Based on the "Arthur" episode by the same name, "Buster Baxter, Cat Saver" teaches a lesson, but at the same time includes humor that escalates to greater and greater levels throughout the story. When Buster "rescues" a cat from a tree, he at first denies that it was an act of heroism; he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. As more and more attention starts be heaped on him, he starts to really get into being a hero, even starting a script for his own television series, which he states will be "edutainment." ("It's supposed to be a combination of entertainment and education, but often ends up being the worst of both.") When he starts trying to get the Brain to do his homework and being otherwise pompous, his friends start hatching schemes to try to bring his eager down to size. This is one bunny, though, who isn't so easily swayed.

My class of first graders loved this story. This story hasfunny things happen to the characters. Arthur is upset because Busterthinks he is better than everyone. This story has many plots and mysteries as Buster's friends try to show him that he is not as brave as he thinks. It is easy to read and easy to follow, but NOT BORING!

My 7-year old daughter (2nd grade) loves this entire series of books. When she was younger (up to kindergarten) she loved the "adventure" series of Arthur books. We made the transition to the chapter books because they have so much more story to them. They were perfect at the age where I would just read them to her, and by now we're at the point where she reads them to me. We have LOTS of books, but no others have held her interest as well across these stages. Fantastic value for the money. I automatically buy each new chapter book as they're released.

One issue that I grapple with frequently is the difference between "art" and "illustration". In the world of fine art illustrators are generally looked on as an inferior breed by the critics. In his introduction to "Hardyware" David A. Hardy expresses his reproof at modern art's derision of anything beautiful or representational.

This got me thinking. If SF art is "mere illustration" as an art critic would say, what about all those historical paintings of heaven and hell, the last judgement and armageddon? Critics seem to love those.

But I digress. SF art does have its place, and it plays an important role. The main body of "Hardyware" gives us a glimpse of the possibilties that await us in the future. If things turn out properly and we don't destroy ourselves, our descendents will become great builders with the potential to conquer the stars. Most of the artwork in this collection is done in gouache and acrylic, although more recently the artist has turned to digital media.

We see visions of the past as well as the future. One of my favourite pieces is a scene from "The War of the Worlds". I remember seeing that image on a cover jacket when I was 12, although I didn't know who the artist was back then. The image of a dinosaur looking up at a descending asteroid is hauntingly grim.

I often think SF artists are underrated. Though they are often proved wrong, their visions provide a valuable contribution to the development of our civilization, giving inspiration to those who have the ability to make fantasy a reality.

This super book contains well over a hundred examples of the work of perhaps our best living space artist, along with a fascinating text full of insights into his thinking and his modus operandi.

What noted readers might have said: "Such a book as this has great relativity" --Einstein "This book is creating a cultural revolution" --Mao "This book contains information that even I did not know about myself" --Verne "Alas, the authors of this book know Verne well" --Shakespeare "Finally, a book on Verne for everyone to share" --Marx (Karl) "How this book got in my pajamas I don't know" --Marx(Groucho)

This is an excellent hiking guide to Baxter State Park. It includes history and background of the park as well as a comprehensive guide to all the trails and peaks. It also comes with the best pocket map to the park. I only wish Mr. Clark had included a little more commentary and personality (some sneaks in). He is obviously a passionate expert and a little more depth would be welcome even though this is essentially a trail guide.

In here are 5 different stories from 5 different authors. But somehow they all are connected by the same themes and characters.

I managed to read this book within a week. I found it to be well written and easy to understand. It contains short sentences that are easy to absorb. I suspect it may have been written for teenagers.
I'm bewildered as to why no one has reviewed this classic book. It's an honour and privilege for me to review it.

While it may have been aimed for a younger market the themes in it are ageless and timeless. Mature readers will appreciate it too. What I loved about it was how my current net experience, while relatively plain, simple and uneventful, is correlated to this future vision of spectacular marvel. In one word, it's fascinating how it views the future of virtual reality and the (hopefully) future eventuating of how the Internet will prosper and develop to encompass our daily lives. I just loved how it projects people into simulated worlds like a cat with nine lives. From history to future space everything and anything is imagined within the Web 2028 and with vivid, exciting detail that humans can only dream of happening in their wildest fantasies..

Overall I recommend this book. While I'm normally a sci-fi fan who liked Star Wars, X Files etc. this book appealed to me. I recommend it for all ages especially the young. I dare say it's better than Harry Potter as it's relevant to the current Zeigiest way of life and modern pop culture. Who wants to read about witches and magic when you can summon visions of a promising and idealized utopian high tech future. [Forget} Potter and Lord Of The Rings, read this book NOW!!!

Its 'Future History' with a big emphasis on *future*. This is very much like Niven but the ideas are actually even larger and more in depth. If you want SF that your mind can chew on read this book....

Not for Stephen Baxter the piffling concerns of most science fiction this is a man who goes for the big picture. A set of stories which reveal the past and future history of not just mankind but the whole universe itself until the stars dim and go out!

I confess I have found some of his books pretty hard going (Raft, Flux etc) but this is much more digestible, a lot more fun and you don't need a Phd in quantum mechanics to enjoy it.

It was absolutely unbelievable. Baxter had me convinced that it actually happened. This man's storytelling ability is unparalled. I am an avid Clarke and Asimov fan, but this tops the cake, even better than his previous masterpiece Ring, if you never read another book the rest of life, read this one.

This has been my first experience with Stephen Baxter's works, and although I do intend to continue reading his works, I found Raft to be lacking in some key areas. A wonderful and quite unique exploration of another galaxy and human adaptation, Raft excells in the science part of its genre and lacks in the fiction part. A perfect example of this lies in Baxter's primary character. One moment Baxter convinces you to see him as a genius and a leader, but the next moment he's a weakling. In addition, some of the flow of the novel seems questionable--like how in heaven's name did he know to get inside the whale and why does the whale suddenly spring back to life? Such questions are left unanwswered drasticly weakening the incredible universe of Baxter's creation. I would have suggested covering less time within the novel or perhaps breaking the story up into more in depth books. Nevetheless, Baxter's Raft deserves examination.

For a first novel, Baxter has done a superb job of thinking about wht would happen in a scenario where gravity is one billion times greater than it is in our universe. Imagine each person having their own gravity field! I always like an SF book that is set in the future, but also hearkens back to the "days of earth" where humans originated and the ideas that come from that. As a physics teacher, I will find it interesting to have a discussion about this scenario and I hope to bring up this book in class.

Baxter needs to work on some of his descriptive abilities, on the other hand. Granted, it may be my problem, but I was unable to picture some of the things he was trying to describe in the book and I think it lacked in being able to effectively describe what something looked like.

All in all, this book has some great imaginative features, and Baxter is someone I am happy to read again.

Raft is a sustained feat of the scientific imagination, a supreme exploration of the 'What If' questions, in this case, 'What If' the crew of a lost spaceship, trapped by tremendous gravitational forces, colonised this weird pocket in the universe and somehow survived. The book leaps from one unbelievable premise to another, but with such deft and agile balance that the story come alive. A fabulous adventure and an essentially truthful celebration of the human spirit, adaptability and will to survive against all odds.

This book was equally, if not better than it`s prequel.After reading the first, I wasn`t to sure about reading the second after the first left me feeling pretty depressed, though I did it anyway and was greatly rewarded with a more upbeat book, compared to the first. Longtusk is better probably because of the less violence and a more descriptive plotline. The info on how the Mammoths live was riveting as was how they desribed the Neanderthals and early Homo-Sapiens.It was a great read.I eagerly await the third arriving.

Baxter has written a magnificent and majestic tale of myth, legend, adventure, danger, and the fight for survival with memorable characters, accurate setting and detail, intrigue and wonder. A 'Watership Down' of the Ice Age... Gary S. Potter Author/Poet

As good as Watership Down, Shardik or The Plague Dogs in detailed and accurate research on the part of the author, coupled with believable, fascinating, and often glorious storytelling.

This is the sequel to Silverhair, and in my opinion, excells it, though the first book it wonderful enough.

I bought this collection for one reason and one reason only: it contained another slice of Ian McDonald's world-turned-upside-down 'Chaga; sequence. As it turned out this was by far the best piece in the book, but more of that later.

I haver never been convinced by Pater Hamilton, much as I want to like a British author who can do cyberpunk and do space opera with the best of the yanks. However his piece in this collection, 'Watching Trees Grow' changed my opinion of him. It is an alternative-history crime novella based on the premise that descendants of the Romans still rule Britian through a set of East India Company-style families who combine economic control with a monopolies over various areas of scientific progress. It is a neat idea, and takes the premise further than many other alternative histories by throwing the story further and further into the future, as an old rivalry becomes an obsession that almost transcends time.

I enjoyed it despite the episodic feel - perhaps a novel would have been more appropriate - but its 'Britishness' seemed slightly musty and old-fashionned, and redolent of dreams of Empire, in stark contrast to McDonald, or more overtly hip authors like Jeff Noon or Justina Robson. Maybe that was the point, and if so it was well made: science fiction is much the poorer if it doesn't teach you something about the society in which you live.

As for Stephen Baxter's 'Reality Dust': well, he does try, and he does keep churning them out, but this is so boring and so mainstream and so traditional. It is all done very competantly, but it is basically the kind of SF I enjoyed when I was a teenager, it isn't challenging in any way.

I was a little disappointed with Paul McAuley's novella, 'Making History', especially as he is one of my favourite writers. This was partly because at the heart of it was a very tedious old argument about the nature of history (great men versus social processes) which tended to intrude on the quite interesting story of the processs of war, defeat, reconciliation and the way history is written. Perhaps this was set up as part of the character of the historian to demonstrate his own flaws, but it didn't really convince. This is certainly not one of his best stories.

As I said at the start, I bought this collection for Ian McDonald's 'Tendeleo's Story'. I was certainly not disappointed by this one. McDonald is one of the few writers in the genre today who can combine real politics and a strongly compassionate and empathetic grasp of human nature. He is also a superb writer, able to portray setting and character in a vivid, dynamic and sensual way.

This novella, as the title suggests is the story of Kenyan girl, Tendeleo, the arrival of a extraterrestrial nanotech lifeform, the Chaga, that begins to transform Africa, and as a result the balance of global power. Initally for Tendeleo, however, this means growing up and simply trying to survive in the ferment that follows, which in her case means geting more and more deeply involved in street gangs smuggling Chaga material out of Africa. Capture and exile is never far away and whe it comes she loses here family in tragic and guilt-inducing circumstances. She winds up in cold, rainy Manchester, England, where she meets the other central character and narrative voice of the story, Sean, a black Irishman, who is also an exile in various ways, and a tentative love affair begins. Of course, inevitably Tendeleo has to return to Africa, where the Chaga has begun to revolutionise everyday life and the place of Africa in the world.

'Tendeleo's Story' is worth the price of this collection alone. It is an almost perfect example of how to write a novella that with none of the structural problems of the others in the book. The narrative is perfectly paced, with a deft handling of both action and emotion and no forced-ness or pretension. It is truly worthwhile and heartbreakingly real story that exist within an utterly fantastic and transforming world, yet a world which says so much about our own. A true gem of a story, from one of the best and most underrated writers around.

This volume is somewhat different than the usual flurry of anthologies that come out, especially during the holiday season, on two counts.

First, it is a British import, and thus the authors represented, while to varying degrees familiar to most of the rest of the world, really are British in tone and outlook.

Second, rather than stories, this volume has the longer novella form for the stories, and thus there is one story apiece. SF seems to be the last bastion of this "not quite short story, not quite novel" length work, and the virtues of the form are admirably displayed here.

The first story is Peter F. Hamilton's WATCHING TREES GROW. Although far better known for his Reality Dysfunction space opera, Hamilton has written detective SF before (The Mindstar Rising novels) and this is another example, with a twist...it is set in an alternate history where Heinleinian long-lived families vie for power and influence, and that is just the backdrop to a murder mystery.

The second story is REALITY DUST by Stephen Baxter. Unlike Hamilton, Baxter's story is set in his trademark universe, the "Xeelee Sequence". This is set after the Qax Domination, where their former collaborator-lackeys seek escape from the freed peoples of Earth in a rather unusual escape route.

MAKING HISTORY, by Paul McAuley is set in a more standard "near future" solar system, in the aftermath of a war...and even if it is true that history is written by the victors, that history can sometimes be rather muddled in the making.

The last story is TENDELEO'S STORY by Ian MacDonald. Like the Baxter, it is set in a trademark world of his, the "Chaga stories", where a strange alien life (nanotech? technolife?) has started to colonize the Earth, beginning with Africa. This story, like his other novels and stories, focuses more on the people affected by the Chaga, much more so than the actual event itself.

All four of these stories are strong, but of course, tastes may vary. The stories do range a far chunk of SF, and it is very possible that while you might like two or three, you may not like all four (personally, I liked the Baxter the best and the McDonald the least). Thus, the 4 star rating. Still, all in all, if you are at all interested in what the best British SF writers are doing, this paperback is perfect for the purpose.

Four novellas that are everything that is great about science fiction. These four authors are absolutely among the greatest voices in the genre today.

In WATCHING TREES GROW Peter Hamilton took history, turned it upside down, shook it a bit & gave us an alternate view of a history quite unlike anything I had ever read before.

Stephen Baxter's REALITY DUST made the reader look at reality in a whole new way.

In MAKING HISTORY, Paul McAuley showed how history is not always written by the victor.

Ian MacDonald's TENDELEO'S STORY took me back to the Chaga in EVOLUTION'S SHORE which always impressed me as being one of the most possibly real First Contact stories ever written.

All four novellas explore the very trait of our species' survival, adaptability, that brings hope & after all that's what science fiction is really about.

VOYAGE was the second book by Stephen Baxter that I've read, but it's the best one. I have to say it--Baxter's got stones--big ones. He tackles an alternate history's journey to Mars in 1986 with ease. Everything is researched to the letter and feels real, from the inner workings of NASA to the tragedy of a nuclear-powered Apollo flight (shades of the Challenger disaster) to the characters themselves. Here is a writer who actually gives a damn about the characters he creates, and does not give them the short strift just to lavish everything on the technology. True, I wished there could have been more on the astronauts' exploration on Mars, but that was not Baxter's point. It's _how_ we get to the Red Planet and _why_ we should go that's important. He also shows the scientific cost--no space shuttle, no Voyager or Viking missions... To put everything in simple terms--if you like science fiction, if you are interested in the space program, or if you just like books that are damned good--read VOYAGE.

I am a fan of 'Sciene Probable'. That is to say, science fiction that is based on fact and known science.

This book hits that mark dead on.

The adherence to the technicals and history of the Apollo program is well done and worked seemlessly into this alternate history. The description of science is detailed enough for those so inclined while not going so overboard as to bore the less technical reader.

The structure of the writing is perfect for a story that must cover such a long period of time. Baxter is able to carry the story over decades without ever losing momentum or the interest of the reader.

The character development is great. The story is progressively told from the perspective of different characters, in the third person.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. One of the best I've read.

I came to know Baxter's writing through his more SF type books such as Ring and the Time Ships and in those respects he seemed a natural successor to HG Wells and the others who used ideas to drive their novels. And then I see this book. The first thing that tipped me off is that there's no mention of his other SF books in any of the author bios, even though some of them have won awards and stuff and been generally acclaimed, in fact if you didn't see the listing of his novels in the front of the book you'd think that this was his first novel. So, geez, I thought to myself, a SF writer trying to play down his science fiction past in order to make himself more appealing to the mainstream, nothing I hadn't seen before but since I had faith in Baxter I figured I'd give the book a try. And you know what it's not bad, the history extrapolation are just as good as anyone else's but the premise is good and the feelings that it ignites in you, the actual thought of us going to Mars, if there's anything that rekindles that desire to get there, this could be the book. The book focuses more on actually getting there as opposed to what we would do there which is a small complaint, I would have at least like to see what happens to the characters when they got back to Earth and got on with their lives, I mean face it after going to Mars everything else is certainly downhill from there. That and the characters are a tad stock at times, of course the woman is a no nonsese lady with a chip on her shoulder and the African character is always angry and all the astronauts are "just one of the boys" and you do realize this during the course of the book but really when you take everything together it's a good effort. It does the job which is show how we could get to Mars and manages to be entertaining along the way, encompassing truimph and tragedy and showing the lengths that people are driven to realize their goals. Baxter's next book after this was something else along this line as well (Titan) and while I hope he gets back to his older stuff I can make do with this for the moment, it goes down quite easy.