Set in a far corner of de Camp's Novaria world, The Incorporated Knight follows the attempts of Eudoric Dambertson to succeed in his world not by becoming a knight of reknown and fame, but by becoming a businessman of good stature, a goal looked down apon by his contemporary's, who believe the proper knight is a muscle-bound, sword swinging bone-head who's main aims in life are wenching and deeds of valor. His first attempt to win into a family with spurs and commercial bindings pits him to recover a few yards of dragon hide. Which he does, it's through a miss-chance involving gun powder and the law, which disagrees with poaching dragons out of season and throws him in the slammer. When he is freed, his intended lady love has run off with another and that's the flavor of the book.

Eudoric winds through twists and turns, a maze of dishonest honest people in his quest for financial success: he woos the daughter of a man best referred to as a murderous ******, avoids a "virgin" princess whom he saved in promise of wedlock only to have her husbands come back in stony form, outwits an ogre who in all honestly only eats those who are not of the correct religion, and manages to start a coach service despite the partners he teams up with. If you are looking for a book that isn't "He kills the monster, marries the beautiful princess, and saves the world," here's one with characters you often just want to throttle or laugh at. de Campe's people are as ordinary as the person standing by you, and for that reason are often bizarre.

Continuing the story that started in "the Hostage of Zir", "The Prisoner Of Zhamanak" and "The Bones of Zora", Fergus Reith is reacquainted with Alicia Dyckman, his ex-wife who he divorced due to her hot-headed personality. As a tour guide, he leads a movie production company through a series of self-inflicted adventures including the defeat of an invading nomad hord. de Campe has what is for me a classic style, pitting common people in oddball situations against their own resources. His characters tend to be steryotyped, but have some force of personality despite that. His aliens are human, and yet have thier own unique culture. Anyone tired of those stories about The Brave Hero Who Saves The Day By Killing Off All The Bad Guys will find the Krishna series refreshing. Fergus does'nt save the universe, but he does have "fun".

L. Sprague de Camp is one of the most elegant classic SF writers of the century - both in his literary style and in his life. And it looks like that all his life is a masterpiece of modern fantasy, heroic and humorous, brilliant and vivid. I like the book; hope you'll like it too. Thanks, Master. Spasibo bolshoye.

Brian Robertson's way of telling stories about the men and women of the earliest blues is an insight into what it must have been like to be a black woman in the 20's expressing herself through music sans the riches and fame of today's stars. Since reading some of the lines of old blues songs, I have HAD to buy several re-released recordings from people like Ida Cox and Bessie Smith. Before I read this Little Blues Book I thought you had to be some kind of connosieur to understand the blues. I've always liked the blues, just didn't know what to look for or where to start. Having learned a few of the "secrets" about the blues, I've begun a new obsession. Besides being informative, this Little Blues Book is always cool to flip through and find gems like "she's a tailor-made woman, she ain't no hand-me-down" from Blind Lemon Jefferson - whose name I thought was first the name of a newer group, Blind Lemon. Uh. Gee. I grew up listening to rockers like Edgar & Johnny Winter, the Allman Brothers. Imagine my surprise when I read the lyrics to some of my favorite rock songs credited to some guy who lived 50 or 70 years ago. This book is highly recommended for anyone who needs a gift to give a teenager (specially one who is really into rock & alternative music). Or just for yourself because you always wanted to know, but didn't want to read volumes about a particular blues man or woman. This book will give you an idea of the individuals who made up the first wave of true American music. Thank you Brian Robertson.

To say it politely, approximately 90% of Dark Valley Destiny is pure, subjective opinion. In fact, this book is not a biography at all (regardless of the author's claims), but is a pseudo-Freudian interpretation of Robert E. Howard's psychological state or mental "life" based on assorted, incomplete, and (in some cases) erroneous facts. De Camp's credentials as a psychologist, or even an amateur psychologist, are not only in question, but non-existent. Dr. Jane Whittington Griffin, whose name is presented as co-author and whose association seems to lend the book an air of respectability and authority, in fact had little to do with the writing of this book due to her untimely death while the book was in the process of being researched and written. Further, Dr. Griffin's credentials as a legitimately licensed psychologist have recently come into question as well.

In his own autobiography, de Camp refers to this book as a "psycho biography," and elsewhere de Camp admits that he had tried to sell the idea of writing a biography on Robert E. Howard to the publisher who considered the subject too dry and suggested that instead de Camp should spice it up a bit by writing a psychological examination and evaluation of Howard's work and life. This de Camp did, and the result is the eminently sensationalistic and yellow-journalistic commentary known as Dark Valley Destiny.

To top it all off, we find that de Camp is not remotely sympathetic toward his subject matter, and he takes pains to use his own moral and intellectual values and positions to criticize and condemn Howard at every step, while at the same time offering appeasing praise. The reader ought to be warned that de Camp's writing style is quite skilled and is meant to be persuasive. Meaning, de Camp will pull the wool over your eyes with statements of "opinion as fact" and unsupported leaps of logic unless you carefully read the book with a detached, critical eye. As a book that presents itself as a factual and authoritative biography, it is a farce and all but worthless. If you read this book, read it with a HUGE grain of salt, and be skeptical.

Although Dark Valley Destiny is not a definitive biography (or even a good one), it is unfortunately the only book yet published which claims to be a biography of Robert E. Howard. The memoir ONE WHO WALKED ALONE, by one of Howard's girlfriends, Novalyne Price-Ellis, is far more reliable and informative, but even this must be read with the understanding that the writer is drawing conclusions based on her own views and biases, which were sometimes made without complete information. Mrs. Ellis, however, had the good fortune of actually knowing Robert E. Howard and the information in her book is first hand knowledge, unlike that in Dark Valley Destiny. It therefore carries much more weight.

The suggestion below that all is opinion and the truth shall never be known is, in part, true. As de Camp mentioned, but quickly ignored, posthumous biography is a somewhat foolish endeavor. There are many points about Howard's life which will simply never be known. Yet, to state that all is opinion and therefore equal is specious and misleading. There are conclusions and opinions which hold up to and are supported by the known facts, and then there are conclusions and opinions which are not. There are conclusions which adhere to standards of validity, and there are conclusions that do not. The task of scholars, and a definitive biography, is to achieve the highest level of factual reliability possible - not to present one's own views or opinions. Where a conclusion is uncertain, its uncertainty must be noted and alternatives offered and explored. In all this, Dark Valley Destiny fails miserably.

If you're interested in reading one author's distorted and biased OPINION of another author, then this book is for you. If, on the other hand, you want to read about the life of Robert E. Howard, look elsewhere. To start, I'd recommend the "Short Biography" of Howard on the REHupa web site, ... and then I'd recommend reading Howard's "Selected Letters" (which are unfortunately out of print but can be found in used book stores). For additional biographical sources on Howard, try The Barbarian Keep web page. ...

L. Sprague de Camp's biography of REH is a very credible (if admittedly somewhat opinionated) account. Frankly, I don't understand the nonsense that some reviewers spout about this book. It is plainly evident that de Camp conducted a good deal of research, being especially diligent to seek out and interview virtually everyone that had known REH. All in all, de Camp based his research on oral and literary sources as well as visiting and studying the places where REH had lived. The value of such was recognized long ago. One need only read Herodotus, Thucydides, or the greatest historian of antiquity, Polybius, to appreciate this. Ultimately, de camp's bio reaches tenable conclusions based upon his research.

At this point in time, a more definitive bio seems somewhat questionable. There are probably very (if any) acquaintances of REH still living. This of course doesn't mean that future bios cannot be written, only that they will find it incredibly difficult to obtain any new material. Very few can ever approach an understanding of REH as de Camp did. After all, he spent a large part of his career as a fiction writer in editing and expanding the Conan series. Instead, future biographers will be sifting among the stones that de Camp has already quarried for them.

Finally, while de Camp was not a professional pyschologist, that in itself does not necessarily disqualify him in analyzing REH's state of mind. The fallacy of expert opinion comes to mind here. Most biographers hold an area of expertise in only one or two fields, and often their subjects will carry them into sundry fields of exploration. That's one reason why professionals published their work, so that others can benefit from the fruits of their research. Geez, excuse my getting off track here a bit, but some people have the lamest, sorriest reasons for not enjoying de Camp's work and appreciating it for the fine work of scholarship that it is. (Accusing de Camp of writing articulate prose with the intention to deceive, as one reviewer suggested, only demonstrates that they are unfamiliar with his prose style.)

Is D.V.D. perfect and without the occassional error found in most bios? By no means, but de Camp isn't trying to hoodwink anyone, and anyone with any critical faculties can disagree with some of his conclusions. That in itself is a sign of scholarship as de Camp has provided enough material to allow the reader to independently verify whether or not s/he agrees.

DeCamp describes Howard in his "Dark Valley Destiny" book, and Novalyne Price describes him in her "One Who Walked Alone" book.

Both are probably right and probably wrong. Read both.

If you want to understand REH, read his writings (and those of his biographers) and make up your own mind.

His was a tortured soul.

I could defend or criticize Howard on many different levels. The truth is (and I hope you agree)is that we've all lost something because his potential had never been fully realized.

This big, heavy, thick volume is quite a good choice for someone looking for a fairly recent (fully revised 1987, compared to the 1961 Webster's 3rd) unabridged dictionary. The "new words" section at the beginning is a nice feature, if not all that practical, covering lots of new technology terms up to the year 2001. Their choices are a bit haphazard - there's an entry for ACE inhibitors, but nothing for MAOI, SSRI, or proton-pump inhibitors. But the new words section is not the point; it's the rest of the text that matters. It covers just about every word from American English you'll ever need, plus a good number of geographical and biographical entries. So why the two star rating? When I received the book, the front cover binding was already torn and separating. I think Random House may have misstepped when they moved from oversize library cloth binding to 9 x 11 hardback. Maybe it was just a printer error, but I think the binding on this volume is just not enough to support the weight of 2,300 thick pages. In addition, the innermost print columns are too close to the inside binding, making 1/3 of the entries difficult to read. I commend Random House for making an unabridged dictionary available at this price point, but if the book can't hold its own weight, it isn't worth it. I'm exchanging mine for a copy of the New Oxford Dictionary of English (available at Amazon UK), which should cover just as many terms, plus international English, in a more manageable size. The New Oxford American Dictionary is a similar alternative for American English.

I have the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, the Encarta World English Dictionary, and the American Heritage Talking Dictionary - all on CD. This one is the best. I've encountered several words ("stare decisis" is the most recent) that can only be found in this dictionary. Also, the pronunciation is the best on this CD. The Encarta sounds extremely robotic. And while the American Heritage sounds more human, it's not quite as clear (or as cheerful) as the Random House. If you're trying to decide which CD dictionary to buy among the three that I mentioned, I recommend this one.

The reason that I have three dictionaries is that I'm looking for a particular feature that I have not yet found. I want to construct my own dictionary with my own selected words in hard copy. So, I'd like to maintain a list of words - add them as they are new to me, remove them as they become familiar. Then I'd like to print the complete list with definition, etymology, etc. so that I can have my own custom dictionary. If anyone reading this has any suggestions, please email me at johnwilk@earthlink.net. Thanks.

This dictionary is of course very complete and easy to you. It gives you a number of ways to find a word including wildcards, Boolean searches, definition searches, and of course a good old A-Z search. What I found particularly useful was the 120,000+ audio pronunciations. Frankly, phonetic spelling has always given me a headache, especially with words like "ennui". I also found the spot maps and illustrations helpful. What's more, you can run this dictionary without the CD-ROM in the drive. (providing you are willing to give up a couple of the bells and whistles)

The only thing I really don't like about this software is that it is a full on pain in the neck to get it to function as your Word Dictionary. (even thought it is supposed to) This could possibly been alleviated by at least some rudimentary instructions. There are some on the CD, but they are vague at best. Oh well, not a perfect world.

All in all a good product for what it does, although I must admit I do miss the weight of a hardcover unabridged dictionary..