In 240 pages, Rodney Barker takes us from the atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima, through the story of 25 surviving girls who were selected to travel to the United States for reconstructive surgery. The only technical quibble we have with Barker's writing is a very occasional tendency to pack too many clauses in a sentence. That aside, the book seems to be a well-balanced relating of the experiences of the so-called "Hiroshima Maidens," seen from several different points of view. Readers of this book will learn of the struggles the promoters of the trip had, both with the media (trying to prevent it from becoming a P. R. circus) and with the U. S. State Department (avoiding political pitfalls). This is not a political treatise on the wisdom or folly of nuclear warfare, but a straightforward account of the near-miracles that can happen when individuals decide to care about, and for, other individuals. You may read the survivors' accounts of the Hiroshima blast with dry eyes, but if you don't get choked up while reading of the girls' first, hesistant steps to fit in with their American host families, call your local coroner. Bottom Line: WELL WORTH READING (and short).

This book is a vibrant collection of over 140 stunningly beautiful and fantastically creative Painted Ponies as photographed by Eduardo Fuss. Created from the minds of some of the Southwest's foremost artists, the life-size horses serve as a publically accessible outdoor art exhibition, and ultimately as a unique vechicle to raise significant money for charitable causes. The vivid photography shows complete ponies as well as the fine detail work that make this art project the success story it has become.

Author Rodney Barker provides the context for the history and spiritual background that is the special inspiration of the Southwestern and particularly Native American artists who so far have dominated this ongoing project.

I find I can't stop paging through this fantasy world of horses painted with Southwestern landscapes, Native American imagery, contemporary and futuristic themes that run the gamut from surprising realism, emotional subject matter, patriotism and humor. Better buy two -- one to thumb through on a regular basis and one to keep pristine!

Rodney Barker's And the Waters Turned to Blood is a scientific mystery and political thriller. It is a non-fiction account of the events surrounding the discovery of Pfiesteria piscicida, "the cell from hell", in the estuaries (inlets of sea reaching into rivers) of North Carolina.

The first two-thirds of the book constitutes the scientific mystery. It begins with unexplained fish kills in the tanks of North Carolina State veterinary school. Unable to solve the mystery themselves, the fish biologist called on a young North Carolina State aquatic botany professor, Dr. JoAnn Burkholder. Eventually she and her assistants make an amazing discovery of a new and extremely dangerous organism. I found this portion of the book to be very engaging and exciting. I had a hard time putting it down until the mystery was solved. In addition to the mystery, the reader receives a crash course in the world of college politics.

Approximately the final third of And the Waters Turned to Blood examines the political controversy surrounding the environmental protection of North Carolina's waterways. Because of her fame after the discovery of "the cell from hell", Dr. Burkholder joined several of the state's water committees. This portion of the book details her fight for recognition of environmental problems and her fight for funding to study Pfiesteria piscicida. I found this section less interesting than the first, simply because I am not as interested in politics as I am in scientific research.

Still overall, I found the book to be very interesting and educational. It will definitely make anyone think about what we are doing to our environment and what our environment might be doing to fight back. I recommend this book to anyone interested in biological research or the environment.

Barker's AND THE WATERS TURNED TO BLOOD is a whooping good, well-told true story of thoughtful, good-natured people being screwed by egomanical, backside-covering bureaucrats and scientists who certain reviewers on-line would rather believe aren't really such bad guys. I, for one, am wholly convinced by Barker's careful investigation and analysis and am wholly sympathetic to the obvious Good Guys in this book.

To what degree were everyday Germans responsible for the Nazi Holocaust? Similarly, to what degree are the recalcitrant American media responsible for not covering wildly important stories such as the Pfiesteria plague, wholly preventable if greedy industries were forced to comply with precepts of human decency by being fined heavily for polluting? (Only a self-interested beaureacratic bimbo would deny the link between industrial pollution and the explosion of Pfiesteria blooms.)

Last week the Chesapeake Bay area was decimated by fishkills and Pfiesteria. Next week it will be some place else. Meanwhile, the media largely ignores the topic to avoid "mass hysteria" and to keep the profits flowing. To what degree are you, dear reader, responsible for not learning more about Pfiesteria by reading this book and then by making some irate phone calls and writing some irate letters because you'd enjoy a healthy America for future generations?

Our greatest living novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, suggests in an essay that carved on a Grand Canyon wall in great big letters for the flying-saucer people who arrive in a hundred years and find a dead planet with no people should be these messages: "WE PROBABLY COULD HAVE SAVED OURSELVES BUT WERE TOO DAMNED LAZY TO TRY VERY HARD. AND TOO DAMNED CHEAP." Rodney Barker's superlative book certainly supports this idea.

Richard Rhodes' DEADLY FEASTS, about the American Med-Cow disease cover-up, also supports Vonnegut's idea: we are too lazy and cheap to save ourselves

Overall we found the book intersting. The real life experiences people had with pfiesteria were fascinating, but scary. The fpiesteria problem is around where we live so we found the book telling us the truth about places we have visited before. The last couple of chapters focused a lot on the politics of the North Carolina government and we found that as the least interesting part of the book. We were shocked by the attempt of NC to cover up the obvious problems being caused by pfiesteria. The incident after hurricane Fran was also amusing and added humor to this serious themed novel.

The book has been interesting since its inception.The author conjured it from a mass of interviews during a summer some years later. Granted, the book is haunting, tragic and disturbing. The text, failed to understand the horror and confusion of the Anglos. I am well aware of this. Ronny Haynie, 3601 Sunset Ave. 1974....Farmington, New Mexico

I read a review of this book some years ago when it first came out. It sounded like a fascinating story so I made a mental note to keep an eye out for it at the book stores. Time went on and I still hadn't come across it so I ordered it off Amazon.com. When I got the book I was a little aprehensive at first. The subtitle, "A True Story of Murder and Magic in Indian Country" made me wonder if I was going to get the facts or the myth. When I started reading the first few pages, I was worried that I was going to get a skewered perspective of the events. As it turned out, none of my concerns were realized and, instead, I got an excellent review of a sordid event in recent history.

The main events of this story take place in the early 1970's. Three Native Americans were brutally murdered by three White teenagers in Farmington, NM. The author introduces us to the story through his own eyes as he discovers the tense aftermath of the murders and the reaction to the light sentencing that the youthful murderers received. Although just passing through Farmington, Rodney Barker finds himself suddenly involved in the turmoil. The events are etched in his mind and, when he dicovers more about it some years later, he decides to investigate the whole story.

Mr. Barker does a very good job in telling the story and trying to do so from all available perspectives. He is sensitive to the Navajo's point of view and goes to great lengths to bring that perspective to the reader. Yet, despite his partisan introduction to the story, he seems to have done a pretty good job of getting the "Anglo" perspective as well. There are times when there doesn't seem to be a reasonable response to some of what has happened. Yet the author often brings us just such a response. He follows the lives of the perpetrators and we find ourselves actually starting to care about them in their later lives. He leaves not with answers but with an awareness instead.

People not familiar with the tension of communities that border Native American reservations will find these events hard to believe. For that matter, so will those who do live in such communities. I read a Native American columnist once who said that the worst racism against Native Americans can be found in those communities that border reservations. Mr. Barker's book is an example of that statement at its' worst. Unfortuanately, while it makes us aware of this problem, it leaves an emptiness as we look for a solution to the problem. Why was it that the teenage activity of "rolling" intoxicated Indians in Farmington was allowed to happen? Was the author's explantion of the problem overstated or was the community's response to it understated? I live near an Indian reservation and I can attest to stereo-typing and tension between the races. However, it is nothing like the description of the situation in Farmington. Thus I am wondering about many things as a result of reading this book. The success of this book is that it has made me thing about things that need to be thought about.

Very well written, gripping, and entertaining despite the gravity of the subject matter. Well worth reading.

I found the novel rather dry and unrevealing. However if you are interested in some of the machinations behind the public legal issues the book yields a chronological order of these events. If the espionage issues surrounding this event are more to your interests I would recommend reading "Moscow Station".

As a jarhead myself I had to read this book. I was captivated by the whole intrigue of the spy world and the involvement of the U.S. Marines. This book is a good recommendation for just about anyone, it even has a twist of romance. I strongly recommend it!