I have read the internet version of the book. The book is unique in its stile. It blenders physics' teaching with web site programming technique. The book will be a pioneer in high school and college teaching.

A thorough, exhaustive research has been put into this book and the excitment is captured very well. "The Moulin Rouge" is a love letter not only to the establishment itself, but it gives great detail to the origins of the can-can which made the Moulin Rouge famous. It is to me as thrilling as a high can-can kick! Highly reccommended.

A truly amazing collection of hockey action made more compelling and awe-inspiring by the almost total lack of protective equipment. These still photos are action packed and full of movement. I gave this book to a hockey coach who reported with all sincerity that it was his favorite Christmas present this year.

PS: Don't tell his wife.

Great format great presentation, terrific photographs, each page a new adventure. Andrew Podnieks is very knowledgeable and a wonderful word weaver.

"By becoming a monster, one learns what it is to be human"

I'm probably the only person who bought this book with no intention of using it as it was meant to be used--as a role-playing guide to the "Vampire: The Masquerade" game. I don't play role-playing games--I even have an aversion to games in general (mostly video ones)--but I really love vampires, so I had to buy this book. Probably the thing I like the most about it is all of the beautiful black-and-white drawings inside. They really get the imagination juices flowing.

The beginning part of the book is basically an introduction to VtM, familiarizing the reader with the basic rules, its Gothic-Punk setting, vocabulary, and tips on effective storytelling. Then it goes deeper into dice rolling, character creation, and bloodlines. This latter part is my favorite in the book, describing the attributes and abilities of the seven clans of the Camarilla: Brujah, Nosferatu, Tremere, Ventrue, Gangrel, Toreador, and Malkavian. (But if you really want further insight into these clans, then I'd highly recommend any--or all--of the Clanbooks.) There is also a character sheet at the end of the book you can Xerox, as well as an example story to further help players.

I think I've read this thing about half a dozen times (though not usually from front to back), and it takes about that many times to thoroughly comprehend and memorize all of the above--rules, guidelines, etc.--without having to refer to the book all the time (unless you're a fast learner). If you enjoy role-playing games--or if you're like me and just like anything vampire-oriented--then I highly recommend this book. It's well worth your time and money.

Being a seasoned RPG player (20 years + exp.) I'm always interested to try new games on the market. Since a few years a buzz had been starting on the internet and among RPG fan about this new vampire horror game. When they put the second edition out, I decided it was past time that I check it out. I'm certainly glad I did! The game is simple (only using 10 sided dice and very easy character advancement)it's also skill based. The greatest achievement of this game is in it's ability to convey a mood of gothic horror "à la perfection (perfectly)" something no other RPG had been able to achieve successfully in the past. This success may be due to the "mature language and content of the game", the terrific illustrations all through the book or to the well written descriptions of the different fiends and all their complex powers.For whatever reason there's a chilling mood of wickedness, perversity and dark horror all through the book.
My only complaint has to do with the long historic background in the book. Having studied history for a while in university, I find that the evolution of vampire through history section at the end of the volume doesn't really add anything, all they do is make a quick resume of all the different time period and adding the word vampire in it... not really necessary...
All in all it still a great book with magnificient illustration and a well written interesting content. I would recomend this game not only to RPG players but to vampire lovers everywhere !!!

For some reason the reviews for the GURPS version of Vampire the Masquerade here are reviews for the original White Wolf product. The two games use completely different rule systems and are, well, completely different.

The White Wolf version of VtM is stand alone, you buy the book, some 10 sided dice (from a hobby store or White Wolf's website)and you're ready to play. The "Storyteller" rule system is pretty simple and has been revised and improved. There are many other White Wolf products that use the same Storyteller system (Werewolf, Demon, Mage and so on) so your World of Darkness can grow and expand. White Wolf's emphasis on Role Playing instead of dice rolling and complex rules probably make this a great choice for someone new to RPGs. Be warned however, White Wolf's products and website can be very, very dark and profane. Probably not a good choice for children in my opinion. The game itself is very original, imaginitive and popular.

GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System) by Steve Jackson Games is a fairly detailed RPG system. The GURPS version of VtM is NOT a stand alone product. You must first own a copy of "GURPS Basic Set" (availabe here at Amazon.com) to play GURPS VtM. One difference is that GURPS uses 6 sided dice which are readily available (bonus). The GURPS system was developed as sort of an answer to everything thing that was annoying about the grandaddy of RPGs, Dungeons and Dragons. D&D was an immense rules system that spaned many tomes and modules, required many types of dice and was stuck in sword and sorcery mode. GURPS allows you to play any type of character, in any type of setting imaginable all from one book (GURPS Basic Set and some six sided dice). The GURPS rules system is going to be a larger investment in time to master than Storyteller, but it is detailed and logical. I personally like it.

Two last thoughts, you don't necessarily have to play a Vampire character in the GURPS version of VtM. You could play a Psychic or Combat Specialist who gradually learns about the Vampires and begin to unwravel the Masquerade. Eventually the characters could be embraced by Sabbat Vampires or attacked by the Camarillan Vampires. You could play a Vampire who goes into Torpor for a few centuries and wakes up in a post apocalypse future. Only the Game Master would be allowed to use the Vampire book as a source, and the game would run from the Basic Set. The players would gradually be drawn into the shadowy, secretive World of Darkness. Also the GURPS version is toned down a bit and is more appropriate for young people.

this was the first book i read out of this series unaware that it indeed was a series because i grabbed it out of my moms collection and i was hooked this book shows how even though you may live in a big huge house and have anything your heart desires it isn't all peachy keen and great what leighs stepfather tony did to her and how her mother blamed her for everything that happened just surprised me i never thought jillian could be that curel to her daughter and be so cought up in her self like that was something else like i said this was the first book i read unaware that there was a series but i ran out and bought heaven after i got done reading this. i thnk this book was well written you can feel what leigh was going through and they go into such detail that you can pic the surroundings this bood is worth the money if you like reading v.c andrews books

Web of Dreams is the sad story of Heaven's mother Leigh and her life in Farthingale Manor. It was an excellent book. It definatly explained everything. After Leigh's mother and father got a divorce her life seemed to be slowly going downhill. Her mother remarried to a multimillionare, Tony Tatterton, who owns the Tatterton toy company. After her step-father betrays her most cruelly and her mother doesn't trust her, she is forced to run away where she eventually meets Luke Casteel! It's an exciting book with many unexpecting twists in the plot. I would surely recommend it to anyone who would like to know how the whole Casteel curse began. If you haven't read it yet go get it now!

This was the greatest book in the casteel series, and Heaven had a pretty hard act to follow. This book has the greatest examples of betrayal in all it's power, greed, lust, and just plain psycoticness. Never had I felt such empathy for a character as Leigh, never had I cried so much, and became a character as much. The greatest showdown I have ever read is included in this book as well.

I have read everything from V.C. Andrews ever put on the shelf. Her books are filled with a depth and emotion that are rarely found in novels now a days. It was obvious from "Melody" that there was a connection between Melody and Cary. I've wondered ever since reading the first Landry novel that is Laura really dead? I don't remember it being said that a body was found. And those things that were found on the beach. It's all quite suspicious. I think perhaps she was fed up with her family, especially her father, and just took off. Left the Cape forever. I would have. I think the ending of the book was great. Melody going off to find out if the woman in the magazine is her mother. I can't wait for "Unfinished Symphony" to find out.

It took me about two days to read this book. I couldn't put it down. Even though I'm only 14 I loved it. V.C. Andrews is one of my favourite authors and this book is the best in the Logan Family Series. The way Melody and Cary realted really touched me. They weren't afraid of anyone or anything standing in their way.

I found this book to be one of the best, under this authors name. I love getting rapped up in a series of V.C Andrews books over the summer. I am sure that other people who have read her works can say the same. The Logan series is very sad, yet it always brings hope. Melody is the girl who is always seeking the truth in this world, even though it is so hard to uncover. However she never gives up and her persistence helps her go far. She has character and that is one trait that most people can never aquire.

I had mixed emotions about this book. I'll start with the bad. It held no surprises like past VC Andrews books had which was disappointing. This whole Cutler series kept repeating itself over and over again. One character always seemed too much like past charcters. I kind of figured this book would explain why Lillian hated Dawn so much. But it didn't. In fact I would've thought Lillian would pity her. If this book would have kept going on and wrote about how Lillian changed after first arriving at Cutler's Cove I might have rated this book different. I also had to wonder why Dawn's orginal name was Eugenia. Why would Lillian have a say in naming her grandchild after her beloved sister, Eugenia? Considering she knew it was her husbands child. She had to have known that Randolph was not the father before Dawn was born. Other than that the book was too bad. It was one of the sadder one's I've read. But you can get through this series without having to read it.

I have read most the VC Andrew family series (Dollanganger, Casteel, Cutler, Landry...) and they pretty much go downhill. Don't get me wrong, Heaven and Dawn are wonderful characters and Ruby can have an honorable mention, but VC Andrews' "voice" gets farther and farther from the prose with each new book. The style of Flowers in the Attic was raw, unforgettable and the newer ones have lost that through the ghost writers, but they are still good books. You can still feel VC Andrews' hand in them. Darkest Hour is one of the best.

It's the story of pretty Lillian Booth and her family, a rich line of Southern plantation owners. Lillian has always been a little different, a little brighter than her two sisters, sickly Eugenia and bible spouting Emily. But as Lillian grows, she finds out just how different. (...).

All in all, this book was fabulous. I cried on not less than two occasions(...) and was utterly surprised by some of the plot twists. (...). Imagination is always useful, though! Fans of the Cutler series will not be too disappointed.

I have only read the first 6 chapters so far, but I think that is is an excellent book. It is all about a family and troubles that come with being in a rich family and how there are many secrets kept in the house between each and every family member. Also things that some of the family knows but they just dont want to believe it. There is this little girl name Lillian and she thinks that she is living with her mother and father but she will soon come to find out that they're really not her mother and father but her aunt and uncle. And he so called sister, Emily, is just evil to Lillian. But when every she talks to her other little sister who is dying,Eugenia, makes her feel all better. And Emily likes this boy named NIles Thompson, but Emily will ruin that for her too.

Dawn was a very interesting book. I thought the plot moved along quickly enough to keep me from getting bored. A girl discovers she was kidnapped, and is taken from her family and put into a new one that is full of deceiption and sin. I have read a lot of V.C. Andrews books, though, and they are all very similar, so there was nothing surprising in this one. The characters are interesting though, sometimes even a little comical because of all the emotional stress they put on themselves. It's a book i would recomend to someone who was bored.

Dawn is the typical V.C. Andrews book: poor girl with some kind of talent is whisk of to a rich family because of something or another. But it is a little more interesting then the Ruby or Melody series. Here's the plot, Dawn goes to a private school with her brother Jimmy because her father works there. She meets Philip Cutler who becomes her boyfriend for a little while and his sister Clara Sue who is jealous of Dawn and wants to make her life miserable. Later in the story Dawn's mom dies, and she finds out that she is related to Philip and Clara Sue! She's is sent back to live with them at the hotel and is treated badly by Grandmother Cutler. The problem with the Dawn characters and all of the latest V.C. Andrews characters is that she is too weak! Why didn't Dawn just beat up Clara Sue? I was waiting and waiting for her to do it but she didn't. The jealous sister thing and the evil grandmother thing is being over done now anyway. I can't beileve what a creep Philip turned out to be, he was so nice in the beginning. I highly recommend reading Dawn it is a very good book although the main character is very weak, even after all of the things she has to go through.

That was the first novel I read of the V.C. Andrews collection. I remember I had told my friend once how do you read so many books and such long ones in such a short period of time cause I have a problem with reading long books cause they can get boring, but when she told me about the book she had been reading called "Dawn" that she was so into the book that she couldn't put it down it was good. So I decided to check it out for myself so I did and I couldn't put it down neither it was so sad at the begining that it made me cry cause they were very poor and always moving and losing friends, and then it made me feel happy for Dawn and Jimmy that they had maybe found a better life maybe and that Dawn had fallen in love with Phillip and him with her, but then it became sad again when she found out the truth about everything her family, her boyfriend her whole life was just turned all around as if she was never meant to be happy in her life I felt so bad for her even though it was just a book it made me feel something inside it made me feel thankful that I have a good life even though I have problems I am thankful for what I've got.Then I read the rest of the "Dawn" series they were really good books also I really enjoyed reading about Dawn and I think it would make a great movie cause it is very emotional sad, but yet exciting I thought the book was great.

In the sequel to V.C. Andrew's masterpiece, DAWN, sixteen year old Dawn has a new chance at life. Her past behind her, she heads to a prestigious arts school in New York City. Unfortunately, when she gets there, her reputation has already been tainted by her spiteful grandmother, who sent the owner of the house she was boarding at a letter filled with malicious lies about Dawn. This makes Dawn more determined to prove her grandmother wrong and stay on the right path. Unfortunately, Dawn meets her singing teacher, Michael Sutton, and her life begins to spin out of control.

This book is confusing if you don't read DAWN first. I enjoyed this book, but it makes many references to its prequel.

Picking up where "Dawn" ended, "Secrets of the Morning" follows 16-year-old Dawn Longchamp-Cutler as she flies to New York City to attend the Bernhardt School for Performing Arts as an aspiring singer, just like her real father. While she's in New York, she's visited by various family members, some she'd rather not have around (such as her two siblings, Philip and Clara Sue), and some she can't seem to live without (Jimmy Longchamp). Even so, Dawn's tie to Jimmy doesn't remain very strong when she meets Michael Sutton, her handsome singing instructor. Michael becomes Dawn's first real lover, which results in her getting pregnant, only Michael wants nothing to do with the child and abandons them for London.

Helpless and confused, Dawn allows Grandmother Cutler to take charge of her life. Dawn is therefore sent to The Meadows, a dilapidated, old family plantation in Virginia, to have her baby in secret, under the "care" of her grandmother's two sisters (Miss Emily, a bible-thumping, religious freak, and Charlotte, a simple-minded old woman). Yet again, Dawn is victimized by her family, forced to work like a mule, even during her late months of pregnancy, and forced to endure constant verbal and emotional abuse. This last section of the book was a little offbeat, which is why I gave "Secrets of the Morning" a "4" instead of a "5". The Cutler family series isn't my favorite V. C. Andrews series either, but "Secrets of the Morning" is a pretty good follow-up to "Dawn". The remaining three books in this series are "Twilight's Child" (#3), "Midnight Whispers" (#4), and "Darkest Hour" (#5).

Dawn can hardly believe she's now a student at one of New York City's best music schools, and it is a dream come true. Dawn still dreams about Jimmy, her boyfriend, and the love they share right along side the family secrets.

Then Michael Sutton arrives. He is Dawn's new teacher, and also a singing star. He also happens to be the most handsome man Dawn has ever seen. He takes it pon himself to awaken feelings in Dawn that she has never known. Michael's promises of a love that will last forever and a chance at being a star soon prove to be empty when he disappears.

Hurt, pregnant and very much along Dawn is now a slave to her granmother's whims, and is once again waiting for Jimmy to rescue her.

This is a traditional VC Andrews book with all of the usual occurances, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth reading. There is just enough there to tease the reader into reading on, and for that reason alone I could have enjoyed the book.