Where the World Does Not Follow combines spectacular photography of China's most remote mountains, with translations of the beautiful and simple poetry of ancient buddhist hermits who once inhabited them. The book opens anywhere to reveal Steven R. Johnson's incredible photographs matched on the facing page, with Mike O'Connor's artfully rendered translations. Each photograph and each poem in this masterful collection is among the very best I have seen, but the greater joy is how - taken together - each pair of photographs and poems creates an object of profound beauty and simplicity. Where the World Does Not Follow is as unique as it is beautiful.

This book is a must have book, for those that want to do campaign s where you have mixed characters, or just want to give extra flavor to your stories. It about time White Wolf released a book to explain in cleaner detail, what really happened with the Tremere, what is all that brought them there, and how the Order of Hermes really feels about it. This is besides the point of making rules for the revenant, ghoul mages...

Using the framework of classic Greek drama for thefiction/metaplot parts, Cohen and DiPesa have put together the first compelling book of Mage's Revised Edition.

For some reason, even though he's listed on the cover, Mr. DiPesa gets no credit with Amazon. What is the deal with that?

Postmodern rubbish. Get a bloody postmodern job!

As a student at Birkbeck College Steven Connor's will be my tutor this year - lucky or what!

This novel has stayed on my mind ever since I read it. It's so frustrating that Dickens died before completing this novel. On the other hand, the fact that this classic British mystery was never finished has created a great opportunity for literary critics and mystery lovers alike to try to solve the mystery for themselves. We'll never know who Dickens really had in mind as the murderer, or if indeed there was a murder after all. That's a huge loss. But it's a great ride for readers to try to make up their own minds.

I still haven't made up my mind about who did it. Sure, there is a very obvious suspect in Jasper, but that doesn't mean Dickens thought he did it. Some people have speculated that Dickens wrote this novel as a tribute to his friend Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone," so perhaps the opium addiction would have played a huge part in the mystery. It's even possible that Dickens saw a bit of himself in Jasper's tortured love life because of the way it paralleled his own life. After all, Cloisterham is supposed to be based on Dickens' Rochester. Then again, just because Dickens sympathized with someone, that doesn't mean that character was innocent, either, does it? Now you see why this story continues to torment mystery lovers.

Like any other Dickens novel, this one has lots of memorable characters, from the suspicious and tormented Jasper to the Reverend Crisparkle to Princess Puffer. And of course, the enigmatic Datchery. The gravedigger and his obnoxious but perceptive boy assistant provide both Dickensian eccentric characters and possible clues.

The power of this book even today is clear in the way it inspired an award-winning Broadway musical where the audience got to solve the mystery on their own. (By the way, 1935 movie with Claude Rains was good, but some of the main characters were cut out, and others seemed little like the characters in the book, even if they were fine actors.)

Anne M. Marble
All About Romance and Holly Lisle's Forward Motion Writing Community

It is a tribute to Charles Dickens' reputation that to this day this unfinished novel, a mystery no less, still garners such speculation as to who allegedly murdered Edwin Drood. There are organizations created for the sole purpose of analyzing the novel and to theorizing whom the culprit may have been, if indeed there really was a culprit. After all, only Drood's watch and his shirt pin are produced, not his body.

As in all of Dickens' novels, the characterizations are the thing. You have the innocent young woman with the somewhat eccentric guardian and his Bob Cratchitlike assistant. There is the dark, possibly unfairly accused, but hot headed antagonist of Drood. Then there is Drood's brooding choirmaster uncle, John Jasper, who frequents opium dens, and who may or may not have ulterior motives in his seeking revenge. Durdles, the stone mason, and a somewhat weird character, provides some chilling comic relief in cemetery scenes with his stone throwing assistant. There are also the typical Dickensian characters, which includes a snooty older woman, a class conscious, spinsterish school mistress, and in a hilarious restaurant scene, an unappreciated, hard working "flying waiter" and a lazy, wise acre "stationary waiter."

It is a shame that Dickens died before he could complete "Edwin Drood." What is here are the beginnings of an exploration of man's dual nature, a journey into "the heart of darkness" so to speak.

It is so strange to see a long, well-plotted novel suddenly come to a dead stop. (Of a projected twelve episodes, Dickens wrote six before his death.) The title character is either murdered or missing, and a large cast of characters in London and Cloisterham (Dickens's Rochester) are involved in their own way in discovering what happened to Edwin Drood.

There is first of all John Jasper, an opium addict who suspiciously loves Drood's ex-fiancee; there is a nameless old woman who dealt him the opium who is trying to nail Jasper; there is a suspicious pile of quicklime Jasper notices during a late night stroll through the cathedral precincts; there is Durdles who knows all the secrets of the Cathedral of Cloisterham's underground burial chambers; there is the "deputy," a boy in the pay of several characters who has seen all the comings and goings; there are the Anglo-Indian Landless twins, one of whom developed a suspicious loathing for Drood; there is the lovely Rosebud, unwilling target of every man's affections; and we haven't even begun talking about Canon Crisparkle, Datchery, Tartar, and a host of other characters. All we know is that the game is afoot, but we'll never know the outcome.

It would have been nice to know how Dickens tied together all these threads, but we can still enjoy THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD because -- wherever Dickens was heading with it -- it is very evidently the equal of his best works. Life is fleeting, and not all masterpieces are finished.

Not mind-blowing, and the scenarios at the back seemed thrown together in a bit of a rush, but the core of the book worked well and was useful to me as a GM. The background history, geography and political scene were good, easy to use and had plenty of fun game hooks in them. The individual islands and their inhabitants were well-described and colorful. I have used Aegis as a base for my players and was delighted to be able to flesh it out better with this source book. This and 'Planet of Darkness' make a nice pair of opposites (in terms of contents, not quality).

The System Guide to Aegis was a very informative book on the governments and powers that run the system and a few adventure hooks too. All in all a rather good book to add to your shelf of alternity books, it provides much information about bluefall (the system's water dominated planet) and the deepfallen (bluefall's sentient race). If you have the cash, then get the book. The only thing i didnt like was the art, but the info was great.

It's a ok runner up from the last one. The book looks at a few systems they passed over last time, along with a few new ones. Overall the creatures are real good and designed well. Yet, if you have read the book Zero Point, then this is a must have for the new extarnels offered in this is well worth the money!

For the younger reader exploring Charles Dickens, this abridged version will not be intimidating. It'll help open the door to classic literature, and challenging ideas.

"Oliver Twist" is a complex story about the English welfare system for orphans, overlayed by a story of love, family, and the pursuit of each.

What is missing from this version is Dickens' long descriptions and thorough presentations of a situation. What makes Dickens great, in part, is his multi-woven characters, filled with color and excitement. Some of that is lost here.

That said, this is an excellent choice for an older child having trouble reading, or the younger, aggressive reader. The story about Oliver Twist is strong enough to endure an adaptation, but, later on, it is a thrill to read the original version.

I fully recommend "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens.

Anthony Trendl

Like so many of Dickens' novels, Oliver Twist is a fantastically crafted and engrossing novel. Dickens follows the life of a young orphan boy, Oliver, who grows up amidst desperate poverty in London in the early 19th Century. Dickens leads the reader on a delightful and engaging romp, as Oliver escapes his orphanage, gets mixed up in the wrong crowd, and ultimately comes out on top.

The story within Oliver Twist is very engrossing, replete with many twists, turns and surprises that are occasionally tragic but more often witty or flat out hilarious. The characters are all superbly developed, and the multiple story lines are intricately and cleverly woven together. Oliver Twist is an excellent introduction to Dickens, and patient readers will find this novel accessible. The intricate plotline does require some concentration, while some readers may be annoyed by Dickens' notoriously lengthy sentences.

This is an important book to read for it is heavily engrained in Anglo-American culture and most first-time readers will recognize many of the names (Fagin, Artful Dodger) and scenes from previous cultural references. While clearly enjoyable at the superficial level, the novel also makes a powerful statement about poverty and the power of the human spirit in the face of depravity.

This book surprised me, not by the quality of its writing, which one can expect from Charles Dickens, but by the violent, lusty primal quality of the story. This is no dry musty tome, but a vital novel that arouses both passion and intellect. A literal page turner, I found myself having more than one sleepless night when I just couldn't put it down.

Inside are some of the major characters in the realm of fiction; Fagin and his gang of child thieves, including the Artful Dodger. Nancy, the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold. Master Charles Bates (was this a pun even then?) Bad Bill Sikes, who shows the darker edge to all of this dangerous fun, and the innocent, pure Oliver Twist, who is the very definition of nature over nurture.

A great book, and one that I am glad to have finally read.

"Traps Ate" is not nearly as good as the first few books in the series; the traps in this one are sillier and thus less useful to a game master. I prefer the cleverer traps in the earlier books. The traps here tend towards excessive detailed overkill. Still somewhat humorous, but I'd guess most of the traps in this book are designed by younger gamemasters who are aiming for ridiculous ways to kill characters, rather than the very game-playable traps of the earlier books.