What is new in this "New Socialism" are

i) the mathematical calculations for determing the cost of products in "labour hours" as opposed to dollars or euros

ii) the audacious proposal for a participative democracy via TV-linked voting boxes in each home

and

iii) some proposals for alleviating the environmental impact of economic developments.

They resurrect the old Socialist idea of abolishing money and replacing dollars, euros, etc by "labour vouchers" exchangeable only for products at state shops.

Sadly, any of the old restrictions and defects of existing Socialist societies are included, with more added, such as the very limited ability to accumulate even this Socialist currency and hence inciting even more extra-legal activity than the old Soviet Union saw.

The most startling novelty was C and C daring to contradict Marx on the issue of labour vouchers. Any heretical disagreement on the smallest point with Marx or Lenin in earlier decades would have been inconceivable. That is a measure of how much rethinking has been forced on Marxists by the visible failure of "actually existing Socialism", but the rethinking is still too limited and too hag-ridden by the patterns of earlier Socialisms.

One basic flaw is the obsession with EQUALITY. C and C go to extraordinary lengths to quantify every economic contribution in "hours of labour" because they regard that as a more natural method of measuring the value of goods and services, as opposed to visibly artificial money units such as dollars or francs. ALL workers should in principle receive one labour voucher for one hours work. Yet they are progressively forced into conceding unequal rewards to make the planned economy function at all. Though these rewards are less unequal than those in capitalist countries, the general impoverishment in Socialist countries might make any difference in wealth more visible and resented.

The forced and wholly phoney equality and the frustration of healthy entrepreneurial instincts will naturally encourage development of private economic activity and parallel trading systems, some overlapping with the planned economy, some separate. Some will be prosecuted by the state, some work in official or unofficial co-operation with state regulators who will doubtless take a slice of the action.

Also ignoring hugely unequal contributions which defy conventional measurement (such as innovating and leadership ability) and placing them on a par with mundane work forces more unreality onto this egalitarian reward until a "labour voucher" is as artificial as a pound or a euro.

A second basic flaw is permitting any interaction with external economies. If labour rewards and prices of goods are more favourable in countries to which the socialist country's citizens have access, you will immediately get flight of key workers and smuggling of imports, thus distorting economic planning out of recognition.

I suspect that few people will honestly understand C and C's mathematics (I certainly don't) and many will therefore hesitate to raise objections to their proposals. But in fact C and C's claim to have solved Hayek's "calculation objection", even if true, is largely irrelevant to supporting the plausibility or desirability of a planned economy. Their mathematical sophistication serves mainly to divert attention from the much more fundamental problems of their suggestions.

I suppose we should be grateful that C and C do not yet propose compulsory family planning - either one child per family, as per China, or the incentives for "Mother Heroines of the Soviet Union" to deliver 10 kids. In view of the long-standing Communist project of abolition of the family, they suggest only the official encouragement of communes, not their compulsory formation. But that sort of draconian coercion is not far away, however futile it might be. The very logic of planning production suggests the inevitability of planning the output of the most fundamental product, the human being and how the growing child is nurtured. The size and age distribution of the population directly affects all other planning from housing to clothes to hospitals to jobs. As with other aspects of their book (such as the references to "policing" of extra-legal economic activity and "direction of labour") you get the feeling that the Stalinist fist is just beneath the skin of the New Socialist glove.

This leads us to the most important flaw of all in any planned economy: YOU CAN PLAN ONLY WHAT YOU CONTROL and a planned society has, it seems, to be a strictly controlled society. No plausible model allowing a tolerable amount of freedom has ever been described and I will be surprised if C and C's book convinces anyone outside the surviving hard-core of Marxists.

The Doctor has very few scenes in this book, meaning that companions, Roz, Chris, and Bennie dominate the proceedings. Bennie faces forced indoctrination into the war, Roz and Chris face distrust and racism (well, Roz faces rascism--and since she's from, as I recall, the 30th century, she doesn't even cop to all the racism of Earth circa 1919 at first...but she finally figures it out) while tracking missing children. Things come to a head as all the time-travellers, from various angles, realize the forced indoctrination is being stepped up.

The author does not hide from his premise; this book features the brutal death of at least one young girl. But if you can stomach such depictions (not over-the-top, but definitely nasty), this is a better, more intricate Who book than the last Paul Leonard entry I read, Revolution Man (I still can't give this one more than a three-star review, though). The explanation for this particular war is the supreme comment on the waste of war; let's hope, in the real world, warmakers are never quite THIS nutty.

Harsh and gritty, but tightly plotted and enjoyable. I wish the Doctor could have saved all the children, but he tried.

"Tracing it Home" is a vastly superior alternative to the sloppy, melodramatic and orientalized literature from other Overseas Chinese women writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. Their works, yes, appeal to western readers, but only because they present the stylized characature of Chinese history and culture that western readers imagine, rather than the complicated reality. That is because these Chinese Americans know China only through the lens of immigrant idealized mythology and American misperceptions, rather than their own experience.

Lynn is a world different from those poseurs, because she knows and understands China, as it was and as it is. She gives context to the historical cruelties that most ABC writers eroticize. She grew up in Malaysia's dynamic Chinese population and in England and Hong Kong, but was born in and now lives in Shanghai.

The story of the Pan family is fascinating and elegantly presented. Lynn's builder grandfather was the Horatio Alger type that made Shanghai famous. The travails his success created for his offspring are remarkable yet common among Shanghai families. Lynn Pan knows this, and avoids the wallowing in self-importance that makes most "I survived China" memoirs tedius (ie "Red Azalea", "Life and Death in Shanghai").

Lynn is an elegant, evocative writer, and perhaps the greatest pleasure of "Tracing it Home" is its purveyance of Shanghai as a place, and her grandfather's large role in shaping the city's geography. The post-modern white box of a 1940s mansion that he built and where Lynn was born is just down the block from my current home, and I can see the Picardie, which he built, out my window. Small pleasures, slices of personal history, are contained in this big little story.

It is OK to use other people's working ideas as a springboard to your own success. Not all books dealing with publicity are this dedicated to making it easy for the reader to succeed. Some are more inclined to be of the type "Well, I read the whole book, and I still don't know how to really write a great release." Read this book, and you will be overflowing with real great press releases and tons of direct information from those press people that you send these releases to. Those guys on the receiving end are varied in opinions and preferences - so there are good and better ways, but there is no such thing as a "best" way.

Ars Magica is nominally set to begin in 1220 AD. By common scholarly acceptance, the last gasp of the viking era was the Battle of Stamford Bridge, 1066 AD (about 2 weeks before the Battle of Hastings). Most of the information given in this book would be more appropriate to the 9th or 10th centuries, rather than the 13th. With this proviso, let me say the information is wonderful.

The background information on Scandanavian culture is, as common with Ars Magica supplements, superlative. Social strata, mores, pasttimes, cratfs, and the Old Beliefs are handled in an intelligent and engaging manner. This is by far the best system I have ever seen for handling runic magic; while it may not be accurate (how do you judge such things in a game?), it gives a real viking FEEL to the power. In addition there is a fascinating section on Finnish Wind Wizards which, while brief, is intriguing and quite useful.

Overall this is a fine book, with the one caveat of being somewhat misplaced in time. Barring that, however, it is a wonderful addition to any Ars Magica library, especially if you favour early campaigns.

The search continues for a Visual C++ .NET book that won't be a waste of my time and money.