A superb mix of suspense and humour, Tourists is the tale of Canadian English instructor Philip Bannister's confession of multiple murder as a solution to a bad vacation. His trip to Mexico with his wife, Joan, becomes a nightmare of the absurd once the not-so-loving couple link up with two live wires from Lincoln, Nebraska--Ted and Corky Hacker. The Americans seem to bring out the worst in Joan Bannister, much to poor Philip's chagrin, and Ted's behaviour towards Philip is dangerously unpredictable, swinging from bullying to friendly to violent, long before Ted's wife is coming on to our confused Canadian and he is reciprocating.

The book is fraught with sexual tension, as the Hackers make various shocking overtures to the Bannisters, either as a sort of tag-team, or individually, when the other isn't looking. Ted Hacker in particular seems to delight in childish mindgames. Philip finds himself in a terrible position when he wishes the Hackers would disappear--their aggravating, disruptive presence becomes more and more intolerable--only to see his wife joining their camp, so to speak, and accusing him of being a wet blanket.

Incidents erupting between the two couples are at times amusing, and at times riotous, but there is always a touch of the unsettling. Ted Hacker is creepily persistent in his psycho-torture of Philip, and Philip, in turn, slowly develops into a narrator on the edge, who becomes like a firecracker waiting to explode. When things between these tourists do come to a head--when Philip can take no more of his vacation from hell--the final chapters seem a bit hasty. Philip makes a leap that perhaps is not fully explained. Sure, we've seen him endure degradation, but we are not provided with the internal workings of his mind, as this narrator is pushed to a wicked deed of, what, revenge?--insanity?--closure and return to peace? Hard to say why our narrator does what he does in the final pages. Nevertheless, the book mostly succeeds as some kind of comic-crime novel with a disturbing edge to it.

The Weekend Man, Richard Wright's novel of a sales representative in an educational publishing house wading through life, is often hailed as a classic. I disagree, not because this isn't a good book -- it is -- but it lacks something, or perhaps it has too much of other things -- melancholy, perhaps immobility. The book is humorous, as Wright offsets incongruent elements; his timing is excellent. But there is something that drags you down about this novel. You want Wes Wakeham to wake up, to throw off his dreary everyman appearance and at the very least disagree with someone. But that's the whole point, I know, that he doesn't. Well, the device works -- Wes grinds you down. You want success for him that he doesn't want for himself. But success finds Wakeham whether he wants it to or not, with women, his job, his son.

The setting, Toronto about 1970, is sweet, almost quaint. The world was much quieter before the advent of 24-hour news services and the Internet, as Wright aptly shows. (The novel was first published in 1970, so it is a novel of the times, not a period piece.) The sexual and office politics are on the money. The characters are believable. They are everyone we know.

A fine novel, but not a masterpiece, not the great Canadian novel. A good read, all the same.

The information given in this book frequently goes againt the canon of ethics set up by the Association of Author Representatives. It gives a detailed listing, for instance, of "fees" that an agent can charge an author. (AAR says that legitimate agents do not charge up-front fees to authors.) In addition, it had a severe paucity of useful information. The chapter on negotiation had only one paragraph on royalties, and it did not even address the issue of royalties being charged on retail price versus net receipts--something imperative for an agent to discuss and negotiate.

I am a literary agent and when I was starting out I found this book to be a great help. I didn't start by working in a publishing house, so I needed a lot of instruction. This is the first book I found that had the information I needed. I think it also helps authors who want to send in their own work. I would highly recommend this as one of the few helpful agent books that are on the market.

This book takes you step-by-step through the business of literary representation covering everything from setting up your business, finding and working with writers, locating the best publishers, working with editors, and making the sale, to negotiating contracts. It reveals the many fascinating inside secrets about getting published. Although written primarily for people considering careers as literary agents, this book also explains how you can be your own agent. Writers don't need agents if they know how to approach publishers, properly prepare and send submissions, and deal with editors--all of which are covered in this book. You will learn how to present yourslf as a professional and get the same respect that is given to successful authors and agents.

I reviewed the third edition of this book for the American Statistician in 1994. The book covers most of the important topics for an applied course and has a reasonable list of references. There are many examples and homework exercises. Statistical software packages such as SAS and MINITAB are used throughout in example problems. The early chapters cover the basics of statistical inference and regression (Chapters 2-5). This material can be skipped in a first time series course if introductory statistics is a prerequisite.

The latter chapters cover time series regression, seasonal decomposition methods, exponential smoothing and Box-Jenkins methods. But this book does not include nonlinear time series models and it overlooks the recent and popular state space approach to time series modeling. Multivariate time series methods are also left out, though perhaps they are more appropriate for an advanced or second course in time series analysis.

The cookbook nature of the text can be found in the guidelines given for Box-Jenkins model identification. The statistical theory that the methods rely on is avoided. Although a number of important probability distributions are used with their relevant statistical tables, the underlying assumptions and distributional theory is completely avoided. Important concepts such as the central limit theorem and the concept of a stationary stochastic process are given only very brief treatment. Other concepts are oversimplified to avoid the need for the development of any distribution theory.

This book will serve well for a course in which the student is interested in how to implement exponential smoothing and the general class of Box-Jenkins models through the use of standard statistical packages. However if the instructor wants depth of understanding the text is not adequate. Frequecy domain methods often useful in engineering applications are not even discussed.

While the book covers forecasting applications, it does not consider applications to decomposition of variance or discriminant analysis. Time series methods are also applicable in these contexts. Abraham and Ledolter (1984) "Statistical Methods for Forecasting" cover the same topics but in much greater depth. Also Janacek and Swift (1993) "Time Series: Forecasting, Simulation, Applications" is slightly more advanced and provides broader coverage. Anyone interested in the theory can consult a number of good books including the latest edition of Brockwell and Davis "Time Series: Theory and Methods". Shumway and Stoffer (2000) "Time Series Analysis and Its Applications" is up-to-date, comprehensive and has many good engineering applications.

This book covers step by step methodology and theory for the basic time series concepts. It has worked out examples with even the most rudimentary calculations demonstrated for complex subjects like ARMA and Box-Cox decomposition. It is a good book for basic practitioners and those with a basic interest in time series analysis

Finally a way to get MET info w/o spending $12 a pop for games I may never play (Oblivion comes to mind). The opportunity to write in offers an excelent sounding board to tell your stories to people outside your group (and like all good tubists, I love tellin' stories). I look forward to future issues with hopes of a subscription possibillity.

I picked this book up and was skeptical at first, of course, because of the connotations that could evolve from such a publication. "Oh no, another book of fluff. More stuff to buy." But after reading it cover to cover, I'd have to say I was quite impressed. No ad's really (just ones telling you about future White Wolf Mind's Eye Theater publications) , full of USEFUL information, including the all important forum and FAQ sections, as well as a listing of LARP's for all genres in the WoD. I can see this will be a great tool for communication in the world LARP community and is must for Live Action Storytellers and players everywhere. Good job guys!

My main problem with the book is that it was'nt published in color. For Richard Corben material this is a major sin. I have no reason why it was'nt published in color, but even in black and white corben's art is superb.

The secondary problem would be that of Bruce Jones's story. This is definitly not one of his best offerings to go along with Corben's artwork.

If the book would have been published in color I'm sure I would have given it a 5 star rating because of Corben's breathtaking color art. However, with this effort in black and white, and the weak story (which could have been overcome with color art) the best I can give is 3 stars out of 5.

A was, at one time, a big Corben fan. I collected everything of his that I could get my hands on. As time went by, however, I realized that the stories he supplies artwork for really aren't that great: they seem to be first structured around his exaggerated art (you know what I mean), with good storytelling second, or third, even. I ended up eventually getting rid of my whole collection, but I kept this one. The art is more "normalized", not much exaggeration. He's actually using restraint, and it looks great. Also, the story is very well structured, smooth flow, even though it "cheats" you on the ending (of course, that's the risk you run with reading a time travel story). It's interesting to see how Jones and Corben weave their talents together to present this story in an almost cinematic fashion - the scene/time changes were particularly impressive. I agree with the other reviewer about the black and white art - to do such beautiful work for this book and not have it in color is a real disservice, especially when the covers WERE in color. What a tease.

Here is good evidence why Indiana is not a mecca of fine wines. Mr. Vine needs to take a few classes at U.C. Davis or read any of Amerine's books. The faults are too many but he did do a good job by inserting Government Regs and a lot of tables that would be hard for him to screw-up.

This book touches on all parts of the winemaking business from vineyard costs to winery costs and designs to marketing your wines. It has a good section on analytical testing procedures and 50 pages of charts, tables and conversions that come in handy.

The section on vineyard costs details year by year expenses from start-up through year 7. I also found the feasibility and finance section very helpful in starting up my own winery. The section on government regulations was very helpful in warning any prospective winery owners of what the ATF and state regulators expect. There are plenty of examples of good record keeping that various governments expect you to keep on hand at all times.

Of course this book also has 117 pages of good winemaking details along with good sections on microbiology, winery equipment, barrels and label designs. If this book has any obvious fault it would be that it does not go deep enough into some of these subjects, but then it would be thousands of pages long instead of the 440 pages it is.

An all around great book on winemaking and the rest of the business that goes with a winery and it's operation. This book has lots of good business information in it that I have not seen in any other winemaking book. I recommend it for anyone who not only wants to make great wine but also is serious about starting his own commercial winery.

As a wine 'amateur' (French meaning - no French person would ever say they were a 'connossieur' of wine, as one can never know it), this book was great in teaching more of the nuts and bolts of the wine biz. Grab this online somewhere - hopefully Amazon.com's out-of-print service - but grab it - it is very interesting.

Mesoamerican archaeology is a little world by itself - I know, because I used to live in it. It has a very cosy relationship with museums and the "art" collectors who buy the objects that are looted from archaeological sites, which lie destroyed, torn into shreds under the forests all over Central America and Mexico. But it has almost no touch with reality any more. The things they say about the ancient Olmec are almost fantasy, because in truth we know so little about these people. Almost all the objects in this book were stolen from Mexico, ripped from the archaeological context that might tell us something about their real meaning. These are probably religious articles - we may never know. But imagine trying to reconstruct the rich life of rennaisance Italy by looking at reliquaries in Catholic churches! If you are still persuaded by the "mysterious Olmec" propaganda spouted by Coe and his looter buddies, go read Flannery & Marcus in the first 2000 issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, and think it over.

The Olmec World is an amazing resource for those who study or have an appreciation of early Mesoamerican Art. At its most basic level The Olmec World is the catalogue of the 1996 Olmec Exhibition at the Art Museum at Princeton University the first comprehensive show of Olmec art in America. Drawing upon nearly all of the major Olmec museum collections in North America from Dunbarton Oaks to Princeton's own expansive holdings, the exhibition also drew heavily from many private collections never before shown to the general public. For instance, John Stokes' amazing collection of ceramic babies and jade masks are showcased in this catalogue. However, almost as impressive as the pictures are the essays in this collection. Michael Coe has done a marvelous job of soliticing and editing a myriad of papers on the mysterious Olmec.

This book has been informative in that I have learned a great deal about the political and militaristic problems Washington endured during America's push for independence. I have a feeling that, without Washington's sacrifice, America as we know it probably wouldn't occur. However, I also think of the famous quote attributed to Napoleon that "History is the myth men choose to believe." While Thomas Paine wrote about independence for the colonies, he also tore into the concept of slavery as immoral, so it wasn't as if no one was talking about this issue. If Washington would have "stepped up" and abolished slavery then and there, so that all men (and women) were truly created equal, as I said before, America might not be here. It was a politically divided and bankrupt country. I don't consider those reasons justification for sacrificing another person's human rights. The racial problems we face today stem from a lack of identity stolen from a stolen people

who did much of the work to build this country in its early days and, while the opprtunity was there, given nothing in return. "Patriot Sage" is an excellent insight into many aspects of Washington's life of which I was ignorant (like his influence on the Constitutional Convention) Sadly, some of its essays are too right-wing, to the point of Clinton bashing. What modern era president could really live up to the accomplishments of the one who defined the job's parameters ? One essay focuses on the moral symbolism of Washington now devoid in today's presidents, while another openly admits he gambled and sought prostitutes. To be read overall with some perspective.