With the unusual talent she shows in her other Diadem novels, with the adventure's of Alytys', Jo Clayton has another winner on her hands. This novel catches our heroine working for an extraordinary group know as "Hunter,Inc.". Demands for Alytys' special talents have grown as her own understanding, of her powers, and limitations have evolved. Living up to the reputation which precedes her across the galaxy, provides Alytys' with moments of self discovery. It gives her the strength to win through battles with tough adversaries, and succeed in hopeless situations. The enjoyment Jo Clayton provides the reader is endless in the continuing saga of this mystical heroine. We learn to cheer, to cry, to laugh and to secretly thumb our nose at the enemy. We know eventually Alytys' will find the strength to over-come her own doubts, and the cunning traps set by her enemies.

Having a heroine with extraordinary powers brings this story in line with Jo Claytons previous books on the adventures of Aleytys. Sold into slavery to insectoid owners, Aleytys discovers she is to serve as proxy-mother to the old Queens successor. In short being both the bearer and food source for the embryo she carried.

With her own enhanced abilities, and the added mystical strength of the diadem, the story of Aleytys' gives us a rousing adventure with unusual twists and turns. A tough, believable, swords and sorcery story to engage the imagination and satisfy the most ardent reader searching for fantasy and satisfaction.

Moongather is book 1 in the Duel of Sorcery trilogy, and tells the story of Serroi, a "misborn of the windrunners", as both young girl and young woman (the two stories being told in parallel fashion throughout the book). For those readers who like strong female lead characters, this book would be a good choice.

The writing is very good and moves the reader along briskly. Some of the magic presented will seem familiar to D&D aficionados, not necessarily in specifics but rather in form. The tajicho, for example, an object which acts to hide its bearer from magical eyes, is created by removing an eggshaped growth in the center of the brain case of a monster called the Nyok'chui and calling down lightning on it. The various levels of Nor (or magicians) wield power through the calling and controlling of various types of demons.

Heroine is not the right word for Aleytys - attractive, telepathic, empathic, telekinetic, mystic might be closer to discribing this colorful and imaginative character. Jo Clayton weaves an engrossing tale, with a beautiful woman, a mysterious powerful artifact, hordes of half-human monsters, aliens, and the mental force of a madman of her own ancestral race. In Star Hunters Alytes is conveyed to a distant world where she must once again battle the planets unnatural forces, overcome the inhuman enemies and "triumph on all or lose everything". With each new novel in the Diadem series we are left waiting impatiently for the next new installment to enjoy.

There was too much sex. Having said that, there were passages that took too long. In addition, with the Diadem she becomes too powerfull. All in all it was a burden to finish.

This book, which starts the Diadem series, develops really slowly (think classic novel as opposed to an action packed sci-fi film). There are also several scenes at the start that seem to come from nowhere (some do make sense later in the book). However, Jo Clayton did do a good job of getting the reader involved with the character (it doesn't hurt that she's a really sexy fem with lots of power). Clayton also did a nice blend of futuristic space themes with primitive ideas of elemental magic (this becomes even more apparent in the later parts of the series). Finally, the Diadem is just really cool (I'd like to have one of my own someday).

"Diadem from the Stars" kicks off Clayton's mammoth nine-book (with a follow-up trilogy which picks up where the original series, or what's left of it, leaves off) Diadem series. This book, which (to be quite honest) is mainly exposition, introduces us to the herione of the saga, Aleytys, who was orphaned by her spacefaring mother on a barbarian world. The book concerns her discovering her past and her powers, and her escape from the tribe who fears and resents her. In the course of her travels to find a way offworld to her home planet, she comes across the diadem, an alien artefact which, when she dons it, implants itself permamently into her skull and endows her with mysterious and fearful powers. The story unfolds in a manner similar to Tanith Lee's classic "The Birthgrave", but not as moody and bombastic. I quite enjoyed Clayton's writing style, and look forward to reading more of her work.

In "Drum Warning," Book One of "The Drums of Chaos," an apprentice wizard doesn't earn his diploma until he kills his teacher, tans the old mage's hide and fashions a drum out of it. One would expect this custom to lead to a dearth of wizards on the two magically merging planets of Glandair and Iomard, but just the opposite is true. There are wizards who walk between worlds, wizards who cast death spells, wizards who do nothing but scribe, and yet more wizards who exercise what fantasy readers might consider the whole magical repertoire. Adding to the confusion, "Drum Warning" is told from multiple points-of-view---not just wizards, but the occasional swamp witch and minor bureaucrat. I finally had to sort the characters out by function:

There are three bad wizards who are murdering all would-be students on their way to a school of magery (in which the teachers don't end up as drum-heads). There are two teen-agers, a boy and a girl, who refuse to admit to their magical potential until the bad wizards attempt to kidnap the girl, sink a couple of ships out from under the boy, then try to drop a mountain on him when he refuses to drown. There is a bandit-wizard, on the run from a troop of female warriors who want to geld him. He seduces an alcoholic wizard, who--

A plot does somehow stay afloat in this confusion of magic. One of the young mages is destined to become the Hero who saves the merging planets of Glandair and Iomard (I don't quite understand the astronomy here) from chaos. There had been a collision seven hundred years past, when everything went to chaos. Libraries burned. Empires crumbled. Network T.V. ratings declined.

Can a young Hero save Glandair and Iomard from another time of chaos and bad programming? We're not even positive who will assume the role of Hero, although my money is on the twice-drowned boy. Nevertheless lots of interesting stuff takes place in "Drum Warning" while we wait for the Hero to appear. Little Gods torment cats, sour milk, and trash vegetable gardens. Big Gods make an occasional appearance and precipitate weird happenings (rather in the style of British royalty). An emperor is seduced by the Dark Side. An army marches into the realm of the swamp witch. Ships sink. A wizard is turned into a drum.

All of this makes good reading for a rainy day, if you can keep track of who is telling the story.

This confused, unwieldy fantasy novel is one of the last written by Ms. Clayton, and unfortunately is far from her best work. It's the story of two worlds drawing closer and closer together until the boundary between them dissipates and characters can talk, or even travel, between one and the next. This is an original conception. Drum Warning also uses ritual magic in fresh, well-described ways. However, it is a severely flawed novel. There are too many characters and too many ill-defined subplots -- and most of the characters are young adults, a common fantasy novel device that I'm thoroughly sick of. Also, Clayton does something annoying to me, which is to use Welsh language and poetic forms for some of the names and poetry of one of her worlds -- without basing the culture on medieval (or any other period) Welsh culture in any way, and in many cases with the names and words being meaningless. I would have preferred her to have invented her own culture and language rather than "borrowing" something from Earth. I also disliked the pointlessly cruel death of the young girl's pets, which is depressing without advancing the plot. This book isn't unreadable -- there's certainly worse fantasy out there -- but I don't really recommend it.

A young & curious girl is bound to two young metamorphic beings by a little known god. Beings of energy, the creatures change the girl, maturing her body and changing her features.

The village of the girl is pillaged and she vows to avenge her people by hunting down the bandits. Then she discovers what it means to be bound to two young creatures made of energy and a god who wants to be free. For the only way for them to survive is to feed on the energy of souls.

Aleytys' quest for her mother's homeworld and her stolen son must wait, while she saves yet another world from its exploitative imperialists. "The Company" has recently changed its trade policies toward the cludair people of the rainforest and the cerdd of the plains. Aleytys must rely on her diplomacy, psi ability, and the cast of characters in the diadem interwoven into her head and mind. In a city where a woman's place is in the bed she must contend with company spies, pimps, and a man who hunts the ancient parasite that could level the world of Maeve.

This book has many of the author's strengths: vivid visual description, intensely detailed societies, interesting interpersonal relationships. It also has some of her weaknesses: overly exotic words and names, characters with too much power, characters speaking in nonsense syllables far too much of the time. The sequel to Wild Magic, Wildfire concerns Faan's ongoing search for her mother and her struggle to control her increasingly powerful firestarting magic. Some of the characters, particularly Sabuse and Varney, are not as well drawn as they probably deserve, and I got tired of Faan's adolescent temper. There's also a huge plot inconsistency concerning a black horse which does, or doesn't, get eaten by woodfolk. Despite all that, I found the book to be original, lively and generally a fun read.

Hi I just wanted to comment on your Intro to Hosptality book. I am a college student using this book I also work in the hospitality field and most of the materials and questions given on tests doesn't happen in the "real world" I find that this book doesn't comply with the day to day activity of the hospitality field and the stuff we learn in class is suppost to help us when we get out of school however this learning material doesn't I am not saying this book is porely written just the material in this book is very vague and doesn't go with the things we learn on the job. For example a question on one of the test it asks To meet the competition, upscale restaurants are likey to emphasize on ? your anwser was discounts for people over 65 and another anwser was service. Upscale resturants rely on SERVICE the better the service, the more likey the people will come back! It doesn't matter if your 65 or 25. That was just one example. The whole book has misleading questions that isn't the way the hospitality feild is. And I just figure the whole point of going to school is once you leave the class is to take what you have learned and apply it to every day activity in your hospitality feild. And this book doesn't do that I think this was a waste of my money! I spent about 65 dollars on a book that was useless! I don't mean to be so critical but I pay for school my self and working full time and being a full time student I try to get everything out of my classes I can and get my moneys worth. And this being a required class it doesn't measure up to par and this is not only my opinion but my fellow class mates also.