Mark Strang was a pretty decent character, but I felt there was a lot of untapped potential that Barnes did not bring to the surface. He did do a good job with the scenes where Strang questioned his lust for killing anything associated with the enemy Closers. I also did not get a sense of any great crisis as Strang fights to keep this alternate 1775 on its intended track. The changes to this timeline were pretty cool. I am a sucker for time travel/alternate Earth stories. I liked the introduction of steam engines and dirigibles to 1775. And George Washington, Duke of Kentucky? Neat twist. The action scenes were OK, but tended to get a little too wordy at times.

Here Matt and a co-agent travle to an alternate america where King George III offered consessions to the American Founding Fathers and so the american revolution never took place. Matt also comes to another realization that is both chilling and brilliant at the same time. While this book is not as action packed as the others it is still a worthy edition to the serise.

Just as interesting and compelling as the first entry in the Timeline Wars. The scenes were Mark confronts his evil self, captured and tortured into becoming a monster by the watchamacallits in a paralell dimension, are absolutely climactic and memorable. There's a line the good Mark says to the bad that is just positively intense. Bad Mark talks to good Mark about how wonderful it is to torture his wife and force her to serve his every impulse, the same wife who was killed by the watchamacallits in good Mark's world, and good Mark's reply was positively defiant, though I don't remember it exactly word for word, and I can't find the exact page with it, so I'll do my best to paraphrase. Something like, "That's wonderful, have her serve you with a smile and a thousand-yard stare."

Though the writer is obviously gifted, and the stories are without a doubt amusing and accurately detailed, the author seems distant from his characters.

The author seems to stay un-involved and to coldly inspect his subjects as though they were fireflies in Mason jars, or butterflies on pins.

The writing is superb, but the lack of involvment in the characters inner workings and lives, leaves these stories sounding like a girlfriend repeating a soap opera in the office, to someone who missed an episode.

I'll lay off with these last words. The author should look into his own heart and write real, breathing characters, not try to bring to life cardboard cutouts. No matter how excellent it is, it must heart. This book does not have heart, though it does have plenty of good writing.

This wonderful collection of non-fiction accounts on the other side of the table is a true and accurate look at what makes the casinos tick: not the people who come with the money, but the people who take it. Lee Barnes has a gift and it is to conjure so many voices into one cohesive book. It is funny, sad, and terrible. If you ever wanted to know who lives in Las Vegas, read this.

The text and info in this book is pretty darn good. However, the inclusion of stickers (apparently to hook kids?) is contrived and not all that useful. Good book despite (not because of) the stickers.

The students that I shared this book with were quite familiar with most parts of this book already. They definitely enjoyed the book though! I didn't use the stickers though (I ripped them out before I gave the book to the kids). I don't want kids to think that it's okay to be putting stickers in books:)

This biography is particularly deceiving as Mr. Barnes packages it wrapped in historical information, but then includes misinformation and gossip presenting it all as facts.

Though not quite as vicious as THE WOMAN WITH THE WHIP (the basis for the musical EVITA), and even sympathetic in parts, this book is still full of errors. The most notable error being the most often repeated by other biographers as well: the assertion that Evita organized a rally to free Juan Peron from prison and thereby usher him into the presidency of Argentina (this historical inaccuracy made its way into the Broadway musical, and eventually into the movie version). The rally that freed Peron from prison was organized by the unions, to which Evita, still an actress at the time, had no affiliation.

But I can understand why that myth is recounted here as fact: because it fits well into the author's over-all thesis that Evita was a power hungry woman who calculated her rise to the top. Whether she was power hungry or not, she did accumulate great power. But she did not, and could not have, really shaped any of the events that brought her to power (what brought Evita to power was her husband Juan Peron, and what brought Juan Peron to power was the situation caused by the embargos placed on Argentina by the United States; for further elaboration on this, I recommend Lawrence W. Levine's book INSIDE ARGENTINA FROM PERON TO MENEM). This author would have done better to have just described what 'was,' rather than trying to describe 'why' it was.

The difficulty in understanding Evita is that her life is so shrouded in myth. It's my opinion that a serious biographer would therefore steer clear of all "interpretations" of Evita (i.e., interpretations of her character and motivations), and focus on simply "hammering out" the basic details of her life (since they are in such great dispute, even 50 years after her death). Instead, the author of this book tried to portray her as something of a "romance novel heroine." The tone of the book is a little too stylized. The author even occasionally describes what Evita said to Peron behind closed doors when no one else was present, which is where it particularly takes on the tone of a romance novel because the dialogue is melodramatic. In addition, Peron and Evita never gave personal interviews regarding the private details of their relationship (this was the 1950s where people, especially politicians, were much less likely to talk about these things).

The best thing about this book is probably the collection of pictures, 16 pages in all (all black and white). And I don't mean that as an insult at all. This book actually contains some great reproductions.

I am very familiar with Latin American writers and read them in the Spanish. I read this book in Spanish even though it originally was in English! John Barnes is a very experienced journalist who was stationed in Bueonos Aires for various major publications. He has worked all over the world in places like Argentina, Chile. No. Ireland and covered the Iran Iraq was for Newsweek. With this background and talent he has crafted a facinating book about Eva Peron. It's true that there is a lot of politics but when you are first lady it goes with the territory. It's how she and Col. Peron transformed and revoluncionized Argentina just before the end of WW 11 that is so interesting. Evita left a little pueblo at 15 with no formal education, worked her way up to being a second rate actriz in their film industry. She fell in love with Col Peron many years her senior and took control of the country. It turnes out she was the brains and fierce driving spirit in the process who died at age 32. The major labor union petioned the Pope to have her cannonized a saint! I found this book by the pro John Barnes a real treat.

This is definately not a 2000 book. Coin dates stop at 1984. What a waste of money this book was.

This book is an excellent resource for the new collector or the old collector who is staring to purchase coins. It is easy to understand and the layout makes it easy to find your coin. It could contain more info on different grades of coins from good to uncirculated, most are just fine to uncirculated. A must have for the new collector!

This book is by far the best for refering all US Coins and gives a far price listing for all coins. Great for beginners and expert collectors. If you going to collect coins this book is a must.

I enjoyed the beginning of this book. It started with a bang, and then just sort of fizzled out for me.

The background, the launch and the "accident" I found interesting. It was the tedium of the aftermath that I found dull. The lawsuits, the guilt, the lawyers, that followed...yawn.

I had high hopes for this book and was let down.

Mr. Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon long before he started writing books. He was one of the handfuls of men ever to go so far from this planet, and among an even smaller group to walk on another world. He was part of the last great space project Apollo, a project that had a goal other than simply circling the Earth in low Earth orbit. He is clearly a man very frustrated with the deterioration of exploration of space, and he makes that clear in this work of fiction.

"The Return", is full of irony as it involves damage to a shuttle named Columbia. This is not cheap opportunism as this book was released a few years ago. This book attempts to include several large events in far too few pages. An event takes place and then is often resolved with little if any detail shared between the event and its resolution.

The work often has an annoying style that has a character involved in a dialogue and then commenting on what they are about to say, are saying, or have said. It leaves the reader feeling as those the same material is covered more than once. Meaningless issues like what type of fast food can cover more than a page or two, and in a book of 264 pages, that is an interminably long time.

I would be much more interested in reading non-fiction from Mr. Aldrin about how he feels America can effectively once again begin the exploration of space. I would like to know what he thinks about the Space Shuttle, The International Space Station, and whether these are worthwhile programs, and if not, what programs should be pursued.

Not many have the experience of Mr. Aldrin and I wish he was using the time that produced this book, to further the exploration, or at least the intelligent discussion of the exploration of space.

The first chapter of this book is AWFUL: a press conference with a smug first-person narrator just cramming back story down our throats. But it really does pick up after that, although I wasn't the least sorry to see one insufferably perfect character die in chapter two. After that, though, it really does get moving nicely, and by the end you do share Aldrin's enthusiasm for getting us back into space. As I said, a slow start but ultimately a worthwhile book --- and perhaps the most beautiful book I've seen in a while, with a transluscent dustjacket overtop of a glossy hard cover.

This novel begins with the mystery of a man's past and expands from there, gradually filling in the missing pieces as the pages are turned. The main character in this book goes through several 'transits', which is where he enters into a comatose state and emerges months later biologically younger but also has imperfect memories of previous 'lives' and has to rely on questionable notes that he had recorded earlier on a small computer. He is largely a mercenary and commits many acts of violence in the service of his employer. It must be noted here that John Barnes has wrote a very earthy novel here, if you are of an easily offended and sensitive type stay away from this volume. Barnes uses much imagination here and it contains a lot of flashbacks of the main character's previous lives, the writing style could be described as sort of meandering until up to the last parts. The main character uses several aliases, the novel in large part has him in search of an old friend. I personally found this novel a page turner, fun to read in spite of it's dark theme.

Barnes here is adept at character development, and as I stated already the plot jumps around a lot but it is good. There is some very speculative physics in this book so this novel is not strictly 'hard' science fiction.

It's the (not-so?) far future and Earth has been transformed into a battleground for viruses of the mind, commonly known as Memes with a capital M. Our hero and his fellow commandoes work as mercenaries in the employ of one Meme or another, surfing through life as they struggle to re-create memories periodically lost to them--the price they pay for a secret treatment that gives them eternal youth. Can an all-American boy find love and happiness in a universe where an innocent conversation may leave you infected by a mind virus such as One True, doomed to spend the rest of your existence in its service? Not the tightest or best SF ever written, but a graphic illustration of one possible outcome of meme evolution.

--Ricahrd Brodie, author, "Virus of the Mind"

This is the book that introduced me to John Barnes.

Alot of negativity about this book, and I imagine much of it is well deserved. "Kaleidoscope Century" lacks a solid protagonist. The only character we have to latch onto is a complete sadist whose entire life is filled with committing acts of rape, murder in the name of....who knows what. Joshua Al Quarre is in it for no one but himself.

Lets face it. Barnes was having a bad couple of months while writing this book, but his genius shines through. Despite lacking in sympathetic major characters, Barnes blows through...well...a century of a very grim and plausible alternate future. Once the Memes show up (programs that are capable of re-writing the human mind), you are already blown away by this stunning and wildly inventive book.

"Kaleidoscope Century" is very short. I finished it in about four hours. But its a ride I tell you. If you can forgive heavily misanthropic themes and just enjoy the story, I guarantee you'll have a good time.

This is worth a selective read if are a serious student of the cigarette industry and how it knew early about nicotine's additive and harmful effects. It provides a good insight into the thinking and industry-wide processes. Since it quotes extensively from actual corporate memos (that were given to the Univ of California by an unknown donor) it can be dry reading at times. The authors have organized the raw material well. While this is an important book, and revealing of a rich and powerful industry, it is more useful as a reference. A more readable book on the tobacco industry is Ashes to Ashes by Richard Kluger.

John Barnes can do better. Rambling plot threads, links to concepts in previous books not explained for a new reader to this series. I was unable to connect to the characters, and thus finally gave up at page 200 (out of 400) after many attempts to pick it up again, threw on the fire. Sorry John

The plot summary for this book is very misleading. Folks looking for an in-depth discussion of the "psypyx" and various scenarios involving the misuse of recorded personalities should look elsewhere.

Instead, Barnes has created a less than impressive, highly predictable, space soap opera set against a very loosely defined sci-fi backdrop.

Interested in reading about the pain of a messy divorce? Enjoy reading about bi-sexual threesomes? Find the endless rehashing of "Romeo and Juliet" a thrill? Waiting anxiously for a futuristic version of "Days of Our Lives?" If so, Merchants of Souls is the book for you. 352 pages of boredom awaits!

Notions of nihilism, ultimate entertainments, and cyber consciousness are touched upon from an slightly unusual perspective.

Despite being focused on the characters, there is little character development , except for the protagonist, and the book ends without us having much sense of who they are and why they matter. Even with regard to the protagonist, although we get a lot of biographical detail there is less reality to this character that other authors masterfully develop in a paragraph.