you can't complain when you're set in the world of the three laws of robotics with a beautiful young woman and a man without a memory--first rate pastiche by the two authors in the book. I loved it!

Many years ago, I read this series of books when they came out in paperback, while Asimov was still alive. I had forgotten how entertaining they were. All the classic elements, including continuity between different authors in the series exist. A must read for people who like a substantial, yet easy to read book. Definately not for those with a short attention span or someone who would rather see the movie then read the book.

The saga of Robot is continued in this novel, which can only be described as exellent, with a dose of brilliant, and a side of superlative. The story of Robot City is expressed through the further development of the characters Derec, a man who crash landed in the aptly named Robot City, a city run and inhabited entirely by robots. Having lost his memory in the crash landing, he takes the name of Derec, which is the manufacturer of his jump suit. Throughout his journey, he meets the mysterios Katherine. After a bout of being captured by extraterrestrials, and such other madcap antics, Derec and Katherine are deposited in Robot City together. It is here that the plot begins to thicken, and the character development becomes signifigant. This volume of the series is a perfect book for any science fiction fan, and perfectly expresses the three laws of Robotics and their applications in the real world.

It was about time somebody collected all of Clarke's short stories into one volume. I looked forward eagerly to re-reading them (I wore out my '50s and '60s paperbacks of Clarke's stories long ago). Sadly, the poor copyediting ruined this book for me. Tor must have hired some minimum-wage illiterate to keypunch the stories, then neglected to proofread any of them. There are mispellings on every page ("BEWARD OF LIONS"), and whole lines (or worse) are completely missing from many of the stories! (A whole *series* of paragraphs was missing from one of my favorite stories, "Superiority".)

I'm almost sorry I bought this book. You can buy it for its historical significance, but expect to be disappointed by its quality.

This book is heavy and inconvenient to carry around. The spellings are all British. "The Curse" is inexplicably renamed as "Nightfall". "At The Mountains of Murkiness" is missing.--But none of these gripes matter at all. The fact is, this is a (nearly-)comprehensive collection of all the short fiction of one of the three greatest authors to write Science Fiction. It includes the stories that made the Science Fiction Hall of Fame ("The Nine Billion Names of God" and "The Star"), stories that grew to more famous works ("The Sentinel," which formed part of the basis for Clarke & Kubrick's _2001: A Space Odyssey_ [both the novel and film]; "Guardian Angel," which grew to become Clarke's best novel, _Childhood's End_; and "The Songs of Distant Earth" and "The Hammer of God," which grew to the novels of the same name), light-hearted works (including all the classic _Tales of the White Hart_ and the more recent "Steam-Powered Word Processor"), and serious works (such as "Breaking Strain" and the aforementioned "Star"). This is surely the greatest single volume of short Science Fiction ever published. Recommended unreservedly.

Finally, at long last, we get a (very nearly) complete collection of Arthur C. Clarke's short works all in one volume. This collection is very convenient to the ACC collector, because his short works are scattered across numerous volumes (many of which are out of print) and several are uncollected. 104 stories, nearly 1,000 pages... all classic Clarke works. His first published story Travel By Wire! (1937) is here, as is his most recent Improving The Neighborhood (1999), his only collaboration The Wire Continium (with Stephen Baxter, 1998), and similar novelties. The stories range in length from 33 words to over 18,000. There is also a nice introduction from Clarke. Prefaced to each story are notes on when and where it was first published (very useful information to the Clarke collector), what ACC retrospectives it has since appeared in, and (most of the time) some brief notes on the story from Clarke. The stories collected here are widely varying, from absolute classics of the genre like The Star, The Nine Billion Names of God, The Lion of Comarre, The Wall of Darkness, All The Time In The World, Breaking Strain, etc.; to "seed" shorts like The Sentinel, Guardian Angel, Earthlight, The Songs of Distant Earth, The Hammer of God, etc.; to light-hearted, hilarous SF romps like the numerous "White Hart" tales, Trouble With the Natives, How We Got To Mars (previouly uncollected), and more. With all these extras in mind, along with the fact that it contains several previously uncollected stories, this book is essential not only to the Clarke newbie, but also to the hardcore admirer who already owns most everything he has ever written. This long-awaited omnibus is truly an absolute must-own for any science fiction fan. Period.

I purchased this book in part on the strength of three 5-star reviews on this site. This is a very handsome hardcover volume at a surprisingly reasonable price.

There are three classifications of stories in the book. First, stories primarily written by Adrian Conan Doyle, with some input from JD Carr. Second, two stories written almost entirely by Mr. Carr, possibly with some slight input from Doyle. Third, six stories written solely by Mr. Adrian Doyle.

Since I have read a number of mysteries by Carr, and expected much, I was most disappointed to find his two stories the weakest in the book. In one instance, after reading the first page I was able to anticipate the entire plot. In the other case, I simply found the story flat, uninteresting, and narrowly derivative of similar stories in the original Holmes canon.

To the contrary, some of the stories by Mr. Doyle cannot be praised enough. One that's typical, "The Adventure of Foulkes Rath," seems up to the work of Arthur Conan Doyle himself. All in all, Adrian Doyle admirably captures the style and brooding Gothic tone that so typifies many of the best stories in the original Holmes canon. Moreover, Adrian Doyle's stories have a kind of life and warmth that brings the Edwardian world alive for the reader.

I would give the book five stars were it not for a few tales that seem off the pace, and decidedly inferior to the others. Alas-- and surprisingly-- these are from JD Carr's pen. Perhaps Carr tried too diligently to write an impeccably logical mystery, where nothing in the denoument was not well provided for in the early story. The effect, unfortunately, was to create a mechanical kind of plot, which made it all to easy for the reader to anticipate too accurately the entire unfolding of the story.

So in this interesting and generally worthwhile book of tales, we might have the amateur outwriting the old master.

All in all, a worthwhile purchase -- and handsome book with great bedtime reading at a very reasonable price.

Patrick Callahan's excellent review is right on the money, but I'm giving this little book four stars anyway just because, when it's good, it's _very_ good. Some of the stories contained herein -- based on Watson's occasional references to unrecorded cases -- surpass some of the elder Doyle's later works. Highly recommended, especially as an antidote to the surfeit of "pastiches" that can't seem to get any of the details right.

Adrian Conan Doyle (with or without John Dickson Carr) tells a straight no-frills tale very much in the spirit of the Sherlockian canon; Holmes doesn't wind up getting married, Watson doesn't turn out to be the real Holmes, et cetera, et cetera. And there are no attempts to link Holmes to fabulous ripped-from-the-headlines figures like Dracula or Jack the Ripper -- these are perfectly ordinary cases of the kind in which Holmes himself was known to delight for their own sake owing to their touch of the _outre_ and the singular features they presented to the reasoner. Solid stuff despite the weaknesses of a few of the tales.

If you want a couple of novel-length pastiches to go with it, I recommend Nicholas Meyer's first two: _The Seven Per Cent Solution_ and _The West End Horror_.

This collection of stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyles youngest son, Adrian Conan Doyle, in collaboration with American mystery writer John Dickson Carr, are a wonderful treat for anyone who loves the originals! The twelve stories here refer to cases that Doyle made teasing reference to in the original series but never made available to the reading public. The stories are filled with black hearted villians, damsels in distress, atmosphere, and above all, the friendship between Holmes and Watson that have made them the most famous characters in the history of literature. Several stories like "The Adventure of the Deptford Horror" and "The Adventure of the Red Widow" are dark tales of murder; while others such as "The Aventure of the Wax Gamblers" and "The Aventure of the Highgate Miracle" will make you smile. What I enjoyed the most is that the authors have tried to stay true to the characters and didn't try to change them as other writers have done. The stories seem to have been written with one goal in mind, to fill the reader with delight! Originaly written in the early 1950s and out of print for many years, I am happy that Random House has released this once again, and in a Hardbound edition. Come dear reader,"the games afoot!"

Wallace Fowlie's translation of Rimbaud's complete poeticworks, together with a selection of Rimbaud's letters, provides themost complete and reliable English translation of Rimbaud's poetry and a useful companion to the many books on Rimbaud's life. While Fowlie's translations are workmanlike and somewhat unimaginative, they are generally faithful to the original French text. Moreover, because the original French version and the English translation are on facing pages, the reader can easily compare Fowlie's translation with the reader's own understanding and interpretation of the French text. In this respect, the book is particularly useful if you have some French fluency.

All translations are, by their nature, inauthentic since there is never a perfect correspondence between the resonant images and meanings of the original language and the new language into which a text is translated. Translation is, as one critic has said, "like kissing someone through a veil"; the sensations (meanings) of the original are occluded by the translative process. Recognizing this inevitable deficiency, all that a reader can ask is that a translation approximate, as closely as possible, the linguistic meaning of the original. Fowlie has achieved this, more so than many other translators of Rimbaud, who have corrupted the integrity of Rimbaud's original meanings by their own creative and symbolistic interpretive renderings.

Fowlie also has provided solid translations of Rimbaud's important letters, particularly the letters of May, 1871, to George Izambard and Paul Demeny which articulate Rimbaud's precocious and iconoclastic aesthetic view of the role of the poet. If the book has any real shortcoming, it is the truncated and relatively unintersting biographical section and a lack of detailed notes. However, those failings can be excused by the fact that Wylie's book achieves its main objective--bringing a complete text of Rimbaud's poems to the English speaking world. If you are studying Rimbaud and the biographical details of his early life, and you cannot read the original French, Wylie's collection is indispensable

The great surprise with this book is that it contains the original French text on the left hand pages with the English translation on the right. This added enormous value to the book that was not apparent from its description. The poetry itself is magnificent at times and hard to follow at others. It is obvious that Rimbaud was a great talent - too bad he abandoned writing after age 19! The included biographical information and text of his letters provide an interesting backdrop to evaluate the poems and show the absolute waste of his life after his literary exploits

I ... found Fowlie's over-literal translations ugly and lame. But I think this may be deliberate. The unbeautifulness of the translations forces you back to the exquisite French original. It's a joy to have these poems as Rimbaud wrote them, and a bilingual edition is a must for the non-French-reader. If you want a beautiful English translation, I recommend reading Paul Schmidt's in conjunction with this one.

Published in 1926, Arthur Schnitzler's DREAM STORY ("Traumnovelle") is a novella of dark Freudian images and plays on the merging of the conscious and subconscious in human life. Forgotten for several decades, it has returned to print with Stanley Kubrick's last film EYES WIDE SHUT, which was a somewhat faithful adaptation set in the present day. DREAM STORY tells of a married couple in Vienna, perhaps at the turn of the 20th century though the date is unspecified. While having what begins as a friendly conversation one evening, Albertine confesses to her physician husband Fridolin that during a vacation in Denmark the previous summer she felt she could leave him and their daughter behind for a handsome naval officer who was staying in the same hotel. Fridolin, shocked that his marriage isn't terribly stable and that his wife could maliciously leave him, is then called to visit a patient. From there he encounters several women in his journeys through Vienna and eventually gains entrance to a upper-class orgy (presented somewhat differently than the black mass of Kubrick's film). The action takes place over only two days, and this slim volume can be read in a mere two hours. I can't comment on this translation, having read the translation into Esperanto by Michel Duc Goninaz, but the novel's meaning is based on symbolism that wouldn't lose much in translation, though one must be aware that the German names of the characters (and the Schreyvogelgasse, a Viennese street) are linked. People owning a German dictionary will get a little more out of this novella.

Arthur Schnitzler was quite enamoured by the theories of Sigmund Freud, so much so that Freud joked that he would never meet the novelist because of the belief that one would die upon encountering his double. DREAM STORY is full of allusions to Freudian psychology, and the orgy is both a real event and a representation of Fridolin's subconscious. Albertine's dream recounted to Fridolin afterwards, told in unrealistic detail that shows Schnitzler is trying too hard for a roman a clef, echoes the previous action eerily and hence the title of the novella. It is because of its Freudian basis that DREAM STORY is ultimately disappointing. Freudian psychology has been taken some heavy blows in favour of the theories of Jung and Lacan, so this story shows its age. And while it would seem at first that Schnitzler is being progressive in saying that women do indeed think of sexuality, it is apparent that Schnitzler believes that women unhealthily desire sex only as a tool to hurt and strike out, as Albertine insinuates several times that she would take great pleasure in abandoning Fridolin for a purely physical relationship with a younger man. As a result of this basis, DREAM STORY is quite out of date and misogynist.

I really couldn't recommend DREAM STORY, unless one has an interest in Freudian psychology and its application, in which case this novella is a treasure of the thought of the period. While recommending the movie over the book is a reversal of the usual order of things, I'd recommend simply watching EYES WIDE SHUT. Stanley Kubrick was aware of many of the flaws of the source material and fixed a few of them, and the art direction and cinematography are superb. The novella doesn't have much going for it.

This is perfect Kubrick film making material. Stanley Kubrick's new movie "Eyes Wide Shut" is based on this story wich is the type of material Kubrick makes into a success. This book is very interesting and the main character developement is just perfect. Dream Story is one of the best written work of an author ive seen. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking forward to Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" next year(99). The movie will probably be more modernized, but if you know Kubrick, you'll know that this story will be another one of Kubrick's masterpeice. The story shows how a couple show their love towards each other and how they are willing to talk about their past and possibly future relations with other people. "No dream is entirely a dream"

Arthur Schnitzler's "Dream Story", is a psychological novel which explores the relation of dreams and fantasies to reality. The principle characters, Fridolin and Albertina, are a happily married couple who confess their sexual might-have -beens to one another. However, whether or not the events are reality or merely dreams is not known. The book puts it this way, "no dream is entirely a dream." This book was optioned by film director Stanley Kubrick, director of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "A Clockwork Orange", and is being filmed under the title, "Eyes Wide Shut". Kubrick described the book this way, "It explores the sexual ambivalence of a happy marriage and tries to equate the inportance of sexual dreams and might-have-beens with reality."

The Vicar of Wakefield is a good book that shows how a family overcomes one harship after another. It is funny and at times very witty. Even though the language is a bit old fashioned, the book is still fun to read.

Charles Primrose, the protagonist of Oliver Goldsmith's "The Vicar of Wakefield," is a living symbol of the combination of ingenuousness and bad luck; a man so naive and unfortunate yet so deadpan and earnest, he would not only be suckered into buying the worst lemon in the used car lot, but walk out of the salesman's office with a "Kick Me" sign taped to his back. What keeps him going is an infectious cheerfulness, an almost quixotic faith in human virtue, and a devotion to the integrity of his family, even though they are often the cause of his troubles.

Primrose, an Anglican minister and the father of six children, begins accumulating misfortunes from the very beginning of the novel. Right before his eldest son George's wedding, he learns that the merchant with whom he has deposited his sizable inheritance has skipped town with all his money. Now impecunious, he is compelled to move his family to a village where he becomes a tenant farmer under an arrogant and devious young landlord named Thornhill. On the way, they meet an itinerant man of questionable background named Burchell who takes a liking to his daughter Sophia.

Life at the farm is fraught with woe, particularly with regard to money. Both Primrose and his son Moses get cheated out of horses they are selling; his daughters lose the opportunity to secure good positions in London because of false rumors being spread about his family; after Olivia runs off with Thornhill, he pursues her and returns to find his house in flames. When Primrose fails to pay the rent and insults Thornhill, who has spurned Olivia in favor of the very girl of whom George was deprived, he is thrown in jail.

But wait, it gets worse. Sophia is kidnapped by a ruffian; Olivia pines away in misery and dies; George, who has left home to make his own way in the world, ends up in Primrose's jail in a return considerably less dignified than that of the Prodigal Son. Primrose, however, remains confident in the glory of Providence and decides to deliver sermons to reform the other prisoners who, unsurprisingly, initially resist his efforts. That they eventually start taking him seriously only implies that they may be even more gullible than he is.

This is a picaresque novel, somewhat in the spirit of "Don Quixote" or "Tom Jones," featuring an intentionally flawed hero who undergoes improbable adventures; and if it appears that I've given away too much of the plot, keep in mind this is a genre in which nothing is quite as it seems. In fact, the denouement is so utterly silly and even stupid that I can't help but respect it for its brazen absurdity; it's really the only ending befitting a dupe as likeable as Primrose.

Oliver Goldsmith's 1766 novel, "The Vicar of Wakefield" offers the trials and tribulations of Primrose, an ecclesiastic living in the English countryside. Primrose is content in his life, with a faithful wife, and lovely, if somewhat distracted children. Hearing that his banker has gotten into trouble and fled the country, Primrose and his family begin a series of adventures which test the strength of Primrose's convictions.

Among the issues which Goldsmith addresses in the novel are social ambition in a rigid class system, the drawbacks and benefits of a relatively liberal household, and the admittedly imperfect nature of the British legal system. Sprinkled throughout the novel are various discourses on the notion of liberty, the primacy of the monarchy, and a wealth of interesting references to British imperialism and colonial slavery.

Regarding the class system, Primrose seems throughout the novel, to eschew the idea that social or economic mobility is possible, or even desirable. He posits, in a way that follows Aristotle and Edmund Burke, that people are fit for certain stations by their very nature; and that such social partitioning is right and should be maintained. Primrose also appears as a latter day Horace, championing the virtues of simple, rustic life. This pastoral life is directly associated in the novel with the laboring classes, who, not without faults themselves, manage to avoid the intrigues and excesses of the consistently vilified city folk.

Goldsmith's writing style is fast-paced, with clear, direct language, wonderfully rendered characters, and a surprising number of plot twists for so short a work. Primrose and his eldest son George are the two finest characters in the novel. Both exhibit a picaresque tendency to wander and interact - Primrose with the intellectual/philosophical elements, and George with the material/experiential elements in the world. This is altogether a wonderful, spirited novel, and Stephen Coote's introduction to this Penguin edition is excellent in its explication of the novel's major themes and concerns.

A mysterious hound is haunting a family estate, and the new heir has employed Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to investigate the hound, find out the death of his relative, and save the heir's life. Throughout the book, the neighbors, the townspeople, an escaped convict and are all suspects.

While not a large book, the Hound of the Baskervilles does trudge along at some points. The someone antiquated language aside, it does delve into more detail and much more build up than a typical Holmes' short story does. So while in a short story, the mystery would be solved in minutes, in this book, the mystery takes a while to come forth. For example, in the beginning there is a mysterious person in a stagecoach following the heir. The mystery is only solved at the end, but with all the other events that took place, the reader has already lost interest in that particular person. I personally forgot about it, thus it did not intrigue me at all.

Also, in much of this book, Holmes is not even present. The wit and mystery are substituted with settings and descriptions instead, not Doyle's strongest points.

While a classic mystery which is still good, it can come out as somewhat unsatisfying.

I read an bridged copy of this book when I was just a boy. It was a good book then. I decieded that I would reread this book. I was surpised that not much was taken out. It was still a good book. I am looking into getting more Holmes' books.

This is a rare novel of Holmes, and it keeps the reader intense from the start. It truly is a masterpiece, and the whole plot and mystery solving on the part of Holmes is spectacular. Great book.

I was surprised to find that I was often very interested in the topics within this book and Confucius' handling of said themes. Having read Plato only a short time ago, Confucius seemed like a breath of fresh air. His concerns are how to live a virtuous life and achieve benevolence. Unlike much ancient philosphy, many of the sayings have their impact undimished by time. In each book (consisting usually of about 3 pages) there would generally be at least two or three sayings that struck me as truly meaningful and pertinent. Naturally, there were also some that seemed out of place or irrational, but that is to be expected in any text which is so old. If one is able to mine the gold from the rocks, Analects of Confucius can be quite a rewarding experience. However, I found the introduction and essays in the back of the book to be superfluous and felt that they did not shed much additional light on who Confucius was or what his teachings meant, choosing instead to focus mostly on minutue that was mostly uninteresting to me. This book is not a long read, and almost certainly worth a curious person's time.

THE ANALECTS IS A GOOD BOOK FOR ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO UNDERSTAND CONFUCIAN PHILOSOPHY. THE TRANSLATION IS CLEAR AND UNDERSTANDABLE, EASY TO READ, BUT IT DOESNT EXPLAIN WHAT EACH ANALECT MEANS AND BEGGINERS ON THE SUBJECT COULD MISUNDERSTAND THE MEANINGS. GREAT REFERENCE BOOK FOR PEOPLE WHO ALREADY KNOW CONFUCIANISM OR A LITTLE OF CHINESE HISTORY.

D.C Lau's Translation of Confuciuan Philosophy and "The Analects" is perhaps the best I've ever read. Lau brillantly enuciates the most important tenets of Confucian thought in a clear and concise manner, while at the same time not forsaking any of the intellectual or scholarly integrity that often happens with certain translations of Confucius. Lau 's introduction gives a wonderful introduction to the goldmine of wisdom that one encounters while reading Confucius and helped me to understand the teachings of Confucius better than any other translator. As for "The Analects" itself, I could write 20 pages on why it is the most beautifully constructed philosophy ever written, but I won't and will simply say this. The wisdom in "The Analects" is worth more than 10 of those so called "New Age" books that attempt to give insight but in fact only give rhetoric. Confucius wil open your eyes to the joy of living and the joy of a life of the pursuit of what TRUE wisdom, truth and virtue really are. READ THIS BOOK, IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

I read this book as a child; my mother gave it to me and my brother before we went to see the plays. It was an excellent introduction to the plays and to the world of Shakespeare, and helped me understand what I was watching. I also enjoyed reading the stories themselves, and familiarized myself with Shakespeare this way. It made a huge difference, as became quite clear to me when we read Henry IV in ninth grade in school, a play for which I had no Lamb version. I didn't understand that play and took no pleasure in it, whereas I did enjoy much harder plays (e.g., Othello, A Winter's Tale, etc.) that I had the Lambs' help with. Depending on reading level, the Lambs' book would be appropriate for anyone from seven or eight to 13 or 14 years old.

Although this book is written for children it is great for all ages and is great to get the basic story line before you go to a play. I read most of the plays in this book (I have not yet read all of them) when I was 11. Now that I have been reading the actual plays of Shakespeare I always start by reading the short version of the play in this book and than read the actual play. I can understand what is going on much better that way. I also recommend "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children" by Edith Nesbit which gives about ten page versions of each story verses the thirty pages per story in this book and also has a smaller vocabulary which makes it better for younger children.

I love this book! I have always loved Shakespeare and wanted my children to enjoy the bard as well. I always read these stories to them before we watch a play on TV, video, or rarely, on stage. They are a step ahead in that they already know the plot and can then enjoy the language more fully. They are developing a love for Shakespeare, too!

I wish I could give a better rating. This is by far one of the worst thrillers I have ever read. The story is predictable, plot too simple, characters too powerful. Imagine resuing someone of the huge jungle of Cuba. It took only a chat and a map to locate the hostages.

This is my first Hailey book and probably my last.

Perhaps Hailey is overrated.

This book kept me up till 7am and I completed the first 2/3 of it in one go (Then I had to get some sleep..). It describes the TV news networks very well, down to the detail of how the technical side works, and at the same time the story keeps you spellbound till the last word.

It is the first book I have read by Arthur Hailey, but it sure won't be the last!

It has been a long time since I have read a book that made me say "WOW" when I was done. Arthur Hailey brings the characters alive-they have depth. Mr. Hailey has mixed real life city situations that we can all relate to with the romantic, (yet dangerous), South America. Harry Partridge is a man you can't help but relate to-and you cheer him on the whole way!