Walter Ellis' new novel is crafted within the world of blues singers of the 1930s. Ellis combines his vast knowledge of blues lyrics, styles, instruments, and singers with the legends of the times. He blends historical characters and events with a compelling tale of love, lust, and spiritualism. Readers will constantly anticipate the appearance of the Devil, as Ellis unwraps a complex story of the human soul.

I LOVED this book. I found the subject material unusually interesting, the writing style mesmerizing, and never put the book down until I finished it. It would be especially fascinating to anyone interested in jazz and blues (and ghost stories?)!!!

This novel is an exciting combination of adventure, romance and suspense. If you care about the Blues, this is a must.

This is the up-to-date scholarly treatment of Alcibiades, an aristocratic rogue widely considered a traitor by the democrats of Athens. His prettiness and flim-flammery were highly attractive to certain elements less committed people's justice.
This is the most readable account since Plato, and quite a bit more truthful.

This study provides great details on this ancient ruler's life. Although he lived part of it in the shadow of Alexander the Great, much is owed to Ptolemy I Soter : the birth of the Hellenistic state, the creation of the Museum, the addition of the Great Library and the Lighthouse to the city of Alexandria, as well as other extraordinary achievements both in and beyond Egypt. Alexandria, his capital, became known as an intellectual center. This book not only tells the story of a leader, but also of his satrapy, his kingship, his family, the wars he fought, and his role during Alexander the Great's reign. With several black and white pictures, it is a recommended biography of interest to students of Greek and Ptolemaic history.

With _Reflections on the Academic Life in North Dakota_, Walter Ellis has written a book that all men will want to read and that all women should read. Written from Ellis' own male perspective, _Reflections_ traces the decline and fall of a romantic relationship between two people in the academic profession that seemed to hold great promise, but which really never had a chance. At times hilarious, but ultimately tragic, Reflections is a skillful blend of humor and heartache, written in an engrossing style that is easy to read and sprinkled with clever, yet realistic, dialogue and the wry musings of a very intelligent author.

The story is about David London, a forty-nine year old university history professor, and Tracey Gillespie, his much younger girlfriend, a beautiful graduate student who studies archaeology at another university. From the opening chapters it is clear that the two have a volatile relationship, one which alternates between passionate love-making and trivial disagreements that have a way of simmering until they boil over into curse-laden tirades. David thinks he goes the extra mile to accommodate Tracey's every wish and need. But Tracey thinks that David can do nothing right, is insensitive to her feelings and, worse still, can't even feed her cats properly! Yet some thing or things keeps them together-the fulfillment of his fantasies of a young and dazzlingly beautiful student, her emotionally scarred need for the wisdom, stability, and security of the older professor (or father) type?

Something's got to give and the two decide to take a trip together in a tour group to the Middle East to see and experience the wonders of ancient Israel and Jordan. Surely this will solve all their problems-of course not-but it is always the two people in the relationship who need to see this the most who do not see this. The tour might just as well have been on a rollercoaster track as on the dirt roads of Petra as the trip makes things only worse for the ill-suited lovers. Further complicating matters are the other members of the tour group, a motley crew who range from the saintly Alexandra, an older woman to whom David increasingly finds himself drawn for comfort and wisdom, to the down to earth Joel and his wife, Julie, a thirty-something couple who quickly become David's drinking buddies, to the wretched Berta, a loud, bossy, bloated epitome of the ugly American tourist, to the competent, if somewhat tacky, Yuri, the Israeli tour guide who must cater to the varied and often unreasonable demands of the members of the tour group. These supporting characters are not just window dressing or, worse still, "types," but fully developed human beings who are also skillfully weaved into the plot as essential players in this tragic-comedy.

Ellis doesn't tell us what should be in a relationship, just what all too often is (for many of us, at any rate). David and Tracey are two people, intellectually and emotionally incompatible, yet drawn to each other by physical passion and their own fantasies of what they think they want out of a relationship and out of life, fantasies that end up smashed by the steel hammer of reality. But as the song says, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find, you'll get what you need." For if there is any lesson in Ellis' tale, it comes from the character of Alexandra, who had a long, stable relationship with a husband who was compatible with her in a real way, and not just some figment of her fantasies. One can only hope that the same readers who mutter to themselves, "how true, how true," or, "been there, done that," when reading Ellis' book (and I'm sure there will be many, for this reviewer is among them) also take the lesson to heart and break the cycle of their own failed relationships. Even if they do not, though, at least readers of Walter Ellis' _Reflections on the Academic Life in North Dakota_ will have had a few laughs, a little truth in art, and a darned good read.

Walter M. Ellis won the coveted 2002 Darrell Award for Best Mid-south Novel of the year for his ME AND THE DEVIL BLUES. He has followed this success with another, THE TERMINATOR'S WIFE, which deals with the same main characters, metamorphosed into a modern university setting and from black to white.

College students enjoy nicknaming the best and worst professors, and those at UCLA are no exception. Sebastian Bateman, who seems to enjoy failing and humiliating those studying with him, is called the "Terminator." Coming up against our villain is Warren Stelling, a young graduate student, who has a low opinion of the status quo. Warren runs into Evie Bateman, the Terminator's wife, at a record store, and it is love at first sight. She moves in with Warren, who must face humiliation at Bateman's hands, the oral exam for his doctorate when he is not doing well academically, and Evie's dipsomania.

In his usual clever way, Ellis adds more seemingly hopeless entanglements as he gradually unravels the knots and moves to a satisfying conclusion. All those who have been through the college system will be drawn to THE TERMINATOR'S WIFE. Students currently living some of this will especially appreciate Ellis's wit. And all who have been involved in the war of the sexes will eagerly follow the love stories in the main and minor plots.

Ellis's flawless style should be noted. Not all read for style. But those who do will heave a deep sigh of satisfaction.

This was really like a videocam on somebody's private life. Just that it gets turned on and off randomly. It makes sense, if you just keep in mind that this guy is never up to any good, whatever he's doing.

Someone had left this on the seat in the Red Line when we got stuck the better part of an hour on the bridge. There is a limit to how long you can sit and look at MIT so I began reading it.
It seemed to be a pretty quick book, the kind you would hide behind on the subway to avoid any kind of contact with the other passengers. But I ended up reading the whole thing, finishing late that night while my upstairs neighbor was dancing to a Bruce Springsteen CD.
I cannot describe the sense of grief I had after finishing this book. Taking Merlin Black's (i.e. Miles Davis) final affair as its starting point, the author picks up various points in the trumpeter's life, using psychological rather than plot connections to explain who this man really was. Talk about an anti-hero! And yet you accept Merlin's sleaziness as his natural condition, rather like dealing with a life-long disease. It becomes impossible to judge him.
I would highly recommend this book.

One thing I do, on the road, is track this man Miles. I have been everywhere, this man has been. Every nasty dive that's now a parking lot, every apt. bldg., if he was there, I've been there. And sometimes I stop in a library, NYPublic by Grand Central usually, and look up the newest book on Miles. Until this book, which is kind of rare, I never got further than twenty pages.
Now this book fit with the pattern that I can see, going the places he went, and thinking of his music, which I memorized, all of it. I've talked to some people who actually knew him, but not big light people, and the picture you get is like the one drawn by this man Walter Ellis. He wasn't a nice guy, but mad all the time and even kind of violent when he wasn't too messed up to kick. This is the real picture. And Ellis starts the story when Miles was flopped, a sorry rich man who hadn't played trumpet in five years. By flashbacking to all the separate times he got somewhere and then got down with the dogs again, he gets you into this man's mindset, which was failure and all kinds of ways to fail in dealing with failure. And when you understand that, you'll understand the music.

Dr.Walter M. Ellis' book, "The Athenian" relates the life of Alcibiades, probably the most handsome, but hedonistic and politically ambitious man in ancient Greek history. Because of his many actions against his city-state of Athens, Alcibiades was branded a traitor. Whether this is accurate or not, to this day, is open to debate. Perhaps, Alcibiades had good reasons to defect from his many enemies in Athens, to find protection in other in other areas of the world. I realize that historical fiction must draw on fictional characters in order to carry the plot of the novel, but often author's of this "genre", carry fiction too far, while ignoring factual information. What especially bothers me about Ellis' novel, concerns Alcibiades' relationship with his mentor and friend, Socrates. The philosopher is pictured as a lecherous bufoon whose lover is Alcibiades. If one knows anything about Plato's dialogue the "Symposium," one will find nothing is farther from the truth! After the banquet when Socrates is trying to go to sleep, Plato says that Alcibiades crept under the covers next to him, and tried to make love to the philosopher, but he would have none of it! I'm not saying that any author of historical fiction does not have the right to fictionalize events, but at times, Dr. Ellis goes too far! He is purported to be the "expert" on the life of Alcibiades, but he does not give Socrates the esteem he deserves. Plato tells us that Socrates, although he loved Alcibiades spiritually, never slept with him, or any of his other students. There are many other inaccuracies in this novel, but they can be forgiven because this book, after all, is a work of historical fiction which allows an author to be somewhat loose with the facts. But one would think that Dr. Ellis' background as a teacher, in order to attract young readers of high school, or even young university students, would be more accurate, and most of all, not use such profanity as seen in his novel. University professors, especially, often look for books, even though they be historical fiction, to help their students understand various events in history, but they are not able to use books like Ellis' because of the profanity incorporated in it! For these reasons, I do not recommend "The Athenian," especially, if someone who is not familiar with the conflict of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens. As far as I'm concerned, this book would cause great confusion about this period of history for the uninitiated reader.

This book really brought the history of the ancient world alive for me. Not only did I enjoy the book and get very caught up in the story, I felt that I learned a lot about a number of important figures whose names I was familiar with, but I wasn't exacctly sure what they were famous for. Anyone who likes historical fiction will love this book and will also appreciate the factual basis (not just the wars, political victories and losses but also the fascinating details of dress, social custom, sexuality, class, etc in the ancient world).

In a fast-paced, cleverly plotted novel, Ellis brings to life not only Athens in the "Age of Pericles" but also remarkable characters such as the philosopher Socrates and the historian Thucydides. Alcibiades, possibly the most interesting figure in that ancient world, is our hero. We see him as an impetuous, licentious young man, desired by both men and women. We follow his pursuit of the one woman he really loves, and watch his politically ambitious rise as he fights for and is driven from his beloved Athens.

Ellis allows us the chance to actually live in Ancient Greece and to personally meet the people who seemed, until now, trapped n legend. Political plotting, wars, exile, the plague -- all are present in this informative yet fascinating tale.