This book contains miscellaneous information about the Mythos collectible card game. It contains: the rules of the game, a FAQ, a short play and deck construction guide, a sort of designer's notes on the game, background information on selected cards, rules for solitaire play and creating your own adventures, a complete spoiler list for the limited edition of the game and lists of card attributes and requirements for completing adventures.

As a collector and player of the game, I found the designer's notes on the history of the game and the design philosophy to be especially interesting. Also useful to me are the short notes on the background of selected cards and the rules for creating and scoring your own adventures. The pictures of the selected cards are black & white with a paragraph of background info. Buyers should also note that there is an updated version of the rules of the game at the Chaosium website.

This has been an excited experience by reading such great book. I concider there should be more books like that which inform and let people know about the truth involved in these events such as Gotti and Gravano connections.

The Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series is just wonderful; it's like a "Cliff Note" of the opera, and extremely informative and educational. I particularly like the size; these guides are not cumbersome and fit right into my shirt pocket. The ladies will find sufficient room in their pocketbooks.

The story narrative with the music examples is excellent. I prefer it to a libretto; indeed, it's a much easier way to follow the essence of the story. The essay is magnificent; very well written, not pedantic, and extremely insightful and comprehensible. I congratulate Burton Fisher for a job very well done and Amazon for making these handy, information-laden booklets available. The Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series is a wonderful contribution to opera education and opera appreciation.

My tip: acquire the entire collection because you will be in easy reach of superbly presented opera guides consisting of story analysis, principal characters in the opera, story narrative with music highlights, background, analysis, and commentary.

Heinz Dinter, Ph.D.

I,being the daughter of the deceased, Felix Melendez, who knew of John Knight, was very touched by the book.

Although it's not easy to criticize a book which the author says took four years of his life, and I believe him, shoppers should know that at times this book would be better titled "The Late 19th Century Including a Few Vignettes From the Life of John Montgomery Ward." Yes, this book is symptomatic of the modern trend to make them at least 25% longer than they need to be. The author thinks nothing of spending page after page describing oddities of Ward's hometown which really tells us nothing more about him than the single line "he grew up in the middle class of a small town in Pennsylvania" would have. The entire first chapter is devoted exclusively to speculations on various pictures of Ward without even putting the pictures next to them. There is at least one chapter which fails to mention Ward at all. The narrative wanders off the path often, even in the early going when the reader's attention is most at risk, and stays off for long periods of time. I would have much preferred it if this book had been one of those tall affairs with a great, wide margins and little info boxes along the side. Then one could read or not read the boxes at one's option. Or, it could have been a hypertext document and then if one wanted to read more on some of these topics, click and read more, but no reader should be forced to wade through some of this material, especially as some important details are buried in the middle of it, risking the skimming reader missing it. I suppose the fault is with the editor, but it's difficult to say as words like "faro" and "turnverein" are included without explanation -- maybe originally that wasn't the case. Please note that there are 32 pages of footnotes as well. On the other hand, entirely at the author's door are some very big questions left completely unfielded. Why is there no speculation, for example, about why Ward never participated in that most common of human activities, creating children? Also, in this connection, I am surprised that the possibility that he was tricked into his first marriage by a possible false pregnancy is never considered. His wife was after all an actress and must have been familiar with the trick from the Dramatic tradition. Another important issue: who was Ward actually? What were his politics? He seems a very unlikely revolutionary. Rather, like Aristophanes and W.S. Gilbert, he seems to criticize the system from the right, not because he fails to believe in it, but because he finds those in charge to be no-talent hacks and, significantly, because he can. His "revolution" seems to have been accomplished more by cleverness and opportunism than by principle and reality so naturally it was only a matter of time before the cards came crashing down. A little more of the author's or others' judgement on this would have been welcome, or even just a more inside look at how Ward went about his recruiting and alliance building, but all we get are two sentences. Other than these issues, I did enjoy the book quite a lot and although I cannot recommend it as highly as some others, I feel no doubt that on a research basis at least no stone has been left unturned. Certainly its topic is both rare and enjoyable.

Bryan Di Salvatore has captured the early history of baseball with his fascinating biography of baseball's early days. His profile of John Montgomery Ward, a pitcher and later an infielder, provides a detailed look at the evolution of baseball in its formative years. This was a time of numerous rules changes from underhand pitching, walks counting as hits, absence of a fixed pitching rubber, changing rules on how many balls it took to walk. The author meticulously but always in interesting prose tells us about the many battles between owners and players, the reserve clause, poor playing conditions. Ball players were lazy, overpaid, carousing drinkers(sound familiar) said the owners. Owners were greedy, interested in squeezing players for every nickel(sound familiar) said the players. Clearly the era evoked has many parallels to today except the average player salaries were clearly more in line with real wages. The average ball player made 3-5X the salary of the average working man. Generally the players were more accessible to the public although in one scene John Ward complains about the annoying fan groupies. For the baseball fan this book will clearly be educational and is well worth reading. Very few books describe the pre-1900 era and this book is a rare and thorough glimpse on the emerging popularity of baseball.

A Clever Base-Ballist: The Life And Times Of John Montgomery Ward is the riveting tale of John Montgomery Ward's life and historical baseball career, from his expulsion from Penn State University for stealing chickens, to pitching baseball's second perfect game in 1880, to becoming a member of the New York Giants. More than just a biography for baseball history buffs, A Clever Base-Ballist also paints a bright, engaging picture of American life at the turn of the century. For baseball enthusiasts and millennium enthusiasts alike, A Clever Base-Ballist does not disappoint!

Perhaps the publisher or Peter Maas was trying to do something new to appeal to the public. By selectively editing interviews this book is written in the prose of Sammy the Bull's slang and jargon, fragmented sentences, non-sequiturs, and poor train of thought. I didn't finish the book. To all others, in my humble opinion it's not worth starting.

Many reviewers have compared this work to Nicholas Pileggi's fine book "Wiseguy" (which was the basis for the movie "GoodFellas"). And rightfully so. "Wiseguy" concerned real life crime figure Henry Hill and how he eventually turned government informant against the mob. "Underboss" likewise tells the tale of a mobster turned informant, except this time the stool pigeon, Sammy Gravano, is a capo (and later a consigliere) in the Gambino crime family, and the mafioso he fingers is none other than John Gotti himself.

As you might expect, "Underboss" is a fascinating read. (Author Peter Maas previously wrote the books "Serpico" and "The Valachi Papers", among others, so he knows how to tell a good crime story). Gravano does not portray himself as a saint. He candidly reveals in horrifying (though not gory) detail crimes he committed in the mob, including some nineteen murders and literally hundreds of burglaries, armed robberies, and kickback/extortion plots. All the major New York crime bosses of the time (Carlo Gambino, Joe Columbo, Paul Castellano, Vincent Gigante, and of course Gotti) figure in the proceedings, as Gavano had dealings with them and others, as well.

Unlike some true crime books where you end up skipping chapters to get to the "good stuff", this book was gripping every step of the way. So much so that I ended reading it cover to cover, all 301 pages, in less than a week. If you're looking for a good insider's book on the Mafia, this is it.

I really enjoyed the behind the scenes look into one of the largest New York crime families that this book gave! The most difficult part about the book is trying to distinguish between fact and Sammy Gravan's version of things. He is thought of as a heartless thug. In the book he seems to be a fairly likable guy who took advantage of the glamourous life of a mobster.

I understand he is now out of the witness-protection program. Don't know how he is still around.