This is a beautifully done "comic book" version of the Twitchell novel, "Talons of Time". Definitely a collector's item if you love the novel, but *not* the novel if that's what you're looking for (like *I* was...).

I have had two copies of this book at two different times. With each book ending up in the hands of friends. The book is very thought provoking. For anyone willing to step outside the norm of thinking, this is a good place to start. Very fast paced and engaging - even for a slower reader such as myself.

I've found that Paul Twithell's book The Talons of Time is a novel that invokes the imagination. A book that takes you there! You are Peddar Zaskq, the main character of this novel! This one's sure to be a classic. I'd like to see it as a movie, but then movies aren't as good as one's imagination.

The anti-Catholic and anti-clerical overtones get in the way of an interesting plot and a delightful tour of Rome and Italian lifestyle. The Vatican's role at the end of WWII could have be covered in a less prejudicial way. It would have also been helpful if the author sited some of the sources he used for his historical references.

The Unholy Trinity is a page turner.

This mystery begins with the murder of a Priest who was independent enough from the Catholic Church to make the church leaders a little uneasy about him. His murder leads to several other murders, the search for unknown identities and the source of vatican gold. A romance between a journalist and a magistrate could have been left out but I guess some people just have to have it:)

Two of my friends also read the book and loved it.

Excellent knowledge of The Eternal City, so good you can visit the places named, with a wiew of the Second World War that is not shown in "Band of Brothers" etc.
The book (un)intentionally gives clues to the problems in the 90's Balkans while still engrossing the reader in a superb plot with excellent characterisation.
For those who enjoy action/mystery/historical novels, with a regard for the Vatican as a political organisation with its encumbent machinations, this is an engrossing novel.

This book has so many errors and inaccurate statements that it would definitely place a newcomer to VBScript (which it was obviously written for and by) on the WRONG track. I purchased this book as an aide to prepare for a class I was teaching, and I wasted my money. Do not buy this book!

I wanted a good primer and reference guide to VBScript - this book was both. There are a few typos here and there, but I think it's a great book and have gotten a lot of use out of it. This was the second book I have bought from the "Unleashed" series and I just bought a third!

With all the other reviews I was apprehensive in buying the book. I bought the book anyway, just like any other computer programming references you would get ideas and techniques here that other books do not offer. A definite must have if you want to improve your skill in SCRIPTING!

You've heard that blogging is so simple (by design) that you don't even need a book...well this is that book.

This is an excellent and thorough resource for folks just getting started with weblogs. Some reviewers have commented that the authors take blogging a little too seriously -- but I don't think so. For me, there was added value in the author's inclusion of true blogging stories, from the impact bloggers had on communicating the events of 9/11, to the fictional blog account of a young woman dying of cancer (which was published as non-fiction and later exposed as a fraud -- the author's re-telling of this story is just right, underscoring the impact a blog can have on its readership, without being too preachy). There's no denying that blogs are among the hottest things happening on the web these days -- why not take them seriously?

That said, don't mistake "serious" for boring. The text is very reader-friendly, and the all important "how-to" sections, which cover not only blog creation, but an in-depth look at some of the most popular blog tools, are extremely helpful.

If you buy only one book about blogging, you can't go wrong with this one. I bought it in addition to Biz Stone's "Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content." Of the two, I like Stone's book a little better, which is why I give this one only 4 stars. My preference is based solely on the fact that Stone's book is a bit more concise and amusing. Still, for comparisons of the various blog tools, this book can't be beat. This is quite a compliment, considering that the authors are some of the key folks behind, or associated with, the Blogger.com technology. Their even-handed analysis of the other major tools is thus all the more credible and helpful.

The review from A reader from Champaign, IL USA is obviously someone who knows a lot about Blogs or blogging already. If you have heard about blogs in the popular media, or have happened upon other people's blogs, this book is a great way to get started doing your own.

Admittedly, the authors might take this blogging stuff a bit too seriously. But they explained how the tools work, how to get started, and how to get beyond the basics. I was able to create a new blog, get it hosted, and added a comment system. I plan to tackle templates next.

If you are looking for a short, easy, hands-on read for the nuts and bolts of blogging, this one does the trick.

One reviewer praises the book because you don't have to know anything about science or ethics to understand it. Another reviewer critizes it because it's written at about a Jr. High level of understanding of biology, medical research, logic and ethics. Having read the book, I'd agree more with the second reviewer. The fact that the book is easy to read and doesn't require ANY background knowledge does not make the book better.

This book is just not very good. It is disappointing in many ways. It just doesn't engage the issues of the ethics or the science in a deep and careful way. Even those who think animal research is a good thing really should be able to admit this and think that there needs to be a better book that defends animal research. I guess they think they don't need to and maybe that's true, at least for now.

It sure would have been nice if they could have found a physician to write a chapter for the book: a perspective from someone that actually deals with sick people would have been good.

One thing the first positive reviewer forgot to mention in his praise of the philosopher R.G. Frey was this: Frey thinks that if you are going to allow animal experimentation, rationality requires that you be open to the possibility of allowing experimentation on "terminally defective" newborn babies and other "mentally challenged" human beings. He thinks you can't rationally defend the idea that there are things that rightly can be done to animals (such as research that causes pain and death) but can never rightly be done to any humans. Frey thinks that view can only be defended from a Judeo-Christian theistic perspective, which he rejects as unreasonable (or thinks there isn't good evidence to accept that there is a God). Frey's view is at least consistent, unlike most of the other moral views given in defense of animal research.

I heartily recommend Why Animal Experimentation Matters. So often, arguments defending animal experimentation are cast in careful politically correct affirmations of a concern for the animals and a wish that scientists did not have to use them. Such apologies frequently ring with the dull thud of falsehood.

But the nine essays (including the introduction) in this book are heartless and pointed: Humans can do what they choose to animals. The authors accept this as gospel and then attempt to justify these personal and varied prejudices. Facts that get in the way are either ignored altogether, or else massaged into claims that are misleading or simply false.

Book editor, E.F. Paul makes the following claim in her introduction: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Welfare Enforcement Report for Fiscal Year 1997 reported that 1,267,828 dogs, cats, primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits and farm animals were subjects of laboratory experiments in registered facilities. Dogs and cats now comprise less than 1 percent of U.S. laboratory animals, while mice, rats, and other rodents represent 80 to 90 percent." This is (intentionally?) misleading. Of the 1.3 million animals cited, dogs (75,429 used in FY 1997, according to the USDA report named above) and cats (26,091) make up closer to ten percent. No one has an inkling of the total number of animals used in U.S. laboratories. The 1.3 million cited excludes most of them from the data. Mice, rats, (perhaps 30 million combined according to industry estimates) birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates... the total number is many orders of magnitude greater than the number cited by E.F. Paul.

Misleading facts and claims aside, what sets this book apart is the theme running through every essay that the very least human interest is always more important than the very greatest animal interest. We are told by the vivisectors themselves, such as Zola Morgan, director of the NIH Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, that oversight interferes with research and should be curtailed. We are told by pro-vivisectionist philosophers that the beauty created by new cosmetics is ample justification for blinding rabbits.

It is not true, as some have claimed, that the book is written at a junior high reading level. Such claims may be based on content that fails to measure up to the title's promise. People in favor of animal experimentation may be embarrassed by the authors' honesty and not like what they have to say, but the essays are generally clear and straightforward.

I believe that the authors are representative of many of those working in the labs today. Readers will find many windows into the minds and hearts of those who measure everything by what's in it for them. This is an amazing book.

"Why Animal Experimentation Matters" invites a wide audience to learn about animal research. Although it is a scholarly treatise on the use of animals for biomedical purposes, it is written in a manner that enables those unfamiliar with science and ethics to appreciate the issue.

The Introduction by Ellen Frankel Paul notes the historical use of animals that provided us with knowledge often taken for granted today, e.g., the development of antibiotics, understanding of nervous system function. She addresses the philosophical basis for animal rightism and the emergence of animal rights activism.

In the first chapter, historians Kiple and Ornelas provide a comprehensive history of medical research dating back to Aristotle's observations of motion in animals; one of the earliest studies of animal physiology. They provide detailed examples of animal research, e.g., discovery of cures for vitamin deficiency diseases by nutritionists. They also discuss future needs for research to find cures for viral diseases such as ebola and other emerging diseases. They also outline the history of animal rightism, dating back to 19th century anti-vivisectionism.

The next chapter by Veterinarian and researcher Adrian Morrison provides a personal perspective on animal research. One of the earliest targets of terrorism by the Animal Liberation Front, Morrison has devoted himself to evaluating moral and ethical issues surrounding animal research. He provides solid factual information, soundly contradicting the garbled misinformation promoted by animal rightist oriented health professionals.

Stuart Zola's chapter provides a contemporary example of the application of animal research to the problem of amnesia. Veterinary ethicist Jerrold Tannenbaum contributes a thought-provoking essay on the paradigm shift towards expectations that animals should be 'happy' and its potential impact on biomedical research. Medical Ethicist Baruch Brody contrasts American and International attitudes towards animal research, addressing the continuum of social interactions from familial to Kingdom-wide.

Nicoll and Russell explore this continuum in a Darwinian framework. Their chapter evolves towards the issues of animal protectionism and rightism, finishing with an expose of the misanthropic anti-humanistic and anti-scientific fundamentalism of the animal rights philosophy.

Tristam Engelhardt's provocatively titled chapter "Animals: their right to be used" discusses animals as moral agents relative to humans; who are the authors of our moral codes! Philosopher R.G. Frey concludes the book addressing the justification of animal experimentation from an "argument from benefit" viewpoint. Touching upon Judeo-Christian ethics and relative valuations of human and animal life, he provides a logical framework, upon which one can make their own conclusions about animal research.

This book serves an important function as a compelling argument supporting animal research. Indeed, one may ask: Why is there such a raging debate on this issue? Is it because societal understanding of science has weakened to the point that it falls victim to the pseudoscientific arguments of the animal rightists?

This book has the potential to serve as an antibiotic to cure the infection of misunderstanding about animal research foisted upon society and a maturing generation of children by the animal rights movement.

I did not relish in Zubro's gay mystery, nor did I of any of his novels. I wanted to share this novel with my eldest son who is gay; I thought it would be helpful and comforting for him to see that gays or any groups in which society deems and stereotypes "different". He was quite upset with the entire book, claiming "Gays don't act like that!" I had no idea how affended he was until he burned the book in the fireplace. I, myself, felt that the book was quite choppy too often. I can comprehend the extra information was pertinent to the story at times, but he completely "over did it" with the whole "gay plot". I am also offended by the book and I'm not gay! I am sorry for wasting my money on buying that senseless book.

This was the first "gay" mystery I've read, and I now want to eventually obtain and read all of Zubro's mysteries. The pace is fast and smooth for the most part in this book, but at times becomes choppy. Nonetheless, Zubro's intimate knowledge of police procedure and activity is plain, as well as his knowledge of the streets of Chicago. Zubro also weaves well into the story Paul Turner's (he's the protagonist) personal life in a meaningful way that in this book is actually part of the main plot. The characters become three dimentional, taking on lives of their own. The only criticism I have for Zubro is he spends too much time telling things to the reader, rather than letting the plot reveal what is going on. Such as little asides to explain why a character did something. These asides slow down the pace and can be condescending to readers already familiar with how police work. The best aspect of this book is how Zubro portray's a gay character as a human being rather than an icon. It is my hope that Mr. Zubro will provide us with many such mysteries in the future, and I look forward to reading those he has already published.

This is a step up from your average gay murder mystery. Most of the characters are regular guys who just happen to be gay -- no hairdressers or drag queens here. Parts are funny, and nothing sticks out as being particularly bad. Perfect beach reading material.

This book starts so nicely! Earthquake in LA, terrorists, nuclear war .....

But then the problems begin. Point of view that shifts between characters with no transition. Pages of exposition that cover crises and changes and riots and chaos - and then the author goes back to the main characters and you find out that all this chaos happened in one day. Unfortunately, the events chronicled in this book aren't believable as the events of just a week (ex: within 48 hours of the Rapture, the homes of every missing person in the world has been bugged).

As another reviewer has said, the events are rushed and the timeline much too compressed for believability (I have the same gripe with the Left Behind series).

With a good editor to fix the technical writing problems, the series would have much more potential. As it is, the writing is mediocre at best. I won't read the rest of the series.

Readers who have devoured the Left Behind series will want this novel of the Last Days but may find it less satisfying than the ongoing LaHaye-Jenkins series. The novel starts strongly as the Big One hits California, terrorists unleash plague in Chicago and a second Korean War looms. Star TV reporters Bronson Pearl and Helen Hannah are on top of the story of the millenium when Helen's beloved grandmother and thousands of others vanish in the Rapture. Those left behind face certain doom as the great powers declare war. Salvation comes at the last moment when Franco Macalusso, president of the European Union, makes all weapons of mass destruction vanish at his command. Macalusso is proclaimed the true Messiah and creates a world government, persecuting those who keep faith in Jesus, now condemned as a false prophet. This Antichrist preaches a New Age doctrine, telling his followers that they have the power to be gods within themselves. A rift develops between Bronson and Helen, who are in love, when she become a new Christian and he is torn by doubts. The novel has some strong points. The Antichrist is a micromanaging media titan, who uses the power of television. The Lalondes, who are involved in audio-visual production, make some strong comments about the shallowness of TV news and its uncritical acceptance by mass audiences. Overall, however, the novel seems rushed. Interesting minor characters appear, do their bit and leave the stage. Some of the dialog is fast and snappy, then the story bogs down with lengthy passages of exposition. Helen and Bronson are good characters, with Bronson cast as a Doubting Thomas whose faith is based on hard facts. Macalusso, however, would be no match for Nicolae Carpathia, the supervillain of the Left Behind series. A weak adversary makes for weak conflict. The book's main problem is its ending, which depends on a sudden transformation by one character. This kind of conclusion is contrived and almost impossible to bring off well. As a result, the reader's reaction on finishing the last page may be "Huh?" instead of "Wow!"

I give this book 5 stars because it's competition is Left Behind. I read a few pages of Lalondes' book, and they actually make some effort to provide *QUALITY* in some form to the readers - the sentences actually use metaphors from time to time, the authors actually go inside the character's head from time to time, etc. While I won't say this is a great novel (it is, after all, the novelization of a screen play), I have to judge it against Left Behind - the worst piece of crud to ever be pawned off as "Christian fiction." At least this book doesn't make you feel stupid.

'Self-Organized' is a widely-used but not precisely defined term. Krugman was inspired by the idea of self-organized criticality made popular by a certain school of physics, but there is nothing original in his book. He has merely lifted notions from another field that he did not invent and, far worse, doesn't understand. For something much better, and which is at least explanatory and seems to make some sense, try his book 'The Return of Depression Economics'. 'The Self-Organizing Economy' is best tossed in the trash can. I confess that the title of my review is not original, but I refuse to divulge the author in order to protect his privacy.

For critical analyses by economists of what is wrong with the basic theory believed by Krugman (and the entire MIT and Chicago schools, the IMF, The World Bank, all so-called neo-classical economics), see Paul Ormerod's 'The Death of Economics'. Like all neo-classical economists, is a utility maximizer, a believer in stable equilibria, but real data (which are always far from equilibrium) show utility maximization to make terribly wrong predictions, not even close to the mark, completely useless except as a way to mislead lawyers and politicians who understand too little to question the results. Also, do not miss reading Mirowski's Machine Dreams-fantastic book!

As an economist I did get some utility from this book. Before reading it I knew very little of complexity, self-organization, and all that; at the end of it I had some idea about possible macro implications of seemingly innocuous micro assumptions, in fairly realistic economic examples. Dr K is not at his best here and true, he did not invent the field (but well, I also read theater stuff written well after ancient Greece); also much of the work is speculative at best. So if you want to have some fun and already understand basic economics - e.g. the basic economics of Depressions - this is not a bad book, though not much more than a divertissement. If you are a fine mathematician, well, I am unqualified to comment on that. But basically, I wrote this review because I felt that the others tell you at length THAT Dr K is wrong on the economics, but not WHERE he is or WHY. There is no "correct" way to do nonlinear stuff in economics, the matter is, are you explaining something or not? Are you developing intuition or not on a particular issue? On these counts the book does have something to offer.

Paul Krugman stands out again from the poseurs, charlatans and know-it-alls who think they are the first people to have really understood economics. This book has the quality of an occasional piece, of reflections on the subject rather than an in-depth research monograph, but still the insights just keep on coming.

Maybe reviewers who tack on economics and finance at the end of their list of research "specialties" -- "nonlinear dynamics (especially classical mechanics), statistical mechanics, cosmology, superfluids, hydrodynamics and turbulence, porous media, economics and finance" -- understood all the applications of non-linear dynamics and complexity theory to economies, but for the rest of us this little book is a delight.

I read his posts on Black Planet and Mi Gente everyday. He is a self serving person who is allways promoting his books. He constantly posts pseudo-history, but then fails to back it up under challenge. He refers to whites as crackers and claims native americans don't have claims in the Americas because Blacks have prior claims. For this reason I allready know this book will be an extreme case of Afrocentrism, and of no historical educational value. Sadly, he might be mentioning some truths, but he mixes it so much with fantasy, that the truth becomes suspect too.

I read his posts on Black Planet and Mi Gente everyday. He is a self serving person who is allways promoting his books. He constantly posts pseudo-history, but then fails to back it up under challenge. He refers to whites as crackers and claims native americans don't have claims in the Americas because Blacks have prior claims. For this reason I allready know this book will be an extreme case of Afrocentrism, and of no historical educational value. Sadly, he might be mentioning some truths, but he mixes it so much with fantasy, that the truth becomes suspect too.

the info was important however the spelling and grammar takes away from the importance and seriousness of the book.

I certainly hope David Christian does not expect his readers to consider this book a truthful account. This book dishonors Vietnam veterans by painting an obviously false account of David Christian's war experience. Most of his outrageous stories sound like they came from a B-movie about the Vietnam War. If David Christian wants to be a real war hero he should put away his ego and imagination and publish a truthful account of his war experience so that others can learn from such a tragic war. I would recommend virtually any other book about the Vietnam War.

This book is entertaining, but not very believable. Mr. Christian does not tell a very convincing story. I found the book so ridiculous that I couldn't even finish it. I am sure Mr. Christian was a very good soldier, but he is not a good storyteller. If you have ever read any books by men who told the truth about the war, you will not be able to believe a word Mr. Christian has written. He comes across as being so conceited. Save yourself the time, and go read a truthful account of the Vietnam War. This book seems nothing but a fantasy.

I had not read this book unitl I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Christian. I did not know of him until kids in class started talking about what he was known for. I am from a military family and I am around military people a lot, so I am used to how they are. As I said I knew nothing about him, but when he began to talk I was amazed at his life experiences. If one were to only look at a picture of him with his metals one would see that he lived a lifetime of memories, both good and bad, during his tours of Vietnam. It seems that Mr. Christian has lived a fascinating life and to hear and read about it is amazing. His life sounds almost unreal, but he was really apart of some of the most influential events that have taken place in the last 50 years. Not only was it a pleasure to read this book I felt honored as an American because this world does not have many heroes like Mr. Christian, but maybe the world would be a better place if his dedication and courage were more prevalent in others.