This book is a must have for any Nascar fan, particularly if you're a number nut like me. The top 50 in points for every season since '49, race winners also since '49 and every spot in every race since '72. That's just for starters. Too much to write here. Great book, I'll be ordering the '00 edition as well.

The Unauthorized NASCAR Fan Guide '99 is a great resource for any NASCAR fan. This book contains enough information and statistics to keep even the die-hard fans happy. The history of NASCAR is separated into logical periods, and it's a real joy to read about how the crowds grew, corporate America joined, and the drivers slowly turned from moonshine runners to product spokesmen.

If you're a long-time fan, this book will provide you with more than enough information to challenge anyone to a NASCAR trivia bet. If you're a new fan of stock car racing, chapter 21, How to Watch a NASCAR Race, will be well worth the price of the book.

The Unauthorized NASCAR Fan Guide '99 is a must-have book for any NASCAR fan. For less than twenty bucks, this book should be on every fan's bookshelf.

I found Peter Baker's account of the impeachment saga to be both factual and fascinating. It holds your interest like a novel, but could easily be used in a Political Science class. In fact, I think it would be wise for anyone who is contemplating a future in politics to read this book. Future historians will use this account as they try to understand what really happened during the impeachment and trial of President Clinton. As hard as I tried, I could not figure out Mr. Baker's political leanings. Specifically, It was interesting to read how all the parties interacted and maneuvered to get the outcome they desired. Both sides often overplayed their positions as soon as they felt they had the upper hand. This is a great read!

This is the book I hoped would one day be written about Clinton's impeachment, going behind the scenes to tell us what was happening when the cameras were off. I never expected this kind of book would emerge so soon - I figured we'd be stuck with one-sided rants from entrenched individuals like Jeffrey Toobin on one side and David Schippers on the other, for quite a while. Peter Baker does an excellent job of covering the aspect of Clinton's impeachment saga that I was most interested in: the machinations in the House, Senate and White House once the Starr Report was literally dropped off at the House of Representatives up through the saddest example of jury nullification in our times, when the Senate acquitted the impeached 42nd President because they cared more about polls and threats than the facts and the law.

No matter how you felt about Clinton's Impeachment, you will learn a lot from this book. If you were interested in how Clinton's staff felt during this trying time, it's in there. If you were curious about how Democrats in the House and Senate came to the decision to back Clinton, no matter what, it's in there. If you wanted to know how the move to impeach stayed alive despite bumps in the road along the way - such as the midterm elections and Newt Gingrich's resignation - it's in there. If you wondered what it was like for House Managers thrust into a media circus, it's in there.

The Breach will be an excellent source for people studying Clinton's impeachment in the future, but it's also a fun, informative and interesting book for those of us who lived through it. Even if you were glued to the TV the whole time, you'll learn that you missed a lot.

The most significant thing I learned is that Clinton had so many chances to avoid being impeached. The Republican members of the Judiciary Committee were quite reluctant at times. They met with their Democrat counterparts, members of the Clinton defense team and others to find some sort of suitable substitute for impeachment that would withstand constitutional scrutiny yet still have some meaning. These efforts were fruitless mainly because President Clinton and his representatives chose to go to political war rather than accept an iota of responsibility.

In the end, perhaps Clinton should be grateful. If not for the impeachment, his presidency would be a lot like the 90's sitcom Seinfeld: about nothing. For the President who searched like crazy for a legacy, this is a big part of it. And Peter Baker has done an excellent job. This is a substantive must-read book for anyone interested in this episode.

Baker does an exceptional job of chronicling one of the most explosive scandals in Presidential history. His account is thorough and reasoned, and his prose flows like a good novel.

For all of us who followed the story on the evening news, it's interesting to see the real story behind the headlines, especially how slyly the Democrats orchestrated the entire impeachment process in their favor. In fact, I was astounded to read how the Republicans tried, more or less in earnest, to resolve the matter in a non-partisan fashion while the Democrats did everything in their power to polarize the issue and then play themselves as the victims of partisan politics--"win by losing", as Gephart aptly put it. Interesting indeed . . . Also of note is Baker's observations on President Clinton, how he was unable to admit he did anything wrong, how his own party, Cabinet and closest aides believed he deliberately lied under oath, how difficult it was for those who stood up for him to admit they had been had . . . Fascinating!

Overall, a very well-documented, even-handed book by Baker. Well worth the read.

So why only three stars, well first let me say that the rules and mechanics of the Alternity system are second to none and are straight forward enough to allow the GM to do what he is supposed to and tell a good story. Where this book falls down though are the specifics sections.

Alternity is a generic Sci-fi rules system which you can use to run games in the far-future (featuring spaceships, aliens, and whatnot) through to cyber-punk (near future with large corporations running the show and bionic implants enabling charcters to perform the impossible) right down to modern day (conspiracies, alien abductions, ghost, vampires etc...). So whilst the rules work for all these settings some of the specifics dont, for example the spaceship section is a waste of time if you are running a near future setting. Now this information isnt badly presented and I found it very interesting even if it wasnt going to play a part in my campaign. IMO it would have been better to leave these specifics to seperate volumes where they can be dealt with in detail.

So in conclusion, the Alternity system is good and you should play it, its a shame that this book doesnt live up to the systems potential.

A core rulebook for TSR's new science fiction roleplaying game, the Alternity Gamemaster Guide provides ideas and essential rules for running an Alternity campaign. Alternity brings flexibility to the sci-fi gaming universe, allowing the gamemaster to create any sort of campaign, from friendly exploration and alien contacts to gritty, grim wars of vast planetary destruction.

Use of this book assumes ownership and working knowledge of the Alternity Player's Handbook. It covers the basics of running a roleplaying game for novices, Alternity's special quirks for the experienced gamemaster, adventure and campaign design, and fast-play rules for the impatient. Sections deal with details of handling character creation, personal statistics and their effects, hero careers, and non-player characters. Tips are given for designing new hero careers, alien races beyond the five provided in the Player's Handbook, and a variety of vehicles, star systems, individual planets, spacecraft, and alien artifacts. The Guide contains many short tables for effects and characteristics, and for determining species lifespans (as determined by technology level). Brief optional rules are also presented for mutants, psionics, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and "special effects" (any magic, miracle, or superpower beyond the other rules provided).

For players' displeasure there are statistics for 15 dangerous animals from good old Terra and 20 generic alien creature types to modify for every alien need. TSR fantasy fans will find an appendix of conversion rules for bringing AD&D characters, races, equipment, and spells into an Alternity game.

For ease in using published adventures and accessories, a sample nonplayer character statistics form with explanatory notes is provided. Also included are forms for ship design, ship status, and solar system design/record. There is an index of both this book and the Player's Handbook.

Alternity Gamemaster's Guide is an essential element in what promises to be an exciting new game in the science fiction game genre.

--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

This is the other Book you'll need to play Alternity(the other one is the players handbook). If you fimilar with other TSR products like AD&D there is no suprize that you need a Players Handbook and Game Masters guide.

This new system that TSR made is nothing like any of their other products, to put it simply this isn't AD&D in the future it's a whole new game. The rules are simple so you can get into the action right away, there is also a brand new combat system that makes combat a lot fast so you won't spend and entire evening on one combat round.

I must recomend the Alternity books to anyone who loves to play in Far Future settings battling Hodes of Aliens and humans...

Overall, Alternity looks to be a very promising game. It's hard to really judge the whole system on the player's handbook alone, so until the GameMaster's Guide comes out I reserve judgement.

The artwork is very nice, and I thought character creation was a smooth and simple process. With four broad character classes, including the Free Agent "catch-all" for oddball professions, players can build virtually any kind of character.

Weaknesses: I would have liked to have seen much more equipment, and especially a larger section on spaceships and space combat. I recognize the limits of a players handbook, but it seems like TSR/WotC is setting us up to buy many books to really get a good handle on future roleplaying. With an equipment guide already planned for later this year, I'm betting they're going to put out separate books for psionics, mutants, robots, cyborgs, cyberspace, etc., all for at least $20. This is something I really hate.

Even with these weaknesses, Alternity has potential to be the next big thing in RPGs. Worth the price.

I love the whole game mechanic, it is flexible and fast. Everything about the Alternity rules system lends to fast play, giving more room for roleplaying. The support for this product is excellent, Wizards of the Coast has a web page for any updates, free adventures and add-ons. Try out the quick-play rules there and see if you like it. I know I had a great time with my friends, and the book is well worth the price.

This book harkens back to the old days of AD&D in which you could actually play the game with only a couple of books. As opposed to the 2nd edition years where every class and race got its own book, and who could ever forget money pit monsterous compendiums?

There is a lot of good information for players and gamemasters without trying to completely stifle creativity. In fact, a bunch of the chapters are optional for your campaign.

TSR clearly has done some research into a bunch of other SF RPGs as well as some CRPGs(Fallout) and come up with a system that is very unlike "D&D in space". Although most material is based around a Space Opera setting, everything looks easy enough to modify to other backgrounds.

Even if you are a diehard GURPS, Shadowrun, or Rifts player, this book might give you a few ideas to freshen up your game. Highly recommended.

In this historically wide ranging book, the authors overlook the large numbers of excellent programs on many of the cable channels. My understanding of the authors point of view is that the government has lost a wonderful outlet for its propaganda. Cable television has lead to the fulfillment of televisions promise, and has also rendered PBS obsolete.

If you are at all interested the history of television, and how it got to be the vast wasteland that it is, you need to read this book! It ultimately gives a glimmer of hope to those of us who think television is too far 'Down the Tube' to be redeemed.

I am the CEO of a public television station, so I read the book with great interest and in an informed and critical frame of mind. I found it intelligent, analytical, and very felicitous in its combination of fact and philosophical judgment. It's a pleasure to read, and should be enjoyable and useful to anyone nterested in television, whether as a viewer or as a professional.

Although Ms. Wade describes all the sections of Arizona with area maps it is lacking in the amount of where to stay info. I found the book's format hard to follow. An index divided by subject would have helped and detailed maps. I will stick with Fodors travel books.

We recently returned from AZ and we used the Arizona Guide for the third time. It was great in helping us find places from just below "the rim" to the Mexican border. It is coherently written and organized - easy to stay with even for those of us who are just learning that wonderful state!

I like The Arizona Guide because it is different from other guidebooks that attempt to cover every single hotel and restaurant. The subject matter is current and informative. Even my husband, who has lived in Arizona his whole life, told me he was surprised at how much he learned about the state from the first three pages. Filled with both well-known and unusual destinations, written in easy-to-understand prose and organized into eight geographic regions, The Arizona Guide is the perfect reference book for Arizona visitors and residents alike.

After 5 novels hasn't Mr. Moody learned that you just, can't, put, a comma, wherever you want to? And at times, well, a comma is needed. This could be credited to extreme sloppiness and mistakes that editors should notice right away. Like the fact that California is 9, not 8 hours behind Amsterdam. Consecutive chapter headings of Wednesday the 10th and Thursday the 12th (with a mention of Friday the 13th) make me wonder what happened to the 11th day of that month. Mr Baker is referred to as "Mrs" Baker. (What the hell do editors do these days?) And there are probably others that my quick reading or fading memory have missed.
If you have a craving for some Chet Baker (who doesn't/shouldn't?) I would suggest de Valk's bio, or pre-order Gavin's. If you have mystery fix, just buy Elmore Leonard. I am not familiar with the other works of Mr Moody, I like the idea of jazz mysteries but heavily shy away from silly clichés and most of all bad writing. If anything I hope this will turn a few people on to the lovely music of Chet Baker.

This is the fifth in a series featuring the reluctant detective Evan Horne who is a jazz pianist. He always finds himself involved in the solution of a mystery that concerns a real life musician. Because Bill Moody is a jazz drummer and journalist, he brings a certain authenticity to his stories and if you don't watch out, he may cause you to buy some new CDs. His other books were about Charlie Parker, Wardell Gray, Clifford Brown, and this one is set in Amsterdam where Chet Baker died in 1988 when he either fell or was pushed from a hotel window. Poor Evan, he just had a gig and then he finds himself once again mixed up with the police! I have enjoyed each one of the Evan Horne books, waited for this one for about a year, recommend the series to all musicians and mystery lovers...

Jazz pianist Evan Horne is drawn into the life and death of musician Chet Baker in this story of an investigator who tries to get away from his career on a trip to London for a gig. When he discovers his fellow musician and hero has disappeared, and Chet Baker's paperwork becomes the only clue to his whereabouts. Fast, involving intrigue with a twist.

David Halberstam masterfully weaves the story of the evolution of post-cold war American foreign policy. He begins with the Bush years, leading into and ending with the Clinton years. Bush, he points out, was in love with foreign policy and, for the most part, excelled in its execution at the sacrifice of his domestic duties. Clinton was elected largely for his commitment to domestic issues in a time when we all thought that foreign policy was less important after the cold war...a time of peace. However, even given Bush's love of foreign policy, the confusion of the post cold war era made it difficult to determine where the issues really were. Iraq was easy for Bush. In his mind, a clear cut case of good versus evil. Bosnia, on the other hand, didn't draw as much interest and he ignored a situation that ultimately led to genocide. Enter Clinton, who early on professed that foreign policy did not matter. Only when it threatened his presidency did he finally act. Beyond Clinton, the conflicting viewpoints of other key players such as Tony Lake, Dick Holbrooke, Colin Powell, and Madeleine Albright come clearly into view in Halberstam's excellent analysis.

Hindsight is 20/20 and it is easy to find fault in retrospect. What becomes clear in this book is how muddied the post cold-war era has become. The possible paths for our foreign policy are more complex than ever, with no clear arrow pointing the way. What is certain, however, is that there is no avoiding the need for a strong American foreign policy.

Now, more than ever, all Americans should read this book to better understand why we are once again at war in a time of peace.

David Halberstam's War in a Time of Peace is a massive look at American foregin policy in the 1990s, through the presidencies of Bush and Clinton. Bosnia and Kosovo are the centerpieces but the book also touches meaningfully on Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti. The thumbnail biographical portraits of all the leading American figures is a great joy and asset of this book. Foreign policy can be a confusing issue, not least of all because of its lack of intelligible coverage in the media or on campaign trails. Halberstam makes all these complex issues and myriad personalities shine through clearly. His critiques of the media are particularly important and compelling and this book is a refreshing antidote to the sort of journalism television has thrust to the fore. This is a valuable book but, most of all, it is a enjoyable and fascinating read.

This is an excellent behind the scenes look at the processes, and lack there of, that took America through three post-Cold War "Teacup" wars: Mogadishu, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Halberstam shows that, while George Bush did well overseeing the end of the Cold War, his administration was not prepared for the tribal/ethnic upheavals that followed near the end of his term. More significantly, the author demonstrates that Clinton remained behind the power curve in this arena throughout most of his presidency.

With Clinton focused on his domestic agenda, his administration was divided among themselves regrading policy in East Africa and the Balkans, the president did not take charge, and the pentagon opposed the administration and, at times, its own field commander.

Halberstam's review reminds us how NOT to run wars, and that, regardless of how much an American chief executive wants to concentrate on domestic matters, foreign policy will pull him in. A U.S. president ignors the affairs of the world at his own political peril, and often at the world's real peril. After all, as the Slovenian foreign minister once said, "...the political will of the free world begins and ends in the oval office."

Sadly, The Alien Compendium has lots of great stuff in it: new rules, eratta on Series of life, mysteries of the Verge, Externals, planetary plot developments, and aliens... IN THAT ORDER.

There's a lot of stuff that was left out of the Gamemaster Guide in this (random encounter rules and alien NPC templates), and some equally cool things worth stealing to add to your own campaign (the Externals.) The non-External aliens themselves, however, aren't great: for every one that seems cool, there are a few that are, bluntly, overlookable. The aliens themselves range from neat to virtually plagiarized, and the Alien Compendium leaves you feeling that the Verge has become that much less eye-catching. If your Star*Drive group spends time hopping to all sorts of out-of-the-way places, check this out, but be warned - Alternity has better things than this running for it.

Alien Compendium: Creatures of the Verge is an accessory for Alternity and its Star*Drive Campaign Setting, essentially a sci-fi monster manual for Star*Drive's unexplored frontier. This book requires both the Alternity Player's Handbook and Alternity Gamemaster Guide for play, but may be used with or without the Star*Drive Campaign.

This full-color, 128-page volume details 57 organisms from the 18 solar systems of the Verge (an area just beyond the borders of Star*Drive's "civilized" sectors), six sentient species and one laboratory creature of "Old Space" (right, the civilized areas), and six sentient "External" species (from outside the bounds of Galactic society). Five of the entries from "Old Space" will be familiar to any Alternity gamer from the basic books (it would have been nice to pad out the roster beyond two new entries: the laboratory Warbeasts and the insane Cykotek cultists). Plenty of good concepts here and high-quality art. There are a few irritating glitches in the book, such as the authors' unnecessary straining for pseudo-scientific description (sorry guys, arachnids don't have six legs), and a few stinkers, such as the alien koala bears and a picture of an egistron that doesn't match the text. Still in all a nice collection.

Good for Star*Drive and for general Alternity use; a decent idea mine.

--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

This is a great book with a lot of useful information, although it is a bit light on the aliens, should maybe have not been a compendium, but still worth the purchase

Excellent survey of the past 30 years of OT research. Required reading if you want to understand the current state of OT theology in brief.