While not quite as good as previous books in the Stan Kraychick series due to too many odd-ball characters (but, this is Key West), this was still a fun, easy read. I longed for the continuation of the interesting relationship between Stan and his police detective friend/adversary from prior books. That relationship has more life in it and is more real than the contrived situations in this book. Still, it was a fast, fun read.

This is the first gay mystery I've read and it was a page turner for me. I couldn't put it down. I think it is a great read.

I started this book on the plane en route to Key West and finished it while on vacation at a guest house there. It's a great book for a fun read, particularly while sitting poolside in Key West and envisioning the characters and locale. Not great literature, but a good story with vivid characters and locales. Looking forward to reading his other books.

The maps are poorly drawn and hard to follow. It tells how tocomplete the missions, but lacks multiplayer tactics beyond thebasics.

The explanations of strategies in this guide are incredibly straightforward and concise. And the strategies themselves - unlike those in most other guides I've seen - are specific and always work. Take this paragraph from the 10th Soviet mission walkthrough:

"Your Spy Plane should become available in the meantime: Send it a short distance west of the visible water. You should expose the (Turret- and an AA Gun-guarded) Radar Dome complex. Send a Yak to hit the oil drums around the AA Gun, destroying it. Then hit the Turrets with MIGs. Impressive."

I'll say. Works so well it feels like the game designers planned it that way.

The previous review states the guide's major weaknesses- poor maps and limited multiplayer strategy coverage. The maps look like a child's scribbles with computer generated icons superimposed on them. However, they are useful in letting you know what areas are important for a particular mission, and what path you should follow in non-base "special" missions. Still, the guide probably would have been better with the maps left out.

As for the multiplayer advice, it is short but useful and to the point. A lot of it takes place in the chapters that deal with unit strategy.

Treat this guide as a RA walkthrough or encyclopedia. If you're obsessed about the game like I am, it's a great read.

This book is just a copy of JMS tutorials from java site and has examples which are written using jmq which is no longer available as it has now become part of iPlanet group and they have broken compatibility (Interfaces have been changed) Not the worst book but certainly worst wrox book i have ever read

This book covers a lot of ground about JMS. However, the problem is that it is written by many authors, which results in repetition of some subject, bad structure of the book and more pages than necessary for explaining the subjects.

The first 5 chapters are on 250 pages and cover the basic about JMS, but I think "Java Message Service" by Monson-Haefel does a better job here. However, I appreciate that there are sequence diagrams in the first chapter that shows basic design patterns for MOM-based applications. The next two chapters is code example that shows how to use JMS from a web application and from EJBs. I'm not too found about this kind of lengthy code examples.

The chapter about JMS and Clustering is very technical, but still only scratches the surface. This is a subject that needs an own book to be covered completely. The next chapter called "Distributed Logging Using JMS" is again a lengthy code example, but a very useful one!

Chapter 10 is about XML Messaging with some XML code example. I think this chapter, like some of the other chapters as well, covers too little to be of some real value and too much for just being an overview. Chapter 11 is about Mobile Applications and the criticism against this chapter is the same as the chapter about XML.

All and all this is a book that covers a lot of subjects related to JMS, but it does it in a boring and verbose way.

I expect that with introduction of JMS and Message Driven Beans which are based on this technology we will see very big movement towards implementing various application scenarious based on JMS. This book definitely could help you to decide what should be taken in account. I also like chapter on Clustering and Scalability - each enterprise (and you as developer for this enterprise) should think about this during design stage. List of various JMS providers (SonicMQ, IBM MQ Series, FioranoMQ, WebLogic) and implemented by them features could also be helpful.

In the introduction to this book, Grant notes that Christians from the emperor's day to the present have counted him a saint; pagans of his day, Grant says, were wildly critical. Grant then chooses to offer his readers most of the critical, little of the saintly. This book is a primary source for neo-pagan historiography in the 1990s.

This is a concise yet thoughtful work on the pivotal character in the late classical world. Constantine's character is analyzed as well as possible and there is an excellent chapter on his building programs thoughout the Roman Empire. The Civil Wars between Constantine and Maxentius, then Constantine and Licinius, are covered in good detail.

More information on the Tetrarchy (Constantine lived at the court of Galerius, who was a Caeser under Diocletian and an Augustus after Diocletian and Maximian retired) would have been useful to help give the reader a clearer picture of the times Constantine lived in. The conclusion was a bit disappointing. Grant spends little time discussing the affect Constantine's policies had upon the civil wars fought by his three sons and two nephews, of which Constantius II was ultimately victorious. Also, he spends little time in his conclusion talking about how Constantine's policies effected Constantius II's rule.

All in all, a good book on a difficult subject.

One of history's colossal figures, Grant looks at Constantine in this book from a viewpoint of objectivity, giving an assesment that is respectful to all sides of the man, not just those clouded in legend. Famous for the moment of divine guidance that supposedly led him to military victory and gave him full control over the west, Grant does well at showing that there was far more to this man then the promotion of Christianity he began in the empire following that vision. Much of this had enormous reverberations that forever shaped European and religious history, but unfortunately Grant neglects to delve into this importance as much as he could have. Instead, he largely glided over many of these history-altering situations and focused on perhaps lesser known aspects of the man and his times that creates the image of objectivity at the expense of ananlysis of many important facts.
However, the fact that the book focuses exclusively on the man and not simply the Roman world of his time makes it largely unique, and from that it gains its value. As much biography as it is history, the insight into the nature of an era through the focusing upon of one monumental man makes this book worthwhile for anyone who can get a hold of it. It is brief in the discussion of many important facts, and that is certainly a drawback, but a greater appreciation for the man and his actual achievements and individuality, rather than just his legend, can be gained from Grant's work. Understanding Constantine, how and thought and what made him tick, is essential for truly understanding his time, and while there are many books on that latter, Grant fills the void on the former.

I do not recommend this book unless you are more interested in a technical history rather than a layman's history. It may make a good textbook, but it is not exciting to read.

Michael Grant has shown over the years to be an authority on ancient times (in the Western World). He has especially dedicated a number of his books to Greece and Rome. In the Ancient Mediterranean, he broadens his field to the various civilizations around this body of water, particularly the ones on the eastern shores.

This book is only partly history. It is also anthropology, as Grant examines what made up the culture of these various groups. Since a lot of this is very ancient, there are not many individuals in much of this book; instead this is the story of various groups. Only late in the book, when the focus moves to Greece and then Rome do we see individual historic figures; even then, Grant only glosses over them as he examines the societies.

Because of Grant's style, this can be slow reading at times, but there is a lot of good information here. If you are interested in Greek and Roman history, this book is insufficient, but to get a context in which these great civilizations arouse, this book will work well.

A friend bought this book for me from AMAZON. Michael Grant is an excellent historian but even excellent historians can produce nasty potboilers. This is one. FROM ROME TO BYZANTIUM basically consists of a series of quotes (many from other books by Michael Grant, a few from other standard histories of the period) with some linking passages to hold the thing together. I gave this two stars rather than one because for a reader new to the period the book at least encapsulates the basic facts and trends. But a far better short history of the 5th century AD - despite its unfortunate occasional descents into religiosity - is Perowne's END OF THE ROMAN WORLD.

Another lucid, elegant and accesible text for the lay reader, as well as the more specialized researcher. Grant takes a survery at the salient aspects of life in the Roman world, as dusk crept over the classical world and the roman mind grappled with a reordered world, not in their traditional image. Grant summarises the responses of state and individual well, giving due room to the responses of the religious and artisitic minds. A well produced volume, with thorough apparatus. One criticism - is there any point to reproductions of mosaic and architecture in black and white? Come on Routledge - if Taschen, Terrail et al can do it, so can you.

Useful collection of maps tracing the history of the classical {i.e. the Mediterranean} world from 1400BCE thru 565CE. The maps are strictly pragmatic in design and layout, optimized for integrating as much poltical/cultural/economic information as possible in the presentation of each plate. A comprehensive index of ancient place names cross referenced with their modern equivalents greatly enhances the volumes research utility. Most definitely not a coffee table book with richly drawn relief maps, this is nevertheless a handy research tool for a student of history.

This is a completly silent tradepaper back which exclaims stan Lees old saying NUFF SAID

I have to confess, the only reason I read this book at all was that my wife insisted that I do. I am a Y2K skeptic and have been horrified by all the scare-mongering by fundamentalist Christians. Amazingly, this book caught my attention right from the start. I was fascinated by the literary character of the book, the balanced information it gave, and best of all, the substantiveness of the faith it evokes. This book is the real deal. For people who want comic book thrillers like Jason Kelly's awful book, Hyatt and Grant have definitely got a different agenda here. This book is genuine fiction, not tripe. It made me think. It made me reconsider my position on Y2K. And it made me realize that the Christian faith need not be mired in pop psychological silliness or eschatological triviality. This is a great book. I highly recommend it. It is a genre-breaker. It's just too bad that it had to be couched in a story that will be moot in just a couple of months. I hope these guys write again--this time on a more lasting subject.

Finally a book about Y2K that offers real answers. The real answer to the Y2K problem exists in living in community and taking care of one another. I appreciated the fact that the authors did not dwell on the "event," but related the story of people in relationships dealing with the problem. Our friends will be around much longer than Y2K (whether it's a real problem or not).

Readers looking for in-depth prognostications, new realms of worry, or technical data will be disappointed, but this is a novel, not a computer magazine article. There are plenty of other sources for technical information (including Michael Hyatt's other book).

I appreciated the classical allusions to Homer and the philosophy of the work as a whole. It's a bit quirky in spots, but in an endearing way. I would certainly recommend this book, especially as a non-threatening way to get friends thinking about and preparing for the new millennium.

Michael Hyatt is a well-known computer expert. George Grant is a less well-known, but very prolific writer. Unexpectedly, the two combine their prodigious talents in what is very heady fiction--this is a novel, not just a sneaky excuse to make hay on the Y2K crisis. If you like literary allusions (check out the Homeric paralells), lots of philosophy (G.K. Chesterton nods abound), and a genuine painterly touch (the writing is gorgeously evocative) you will want this book. Techies who merely want info dumping may be disappointed--as will Y2K alarmists. But thinking readers will delight in this fiction masterpiece.