although the storyline is deep in the science fiction and depicts lepricans as long lost guardians, it does contain a nice glimps of the guardian who presented the final ring to kyle. all in all a book worth reading but don't get in a wreck hurring to the comic book store trying to get your copy.

This may qualify as a really unobjective review, given that Larry Niven is one of my favorite Science Fiction writers, and John Byrne is my favorite comic book writer/artist.

Larry Niven's take on Green Lantern's mythos is really astounding, and it fits well for me, being a Green Lanter fan too. John Byrne's dialogues and layouts are really good, and his art is at his normal level. Byrne's not an astounding penciller, but he manages to get the work done, and by writing and drawing most of his work. he gets a cohesion that no writer-artist team can get.

The only setback to this story for me is that it's to compressed, I feel they should have dedicated a full 10 issues mini-series or something like that. It's a bit crammed in the prestige edition book.

Larry Niven is one of the best science fiction writers around. John Byrne is one of the best comic creators in the industry. The two combine to make a wonderful piece of pictorial literature. The Green Lantern is one of my favorite comic book heroes to this day. The mingling of science fact, science fiction, and fantasy creates a compelling story. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did when I picked it up. Happy reading.

Most Joplin fans will want this book for the many marvelous,unpublished photos. The diary of live performances is very interesting, but the calander format is annoying. Another book that compliments "A Performance Diary" is "Janis Garden Party", a collection of photos taken at Madison Square Garden in Dec. 1969 by photographer Steve Banks. The book is published by Bugiganga Press, 1998.

This book has to lie on the shelf of all Janis fans, who are interested both in her music and personality - although the texts are not really informative, so you won`t learn much about the details of her life. But this book is not intended to be a biography~it`s more a TRIBUTE. And she deserved it. A beautiful collection of pictures and letters ~some in her own handwriting~ a cronological list of her performances and the summary of the main steps in her carreer. A VERY NICE piece of HIGH LEVEL!

This book contains any number of beautiful photographs, it has beautifully written reflections on Janis from friends and lovers. In short it has it all. A good read.

I had heard that this was a really good book for COBOL programmers who were now learning Java. It didn't really tie the two together very well. The author obviously has not keep up with the innovation in COBOL over the last few years. COBOL for MVS has FUNCTIONs that would have made better examples in some places. After completing this book I felt that it didn't really tell may much more that the other intro to Java books I had read. And the last chapters really lost me. It jumped from entry level stuff to chapters that seemed to be taken from some technical presentation. To me the next step should have been how Java does external data I/O. After I completed this book, I found that the book that I really wanted was "Java for the COBOL Programmer (Advances in Object Technology".

This is not a bad book for the Cobol programmers who are trying to learn Object Oriented language Java. Very good parallels between classes and Cobol subroutine. Most of the Java books are written by former C++ programmers, who do not know Cobol. But Mr. Burne trying find some common ground between Java and Cobol, to simplify learning. I gave it 4 stars, it would be nice to have some Input and Output File processing, GUI and JDBC coverages. But over all, this is much better book than Doke and Hardgrave book with similar title.

I found this book extremely useful. I have been a programmer for 20 years, and this is the first book I've found that explained Java in a way I could understand. I liked the way the author started with simple examples, and then kept building on them. Definitely a big help to me. The chapter on XML was interesting too.

I'm amazed that this skimpy and superficial work didn't go out of print years ago, on merit. Oh well, I can say "The snake is poisonous." I wish I could say "The book is worthless." Then I would have learned something I could use.

I read this book because my boyfriend wanted to learn my language. I have to say that the book will really be helpful for beginners because the grammar sections (around chapter 4 to 10) is very clear and easy to understand. However, as an Indonesian, I must say that many of the words in the dictionary/vocabulary section are quite outdated - modern Indonesian hardly recognize some of the words anymore ;-) and some grammar explanations can be a little bit too simplified.

This is a traditional style language learning manual. If you like an academic approach to learning then you will like this but I am not sure that it is well suited to those who wish to gain a useful knowledge in a short time for a trip. I do think that it is good for presenting grammar and structure to students who are serious about learning the language properly, maybe to read books and newspapers rather than to say just "Hello" and "Do you sell disposable razors". That this is an older text is apparant from reading the first couple of chapters which present words such as "hunter", "poisonous" and "tiger", which, although not immediately useful, are in keeping with the type of language learning approach of 20-30 years ago (ie with the focus being on grammar rather than vocabulary). A modern approach begins with useful expressions and high frequency words in keeping with current language trends. I personally like this book and the way it presents structure in a no nonsense academic way, but I am a linguist. For the non-linguist it may seem a little dull or hard-going. There is a high degree of straight learning (ie with no games or "fun" activities) that needs to go on to progress through each chapter which means that the responsibility to learn is entirely with the student. Explanations are full and clear but not unnecessarily overblown. The pronunciation section in chapter one is also very clear. I think that this would be great used in conjunction with a phrase book with tapes to get grammar as well as vocabulary. But if you want an immediate knowledge for use on your trip, you may be disappointed with this book.

My rating is harsh because the only things that interested me about this trade are the art and the fact that Wonder Woman was featured. I mean featured in that this really wasn't her story at all. This trade contains seven comics; if a comic's struggle wasn't resolved, then Wonder Woman has some sort of aid from a guest character. And this trade has plenty of them (Sinestro, Barry Allen, Doomsday), but these were all just clones. Superman appeared, but he never met with Diana; I guess he was just there so that Superman fans might pick up the book. The Phantom Stranger and Etrigan the Demon also appear; even though both are very interesting characters, John Byrne doesn't make them that way.

Yes, the art is flashy and large, but there is no story and very little dialogue. There are more one- and two-page panels than you can count with both hands -- fifteen panels. Large art and no dialogue steal from story space. When there is dialogue, Byrne resorts to a small portrait of the speaker's head, and the art becomes boring. It's as if Byrne thinks story development through words is boring. Not all comic book readers think this way. There is simply not a healthy balance between art and story as I believe there should be in a comic book.

Development of supporting characters is lackluster, as well. Helena Sandsmark (mother of Cassie, the new Wonder Girl) never truly behaves like a mother. When Cassie spontaneously rushes off to help Wonder Woman in battle, the only thing Helena can do is shout for her to return. She doesn't attempt to follow. She seems more concerned with the wounded man by her side. Cassie, herself, is quite annoying. Mike Schorr? Have no clue who he is, although the book states that he is a character of some import.

This is not the way that Wonder Woman was meant to be written. John Byrne's interpretation of her is at worst THE worst interpretation of Diana. The interpretation is at best confused (I don't think he knows how to write about a heroine, or any female for that matter).

So, in my opinion, buy this book only if you are a die-hard Wonder Woman fan. If the comics are missing from your collection, don't worry. You're not missing much.

John Byrne's first collection of Wonder-Woman stories is both boring and pretentious. Long on artwork but it takes Byrne forever to get to the point of what he's trying to tell with these stories.

like i said: "a must have for WW fans". these events in the tpb relate to many of the WW themes and such now-a-days. although i find that Byrne wrote the character oddly(not following previous events in the past) he still writes well. the art is not great, but its decent. i recommend reading WW: the contest,the challenge of artemis, second genesis, gods and goddeses, and the life of wonder woman. these books deal with wonder woman differently, but show good aspects of her many great qualities.

The amazing thing is how someone who did such a good job remaking Superman in the mid 1980s could do such a horrible job here. This flies in the face of the credo of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Wonder Woman had already been recreated masterfully by the great George Perez (who collaborated with Marv Wolfman on the award winning Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths). Byrne basically shredded everything that Perez had done.

I won't even get into how he later screwed up the whole Donna Troy history. Maybe he can do Hawkman next. At least that character is so screwed up with so many revisions that Byrne can't possibly do it any more harm!

In his first story-arc, John Byrne sets out to restore Wonder Woman's long-forgotten position as one of DC's top three superheroes, with physical strength second only to that of Superman. Diana forges a new beginning for herself after the reprehensible machinations of her mother, Queen Hippolyta, caused the death of Artemis, the renegade Amazon who temporarily took over Diana's role as Wonder Woman. Diana moves from Boston to Gateway City, adopts a new look, and gains a new mentor (middle-aged museum curator, Helena Sandsmark, who has a teen daughter) and a new potential love interest (Mike Schorr, a Gateway City cop). This is NOT a good beginning from John Byrne at all - his laziness rears its head in two obvious ways. Firstly, the new look Wonder Woman is nothing more than Byrne's desire to avoid having to draw too many stars - Diana's star-spangled bottom is reduced to only two HUGE stars at the front, and none at the back. Secondly, Byrne's "new" characters show disturbing similarities with old ones created by George Perez. Helena Sandsmark is a [copy] of George Perez's creation, middle-aged archaeologist, Julia Kapatelis, Diana's previous mentor who also has a teen daughter. Gateway City cop Mike Schorr also echoes another of George Perez's creations, Boston's Inspector Indelicato, who also has a crush on Diana. Such weaknesses aside, the story does get roaring - Darkseid invades Paradise Island, slaughtering over 1,000 Amazons, before Diana manages to repel the invasion with the help of Mike Schorr. Diana is portrayed as a no-nonsense super-heroine who is well aware of her strengths. This strong characterisation of Diana has been carried over to the Justice League of America, where Diana has been portrayed as a capable and confident leader since. All in all, "Second Genesis" is not a bad read, but John Byrne's Wonder Woman stories get progressively worse in subsequent issues - in quick succession, Byrne tries to alter Hippolyta, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl / Troia's origins. In George Perez's 1986 revamp of Wonder Woman, Hippolyta was the spirit of a murdered pregnant cave woman given new life by the Greek Gods while Diana was the spirit of her unborn child. Byrne tries to subvert this new origin by introducing an unnecessary character, Magala, the Amazon mystic who looks like a cave woman, suggesting that the cave woman we saw in George Perez's first issue of Wonder Woman was actually Magala, not Hippolyta. Hippolyta somehow becomes War God Ares' daughter in a convoluted sub-plot that still eludes me. Worse still, Byrne sends Hippolyta back in time into the Second World War to become the Golden Age Wonder Woman, thus messing up all of DC Universe's continuity. In the process, Perez and Wolfman's 1988 revamped origin of Wonder Girl / Troia also gets flushed down the drain. I was truly glad when Byrne finally left Wonder Woman - Phil Jimenez has since tried to undo some of the damage Byrne caused, though not always successfully. But at least with Jimenez, we have a writer who has profound respect for Wonder Woman's history.

John Byrne's Wonder Woman tends to inspire great passions, either pro or con. So did the creative team before Byrne. And those that tended to love the early series of stories tended to hate beyond reason almost everything Byrne did with the character once he took over. For me (and contrary to earlier reviewers here), the earlier run was weak, inconsistent, too slick, and featured too much skin. This present compilation of Byrne's first story arc shows why I greatly prefered his tenure on the comic book. His Wonder Woman was strong, decisive, and had human sized breasts. He showed a willingness to really shake things up... which again I liked but some people felt uncomfortable with. My feeling is that for general, or casual readers who just want to read a good Wonder Woman story, that this should fit the bill. Characters are well developed and there is an epic feeling to the story. Partisans aside, most should enjoy this.

This textbook was our "required text" during first year medical school. I always assumed that bribery of some sort resulted in this situation, as I cannot find any redeeming qualities of this book except that it makes an excellent doorstop. Why is this book a waste of your time? Under the assumption that you are a medical student, let me tell you: it's way too detailed for any medical student to dream of ever learning during first year physiology. Let's face it- we have a lot to learn in an extremely short amount of time, and the time must be rationed wisely. Most students will never have the time or patience to sit and spend hours reading about the mathematics of diffusion (example). Some great, useful physiology textbooks are "Principles of Physiology" by Berne and Levy (the thinner paperback) and Guyton & Hall as a reference book. Don't waste your time with the Johnson.

While not the avid "reviewer" type, I thought it necessary to warn others about this text. Purchasing this book as an "optional" text for my undergraduate physiology course, I expected that it would provide clear explanations of the processes being covered in lectures. I was first disappointed in flipping through to discover that the book only includes a few diagrams all of which are entirely composed of blue and or black ink. Then, hoping to find clear explanations inside the small type, journal style, marginless and endless paragraphs, I was again disappointed.

Halfway through my full year course I am searching for more options as this book fails to help me in those desperate moments when lecture notes just don't seem to make sense. This book goes into lengthy detail with mediocre summaries, such that the reader gets lost in details (and the neverending sentences) long before any understanding of the topic occurs. The lack of diagrams leaves no other option other than finding another source.

Any students out there?? Find another book! Any GOOD text will get you through, with all the essential information you need for both personal interest and for exams.

Most students will find that learning physiology from a textbook can be quite a chore. Pure physiology books are usually so packed full of tiny text and incomprehensible diagrams that most people will be either beside themselves with panic or comatose after just a few pages. The authors of Essential Medical Physiology seem to have realised these facts and have produced a book which differs significantly from others in the field. The text is marginally larger than in comparable books and the chapters are thoroughly indexed and summarised. In short, the authors seem to be refreshingly in tune with the medical student's needs. Explanations are written in an almost informal manner and reach the level of complexity exactly appropriate for a medical degree. Processes students traditionally struggle with (such as the countercurrent exchange system in the nephron) are presented clearly and lucidly with extremely accessible accompanying diagrams that take you through the arguments step-by-step. Essential Medical Physiology also tackles any feelings of apathy towards the preclinical teaching by continually supplying the reader with 'Clinical Notes' which flag-up the importance of understanding the physiological mechanisms to the practise of clinical medicine. The figures are extremely clear and lucid throughout, despite being presenting in a two-tone blue and black format. Diagrams of this quality, however, require a large amount of space and areas slightly off the beaten track of core medical physiology have been cut to a minimum. The reader will find explanations of intracellular processes, such as protein synthesis, extremely brief - but it is not a medical physiology book that one would immediately turn to for this information. In summary, when lost in the jungle that is preclinical physiology, it is depressingly often that the book you turn to for guidance is not only ignorant of the direction you should take but doesn't even seem to speak your language. Essential Medical Physiology will not only point you in the right direction, it will draw you a map and advise you on the best guest houses for when you get out. It is a refreshingly clear book in both text and diagrams.