Pual Magrs' first foray into the Whoniverse is written very competently. In fact, I didn't notice any glaring grammatical errors. This is probably the nicest thing I'm going to say about this book.

I don't have a problem with magic realism; in fact, I absolutely adore _The Blue Angel_, Magrs' second book with Jeremy Hoad. However, this one just doesn't work. The reason why is simple; Magrs is so busy coming up with neat little ways to describe things that he forgot to include a coherent plot in the novel.

The plot loosely revolves around a quest. The Doctor and Sam meet up with a figure from the Doctor's past named Iris, a batty Time Lady who looks a little like the town librarian and seems to be quietly appropriating the Doctor's past adventures for herself. Along the way, they meet up with four terminally uninteresting characters and ramble around in a haphazard manner, fiddling around with various denziens of the planet Prospero and generally being useless. Things culminate in a showdown which completely removes any credibility from the quest. The characters wander off in seperate directions and the reader is left with the shell-shocked feeling that the author is screaming about his cleverness into the reader's ear with a megaphone.

Paul Magrs needs a co-writer to be effective; in _The Blue Angel_, various ideas are tossed at the reader all at once, only to be stitched into a coherent picture by the end. The overwhelming feeling left at the end of _The Scarlet Empress_ is, "Um, is that it?"

Once I got used to the writing style, I enjoyed the book very much. It was the first 8th Doctor book I'd read and I identified with Iris and her feelings for #8. Sigh.... Ahem, I digress. The characters and setting were like something out of The Arabian Nights. And Iris' TARDIS was smashing! I would like to see more stories featuring Iris and the past Doctors. Paul, are you reading this???

Imagine throwing in the pure inventiveness of Grant Morrison, the best fanciful idiocy of the Doctor Who television series, and an army of shaved bears, and you may get an idea of the joy Paul Magrs has delivered with 'The Scarlet Empress'. It's been said almost to the point of cliche that this is a 'strange' book--and it is. It's also a delight, moving the good Doctor fully into the possibilities of the narrative imagination. This is not your generic Doctor Who--no running through corridors, no whiffy time mechanics, no playing it safe. This is a Doctor Who adventure that grabs you by the lapels and gives you a big Groucho Marx kiss. Then, when you least expect it, it can break your heart.
You've been warned. If you love Doctor Who being pushed forward, then why are you still reading this? Order, my child. Order.

It is apparent that Mr. McHenry knows Naval and shipboard procedures. He goes to great lengths to let the reader know that he is up on procedures to the point of tedium. The first half of the book was boring and repetitive. The second half was better but some of the religious discussions came out of the blue and seemed out of place. This would be a book best checked from the library.

From naval ships to protocal and chapter to chapter, Mr. McHenry's, "Code Name:Antidote," had me excitedly flipping through the pages of this engrossing Navy Thriller with eager anticipation. I thought the story was very believable, reminded me a little of some earlier works of Clancy.

Great story.I went looking for another of his books after 9/11 and the recent anthrax attacks. Hope to see another soon.

I thoroughly enjoyed Kidd's work in 'White Plume Mountain', and I couldn't wait to read this one. However, while Kidd did a marvelous job with the character development (except for his rather brazen dumping of Enid), the story flow was greatly lacking, and left much of the early part of the book difficult to read through. Apart from the Justicar (a very high level Ranger) allowing his party to get lost by more than 500 miles, the entire novel read almost as badly (and with far too much similarity) to the disappointing 'Against the Giants' novel. While I do recommend this book to people who enjoy AD&D and/or 'White Plume Mountain', I do have to say that this work was very dissapointing. I would, however, very much like to see additional works by Kidd, especially featuring Escalla and the Justicar.

Man what a book! Finally an author who understands that if magic is abundant enough in the world to sell on scrolls it's going to be used a whole lot! It was a lot of fun reading this one. The hellhound pelt was a truly innovative idea. Escalla's character wasfun and very lifelike. Her interaction withthe Justicar was truly amusing. Now I'm going to have to go back and read WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN just to see their relationship from the beginning. Ya gotta grab this one!

A sword called "Benelux"!? Bwahahaha! I'll bet this gag slipped past the editors as I'm sure they would have deleted it otherwise. The sequel to "White Plume Mountain" feels a bit more rough-edged and awkward in terms of story flow but still retains the fast paced humour and cynical dungeoncrawling mentality that made it's predecessor such a delight to read. The characters have been considerably more fleshed out but have lost nothing of their refreshing personalities - even Polk grows on you after a while. What really caught my eye are some of the most innovative ideas for magic-use I've seem yet, not to mention some of the most risque imagery and innuendos I've seen in an AD&D novel (again probably slipped past the editors). Reading "White Plume Mountain" beforehand is essential and for those who have actually played the original TSR module, there is an added level of nostalgia ("Geez, why didn't the party think of doing THAT!?"). Can't wait for "Demonweb Pits"!

This book is the hallmark of the connectionist dream -the belief that all aspects of mind, brain and consciousness can be explained by calling up neural network models-. Now the basic premise behind all this I will not contest. The brain is a large parallel distribuited processing network of neurons. But there is another big step from this to the statement that everything the mind is is a vector coding of a neural network. This is far too siplistic. Churchland of course realizes this, but continues to talk of connectionist models like neurosciences messiah.
This is perhaps only one aspect of Churchlands book, however. Overall, the book attempts to reconcile philosophy of mind with neuroscience, and it succeeds to an extent. In many parts the discussion falls into vector coding talk, but in many others it stellarily accounts for deep problems. It is a good introducion to neuroscience, neural networks and philosophy. Churchland does not present his own strong theories, but he does well in staying away from controversy. The best part of the book is in my opinion, the attempt to build a framework of the impacts neuroscience has in social and philosophical domains. This is not done often enough, and if it is, rarely with such lucidity and clarity.
Now I would have ceritanly liked much more speculation when it commes to consciousness, given the Churchland's contribuition to the literature. But he refrains from this and merely describes some other models, like Llinas thalamic oscillations, and is content in stating that it is at leas possible to see what an explanation for consciousness would look like from a neuroscience context.
The book is a grat read, and students of philosophy, neuroscience and cognitive science should enjoy it.

Developments in neuroscience over the last decade will doubtless be compared to the Copernican revolution, totally changing the way educated citizens think of human nature. Churchland provides an invaluable guide to recent research into neural networks, surveying the social, moral, legal and philosophical implications of contemporary neuroscience. While not giving as much emphasis to either the emotional dimension of cognition as Damasio (DESCARTES ERROR) or its social origins and ethical function (see my BEYOND RELATIVISM), Churchland's focus on neural networks has compensating advantages, especially for anyone interested in learning how to think about the way the brain works when we think. Must reading for philosophers and social scientists who are aware that the human brain is neither a blank slate nor a serial computer

I've not come across a more sensible and lucidly written philosophy book. The author loves and deeply believes in science. He shows to my satisfaction that the hard sciences can answer many humanities questions or make them clearly pointless. The chapters on vector processing are still not quite as scientific as the author would like them to be, but the book overall has significantly improved my understanding and appreciation of human and mammalian minds. Since Amazon doesn't do it, here is the table of contents: (1) The little computer that could: the biological brain, (2) Sensory representation: the incredible power of vector coding, (3) Vector processing: how it works and why it is essential, (4) Artificial neural networks: imitating parts of the brain, (5) Recurrent networks: the conquest of time, (6) The neural representation of the social world, (7) The brain in trouble: cognitive dysfunction and mental illness, (8) The puzzle of consciousness, (9) Could an electronic machine be conscious?, (10) Consequences for language, science, politics and art, (11) Neurotechnology and human life. Looking at the Index at the back, the entry that occurs on the most pages in the book is "prototype" which in this book means pretty much the same as what some other authors call a paradigm.

The problem might be in me, having bought this book with the wrong set of expectations, but Jim Paul spends a lot of time writing about things that aren't the catapult -- the engineering and weapon-maker's mindset, masculinity, objectivity about one's work, friendship, family, art. Paul is a talented writer, with a real gift for the mot juste and the ability to pick out the distinguishing characteristics of people, things and events, and if the book had been called _Jim Paul Reflects On Life_, I probably would have liked it better.

But it's called _Catapult_, and I expected more information on the catapult itself, rather than just having it as a spur to drive the reflections forward. There's not a single diagram of the completed catapult; the only photograph is a deliberately arty one in ultra-high contrast so that all you see is a black silhouette against the blank white sky.

Basically, I identify with Harry -- I would have loved to have known more about Harry's thoughts as the project developed -- what worked, what didn't, approaches considered and rejected, tradeoffs made in design, and so on and so forth. Engineering stuff. But this side of the project is given pretty short shrift.

Catapult is perhaps my favorite book - and I'm a nonfiction writer, who reads. The ironic voice, the pitch-perfect sense of humor, the grabby topic - but best of all, Paul interweaves a beautifully and concisely told story, about boys being boys, with a fascinating episodes-with-catapults history and with a surprising and wary meditation on the joys but also the questionable consequences of boys being boys. It's terrific.

Jim Paul is an author who perfected a genre of writing - creative non fiction. In Catapult, Jim and Harry convince an art foundation to fund their project, building a life size seige weapon. Inspired by rocks they collected and can't wait to launch, they scrounge parts and tools to fashion the weapon, and finally get permission to stage their launching on the Marin headlands near SF, but the permit has a notation, "simulated rocks"only. Although the narrative itself ends in a one time use performance of the machine, the action, trailing connections to medieval and modern warfare, transforms the horror of killing into the wonder of playing. Jim is a great writer, bringing mystery and serendipity into simple actions, e.g. looking for springs and other metal parts. His musing about the history and the engineering of seige weapons is only a part of the researched information the reader will ingest as easily as the story about artists and whimsical passions.

Baudrillard does think the Gulf War happened - the title is just a provocation (it was clearly effective, since people who didn't read the book fell for Baudrillard's little joke and gave it one star).

This book is a great European perspective in the changes that war has undergone, which places it in the same tradition as the work of Paul Virilio's STRATEGY OF DECEPTION, which is a vaguely Baudrillardian take on the Kosovo conflict, written in the same style.

What Baudrillard has begun to see is that war isn't what it used to be. It's not about two countries getting in a political argument that breaks out in violence and all-out war. Baudrillard observes that Mutually Assured Destruction has brought war into the realm of virtuality. No longer is war the simple clash of brutes. Instead, it is a programmed operation that is executed according to a pre-defined model. The UN troops were not responding to the actual capabilities of the Iraqi army, Baudrillard says, but simply executing a plan that had already been decided upon. Thus, you didn't have the UN responding to Iraqi fire, but instead to the signatures on their infrared and radar, satellite images, coordinates, etc. The UN was essentially fighting a virtual reality war using real guns, pointing their missiles at dots on a radar and killing people in the process.

Thus, the Gulf War dissociated the image from reality. The Gulf War was a war of images: intelligence images, news images. A media phenomenon for the world and for the military and for the world. For the military, because virtual reality replaced war as we used to know it, and for the world, because the media phenomenon of the Gulf War became a prime-time exposé of America's technological might, and of the threat of Saddam to the New World Order. Beneath the proliferation of images were thousands of dead Iraqis. But all we saw was the images. The real didn't matter.

This is what Baudrillard is talking about when he says 'the real is no longer real.' Reality has become images - the real behind the images is no longer relevant. Did the Gulf War really happen? Eh, who cares. We saw the images.

This isn't necessarily a profound or true statement on the war, but the subtlety of Baudrillard's perspective is very interesting, because I think Americans don't really see the difference between old and new warfare. Americans don't perceive the way in which détente moved deterrence into the realm of virtuality by turning the Cold War into a scary period of hostility to a game of let's-try-and-be-really-scared. As an intelligent foreigner, Baudrillard notices, and this quick book contains a host of very interesting observations such as the ones discussed above.

Too bad it's so brief. Sometimes Baudrillard is too brief. But this book really has a great deal of very novel perspective. Read this, and then read Virilio. I think you'll like them.

Thelonious Monk said Kennedy was killed because he liked jazz. Try to disprove that. Postmodernism can be infuriating especially when it touches 'serious' topics. The writing style of Baudrillard (and translators) is not as dense as Derrida's but is not to everyone's taste. Still I think this is an important book. We are about to (maybe) have a sequel to the Gulf War. When I first reviewed this book I expected the new war would have minimal actual reporting from the field. It now appears that the press may be invited to the front lines.Apparently they have demonstrated sufficient loyalty or credulity in the last year to be trusted, or maybe the troublemakers have all been replaced.Anyway we will still be in a position of not knowing what to think, as usual. Since 9-11 it seems that many people are too craven to question anything at all in whole or in part. It behooves us as 'free people' to exercise some critical thinking. Personally I only believe the moon landing happened because the production values of the TV show were so poor.

Very well-written and mind-provoking. Certainly a MUST read!

I liked this book a little because it showed me how a girl, about twelve years old, lived in the middle 1800's. It has a slight glimps of social history and how she felt about the borning room. I would recommend this book to those who like books which the setting takes place in the 1800's. I rate this book a two because a lot of parts I couldn't understand, and it was very boring.

The Borning Room is narrated by young Georgina Lott during the 1800's. Her house was built by her grandfather in 1820 with a borning room behind the kitchen. The room was used for delivering babies and for the ill to stay in so they wouldn't leave any diseses in their rooms. Georgina tackles growing up with hardships and happieness. She vows not to have babies until she witnesses her own mother deliver Zeb, her baby bother. All the happieness and greif happens in the borning room with family and friends...Paul Fleichman is the talented writer of The Borning Room who writes with a thoughtful heart. This is an easy book to read and I would recomend this book to girls who like to read about girls from the past. I enjoyed this book and hope that you'll get to read it someday and like it too!

"The Borning Room" is a superb historical novel by Paul Fleischman. The title refers to a room in a rural Ohio house where babies are born. The story is told by a first person narrator: Georgina Lott, who is born in 1851. Georgina's story spans from the time of her birth to the era of World War I.

With compassion and insight, Fleishman covers the cycles of life, death, and rebirth in Georgina's family as the decades pass. Through his characters Fleischman explores many important themes and events in American history: the abolitionist movement and the "underground Railroad," the Civil War, women's suffrage, folk medicine, ethnic diversity, and more. Benjamin Franklin's writings emerge as oft-cited texts for Georgina's family.

I was particularly interested by Fleischman's depiction of the increasing religious and spiritual diversity of the U. S. in the late 19th century. Some of his characters are religious nonconformists, or are interested in spiritualism. Fleischman is, I believe, historically accurate here. The 19th century was a time of great religious nonconformity and experimentation in the U.S. To better appreciate this aspect of Fleischman's fictional family portrait, consider the poems of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the spread of new religious movements like Mormonism and Christian Science in the 19th century.

Fleischman writes in a starkly beautiful prose, and has populated Georgina's world with some truly wonderful characters. Georgina herself is a memorable creation. She is, in my opinion, a "soul sister" to many other great female characters in American literature: Zora Neale Hurston's Janie (from "Their Eyes Were Watching God"), Willa Cather's Alexandra (from "O Pioneers!"), and many more. I highly recommend "The Borning Room."

It is hard to concentrate so much information in a single book, covering all of South America from Colombia to Chile. Lonely Planet have tried and have done a good job, but the target was too ambitious... If you are literally running through South America with little time, and perhaps you don't want to carry the weight of too many guides, then do get this book. It is of some use, and offers interesting reading. Yet, if you plan to get to know each country more thoroughfully, you are much better off with Lonely Planet's (or other publishers') single guides on each individual country, and there are lots to choose from.

I have just returned to Norway after a year backpacking around in Latin America (of course accompanied by the Lonely Planet books). I do not claim to be an expert, but I know what I look for in a travel guide!

This edition of the LP South America did not disappoint me. (Please note that I used it only for Colombia, Ecuador and Perú). It is up to date on the information, and as with all the other LP books it is easy to find your way around with it. It includes maps over the big cities, good information about the hotels, restaurants, places worth visiting, and time schedules for bus, train etc.

You have to take into account that this is a guide that is meant to cover the whole South America so naturally it is not as detailed as the guides for each country separate. It is good as an overall guide if you plan to go to more than one or two countries, as you would try to cut down on the baggage you would have to carry around.

As for the prices for hotels and food, the book is not accurate.. But you cannot expect that. It is hard to keep up with all the changes, especially in the Latin American economy, where the inflation is "somewhat" higher than in the rest of the world. So, for prices, do your own research, or at least be prepared for changes! (We usually doubled the prices in the book and that gave us a good indicator of what to expect).

You will find that if you are walking around with the LP book under your arm, many of the local people will approach you and ask you if you need help. Say yes - even if you don't need help! It is a great opportunity to get in contact with the local people!

This book is a must on your travel!

This book is an absolute must for the budget,adventurous,willing-to-stay-in-a-funky-hotel-with-lumpy-beds traveler. In a writing style as colorful as the cover, Lonely Planet helps you plan your trip with concise information on: restaurants (with many references to vegetarian places), lodging, festival dates, nightclubs, local language and customs, safety information and more. Lonely Planet South America can also lead you to out of the way villages and towns where you are thrilled at the sight of a real toilet after a five-hour bus ride which left you covered in dust. Nothing comes more in handy after starving on the long bumpy ride than grabbing your guidebook out of your backpack to find out the best fried plantain stand and cheap posada (inn) in this block-long town. And I was very grateful for those tips the book gave on where to ask for that guy "Juan" who is the only person who sells stamps within miles! From the Amazon to the Andes to the Caribbean, Lonely Planet was there for me. Seeing other tourists leafing through the same guidebook, brimming with over 1000 pages of invaluable information in a small book you can cram in a purse, was always a comforting sight in such different-from-home lands.

Overall, the book is a good place to start learning the basics of 3DS MAX2. The tutorials are easy to follow, and the descriptions of the program's functions are clear.

There are some problems, however. Graphics in the text are mislabeled, in the wrong places, or simply incorrect. The included CD's structure is not set up as it's described in the book, leaving the user to hunt for files. Some of the texture files used in the tutorials are missing. I had to recreate one textures to complete one of the tutorials, and in one of the tutorials in the camera chapter, a number of textures were missing from the model (this was particularly funny, since a few chapters earlier, the book went into detail on how to keep this from happening).

If you have some experience in 3D and want to get up to speed fast on MAX2, this book is a good place to start. If you're new to 3D, this book will help you get going, but you may find some of the errors and omissions a little confu! sing.

This book is good as a tutorial. However, the step-by-step procedures are something that could be found elsewhere. This book is a poor reference book. One minor oversight is a lack of button pictures. If you are new to 3dsm, like me, it doesn't help a whole lot when the step-by-step directions refer to a button by name while the GUI only displays this name in a tool tip when you mouse over the button. It makes for a tedious and frustrating learning process. In short, you get what you paid for: moderate price and moderate lessons.

I was familiar with truespace already and thought "I'm sure I can figure max out without tutorials or reference books." I was wrong. This book gives you all the material you need to get up and going to create, modify, and conceptualize 3d ideas. I highly recommend purchasing one of the more advanced manuals in addition however, as you will want to delve into certain sections in more detail than what is presented here. The manual is dry, to the point, and unimaginative in my view, but it does what it says and that is really all that matters.

The book is excellent for an introduction to Solaris for Windows Administrators. I am a Windows Systems Engineer, interested in learning Solaris...but I have been sitting around waiting for Solaris 8 certification books to be printed. This is an excellent introductory to the world of Sun and the "Solaris Way". A lot of references comparing how things are done in the Windows world to help with orientation. The one bad thing is the Author is a bit Solaris pushy...suggesting that Solaris is the smartest idea for all environments and all situations. He also beats up on Linux a bit...which may be justified, but not in this book.

I am a Windows network admin trying to learn more about Solaris, and this book suited me just fine. Maybe some of the presentation was too simple if you are a UNIX guru - but this book is definitely for admins new to Solaris. I'm really surprised by some of the reviews here about lack of content - I found each chapter well laid out and easy to read with examples.

This book seriously rocks - I have been responsibility for managing Linux and Solaris boxes for the past year (I'm a NT guru, but a UNIX newbie). Until I had this book, I was pretty much too scared to login to the boxes. Now, I understand how all the services seem to fit in together. This book doesn't have all the detail I'm lookin for - but it sure gave me the right pathways to find it. All the examples I tried worked first time, and now I'm confident doing DNS, Samba, Sendmail and DHCP. Well done guys!