This book is fine for people looking to get into a US school. If you are also considering a European or Asian school, spend your money on the Economist (EIU) review.

Feels good with the information that was discerned with an initial review ...

The information is up to date and useful for potential applicants

When I was in Grade School, every kid I knew collected Comic Books. We would all get together every Friday in the Lunchroom and swap Comics, try to get each other to try different books, etc. I remember the excitement that we all felt when the first issue of John Byrne's Fantastic Four came out....the feeling of greatness that we all got when we read it. Everyone agreed that there would be no passing this book around- we'd all have to get our own copy every month.

So, with a real feeling of nostalgia, I picked up Volume One of Fantastic Four Visionaries. The stories hold up amazingly well, even after Twenty years. Byrne doesn't do a flashy overhaul of The FF (Like he did with DC's Superman..); he simply returns the group to their most basic element: They are not a Super-Hero group. They are a FAMILY, and Byrne, for the first time since the Lee/Kirby run, has them ACT like one. They bicker. They squabble. They tease each other, but they do it with love. When one is in trouble, the others rush in to help. They have more at stake when they're in a battle than the fate of The Earth: They have to worry about the Family members they're fighting alongside.

The stories in this volume are really just warm-ups for the stories that will (Hopefully!) be included in Volume II. The FF runs into Alchemical creatures sent by Diablo; Johnny (The Human Torch) Storm tries to clear the name of a dead man; The Earth is saved by the most powerful man in the World, while The FF are battling The Living Planet, Ego. A strange alien is coerced by winos (!) into helping them rob Banks. The FF welcome a new member, and help the Inhumans relocate to the Moon. Most importantly, they have their fondest wish granted by their greatest enemy: Dr. Doom. This story is perhaps the most poignant FF story ever. The emotions that Byrne imbues the characters with in this story are totally believable. The only beef that I have with the book is this: It would have been nice if Marvel had re-mastered the color. (And Byrne's stories are too wordy!! But that's just a small quibble.)

Fans of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine will love this book!

I've always loved the Fantastic Four. To me they represent the very best of what the Marvel Comic universe is all about. Created by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Fantastic Four formed a thematic bridge between the Timely Comics era of B-movie style sci-fi/horror and the Sixties superheroics of the Marvel Age. They were pulp adventurers fighting aliens and subterranean monsters -- but with superpowers. They didn't even wear costumes in the their debut issue! Lee and Kirby did their best work on the book, introducing characters like Doctor Doom, the Inhumans, Galactus and the Silver Surfer to name just a few.

After Kirby left the art chores on the book and Lee later stopped writing, The Fantastic Four took a long (decades long), slow slide into complete generic mediocrity. In 1981 long-time comics fan-turned-pro John Byrne, hot off a pencilling stint on the ascendant Uncanny X-Men, decided to try his hand at his old favorites...The Fantastic Four. This was made more interesting by the fact that he intended to write and draw each monthly issue alone, with only a letterer and colorist assisting. Although he was a top young talent at the time, not many people believed he would keep a monthly schedule, let alone make the book interesting enough to read. But Byrne had a plan...

"Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne" collects the first eight issues of his triumphant five-year run on the book, and highlights Phase One of the Byrne FF Plan: Get Back to the Basics. For his first several issues of there's not even a visual cue that the book isn't set in the Sixties; the street clothes, dialog, art -- even the coloring! -- is straight out of the Lee/Kirby days. In effect, it's retro yet so bereft of irony that it's classic! These issues are a love letter to the days when the book was great and also a little work therapy to get Byrne (and the book) in fighting trim for the real battle: returning the Fantastic Four to it's rightful spot as "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine". The pinnacle of this phase is the return of Doctor Doom in Byrne's now-classic 20th anniversary story, "Terror in a Tiny Town".

Byrne's sixth issue marks the beginning of Phase Two: Shake Down the Status Quo. After declaring that he's finally found a cure for Ben Grimm's disfiguring transformation into The Thing, the stretchable super-genius Reed Richards proceeds to screw him up even worse -- and permanently -- by 'devolving' Grimm back to the even uglier lumpy orange oatmeal look that he had immediately after his initial cosmic ray accident. Then the Inhumans are forced to move their entire homeland, to the Moon to escape death from the pollutants in Earth's atmosphere. Oh, and Johnny Storm's shy girlfriend turns out to have flame powers almost as powerful as his own!

My singular complaint with collection is that it ends just when Byrne is hitting his stride on the book and just before Phase Three of his Master Plan: Really Big Changes. Being arguably the best work of his career and definitely the best post-Lee/Kirby era for our titular heroes, I can only hope "Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne, Volume 2" is coming soon!

If you're a fan of Byrne, these stories certainly will not disappoint you, although they could have chosen better yarns to put together in a TPB. Most of these are slightly above average -- the Ego battle, the revelation that Frankie Raye is a human torch, and the Inhumans moving Attilan to the Blue Area of the Moon -- but the others are just average. For a "Visionaries" TPB, you expect top-notch vignettes. You get it here....almost.

I admit that John Byrne is a hard-working fellow. He writes, draws, inks and letters most of his own work, as is the case here. The case with this book, though, is that he makes up a boring plot. Plain and simple, it's boring. B-O-R-I-N-G. And the dialogue is so corny.

Captain America and Batman meet up during the 1940s to face off against their arch rivals, Red Skull and Joker. The book has Red Skull and Joker woking together as a team, only to have Joker betray Skull because he's a Nazi. As if the giant Swasticka didn't all ready point that out. And since when does the Joker have morals? Isn't he supposed to be an insane murderer?

The most insane, cracked-out part about this book, though, has to be when Captain America faces the ultimate Nazi weapon. It's sort of a tank that's the size of huge city building. It is very well drawn, that I admit, but so totally unrealistic...and I'm talking about a comic book, where we're supposed to stretch our imaginations to believe that such things can be possible!! Captain America takes it out EASILY, no sweat!

The only reason why this book gets two stars is because this is probably the best showing of Byrne's art. That's as good as it gets, folks. One hundred pages of pretty good artwork, and one hundred pages of total [garbage] for a story. Don't even think about buying this.

it's awesome. John Byrne's more than beautifully detailed artwork never looks better.

The story is poignantly written. It's great to see Batman and Captain America and their sidekicks Robin and Bucky join forces to defeat their respective enemies. I liked the concept of Joker and Red Skull as the villain duo of the book.

What better team-up than this pairing? Pairing of DC's Batman and Marvel's Captain America. The duo are arguably the best fighter in his own universe.

the ending was well done with a feeling of inspiration.

This book is fun, exciting and exhilirating. Good for the Byrne fan, the comic fan, or anyone who likes a good story, powerfully and neatly told.

The story takes place in the days when Silver Surfer was still Galactus' herald. Darkseid amasses a force against Galactus unlike when the latter came to Earth and all there was to fight him were the Fantastic Four. Good premise with the promise of a big showdown between Galactus and Darkseid. Only problem is that the story and characters just seem to go through their paces and the art seems lumbering toward the end. The status quo is changed back to what it was in the beginning. There are a few surprises like Silver Surfer rebelling against Galactus and the New Gods stepping back and hoping that Galactus destroys Darkseid and his world. This book should shine but doesn't but would be a shame to ignore it, either. A must for fans of Jack Kirby's characters.

After reading this crossover, I am quite convinced that the New Gods stories that Jack created for DC, would have been much more at home in the Marvel Universe, read the dialoge between Darkseid and Galactus and you will see why.

The work is wonderful because it uses characters created by the late great Jack "King" Kirby. The creations are rendered my the master John Byrne. The work shows how dastardly Darkseid really is and how powerful Galactus is in the universe. Please try to find this book. It incredible.

This is a convincing look behind the scenes at Ford, as Robert S. McNamara makes his mark in big business, after figuring out how to manage logistics for the U.S. Dept of Defense during WWII. It was novel of these guys (the Whiz Kids) to insist that they all be hired by Ford as a group. Kind of a Japanese team spirit at work. Then different ones fell by the wayside, and one even committed suicide (no Japanese connection intended).

The counterpart to any given U.S. whiz kid for the British during WWII was one Lord Leathers, appointed as material and logistics chief by the war cabinet, whose exploits were referred to by Churchill in his 6 Vol. history of WWII.

For the Germans, we had Albert Speer, seeking to wring gasoline form coal while still promising the Fuhrer that he could still have his new boulevards and buildings in Berlin. I'm not sure who ran this end of things for Stalin, but whomever that was, they must have been pretty smart as well.

The interesting thing is the way the Whiz Kids took what they had learned about moving material to feed soldiers and blow things up, and transferred those skills to rescuing Ford from the predations of Henry I just in time to save the industrial neck of Henry II (since in this tragedy we skip over Edsel I as irrelevant, since Henry I pretty much snuffed him out, emotionally anyway).

This is all living history, and envy of the Whiz Kids is probably what drove GM to hire Peter Drucker from Vienna to analyze itself, leading to Drucker's first major work describing management of a major public corporation. This in turn egging on Alfred Sloan to reply with his less readable "My Years with General Motors."

So a lot happened after these Whiz Kids hit the scene in Detroit. Overall, their quantitative streak seems to elevate them well above trivial "guru" status achieved by so many modern management consultants. McNamara had an interesting feedback into government, by rejoining DOD as a Kennedy guy, from which I guess he repented after the fact to assuage whatever damage he did to his soul by egging on JFK and LBJ beyond the limits of American power, if not authority. That's a lesson for businessmen, too.

Just ten men -- all relatively young during the war -- were responsible for Corporate America's decline after the post-war boom? "Yes -- to an extent." is John Byrne's answer to that question in this unflinching look at how the "whiz kids" (originally called the "quiz kids" for reasons explained in the book) landed jobs at Ford Motor as a group and then proceeded to skillfully consolidate their power by using "new" numbers-based analytical methods to promote their agenda and dismiss others'. Eventually, as they occupied executive suites at Ford, several went into other business and government postions, spreading the "gospel" of "if it's not in the numbers, it's not real." As we now know, this "dispassionate" method's shortcomings become painfully evident when a field is open to increased competition (the auto industry) and/or faces an adversary who doesn't desire to "play by the rules" (the Viet Cong). Byrne takes the time to tell the story of all 10 men to varying degrees, and lays out a vivid picture of how we **will** fall short if we mindlessly follow management styles that have been around for so long that they are ingrained in some companies' cultures, but still are no more effective today then they were 30 years ago.

I was pondering when I read this book. I have read this book for many times. Every time I got different feeling. From this book, you can feel the cheer, and the tear of them. These guys, we can call them "Blue Blood". They got the power of how to control this world, changing this world. The problem is, some of them, for example, Robert Mcnamara, was plug into the data, statistic data and lose humannity. That is why he loose in Vanem. That is also a lesson to all of us, who are at the edge of IT evolution. Don't be a robust, computer is only a tool, there is a lot of beautiful things outside this data matrix. Don't be slaved by it.

Author did give a clearer picture of this ten guys. And intrigue me to know more about them. This is a rather interesting books, also a good lesson to those in "Internet" fever.

Don't lose your humanity!!!

This all-in-one multimedia training course is all you need to pass Microsoft's SQL Server 7 exam 70-028. Includes the browser-based "SQL Server 7 Multimedia Cyber Classroom"--over 100 digital videos and over two hours of expert audio demonstrating hundreds of key procedures; the bestselling book "MCSE: Administering Microsoft SQL Server 7"--a complete expert tutorial; and coverage of SQL Server 7 installation, configuration, security, logical structures and more. But I still think that u should read other books as well in order to gain more knowledge because the more books u read the more knowledge u gain, give it try. I am giving it four stars because not a single can be complete u have to take a look to others too.

I have not had much experience with SQL Server (as an administrator). Also I was not aware of some tricks defined in this book. Moreover I learnt about the various fancy joins and how to use them.

GOOD book for beginners to intermediate readers!!

From Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to Peter David, this is a total of several Hulk stories done by various writers and artists on how the Hulk's different personalities have surfaced over the years. From being very intelligent to being very savage. It;s very good work and it shows how shallow the Hulk stories by Paul Jenkins really are.

Never before has the HULK been more visually striking and the story riveting. Never before has the HULK struck our awe and asked us to reconsider his predictament and his incredible plight for fitting in. This graphic novel captures the TRUE essence of the HULK and warrants frequent readings that constantly entertains. This is the definative HULK. Oh yeah, did I mention the fantastic artwork?? Go for it.

Although out of date now this is a fascinating book that provides great (although not unbiased) insight into the early days of Apple Computer and development of the Apple II, Lisa and finally the Macintosh, the arrival of corporate-stiff John Sculley and the eventual tearful ejection of young, mercurial Steve Jobs. John Sculley's vanity is quite laughable and it provides a remarkable insight into a couple of the computer industry's prize egos. The decision to close new factories in Texas and retain old factories in earthquake-prone California is dismissed with little explanation (strangely corporations always do this -- the human factor). Apple generally gets a soft-ride from the press. Apple are hardnosed in blocking their competition and have let down partners (and some might argue their customers too) terribly on several occasions -- little of that is contained here though.

John Sculley had a very close friendship with Steve Jobs. He was wooed to Apple, and when he got too close to Steve and found out he had created a monster, it was almost too late. He did do much to help Apple's fortunes, and yet in the chapters not found in the book, found his own demise. His words about Steve Jobs are still prophetic as ever, and still just as pertinent. His relationships with board members and those creators who worked at Apple are wonderful. In hindsight, Gil Amelio should have read this book, because he too was taken in and taken over by Steve Jobs. While Jobs will always be affiliated with Apple, its really the others mentioned in the book who are the heroes that Sculley learned to appreciate when Jobs was ousted for not bringing the idea of the Macintosh Office to reality. That in effect is where Sculley really showed his worth to the company. While discussing technology long obsolete, the excitement of giving birth to those projects and products is still worth your time to complete the Odyseey that Sculley brings forth.

San Francisco is a city with a long and unique history. With this history comes a wide variety of interesting and sometimes stunningly beautiful buildings. Wandering the streets of San Francisco, and noticing these buildings, one frequently wants to learn more about them. And that is why I bought this book.

However, I was disappointed by the fact that most of the houses featured in this volume only have the year it was built, who built it, and a very brief description. Often there is only one sentence saying this house was built in Queen Anne style and that it has a tower (self-evident from the picture, or once you actually see the building). The book says very little about the history of each house, why it was built like it was, notable persons that lived there, etc. It also does very little to put the houses in the context of the surrounding neighborhood.

The book features "tours" that you can take to view the described houses, but it doesn't quite pull it off, and the end result is a strange mix of tourist guide and architectural reference that performs mediocre at both.

San Francisco desperately needs a good book to picture, describe and catalog its unique architecture, but alas, this book is not it. It would have been better if the author concentrated the book on San Francisco houses only, instead of the entire Bay Area, and offered fewer houses with a better description of each. Still, it is the best I have been able to find, and it is better than nothing, hence the three stars.

You can look-up just about any noteworthy San Francisco building in this guide to the best. My own choice is the historic Monadnock Building at 685 Market Street. It was being constructed in 1906, but before its west wall was even completed the Great Earthquake and Fire struck. Somehow the building managed to survive not only those calamities but two separate attempts by the army to destroy it with dynamite (hoping to create a firebreak that was intended to save the original Palace Hotel). After the Monadnock was completed in 1907 it was casually referred to as "the railroad building," because it housed so many offices in that business. By 1985 it was thoroughly renovated, however, and the tenants inhabiting it became almost exclusively those involved in either art or law pursuits. As the book recommends, be sure to ask the guard in the lobby for the free leaflet by Hamilton Barrett, the building's own historian. When we went for our copy the guard even contributed a few additional details about one of the ghosts known to frequent the first floor at night. A "Lady in White," she wears a long turn of the century style dress and likes to silently float toward the guard's desk from the west hallway. She then touches anyone who would dare sleep.

THIS BOOK REAFFIRMS PRICIPALS OF LIFE THAT EVERYONE SHOULD FOLLOW.RICHLY INSPIRING SHORT ESSAYS ON TRUTH, BEAUTY,COURAGE, AND HUMOR AND MORE. NEVER BORING ...APROPOS TO ALMOST ALL SITUATIONS IN LIFE,THIS BOOK SHOULD GO BACK TO PRESS...IT IS A WINNER! MARY BUTKUS