This tape is well done. The sound effects create an atmosphere that draws in the listener. The actors are dramatic, but not overly so. The short stories themselves are well written, delivering edge-of-the-chair suspense (or knee-slapping comedy, as the case may be).

As most net surfers are aware the Sci-Fi Channel's web site has included a section devoted to science fiction radio drama...Seeing Ear Theatre. One aspect of which includes originally produced productions cerated especially for the site and which has featured performances by many well-known SF actors as Micheal O'Hare,Mark Hamill,Marina Sirtis,and others. With a few exceptions, a lot of the dramas are based on recent short stories by SF writers such as Terry Bisson, Allen Steele, John Kessel and Gergory Benford. With the release of this audiobook editon(which includes introductions by SF's resident angry young{sic}man Harlan Ellison)now one can listen to these stories anytime you want. The best stories(IMO)are the Three Odd Comedies and The Death of Captain Future (which despite the pulpish-sounding title is a darkly humorous tale set in the future history of Steele's previous works such as Orbital Decay and Clarke County,Space). If you like audio drama-- especially newly produced audio drama...you'll love this collection and you may also want to check out Vol. 2 which should be on sale soon(I know I can't wait).

WOW what a story! Brian Smith could sell this as a short story by itself it is so good IMO. I just wish they sold a hard copy of these writings--not just audio! I have been reading Sci Fi for a long time. This guy is great! Reminds me of 2001, a space odyssey a bit. Worth the price just for this one folks! I noticed there are no other books by Brian Smith for sale on Amazon. What's up with that? He needs to write books, and Amazon needs to sell them--geez, do I make myself clear?

After looking at the pictures of the book on-line, it appeared to be a publication which was both beautifully photographed and written at an expert level - which would be helpful to the home gardener. Not so. Most of the photographs are of leaves only, not of the whole tree. This makes it less useful as an aid in deciding which varieties might fit into a particular landscape. The written descriptions alone cannot convey the variety and beauty of these trees. Very disappointing. Also, other than inadequate leaf photographs and short varietal summaries, the planting and care sections are woefully short. I have had trouble with leaf burn on my trees, and this book gave no additional insight on how to avoid it other than what I have read in other, less presuming publications. This book does not rise to the level of authority and usefulness in aspires to.

Filled with beautiful photos showing examples of hundreds of varieties of Japanese maples, this book is a treasure trove of information. This book features a plethura of information on care, maintenance, placement and characteristics of the many different Japanese maples available in an easy to understand format, that is also a pleasure to read. Vertrees manages to instill in the reader the same level of enthusiasm that he obviously fees for his subject, and, in fact, I can't wait until Spring to order some trees for my own garden!

Having the good fortune to own a property perfect for the cultivation of Japanese Maples, I was thrilled to find this exceptional book chock full of beautiful photos and detailed descriptions of numerous cultivars. I especially appreciate the summary pages in the back that rate the plants by color, suitability for companion plantings, dramatic effect in the garden, etc. With the web at our disposal, it is now possible to find many of the cultivars the author highlights, making for a very rewarding combination.

The programming language Java is widely used for web applications, servers, compilers. The concurrency aspect is also known to all of us. But for real time systems development in Java was awaited. I being a teacher of RTS course was looking for the language to introduce the real time system concepts. This book is correct solution. It starts with real time threading. Scheduling, Synchronization, timing issues of Real time systems are explained with implementaion and verification aspects. The book is correct choice for learning, developing, real time systems with complete programming language Java.

Hi all. This is a serious book on real time, even if you are not a java programmer. (by the way this is not a book on java for those who came here by mistake.)

I have used this book to help me build a project I am working on at my UNI and it's was very helpful. it is first of all Specification book so it main use for my opinion is a reference after the first reading an as such the book is very good. A real time programming background is essensial for really benefit from this book , but if you are one of the RTP so it's a book for you !

I gave it 4 stars because it's a spec and not my kind of books but it's a defenetly great spec. - Enjoy

Assume that you've been given a mandate to turn an existing, popular language built on write-once run-anywhere (WORA) principles into a basis for implementing correct performance-critical applications on a wide variety of platforms. Thats exactly what the team who wrote this book were tasked to do - without changing the core Java language specification. Bearing these restrictions in mind, its a good effort. The specification addresses all the basic concerns of the real-time developer - concurrency, asynchronous event handling and transfer of control issues, timing, scheduling, memory and so on, though the introduction of a single package: javax.realtime.

In general the rich set of classes provided seem to be fairly straightforward, and will probably be easy to use when a reference implementation becomes available. Key concepts are illustrated with short examples - and here's my biggest criticism - they are often of appalling quality - typically they confuse rather than clarify matters. I appreciate that this is a specification rather than a tutorial but anyone who has to implement or use this standard needs all the help they can get! There a few other typos, especially in the method signatures but these are easily parseable nonetheless.

The biggest changes are going to be in the real-time virtual machines that will be built to support this standard. Comprehensive support for such features as configurable scheduling algorithms, dynamic schedulability (where schedulable objects are dynamically added to the schedule and feasibility is determined at runtime), asynchronous transfer of control on executing threads and so on - are going to require heavy-duty support at the virtual machine level. The specification doesn't state how these and other services will be implemented but gives a would-be real-time JVM implementor lots of hints on how to do, and how NOT to do a good job in this area - which is a welcome addition.

So, my recommendation. I'd give it 4 1/2 stars if I could - but lets be generous and give it 5. The only detraction is that a good dose of proofreading could have improved on the current release. That said, I have high hopes that this will eventually emerge as a real-time development standard in the same way that Ada 95 promised to, but never delivered on.

p.s. for distributed real-time transactions - you'll have to wait for an additional standard to address this issue : watch this space.

With the approaching of Taiwan presidential election which has been suffused with peculiarly the controversial issue of party assets ignited by KMT candidate, this book seemed to emerge at an interesting timing. Nevertheless, this piece of research presented by leading scolars in the field of IR renders an invaluable analysis of the intricate and complex political economy of my beloved country.

It's an indispensable reading for those who have been aspired for the glory of the past to stare at some components of truth behind the mist of Taiwan history.

State and party-own enterprises are domaint economic powers in Taiwan before 1980. Behind the USA support, economic policies were shaped by some political elites excluded other social classes. After that, KMT, the ruling party began released more business space for private capitalists especially Taiwanese to get more legislation. So, economic policy was very different from ever not only on subject but also on scale. New KMT is mroe close to capitalist. Now, ruling unit in Taiwan is not only a political party, instead a ruling group conclude big enterprises.

This book brings back the many forgotten works of William Wurster. It balances the architect's story and illustrations well. I recommend this book to architecture enthusiasts who want to reach beyond mainstream architecture.

This book does a good job of discussing why groundwater extraction (pump and treat or whatever else you want to call it) is not useful for cleanup of petroleum contaminated sites, rendering it best suited for hydraulic control of plumes.

The author also has a pretty good discussion regarding lifecycle design considerations and the various steps to go through/questions to ask with regard to effluent treatment and equipment sizing.

Some of the technology descriptions appears to be taken from design of remediation systems by suthersan, but both books were published by the same company so i guess that shouldn't really be a surprise. Both books offer different perspectives, so I find them both to be pretty useful, however, I like this one a little more because the author seems to be more of a practical guy whereas suthersan is more theoretical.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in expanding their knowledge of the design and correct application of remediation technologies.

"Inquiry" is surprisingly easy reading on the difficult subject of Hua-yen Buddhism. Gregory shows lots of care in spreading out the details. Also a fine job of explaining the historical context of Tsung-mi's writing of the "Inquiry". Excellent preparation for Gregory's "Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism" or Cleary's "Flower Ornament Sutra".

it was a very accurated book which helped me to find that my vocation is not the law.

I found many of the agencies listed were out of date. This book does not differentiate between the legitimate agencies and the bogus agencies & schools that are simply out to rip you off! There is no rating system on the agencies listed. Looking for an alternative.

This Book is great for anyone who is looking to break into a Modeling or Acting Career. It's Like a Yellow Pages and a who's who all rolled into one. I like it because it has everything a new Model or Actor needs.

Peter Gregory's Sun Press title provides very good coverage of the material on the part 1 exam. It does not, however, address part 2, so I had to find a second resource, Ambro's "Solaris 8 System Administrator Exam Cram", to study for the second part. I found Ambro's book also served as a very good study guide, and given that it addresses both parts 1 and 2, I would have to recommend it first if you only have the time or money for one reference.

Easy to read; well-organized and illustrated. Not just pictures of man pages; a definite asset for study for the first SCSA test. It covers the Sun objectives for the first test only - it tells you that on the back (not front) cover of the book. If you are looking for a single book that will help you pass both tests, this is not it.

I passed the exam but could not have without this book. It covered virtually everything on the exam and the chapter questions were on target. It doesn't explain some things clearly, because it assumes you already know the concept; but it does offer a wealth of information on the subject. For the money, and to be sure you pass, BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!! This book along with Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 8 Study Guide (Exam 310-011 & 310-012) -- by Syngress Media Inc.
is a definite PASS on the first try!!