cleveland), stranded for the night by a flat tire, finds a mysterious message written in the dust beside his bed...

"Where There's a Will" a.k.a. "Wireless" (1926) Mary Harter's physician, in the style of the old school, was far more blunt about the seriousness of her heart condition to her nephew than to her. Charles, making a parade of his superior knowledge of modern technology, wheedles her into getting not only an elevator, but a radio...which seems to justify all her misgivings about these electrical contraptions when it begins relaying messages from her late husband, saying that he's coming for her...

"The Witness for the Prosecution" (1933) Unlike the Billy Wilder film version, here the viewpoint character and chief investigator is the prisoner's solicitor, Mayherne; the K.C. conducting the court case isn't even named. The information brought out during testimony in the film mostly appears during Vole's interview with Mayherne. The adaptation was faithful, except that here Vole's first meeting with Emily French is more dramatic, and her fluffy-headed eccentric image wasn't translated to film. The ending of the story, though, isn't as trite the movie's.

As a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release (and a creative writing professor at various California State Universities), I was thrilled to find this book. As with most mystery authors, I cut my teeth reading Agatha Christie's books. She invented the modern cozy, and these stories display Ms. Christie at the top of her talents. If you like mystery short stories, these classics are for you.

Anyone familiar with the 1957 Billy Wilder film "Witness for the Prosecution" knows the plot of the title story. The short story, however, is told from an entirely different vantage point. The change in focus doesn't rob the story of any of its sting, and the product is every bit as entertaining as the excellent movie.

Christie tells the remaining stories in a taut, fast-paced, and satisfying manner, and more than once brings the story to a quite unexpected climax.

The book is of course too long, and there are stretches where it is dull, but there are many stretches herein with considerable interest. The Cloister and the Hearth, to which it has been compared, is a much better book. The same is true of The Three Musketeers. But the first part of the book is quite good, and the historical part involving Napoleon has its moments. But in general when Anthony gets to the USA the book becomes of less interest. The ending is long drawn out, and one reads just to see how it will come out. Hard to believe the book was the no. 1 bestseller in fiction in both 1933 and 1934. I wonder if anyone has ever read it twice. I certainly won't.

When I was an early teenager, I went on a reading binge, and intentionally sought out very long books to read (I guess I saw them as challenges). I found many good books this way ("The Count of Monte Cristo", "Doctor Doolittle", "Gulliver's Travels"), as well as some clunkers. The treasures I found were generally well-known classics, but "Anthony Adverse" was one of the little-known treasures I stumbled upon. This is the fictional biography of a boy who grows up in poverty and nearly homeless at times, and ends up a complicated, mostly successful man. Along the way, he faces many challenges and many issues common to adolescents, even though the story takes place long ago. The writing is highly detailed, giving the reader the sense of having been to the places described and having actually known the characters. It's the same sense that one gets from seeing a very good film: a visual memory is created of the people and places. This book is not for everyone, but is an excellent one for introspective adults and bright teenagers.

I was surprised that I had never heard of Hervey Allen before. An historical novel based around 1800, the book starts off in an old-fashioned, almost clichetic episode of intrigue. It develops into a fascinating character-glass of Anthony and those he meets. The point-of-view on topics from slavery to colonialism, cronyism to Bonaparte, the meaning-of-life to our perception of the purer souls amongst us, are all eye-opening, believable and told with a truly refreshing candour. Some passages, indeed, must have been very controversial at its 1933 publication date, when, according to the fly-cover, it sold over 1m copies! It is a huge book, not just by its length, but by its surreptitious dipping into a marvelously connected string of souls, purposes, lives and interactions in such a readable, even gripping, story.

Pape's treatise, really a long argumentative essay disguised as a book on military history, is compelling in several areas. His central thesis is that "strategic" bombing doesn't work (and won't ever work, which is quite a stretch). In contrast, he believes "theater" air -- described as part of a strategy of denial by Pape -- can be effective at coercing an enemy. Unfortunately, he wrote his book a few years early, since an analysis of the Air War over Kosovo doesn't support Pape's thesis very well. I would be interested to read his interpretation of that little war, though I imagine he would credit Milosevic's submission to "denial" as well (due to the fact that NATO airpower attacked Serbian ground forces).

Overall, his dismissal of strategic bombing is based on normally objective criteria but, especially for recent conflicts, can be rather one-sided -- he slants his reasoning to support his thesis whereever it doesn't fit well. For example, without access to the Iraqi decision making process in the Persian Gulf War, his review of Iraq's reasons for submitting to the allies in 1991 is circumstantial at best. Still, this is a well-researched and well-written work and should be considered carefully by any strategic bombing advocate. His arguments are not easy to refute and his thesis appears to be correct for many situations.

This is an excellent study of what conventional "strategic" bombing has and hasn't accomplished in war.

Pape covers the ground very thoroughly, and shows how bombing has really worked in war. He concludes that bombing enemy homelands has seldom been effective, and in this I must agree.

The book has one real flaw though. The author is in love with the phrases "strategic" vs. "tactical" bombing. Because of this, he deprecates the effects of the late stage "strategic" bombing of Germany, because "tactical" bombing of some of the same targets was taking place simultaneously. But so what? The important thing is what effects bombs have on a target, not whether they fall out of a B-17 or a P-47!

Aside from this caveat, I can't think of a better introduction to the whole issue of "strategic air war." Just be sure and check out Alfred C. Mierzejewski's COLLAPSE OF THE GERMAN WAR ECONOMY to understand what strategic bombing does when done right.

It uses a method that I like of taking previous examples and attempting to prove his theory form that. His theory is that coercion on your enemy will only work if directed against their military.

I found it very good. I would have liked a clearer description of this theory at the front as I found it a bit difficult to understand exactly what he was getting at.

As a CCNA and UNIX/VMS systems manager recently thrown into Windows 2000/NT administration, I really, *really* wanted this book to be good. In some ways, it was decent -- it helped clarified some Active Directory concepts and new Windows 2000 features.

What this book did not do is offer me any ground-breaking information on integrating Cisco routers into a Windows NT/2000 environment. The authors do provide some Cisco router configuration information (targetted at beginners and novices). Unfortunately, this information was very light-weight for me.

The text often makes the mistake of presuming that the reader has a solid understanding of NT 4.0 domains/administration. Windows 2000 functionality is constantly described with Windows NT 4.0 terminology. Many network engineers do not have experience in NT 4.0 domain management and will find this to be tedious.

This book really is a consolidation of what could be two different books: "Introduction to Cisco Routers", and "Windows 2000 Networking Concepts for Windows NT 4.0 Administrators"

If you're looking to find any advanced technical tips on how to take advantage of W2K/WNT functionality in Cisco routers, you won't find them in this book. The Cisco stuff is beginner material that every network engineer who works with Cisco routers should know. This book would probably be most appropriate to the NT 4.0 administrator who is looking to sharpen his or her router skills and learn a little bit more about upgrading to Windows 2000.

When I first saw this book, I was also hoping it would be all it looked like it could be. I was happy to find out that it covered the subjects of Cisco and Windows (NT/2000) networking very well. I have both a Microsoft NT (MCSE) and Cisco (CCNA) background and consider myself well versed in the networking area in general. I found areas in the book that were suitable for folks with less experience and areas that gave me the info I was not able to find elsewhere. Well put together and a good read for those looking to fill in the gaps between (legacy to latest advancements from) Cisco and Microsoft. I highly recommend it.

I was very pleased with this book, it seems it was written to provide a lot of information without the authors trying to impress everybody - real straightforward and pleasent to read. It has great coverage of active directory and carefully explained Windows 2000. The book also explains how Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4 relate to each other - very important since they will coexist for quite a long time. Then the book takes on the task of discussing Cisco networking and how that works on a NT and Windows 2000 network. I thought it went well beyond the basics (DEN, IOS issues, a bunch of Cisco hardware/software products) without going over my head. I think that the entire book really puts it all together well. If there were anything I would do to change this book would be to add more of the network blueprints they have in the middle of the book to cover more network designs.

As a follow up to Crypt of the Shadowking this book falls flat. I really can't place exactly where or how, except that maybe the main focus shifted from Cal to Mari. Most of the adventure and excitement were really lacking. Oh, I just realized what was wrong. . . .there really isn't a main villain here. You pretty much know how the book will end before you're even halfway through. At least Crypt had a good foe for Cal in Cutter. Here it is more of a race against time, without any of the real suspense on whether they will succeed in their quest to help their friend. This is a passable book, but only if you have nothing better to read.

Great book! I have enjoyd reading this book very much.But if you haven't read the previous one (Crypt of the Shadowking) y recommend you to read it, becouse it's as good as this one.

The plot here is placed in time sortly after Crypt of the Shadowmage. The plot is great, and, even when you can see what is happening, you don't know for sure how it is going to end. The Quest for find ...ejem.."something" (I can't say it here, sorry, you'll understand when you read it ;P ) is not long and with some surprise, and maybe you can guess how it will end and maybe. II didn't guess when I readed it but, I was to deep inside the book reading it, that I wasn't thinking of what will happen or how will it end.

The characters are also good. The only dissapoint I have is with Kellen. Ok, he is lovely, but, for my taste, he is a bit perfect, knows everything and is thinking in things a child of his age wouldn't think. He must have been playing instead of saving the world, but even with this, the book is great.

Buy it, and judge yourself, is the best I can say.

This is the sequel to "Crypt of the Shadowking" and is even better!! I love Anthony's writing style. This was a compulsive read, and I finished it in about a day. The narrative sweeps the reader along with just the right pacing and excitememt, and the story itself is a logical extension of the first book. The only slight problems were that, 1. the whole story surrounding Stiletto was just too predictable; sorry Mark, but I saw it coming a mile away, and 2. I was a little disappointed with the epilogue, which I thought was a bit unfair (I can't say why without giving away important elements of the story). But these really are minor quibbles, and I would highly recommend both of Anthony's "Harpers" books. I hope that we will see another story about these characters. I'd especially like to see something involving Kellen as Morhion's apprentice; could have lots of interesting possibilities! When you finish your latest writing project, how about it Mark?

Schmitz performs in 100+ pages what many writers cannot do with several hundred more. Presents us with an affable yet fallable protagonist, sets up themes and conflict we can relate (in our own desires), and resolves it satisfactorily. As it is so short, it would be unwise to summarize the plot and spoil things for the reader. Surely, however, a newly vocal wolf who preys on children, the Brothers Grimm, and the Devil should provoke anyone to read this appealing work. :)

This is another book review by the boonie dogs, Wolfie and Kansas. "Darkest Desire", allegedly by Anthony Schmitz, presents a wolf's-eye-and-snout view of the Brothers Grimm. We suspect that this book was ghostwritten by a fellow canine. Much of the book is too insightful and too clever to have been written by a typical human author.

The passages about the tastiness of human puppies are somewhat offensive. A canine is more likely to protect a human child from human predators than to eat the child himself. However, "Schmitz" does make it clear that the child-eating wolf is no more typical of canines than Hannibal Lecter is of humans. In a nice twist on an idea used decades ago by Clifford Simak in "City", Schmitz makes use of the canine ability to perceive and interact with phenomena beyond human perception.

Many postmodern deconstructions of legends and fairy tales are rather self-consciously academic and self-referential and are clever in a "hey, look at this fancy stuff" sort of way. Darkest Desire sets the whole nature/culture controversy on its head in a most entertaining manner with a notable lack of pretense. Strongly recommended for adults and mature teens.

I have used the other editions mainly as a reference to many medical conditons which I hear about in my practice as a psychiatrist. As usual,the latest text provides the information but there is no attempt to bullet or separate out the most important stuff - and no beautiful color diagrams as in Cecil's. Of its many strengths, the HIV chapter is authored by Anthony Fauci at NIH, a renowned international AIDS expert. If you want to keep up to date the ...price is a bargain. If you are a student choose what is most helpful to your style and use the study guide for board practice.

Big, complete and one of the most renowned books of internal medicine. Only the index could be more completely and the pictures could have been coloured. Instead of showing the genetic background
some practical approaches should sometimes have been emphasized more.

Briefly speaking: this book is for people who are familiar with the field of Medicine. Every few years I have to get a new edition as medicine is developing so rapidly. As I am now out of the mainstream of Medicine, when I want to look up something I read this book and the Merck Manual and I look up words I don't know in the on-line medical dictionary. That provides a fairly good intro. If I want to know more I go into the papers on PubMed. As far as I'm concerned, this book is a must-have, if you want to try to keep up with the field.

Terrific book great for helping to get a finance job! A must buy for any MBA.

I help manage the career center an elite business school in the Northeast - and this is one of our most popular books. Along with the VaultReports.com Guides, this book is essential preparation for a career in investment banking.

Terrific book great help for getting a job in finance. Great information direct for a huge number of the top finance firms.

I knew virtually nothing about american iron, this book is a good read for all interested in raw (Chrystler) american motor power. Quite technical, but not too technical.

This is a very good book, with lots of good info and pictures, from the old Whale block through the Elephant motor and beyond. A definite recommended reader.

Being an american iron novice, I found this book an excellent read! Not too technical.