This book has useful (though not terribly complete) introductions to each of the plays, focusing mainly on comparing various Folio and Quarto editions of the plays. It also contains some nice pictures, though I wish the Latin in them were translated or shown at a legible size. It has very nice appendicies nothing the first appearances of all the characters in the plays, and a timeline showing what historical events were occuring in relation to works written by Shakespeare and events in his life, as well as to plays by other playwrights and other literature produced at that time. The pages are relatively thin and the print small. However (this referes to the '74 edition, maybe they have changed it since then) the plays are a royal pain to read. The pages are about a foot high and the notes are at the bottom. There is no marking to indicate whether a line has a note, so the reader must read a line or two, glance down at the notes, read another few lines, look at the notes again, and so on. Were it not for this major annoyance, this would be a very good (and very complete) edition of Shakespeare's works.

This one-volume edition of Shakespeare's works is the most complete I found on the market: it includes "The Two Noble Kinsmen", Shakespeare's addition to "Sir Thomas More" (with photographical reproduction of the pages believed to be in his handwrite), the currently hot debated poem "A Funeral Elegy by W. S." and, above all, "The Reign of King Edward III", a new play recently accepted in the canon by many authoritative editors (Arden, Cambridge, Oxford). The text of each work is carefully edited and accompanied by helpful glossarial notes, a textual discussion with short bibliography, and an impressive collation which allows the reader to find variant readings and emendations. An exhaustive critical introduction precedes each play and poem, dealing with authorship, date, sources, textual differences between quarto and folio texts, and of course the principal thematic issues. What makes this a superb edition - and indeed a real "companion" to Shakespeare studies! - is the great amount of subsidiary material, including a general introduction - focusing on Shakespeare's life, art, language, style, and on the Elizabethan historical and theatrical background - and a series of useful essays on various themes: critical approaches to the plays and poems, philological issues, history of the plays on the stage, television and cinema. There are also many interesting documents, synoptic tables, glossaries, indexes, illustrated tables (both coloured and b&w) , the reproduction of the introductory pages of the First Folio of 1623, and a rich bibliography. I personally consider this book a must have for every teacher, scholar, or simply amateur of the greatest of all poets. Buy it!

While I sympathize somewhat with the review below -- the introductions do quibble a bit over the differences between Folio and Quarto versions, the exact source material etc. -- I found this to be an excellent version of the complete works. The essay before each play is very helpful toward understanding the literary context of the play--they _do_ talk about the characters and the action of the play, in a way that nicely complements the text. The illustrations (some black and white, some color) are also interesting and helpful. The book contains both a general introduction, which is accessible, if slightly daunting, to a reader who might not be intimately familiar with all of the plays, serving to excite interest at least. It also contains an essay on 20th century Shakespeare criticism, which introduces many of the newer movements in Shakespeare criticism that are not included in the general introduction (which focuses more on the Elizabethan historical period, and more immediate reactions to the plays). The footnotes, while they are not indicated on the line itself, are located on the same page. In looking at several other editions, I found that footnotes were sometimes actually endnotes--i.e. located in one section at the end of the play, which would be very disruptive to reading. Happily, this is not the case in this edition.

The book, as the title claims, includes all of Shakespeare's plays, Sonnets, and poems. The appendices include many other interesting tidbits that help shine some light on old Billy's life, including his will, in which he enigmatically bequeathed a "second-best bed" to his wife. Other documents are included, often with explanations to help the reader to understand (as the documents are printed verbatim, the Elizabethan spelling and punctuation is a slight impediment).

Overall, I found this to be the best of the paperback and hardcover editions I examined.

Samuel Johnson remarked once that learning in Scotland was like bread in a siege town. Everyone got some but none got enough to make a meal. His quip could equally apply to this book. It touches on everything, but doesn't cover anything in sufficient depth. In fact I would tend to view the book as really centered around bringing Fireworks and Freehand into play (contra Illustrator and Photoshop). Freehand and Fireworks get 200 pages each, while Flash gets 90 pages. Dreamweaver gets just under 300 pages, and the surface of many features is revealed. However, there isn't a lot of depth throughout and elaborate examples are avoided. The rest of the book is focused on Cold Fusion (which was not of interest to me).

My personal recommendation is to look at specific books for specific components. Compendium type books, often suggest more than they can deliver.

Almost 1,200 pages packed with great information! The authors did a superb job of hitting the most important features of each application with special emphasis on integration.

There are even a couple of new Bible icons in this book, one was to indicate exercises that contributed to the books ongoing project. I could jump into any chapter and have the files needed without doing anything previously. It was a nice way to learn how to use the applications together.

Wonderful resource for learning a lot about each program. I discovered which application was best for which job. For example instead of trying to print my Fireworks logo, I've decided I'm better off doing that in FreeHand when I need cards and stationary and such then bringing the vectors into Fireworks to prepare for the web.

I purchased the studio and didn't know how to use the programs together in harmony. I really liked how many of the exercises were related to a site that was being built throughout the book. I could pick any topic I wanted and often times make something for the books project.

It has good coverage of each of the studio applications a bit of beginner and intermediate mixed with more advanced (ColdFusion). There is even a bit on Flash Remoting.

Overall its been a good reference when I had a problem in any of the applications. I'm new to Fireworks and it's helped out a lot in learning how to prepare images to use in DW. How to optimize them, slice, export, make buttons and even animations.

If you own the Studio MX package you can't go wrong with this as a reference for all.

Well, I judged this book by its cover, and I was wrong. The beautiful illustration on the cover is NOT what you will find on the inside. All of the internal illustrations are black and white outlines. I was very disappointed. However, the story is much more expanded in this version than in any other that I have seen. There are actually fairies in this fairy tale. Don't buy this book for the pictures or you'll be disappointed...buy it for a new, but familiar version of the classic tale.

Arthur Rackham not only excelled at creating full color illustrations; he also was an unrivalled master at the art of the silhouette. In this reprinted children's classic, Rackham lavishly illustrates C.S. Evan's intricate retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story with one amazing silhouette after another. One of my favorite illustrations when I was a child was a fabulous two-page cross-section of Sleeping Beauty's palace, including such great details as slumbering cats, doves, scullery maids, the king and queen on their thrones, and of course the princess in her high tower. It never ceases to impress me how much a masterful artist like Rackham could communicate just with beautifully crafted graphic shapes alone- and remember, just because something's not in color, doesn't mean it's not good! Highly recommended!

I was inspired by the compilation of bird dog stories found within this book. If you enjoy the excitement, fear, despair, and elation associated with the training, ownership and running of all breeds of bird dogs, you will enjoy this book. The authors help you relive the moments you have endured with your own dogs in addition to helping you imagine the hunts you have yet to experience. This is a definite must read for bird dog enthusiasts.

I borrowed this book from a friend and had a tough time putting it down. Great stories from writers who truly love their dogs. A few of the essays are sad, but all of them allow us to share a part of a fellow dog lovers life with his best friend. Definitely a must read.

The Wheel of Time saga is an uninspired, hardly original, badly written pile of junk. It is difficult to see a plan into its development, and the story sounds like a free association of words at the psychanalist's office. If The Lord of the Rings had not been around may be the Wheel of Time would have had a shot...but, to be honest, if the Rings had never been written, Robert Jordan would have had nothing to (badly) copy.

What this is: an epic adventure. It would be imappropriate to review the WOT series when speaking of the Prophesies of the Dragon book; it's also not really a supplement akin to, say, The Monster Manual for D&D--the only extra skills, feats, backgrounds, etc are those directly related to NPCs in the campaign. What Prophecies is designed to do is take a party of characters through their first six levels of adventuring, which correspond roughly to the first six books of the series of novels. The players are allowed to play a key behind the scenes roll in the story of the novels and cameos have been scripted for many of the book's key characters. It's a really ambitious undertaking; players have to be given a compelling storyline, feel like they're making a difference in a campaign that covers over a year of game time, without letting them change what happens in the novels.

Does it work? I am currently GMing this adventure. On paper, it looks really good. Some of the scenes, especially in the later parts of the story, look exciting, moving even. Faile's cameo is perfect, for example. In practice, though, it's been an extremely frustrating experience. First, the early encounters (as pointed out by another reviewer) are unnecessarily difficult and add nothing to the plot. As things progress, the authors presume too much on the goals and motivations of the players. There is one chapter, for example, where the introduction says something along the lines of, "Upon entering the city, the players will want to find (a certain NPC) as soon as posible and will definitely want to investigate the actions of (another NPC)." The players in my campaign knew they wanted to talk to one of these guys eventually, but the other one was off their radar completely. Throughout, I've had to improvise ways to keep them approximating the plot line of the campaign and by chapter 3, they're feeling very manipulated.

The campaign assumes the party wants to do nothing more than hunt down dark friends and expose evil plots and will take great personal risk and go through great hardship (including, at one point, a monthlong trek through a winter wilderness without adequate provisions) on the chance of thwarting same. Characters with any other motivations (say, a character modeled after Mat or Nynaeve in the books) will feel forced into situations unnaturally. There has been more than one point where one of the players saying, "I *think* this is where the plot wants us to go."

So, in conclusion, while this adventure is excellent in its dreams and scope--and it's definitely better than something I could have designed myself--but it will fail often fail as a game. If you are intending to run a WOT campaign, buy this adventure, read it so that you thoroughly understand its scope BEFORE you even let your players make up characters. The characters need to be in the philosophy of the story or the story won't work.

It's not a supplement. That'd've been useful. It's a big adventure set. That could've been useful.

Then we met the Demon-Bear.

Allow me to explain. In d20, animals don't get feats. One of the early mini-adventures has a BIG bear that has lots of bonus feats...and a party of first and second-level PCs is supposed to defeat it. When it can kill a PC with one swipe of its paw. Right.

That's emblematic of the problems with this adventure set. It's written with little attention to rules or game balance, or even party survival. Some adventures throw opponent after opponent at the PCs, but with such poor healing capability, you'll inevitably have PC casualties. While those aren't necessarily bad, having the odds stacked so heavily against you isn't fun.

Another flaw is that, in many instances, PC decisions don't matter. You are, in fact, on rails in a good many adventures, and that's BAD. The adventure in Falme, in particular, comes to mind.

It could've been good. Really. Almost anything would've been better than the ... introductory adventure included with the main book (1st-level PCs...against 3rd-level trollocs that outnumber you, and, oh yes, have high strength and high-crit-range weapons!)...save this.

If you're intending to GM Wheel of Time d20 adventures, save your money and look elsewhere. You can come up with stuff that's easily better.