This book has some great points, but lacks evidence to its most vital conclusions. Unconclusive connections with some truth, but also much of this book is meant for a reader that lacks cognitive abilities - the author seems to be feeding the target audience with whatever the audience wants to eat... not in all cases is that food truth. There are many holes in "evidences" and many weak examples, trying to prove certain objectives. I disliked this book because I do not see the author's credibility and/or wisdom concerning "answers" to issues that seem to be "thrown together."

...after having problems in my relationship, I decided to visit a local bookstore for some self help. By chance I grabbed this book and began reading, it seemed as though the book was written about me. I never realized that I was jealous and possessive. I could not put the book down until I finished it. This book is so eye opening I have decided to purchase it and keep it with me as support for controling my views as a jealous and possessive person. Thank you Paul A. Hauck!!!!

If you have ever lived with and/or been parented by a jealous and/or possessive parent or mate, you MUST read this book! It actually provided many clear and objective answers to questions I had asked myself my entire life!

There's no doubt that Paul Kearney has the ability to spin a powerful yarn. The politics, the drama, the plot twists, the characters, they're all there. But I base my rating of a story's quality on its ability to hold my attention. And nothing diverts my attention more than flagrant spelling errors which should have been caught in the proofreading stage. These appear throughout the novel. Rather than galley proof reviews, "The Second Empire" was apparently given a quick run through a spellchecker, without regard for the results. When I read "I am tyred, Betanza thought. I am tyred, and I am older than I think I am.", I imagined Betanza as a golf cart rather than leader of the Inceptine Order. If the author is tired of the story, he should just finish it and spin us another fascinating tale. Ace Books should be more careful.

This fourth book of "The Monarchies of God" is full of action!
The Second Empire mainly concentrate about Torunnas war against the Merduks. We also learn what happend with Hawkwood, Bardolin and Murad and their return to Hebrion, not to mention the Ramusian Church and their internal struggle.
This book describes war in a very realistic way, with the heroic warrior, what they think before going to battle, the death and the sorrow afterward over dead comerads. For those of you who don't like to read about war and battles this is not the book for you! I think that you then easely can read about it in: "what went before" in the fifth book. But then again, if you can't handle to read about war... Well, then why read this serie? It's full of violence and describes human kind as we can be at our worst, and we can also see parallel to the European history where the church controlled the lives of the people and it's struggle with the different king/s.
The first three books are just as good as this one.
This serie is a fresh contribution to the world of fantasy.
I can't recommend it enough!
ENJOY!

The first book did not totally grip me, but by the time the third and fourth appeared I was fully enthralled. A truly gripping story with all the intrigue and twists you could want. The characters are gritty and composed of the kind of flaws that bring them to life. I agree with some of the editing comments, but it did not reduce my enjoyment of the yarn as a whole. Bravo and I eagerly await the next one.

There are some persons that you find very interesting the first time you talk with them, but during the succesive conversations their appeal does not increase, on the contrary, they become more boring and boring and boring.

Well this book follows the same pattern with each chapter you read. The line could be summarized as follows: A young Chinese girl is forced to become a prostitute for the officals of the Japanese Army during their invasion of Nanking. The father of girl finds out and kills her Japanese pimp.

On the other hand, the 300 pages of the books are just used by the author to show that he knows a lot of vocabulary. Sadly it is used most of the time to take the reader to the arms or Morpheus, not to develop a storyline. Now if you suffer from insomnia that might be a good reason to buy the book.

THE TENT OF ORANGE MIST is one of the current novels that attempt to describe the horrors visited on the Chinese remaining in Nanking, during the Japanese invasion of 1937. The arbitrary anarchy of the Japanese is visited on anyone in the way, as families are slaughtered, women raped, buildings burned. Scald Ibis is the daughter of an intellectual family who failed to escape. She finds herself alone in the house where she grew up, as the Japanese turn her home into a comfort house. Regardless of the atrocities visited upon her young body, Scald Ibis determines to survive. When she finds her father hiding behind a chimney, she resolves to save them both, using her feminine wiles to turn herself into a giesha. She also makes up stories for the other girls about a priest she had studied in school, Sandro Somatti, S.J. The chapters devoted to the adventures of Sandro seem to dilute the power of the story for me. But seen in context, these chapters do add to the sense of unreality that surrounds this comfort house. I found this book to be less of a satisfying read than some others on this topic.

The art of decadence, which reached its zenith in late nineteenth-century French literature consists in transforming artificiality and repugnance into the stuff of heady pleasure. In decadence, the whole must serve each, individual part. In this sense, decadence is just the opposite of classicism in which the opposite is true and each part must be pressed into service of the whole. The pleasures of decadence, however one wishes to view them, and, no matter how artificial they may be, can be extraordinarily exquisite. In The Tent of Orange Mist, Paul West shows that he is truly one of the masters of decadence.

The Tent of Orange Mist is set against the backdrop of the horrors of the rape of Nanking by the Japanese army during the winter of 1937. The protagonist is Scald Ibis, the very proper adolescent daughter of a Chinese scholar. Two other characters dominate this book: Colonel Hayashi, the man who orchestrates Scald Ibis's transformation from child into woman; and Hong, her enfant terrible father who undergoes a none-too-pleasant transformation of his own. As Scald Ibis becomes involved in a sado-masochistic pas de deux with Hayashi, her home is turned into a brothel and she, herself, is transformed from a stunned sex slave into and elegant geisha. Against a grotesque backdrop of luridly depicted atrocities, Scald Ibis, Hayashi and Hong play out a game of intense tragedy that includes domination, subversion and mutilation.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent Chinese civilians met a grisly death at the hands of the Japanese during the rape of Nanking. Most writers who have undertaken to portray this atrocity have combined stark realism with an epic narrative technique, hoping to engage the reader's attention and evoke a sense of righteous outrage. West, however, takes a very different approach.

The Tent of Orange Mist is a book about the seductive power of art and the temptations of artifice. In keeping with the theme of his story, West imposes on his extraordinarily artificial characters an intimate and rather claustrophobic view that is perfect. In West's extremely talented hands, this improbable trio becomes believable, even when indulging in the most bizarre of circumstances. After being gang-raped by Hayashi and his troops, Scald Ibis's first gesture is to compose an elegant poem in calligraphy to the man she considers her new master.

This is a story of rape, of rapture, of poetry and of atrocity, but West tells his tale in prose that is graceful and delicately ornate. Although this extremely intimate look at a world and characters who are often bizarre and tortured and perverted will be offensive to some readers, The Tent of Orange Mist is a book that, considering what it depicts, is exquisitely beautiful and elegantly wrought.

Though I was only a kid at the time, I still remember John Paul I and what a shock his death after so short a reign caused. How could that smile be allowed to disappear so soon? John Cornwell's book was written largely in response to David Yallop's speculative, but well put together thesis "In God's Name" which argued that John Paul I was murdered. John Cornwll's verdict is equally damning. He gives us some fresh insights into the medical evidence and talks to some interesting people. In the end, though, I wasn't convinced. There is still far too much room for doubt.

A good piece of investigative journalism. Put together very professionally.
But is it the last word about the death of Papa Luciani? Although Cornwell seems to tie a lot of loose ends some lingering doubts are still there.

this book is based on true history. john cornwell, david yallop, morgan witt-gordon went to the vatican to investigate the MURDER of John Paul I and the vatican mafia. Read history of the wordl PLease and do not be blind about the blood history of the catholic church. The blood can not be erased from the aplology of the church. What about the victims. Say sorry is not enough.

As an old DOS programmer who is finally getting into Windows programming, I found John Mueller's book to be indispensible. Although the book covers a wide range of topics, it is easy to hone in on a specific topic that you are having trouble grasping.

The explanations of background concepts are just enough to bring you up to speed and make the source code examples clear enough to follow easily. The chapter on Active Directory services is worth the price of the book all by itself.

John is a natural teacher and a good writer. Reading his books is like having a mentor talking to you, providing tips and "did you know what I discovered when I did this?" kind of hints. Given the breadth of Windows 2000, many of his examples are broad rather than deep, but he does do some in-depth ones where needed---for MTS/MSMQ for example. The one nit I had was that his installation chatper focused on using InstallShield and didn't even mention the Windows Installer. However, there are plenty of examples and time-saving hints that make up for this. I've discovered lots of utilities I didn't even know existed. I also liked the example of building a MMC snap-in.

I've looked at quite a few programming books in my 11 years of programming and this one is near the top of my list. Instead of boring me with too much theory or gee whiz garbage, this book provides just enough background information so that I understand the example code that follows. The example code is a little broad, I would have preferred something more specific, but I still ended up learning quite a bit.

I love the tips and Internet sources that the author provides, but I wish there was an index for them. It takes forever to find what I need when I'm in a hurry. I contacted the author and he said he will add this index to his Web site.

Overall, there are very few nits to pick with this book. All of the code works and the theory is right on the mark. The only thing I would have preferred is more short examples showing specific coding techniques. This book is a very good buy for anyone who likes a mix of theory and full fledged programming examples.

Last year I bought Macromedia Coldfusion 5 appliction Development for Ben Forta. I did like the book and I learned a lot from it. So with my order of Coldfusion MX software, I decided to order Coldfsuion MX Application Develpment for Ben Forta. I start reading and soon I am in the end of the book do you know why? because it is almust same as the first one. Even same example. There is chapters where is same on both edition word by word. Yes, there is few things new on coldfuion MX but not worth it.

My advice, if you have a book wrote by Ben Forta for Coldfusion 5 then don't buy the new one because you are buying same book but different cover. If it's your first time, then this book will be the one to start.

by the way, this is not only the mistake I did, I did buy Coldfusion MX Web Application Construction Kit, and Coldfusion MX Developer Study Guide. They are all same. in fact I did read same paragraph again, and again from different edition of Ben Forta.

I will say Ben Forta did it again and I did buy and waste my Money this time.

Ben does it again! I was very pleased with the book. The coverage of CFMX's advanced features was excellent! The book is designed to allow you to skip around, not requiring you to read it cover to cover.

The book also provides many ideas for integrating COM,CORBA,C++ and most importantly JAVA into your CFMX applications. There is also a section on integrating with popular applications (like MS Word, Excel, Outlook, Fax Service, and ADO).

The best part of the book was the information on Advanced Custom Tags and Java integration!

Great book for those who are interested in learning advanced techniques.

Caution: Not a very good book for newbies to CF or CFMX.

This book covers many advanced topics like scalability, WDDX , CFC, Regular Expressions, custom tags, COM and internationalisation. If you are serious about ColdFusion development, it's an essential reference.
The targets are those who eat, sleep, and breathe ColdFusion. It covers topics you didn't even know existed with ColdFusion. Just when you think you are an "advanced" developer, along you will discover new things...
The authors managed to assemble tons of invaluable information, designed to be read and used as needed (instead of in a linear fashion), one chapter at time. This makes it ideal for picking up and reading on specific subjects as the need arises

Another assembly line book on terrorism. Much of the text is essentially cut and pasted from online information. Little original groundline research was done in the book. The only redeeming feature is the author's foray into understanding how Islamic fundamentalists have 'mis'interpreted the Koran as a means to validate their activities.

I want my money back. There was nothing new in this book that CNN has not already reported. The dates for some of the attacks are also wrong. The USS COLE was bombed on OCT 12, not the 5th as written by the author. The author must have spent little time on research, it's all cut and paste text.

This book on Al Qaeda has a useable index and references to additional research sources that you can look up on your own (including Internet websites). This gives the book an extra dimension to just being something you read and put away.

Williams manages to cram quite a bit into a compact soft-cover and does a good job of giving the reader a scare. He also tries to describe the structure of Al Qaeda and how it raises money for its activities. He could be more thorough describing the background on bin Laden and Islamic unrest but perhaps that would at least double the size of his book. His references are also a bit loose and there was at least one instance where I could not corroborate his information.

this was a not a good book they was alot of stupid things in this book they were trying to tell about plants to eat and not to eat and they had very poor black and white pictures of the plants most of the book is made up of unwanted infromation

Alot of the same info.Which has already been written before in previous American books.

I don't really go outdoors much, but I'd like to. This book was interesting, but I haven't read any books like it to compare it to another. I wouldn't want to get lost without it.

Reborn is book Four in F. Paul Wilson's epic "Adversary" cycle, and it's also the book where the big picture starts to become clear.

Reborn tells the story of Jim Stevens, who, after years of searching for his birth parents, finds out that his natural Father is a recently-deceased Nobel-Prize winning millionaire. Not only that, but Jim has been left his entire estate. Rather than leave well enough alone, Jim continues to dig around for his birth Mother. That's where his troubles begin....

Wilson telegraphs the point of the book by making constant references to Ira Levin's classic "Rosemary's Baby", which covers the same theological ground. He does make a VERY unexpected detour about 2/3rd's of the way through the book that really threw me for a loop, though. There are some characters and themes that carry over from the previous books, especially "The Keep", so DO NOT read Reborn without reading The Keep (Excellent!), The Tomb (Excellent!!), and The Touch (Not bad....).

The Dark Harvest edition is gorgeous, and comes with illustrations by Stephen Garvais. His art is great, but he doesn't always pick the best scenes to represent. All in all, Reborn is a fun, if standard, read. It does what it sets out to do, though: Brings Molosar/Rasolom back with a vengeance....Bring on Reprisal!

When F. Paul Wilson began writing Reborn it was just intended to be a one book sequel to his successful thriller The Keep, but ideas and links to two other seemingly unrelated books (The Tomb and The Touch) arose and, thankfully, Wilson rolled with those ideas. The result is a breathtaking six book Cycle about something very evil trying to end the world.

A struggling horror novelist receives a surprising inheritance and some heartbreaking news about his parentage. But there are greater forces at play here than meet the eye and Wilson pulls numerous threads together, setting the stage for an epic battle that only begins after some devestating personal payback in the fifth book, Reprisal. Highly recommended.

This was a very good book. A millionare/genetic researcher had died in a plane crash, leaving his fortune and victorian mansion to a young writer named Jim Stevens. Jim, as an orphan, wonders if this guy was his father. Soon, however, all sorts of strange things begin to happen, including apocalyptic warnings from Jim's relatives and friends. I cannot believe how STUPID people are! This book is NOT a Rosemarie's Baby clone! It has similar aspects to it, I admit, and it even *mentions* Rosemarie's Baby a few times--BUT IT IS NOT A REMAKE OF THE IRA LEVIN CLASSIC! Read it CAREFULLY and you will see what I mean. This book is a SEQUEL, people, and it can ONLY be read AFTER "The Keep", "The Tomb", and "The Touch". As well, this is a very good book. Pretty scary at times, but nowhere near as scary as "The Keep". Read this book ("The Keep", I mean) and you will see what I mean. The looks at life that these books make are astounding. What's more, after reading this book, there are the horrors of "Reprisal" and "Nightworld" to face... heh-heh-hehh...

I had high hopes for this book but after reading the book, it left me craving for more. I think its because of the subject matter itself. QoS is an elusive topic and the war of religious proportions between IP and ATM proponents make it even more vague at times. The first few chapters are a good introduction for someone new to the topic of QoS. The author(s) lost me on the Integrated Services topic.

As for later chapters, for example, MPLS, the description is just so so. Definately 'Switching in IP networks' by Rekhter is a mother on that topic.

Other than that, lot of editorial and spelling mistakes. Wake up Wiley Publishing! On page 83 for instance, spell checker did not catch 'theto' and 'layer 813'.

The book covers the topic area well but is difficult to get through as it is not written very well. They examples are not that great either. For example, when describing how a leaky-bucket algorithm works, they never refer to the obvious physical example. I will note that all the engineers I work with in the QoS area love the book.

I need the mean of QoS internet, aplications, traffic, RSVP