The Robot's Twilight Companion is a superb collection of science fiction short stories by Tony Daniel and presented under one cover for the first time. These outstanding tales of imagination include: Life On The Moon; A Dry, Quiet War; Radio Praha; Aconcagua; Black Canoes; Death Of Reason; Mystery Box; Grist; and the title piece, The Robot's Twilight Companion. This highly recommended anthology offers an introduction for science fiction fans to one of today's best storytelling talents and will leave them wanting more!

The Robot's Twilight Companion is a brilliant compendium of stories by one of the best and the brightest (not to mention criminally underappreciated) young writers in America. Read it and stretch your mind so far out of shape you will never see the world in the same way again. If you like Philip K. Dick, Stanislaw Lem, or even William Faulkner, Tony Daniel's books belong on your shelves -- and in your head! Make The Robot's Twilight Companion your companion and I guarantee it will be the start of a beautiful relationship.

Dark Horse Comics has established itself as a premier publisher of contemporary comics and graphic novels that sets the standard for art in the service of story telling. One of the latest and best examples of this is Tony Daniel and Martin Egeland's Adrenalynn: Weapon Of War. This is the story of a young crippled girl, Sabina Nikoli, who is plucked from a Russian orphanage, extensively operated upon to equip her with biomechanical prosthetics, and trained to be a cyborg assassin: codename "Adrenalynn". She is to be Russia's ultimate Cold War weapon. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union all she wants is to escape her "hunt and kill" assignments -- directed primarily at other Russian cyborgs who have "gone rogue". But the way to personal freedom is one of blood, violence, and heartbreak. Adrenalynn: Weapon Of War is a superb graphic novel that engages the reader's total and rapt attention from beginning to end.

Danial Fox has written a very informative book that I would highly recommend to anyone intrested in Great Plains arrowheads.I found the section on lithic materials very helpful and the pictures of artifacts fantastic. It's packed cover to cover with good information.

If you've just started to collect Spawn comics, this book is a great key on the Spawn saga. And if you're already an Spawn reader, you can't miss this Volume 8 for your personal collection. A must have for REAL Spawn fans!

I felt that this book is wonderful for children from about 1 year to three or four years. My son, 3 years old, has gone through two copies of this book. The first one fell apart because he carried it with him everywhere and always wanted to read it. He had to sleep with it too. It was and is his favorite book. I think he really enjoyed reciting the words back until he had memorized the book. Then he would read it back to me. This made him feel good about himself. Kids always want to know about monsters and witches and such, and this book answers some questions for them. It keeps their attention with a great topic and storyline, as well as the colrful illustrations. I would highly reccomend this cute book to anyone with young children.

Just returned from Paris where the Lonely Planet guide once again proved the value of the series. I have used their guides in Italy, Spain and Mexico. They have consistently proved to have the most detailed information and are marked by their slightly-off-the-beaten-path restaurant advice; if you want to eat where and what the locals eat at excellent prices and with marvelous service, BUY THIS BOOK. I am still remembering the tartare du poissons and the lapin aux pruneaux--and with wine and dessert less than $25 per person.

I was traveling with a friend who had purchased a guidebook from another well-known series. She soon announced that , "Your guidebook gives better directions and has more accurate information."

3.5 stars.
I have to say - I am a die hard "Let's Go" and "Frommer's" follower; I hardly EVER stray to another series. I was initially drawn in by the flashy pictures and the more robust content of history. I picked it up, and have found it interesting, if nothing else. Now... my trip is a couple of months off, so I haven't been able to verify whether the advice given is on target. (I would never doubt Let's Go - they are the difinitive guide in my opinion [Let's Go, Europe]) So far, I've found that they seem to focus on giving loads of general information about a particular arrondissement and then some details about very few specific establishments. Again, I enjoyed the history lessons - it helped to build the excitement of our upcoming trip. It's a better than average guide with pretty pictures.

For my wife, 14-year-old nephew, 12-year-old neice and I, the Lonely Planet guide to Paris was perfect. (Nephew and neice to uncle: "No museums!") It suggested renting bicycles at the train station to ride to Giverny and told us on which days and at what times we could rent toy boats in the Jardin du Luxembourg -- two highlights of our trip. It suggested getting the Carte Orange Metro pass and explained the airports so well that we had the courage to take the train into the city (which worked out very well). The one restaurant suggestion we took from the guidebook (Le Bateau Lavoir in Montmarte) was very nice. The maps were useful (but you still need a pocket map book) and the book is not too large or fat. I liked the color pictures before the trip, and now that I open the book, I like them even more as a momento. We also had the Frommers, Michelin and Eyewitness Paris books. They were better as references. The Lonely Planet guide was better to have at hand while we were out and about. I wish it gave prices in Euros and not Francs, but I assume the next edition will.

_Metaplanetary_ is a grand, involving, novel set in 3013 C. E., in a fully colonized solar system which is about to burst into a vicious civil war. It is chock full of neat, if perhaps not always fully plausible (indeed at times quite wacky), SFnal ideas. It managed to excite my somewhat jaded sense of wonder, and it made me care deeply about quite a few characters, and it advances some interesting and worthwhile moral themes. Its main flaw is that it doesn't end so much as stop -- it's part of a two book series (the sequel will be called _Superluminal_), and it really does not stand alone. (This is not indicated on the published book, for which the publisher should be criticized.) Another, lesser, flaw, perhaps, is that the villain is really evil -- no moral ambiguity there.

The solar system in 3000 or so is divided into basically two sections. The inner system, called the Met, consists of the inner four planets, and a gloriously weird system of tubes connecting them, which makes the whole thing look like a spider web, sort of. Many people seem to live in the tubes, or in nodes of the system, called bolsas. Mercury, with all that energy available, is the dominant planet. Earth has been largely returned to nature.

The outer planetary systems have all been colonized, with varying degrees of success. Triton, Neptune's big moon, is one of the most successful colonies. In addition, a number of artificially intelligent ships live permanently in space, particularly the Oort clouds, and they have traveled as far as Alpha Centauri. (These are called cloudships.) The Met doesn't reach to the outer system because the asteroid belt is impractical to cross with the tubes (perhaps due simply to authorial fiat).

Besides the Met, the other key SFnal notion of the book is "grist". Basically, grist is very "smart" nanotech. Most if not all humans have an integrated bunch of grist attached, called a pellicle, which hosts a version of their personality in AI form, called a convert. There are also "free converts", AI's based on scans of human brains but which don't have a biological body. Humans can interact with both free converts and with the "attached" converts of other humans in Virtual space, and all of the system, pretty much, is instantaneously connected by a grist network called the merci. And some humans are what are called LAP's -- Large Array of Personas: they are in essence a network of clones and converts that can be physically and virtually in many places at once.

For the most part, the solar system is in something of a Golden Age. The physical needs of people seem to be well supplied. A critical political issue is the rights of "free converts". Some do not consider them "Human" -- they are just computer programs, in this view, without real free will, without, if you will, "souls". But others, especially in the outer system, regard them as clearly human.

The novel is told from a variety of points of view: a couple of cloudships; a free convert named Danis Graytor; Danis' human husband Kelly; their daughter Aubry (who has a human body but is considered a "half free convert"); an artificial woman named Jill with a body made of grist and a brained based on a ferret's; Colonel Roger Sherman, the military leader of Triton's forces; Sherman's son Lee; Director Ames, the leader of the Met government; General San Filieu, an aging Catalan woman under Ames influence who leads the Met attack on Triton; and more. This gives us a good look at the variety of ways people live in this future, and at what it is like to be a free convert, or a cloudship, or a human with a pellicle and convert attachment, or a LAP. This also helps keep the action moving, important in a fairly long book.

The action of the novel is exciting and fascinating. We see atrocities, such as some clever means of torturing AIs, and a brutal attack on Triton with some scary uses of space tech; and we see heroism in the resistance to these atrocities. We see convincing depictions of sex between humans and AIs, and of alternate means of travel in a physically linked solar system, and of AI entertainment. We get useful glimpses of the history of this future: the young life of Director Ames, the development of the cloudships, the invention of grist and the merci. It's a fairly long book, but never boring.

The main characters are fully rounded. I found the villains interesting, but it must be admitted that they are depicted with rather a broad brush of evil. Daniel gives his different characters and narrators different voices. His prose is generally sound, occasionally lapsing into cliche, but at other times very nice. His scope is vast, and his theme is one of the great SF themes: "What is a human?" He illustrates this nicely with his array of characters of vastly different "shape" or composition; and he metaphorically illustrates even more nicely the associated conflict of viewpoints between individualists and collectivists: hinting by the end at a truly scary collectivist vision. The scary parts of the book are convincing and often quite original, and very scary: and the heroism is moving and believable. I really liked this book.

I picked this book up on a whim, but I ended up being very glad I did so.

It was a bit slow getting into the book, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit, in spite of some bits that annoyed me. A very minor spoiler at the end of this review.

Overall the book was well written and it kept me interested enough to finish it fairly quickly. The characters were pretty well developed, though this definitely leaned in the direction of being a milieux-driven story. The basic plot is pretty straightforward; we have an interplanetary society with very high technology scattered all over it, and war is coming.

Very high technology; Daniel's book is an intriguing depiction of a society which has:

- deeply embraced and omnipresent nanotechnology,

- superstructures (including a sort of web of vast, nano-constructed supermaterial interplanetary monorails),

- a quantum FTL communication-based cyberspace,

- and is going through social upheavals in coming to terms with the the fact of a large population of AIs as members of society.

I think this would have been enough to keep me pretty well interested by itself, but I found the characters and the plot well-drawn enough that I don't have to make that excuse for this book.

There were various bits about the AI stuff that were naive enough to annoy me, but overall Daniel kept the AI stuff high-level enough that I could ignore those slips.

First, even through some of the more interesting action scenes, the whole thing felt oddly contemplative. Then again, that may just be my current state of mind. I generally don't seek out contemplative books, but there have been a few that really worked for me. This ended up being one of them.

Second, it's one of those multi-character, multi-points-of-view extravaganzas. I suppose any novel of an interplanetary war across the solar system would be inclined towards that. Not to say that this is a valid criticism of the book, it's just usually not to my taste. I enjoyed this book in spite of that contemplative feel, not because of it.

Finally, the spoiler: this book, thick as it is, is only the events leading up to and the opening acts of the war. There is definitely going to be a sequel. I generally find this annoying as all get out, but in this case I'm not sure. And I guess that shows you my overall opinion of the book.

I have read a lot of good science fiction lately (see my recent reviews) and this is another fine example. It would make a great movie if done true to this work. The premise of this novel is 'what constitutes a human being' and it is present throughout this book. A civil war erupts in the solar system, and much of this war concerns itself about whether or not intelligent algorithms, that is, conscious computers and/or programs, should be allowed full human rights, or are they just property. And what constitutes human status in the first place, do they have to look like us, and think like us, can they be faster, better, and more rational, than original humans? This novel is set one thousand years into the future with a despot attempting to rule the solar system and impose his will on all.

Tony Daniel illustrates how we come to rely on our technology, and take it for granted, and are at a loss when we lose it. He has a multitude of interesting characters here, all with superb character development, in a complex well written plot, very imaginative in the 'hard' science fiction tradition, and it was hilarious at times. Nanotechnology, which is called grist in this novel, allows many things to become possible, and would seem to be near magic to us here in the early 21st century.

My only criticism for this book is that Daniel has these characters living 1000 years from now in a world where immortality is not quite here yet, give me a break, nanotech should give immortality to us well before then, I do not take a star off my review for this, my opinion. And there is a sequel coming to this novel, called "Superluminal", I look forward to it.

I spent a few weeks this summer in Cambodia and relied heavily on this book. While this may be the definitive Cambodian guidebook, it is dangerously outdated. So much has changed in Cambodia since the second edition was published in November 1996. Much of the basic information and maps are helpful but I would not rely on any of the places to stay reviews, prices, or schedules. The Cambodia section of the Lonely Planet SE Asia on a Shoestring has a more recent review and was much more helpful. Hopefully an update is in the works.

I used the first edition. It had so much important and interesting information. I wore its maps out, the finest maps available. There was no other source for the information. People living there didn't know what bank could get wire transfers. I left the book with NGOs in country for their use as a valuable resource. If you are contemplating any independant exploration your biggest help will be this book. How did they get so much information. They must have gone everywhere and did everything. Small country, small book I'ld have missed much without. WOW!!

I highly recommend this book to masochists. The lack of any coherent plot really allows the book to go into compeltely unpredictable areas.

Earthling is an amusing little read but that's about it. The idea is not especially original and the execution is poor. Written in three sections, Earthling lacks coherence and refuses to yield a single remarkable character. If you want good science fiction, look elsewhere.

This was a surprising, fascinating read. I am turned on by his stark, earthy and pure poetry. Daniel is immensely imaginative, intelligent and courageous writer. I was moved and inspired. I definitely enjoyed 'Earthling'. Looking forward to the sequel of 'Metaplanetary'- another must read!

Goodness knows why you would ever want to purchase this travel guide, now that it's several years out of date and probably extremely tough to get a hold of. If, however, you do buy this guide, you should be aware that the country has simmered down greatly since it was written and researched. While there is still some banditry, by and large the country is a pleasant and tame area in which to travel. This guide, however, will forever be a period piece of Cambodia's tragic years.