As a kid, did you prefer reading cereal boxes to reading books? Ever order something from an ad in the back of a comic book? If so, you'd be crazy not to get this wonderful book ("while supplies last"). It's loaded with some of the most outrageous (yet authentic) comic book advertising ever created. From Sea Monkeys to "FREE" monkeys, the ads are all reproduced in living color (in some cases far better than the originals!). You'll find all the great, original hype and propaganda far more outrageous than would be acceptable by today's advertising standards (and that's saying something)! There are familiar ads of years gone by, and more than a few unusual ads that you've likely never seen before. This book is an absolute bargain for anyone who wants a flashback of fun nostalgia. It's entertaining and a joy to read. In fact, you might just rekindle that burning urge to rush out and buy yourself an ant farm. Highly recommended!

Set against the background of the 1939 New York World's Fair, Miles Beller's Dream Of Venus follows the adventures of Zeke Lichtenquist (an artist recently moved into the fair's "Town of Tomorrow"). This is a small and interwoven world of science and strippers, tourist dollars and visions of a better future, even as the world was sliding inexorably into a world of war. Dream Of Venus is an enthusiastically recommended, highly original novel that grips the reader's imagination and attention from the very first page and won't let go until the last line of the last paragraph of the last chapter.

Thought this novel is set in 1939 at the New York World's Fair, it really is talking about our sense of tomorrow, what we believe the future will bring. Reminds me of the saying, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." By turns this fiction is funny and then profound. Gets a bit dislocated at points but if you stick with it you will be more than rewarded.

In the manner of Nabokov's "Pale Fire," this novel is a clockwork story within a story, a witty, engaging adventure into a future that never was... Operating on several levels, "Dream of Venus" presents the artist as a young meanderer, like Bloom in Joyce's Nightown wandering back on his own personal history and larger events overtaking the world. A dream as reality, a sleeper in full command of his consciousness, here the membrane between fact and fiction is stretched enticingly thin.