It's often said that there is nothing new to say about abortion. Harrison has something new to say -- said over two decades ago and foolishly ignored. Viewed from our perspective, In The Shadow of the Curette seems a chilling prophecy.

I very much enjoyed this book. It presented the history, archaeology and architecture of Tikal in a clear fashion. Harrison wove the various threads of evidence together skillfully without getting bogged down in details. After an introduction to the site and its environment he proceeds in a chronologic order telling the history of this ancient city. He takes two breaks in his story to describe the city's architecture. Because there is dispute in the field of epigraphy you cannot take this book as the last word, but that is the nature of writing about something which is an intense subject of research. I must also say that I found some of Harrison's assertions about architectural alignments dubious. Certainly, I could not see how his maps could support all his claims. Nevertheless, I would heartily recommend this book.

I visited Tikal last Feb. I had read about it for years and still wasn't prepared for the magnitude, the scope the complexity of the civilization it was a small part of--it is a place you have to visit and see for yourself to even begin to really grasp. When I got home I found this book--I really wish I had read this BEFORE I WENT, the trip would have been better for it. In any case, I was happy to read it after the trip. This is the single best work I've found for sharing part of what I discovered at Tikal with people who haven't been there. I recommend it--especially if you are considering a visit--but also if you just like to armchair travel...It is a nice place to go either way.

this book on tikal is essential for those going to the ruins. not only does it take you back in time, it also helps orientate the traveler so he can use the best of his time, money and efforts. Don't leave home without it!

I had some minor issues toward the end. During a meeting late in the novel, a character is forced to present wearing nothing but swimwear. This seemed a laborious way to make a point, and the silliness of the situation distracted me. The ending ties up messily, with everything resolved but in a manner that stretches the limits of disbelief. People are revealed for what and who they really are, certainly, but there's a lack of motivation behind their actions, and their deeds are not convincing.

I'm being deliberately coy, because all faults aside, this is a very impressive book. Harrison's writing style and the depth and breadth of his characters are beautiful. Reading on, you come to feel as if you know these people, and in most instances you genuinely care about them. Even minor characters are fully limned. Better still is what Harrison doesn't say. Jack Whitman tells us that his mother never liked his late wife, and in the next breath that he doesn't speak to his mother much anymore. Harrison lets us read between the lines in many such places.

A classical sense of tragedy runs through this book: that our lives are not foretold but shaped by us, and that we are often the sources of our own ruin. At the tale's end, you'll want to go back to the beginning, armed with a new knowledge of who these people are and what will become of them.

Bodies Electric is over all a good novel. The novel is about a man named Jack Whitman. In the beginnig of the novel, Harrison does a nice job introducing Jack, and this continues throughout the rest of the novel as well. By the end of the novel, the reader really feels as if they had personally met Jack, which to me, makes this a well written novel. Jack is a business man who works in a very large and well known media corperation. At first, I was not sure if I would really like this novel because I am not usually interested in things dealing with large businesses. However, I ended up learning a lot about big corporations and it was actually quite interesting. I would more than likely recommend this novel to someone looking for a novel to read. I would definitely suggest to go somewhere where you know you will not be bothered because I was unable to stop reading by the time I got to the last few chapters.

Fantastic! That's what I could only say to you guys without any chronicle backpains. I suffered a badback again last week and had to lie down in bed for 4 days. "Bodies Electric" had lightened my painful suffering for two days and enlightened me in the meantime. When I finished it, I could not help but shaking my head awkwardly on my pillows with amazement and appreciation. This review is also my "Thank You!" note to Mr. Harrison for this wonderful and profound painkiller other than Motrin 800 mg and Flexril. The only thing that I did not quite enjoyed is that when I finished reading, the ending seems to be a bit rushed and obscure. Mr. Harrison so far has created two profound, memorable yet lonely characters: Jack Whiteman and Porter Wren. Both are fatally driven to be a "tragic hero" and a living example of "The heart is a lonely hunter." Both have made you, the reader, to look at the faceless lonely crowd out in the street, on the sidewalk, in the concrete jungles, with new way of looking angle, finally realized and visualized that behind every expressionless face and worldly success, some of them might still with passion, love, warmth, sympathy, fantasy, desire, weakness, helplessness, tenderness, hopes and dreams. Harrion's artwork might not be easily appreciated by those under 30 who are still unconciously or subconciously reading books with their own different moral standards, with their bias social values or pre-judgement to approach a book, trying to categorize a book with the superflous commercial brands: "Thriller, Genre," words like "Suspenseful, whodunit...." These pathetic marketing stuff in fact, all got nothing to do with Harrison's works. Because he only told us two thing: "No matter what and why, no matter how and when, with wife and children or not, we human beings still got a darker side and lonely inner self. The spur-of-the-moment or your behavior, no matter how reasonable or logical at the moment, or vise versa, sometimes might just ruin everything you have worked so hard to have achieved or reached." Reading Mr. Harrison's books with any social value or moral standard is a doomed wrong start albeit to appreciate his greatness.

Check out the companion website. A place to find out more about the book, read a sample chapter, and keep up-to-date on a rapidly moving field.

The book is focussed on commercial business applications for software agents - not so much technical research. Ideal for CTO's and CEO's considering agent learning functions in their corporate Intranets or applications.

This is a great book! It is a super introduction to agent technology. There is so much hype about agents around -- this book provides a coherent taxonomy of agent technologies and really explains what agents can and cannot do.

Other books I've read on agent technology are either too technical and full of mumbo-jumbo, or are marketingese and filled with content copied straight from company web sites. This book is a great mixture of technology and business that allows you to see the impact agents will make in business.

These guys have really put a lot of thought into this book!

Birds are beautiful and the world of birds is fascinating. It's only fitting then that this is an Eyewitness Book, because that series of books is well known for beautiful illustrations and fascinating, innovative and educational presentations on the various topics that they publish. This book uses annotated photographs rather than drawings and it's size (like an oversized novel) allows between two to three birds per page, making the photos large enough for easy identification. The descriptions that accompany each bird speak to behavior, habitat, what it's nest looks like and sometimes a general remark on some unusual or an interesting trait. The geographic distribution of the bird is also shown by way of a small map. A reviewer below is right. The use of an illustration showing the size of the bird in relation to the book is brilliant! I can't think of a better way of getting a feel for the size of something you've never seen, than comparing it with something that you are holding in your hand.

The only quibble with the book is the method of organising the birds. The book is divided into Passerines and Non Passerines which doesn't mean much and doesn't help either, since both of those groups include a wide variety of bird types. Picture this: a bird catches your eye, "Hey that's an owl, I wonder what kind?" You can spend a bit of time going through the 3 step identification key before you find the owls. To be fair though, that really only means that this is not a field guide. It can't be, it's 'Birds of The World' afterall. Enjoy it for what it is - A beautifully illustrated, educational, introduction to the wonderful world of birds.

This book by the successful Eyewitness Books makes identifying birds on the backyard fence, those birds sitting on the wire over your recently-washed car, birds in the woods and jungles easy to identify. The highly graphical lay-out and the simply written text welcomes the reader to the world of the feathered flyers that live in every climate on earth. Even though this volume is not as comprehensive and inclusive as the books by the Audubon Society or the Peterson guides, it contains outstanding pictures of more than 800 species. The entire range of bird families is presented in an easy-to-read format with fabulous closeup pictures of each bird. Just enough information is presented. An especially cunning feature shows an outline of each bird next to an outline of the book to convey a sense of size. Sections in the front of the book introduce the reader to the anatomy of birds, techniques for watching birds in the garden or woods, identifying flight patterns, and much more. If you are a causal bird-watcher of any age or merely like to look at birds from your cozy arm chair in from of the fire, you must have this book in your personal library.

Good book, good illustrations
But the illustrator of the book is Bill Beavis, not Bill Beans.

This is a great starting point for a journey into knot tying. It just contains the basics and a little on splicing. I would recommend it to any begginer

First of all, let me stress to potential buyers that this book is NOT a field guide. It is however a rather thourough reference book. The authors describe what kind of habitat the birds breed in, what the nests look like, the eggs, incubation, the nestlings, and nestling period. They also tell when the breeding season is. There are very, very few drawings of nests. There are sixteen pages of color plates showing paintings of nestlings. And another forty-seven pages of color plates showing photos of eggs. The smaller eggs are shown actual size, but the larger eggs are shown 3/4's or 9/10's of actual size. Why not go ahead and make them actual size even if it means adding a few more pages? I think this book is a good companion to the Peterson guides to bird nests (where you will see actual bird nests with eggs.) It would be great if David Allen Sibley would write or at least illustrate the ultimate guide to bird nests.

"A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds" by Baicich and Harrison is a sorely needed reference to a subject familiar and interesting to both casual birdwatchers and serious ornithologists. Up to now, the standard reference was Hal Harrison's "Birds' Nests" (one for the eastern U.S., another for the west), Peterson Field Guides published in 1975. As the title indicates, these books feature photographs of nests (one picture per species), most with eggs. Many nests (and eggs) look alike, and these books are not especially helpful in identifying nests or their contents. While the Peterson Guide to eastern nests, for example, covered only 285 species, the Baicich and Harrison book covers 669 species nesting in North America.

Baicich and Harrison have created a book that is both practical and beautiful. The first 16 color plates portray dozens of nestling birds -- even the most un-anthropomorphic of us will find many of them cute! A number of the plates show the distinctive "gapes" or open mouths of the nestlings. The rest of the nearly 50 plates are eggs, carefully rendered to show subtle characteristics in color and pattern and displayed to show relative size. For some species, more than one egg is shown to demonstrate variety. These plates are so well done that the varying degrees of gloss are captured, an extremely useful detail. Opposite each plate is a short description of the eggs of the family, a key to the species, and the page number of the text.

The text section contains additional black-and-white sketches of nestlings and nests of many species. Text is concise but thorough, covering breeding habitat, a description of the nest including materials and placement, dates of the breeding season, a description of the eggs including measurements, details on the incubation and nestling periods, and a description of the nestling.

The introductory material is worthwhile as well. A short section on the legal and ethical considerations of studying nesting birds is wisely included. Discussions on each of the items included in the text are presented. These go beyond a simple definition and into some detail. For instance, the paragraphs on eggshell color tell us that newly laid eggs can briefly have a pinkish hue; the types of pigments that color eggshells; that while there might be variation within the species, each female usually lays consistently-colored eggs; and what causes abnormally colored eggs. The mechanics of hatching and the types of nestlings and their anatomy are also covered. Next, there is fine text on responsible nest-finding techniques and an overview of nest monitoring and recording schemes. Finally, there are three keys: Nests, Eggs, and Young nestlings and chicks.

As a professional ornithologist, I rarely cracked open my Peterson Guide to nests. However, I often browse "A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds," even when I am not in need of an immediate reference. This is a book with a place on any bird lover's shelf.

This book looked great at first, but then, on closer inspection, the drawings are second-rate, the information is thin, and the inaccuracies mount. Yet, there are no real alternatives that seek to comprehensively catalogue ancient life. I'd still buy it, but my enthusiasm has waned.

Several months after acquiring the book I leaf through it and wonder how I could have given it such a high rating as I did. It has flaws throughout!

- The book appears to have a drastic shortage of species to list - it is only half as thick as Simon and Schuster's Encyclopedia of Animals - despite the fact that on numerous occasions they list but one or two species from a thirty-species family;

- The art is severely degraded from the above mentioned encyclopedia of animals. While I can see the puzzlement concerning the colors of the creatures' hides, there is no excuse for the the sloppy drawings of several of the animals! If you make a conjecture, please, be sure to follow through! On several of the animals the hair cover fails to obey the laws of physics, and most of the amphibians look like a horrid joke.

- The information is sketchy at best - on numerous occasions special biological mechanisms are mentioned (like a new jaw bone arrangement for the fishes, and the skull structures of the early land animals), yet are never explained in function. Almost all species are captioned with the basics like weight and dimensions followed with senseless filler.

- The between-section class summarizations and the cladistic graphs are also very, very basic. While I understand that the book was not intended for specialists, even the basic layman will find the charts a bit "dumbed down".

This book is flashy and artful, but lacking, lacking a great lot.

I have always longed for such a book. Probably it's a grave mistake on my part to make that the firt sentense of a review, but still. I daresay, anyone who has ever been in the very least intereste in paleontology has always longed for this sort of tome. The authors have satisfied both our love of visuals ( pictures are abundant - they accompiny every entry, in full blazing color by very trustworthy artists, generally sure to catch anyone's eye) and our love of the unknown ( this is the first non-specialist book that I have seen that goes beyond the everyday banal creatures like the pachycephalosaurus and the pterosaurids). This book is sheer pleasure while doing any sort of research, even for the specialists who need solid information. Perhaps there isn't quite enough data with every entry ( due to page limits), but the information that is included is accurate and up-to-date. This is a very good book.

I've read all but one of Colin Harrison's books. I love his blunt style, and I usually have a hard time putting the them down once I've started reading. I've often started reading, expecting to stop after 1/2 and hour, only to look up at the clock and realized its been well over an hour.

However, that being said, these books have all been ruined by a mediocre ending that leaves you saying, "Well, that was certainly anti-climactic."

Was it bad enough to put me off his other writing? Not at all. It didn't stop me from buying all of his books. It's just a small quibble.

Devotees of Voodoo will be happy to note that Colin Harrison's new novel once again brings us a protagonist whom the author slowly destroys. Mr. Harrison uses up a whole quiver of needles while sticking them in his character of Peter Scattergood. Peter's an upstanding, decent assistant district attorney who is assigned a case involving the murder of the mayor's nephew. Peter investigates the murder, and comes up with more leads than the police. Is the criminal investigation the main plot of the story? Perhaps not. Peter's wife has left him and he is disconsolate; he needs to win her back. He tries unsuccessfully to mend the relationship, and, to our dismay, turns into a stalker. What a paradox as his legal ethics begin conflicting with the unethical behavior in his personal life. He becomes seriously deluded in his belief that his marriage will be saved.

Colin Harrison frequently presents us with extremely fallible humans. They tend to persist in following a bad turn along one of life's roads. Reason falls victim to rationalization. You want to slap Peter Scattergood in the face, and hear him say, "Thanks, I needed that." So once again we have a Harrison novel in which it is hard to identify with those who live in its pages. For those who do like CH, however, this is another rewarding read.

I was spell bound by Colin Harrison's excellent legal thriller right up to the final few chapters. Harrison weaves a clever tale around the central character, Peter Scattergood, an assistant District Attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney's office. As the story begins, Scattergood is on the verge of completing another successful prosecution in a case of sexual assault and murder. He is about to take on a high profile prosecution following the murder of the nephew of the city's black mayor. His assignment to this case is the result of self interested political motivation by both his boss, the DA, and the mayor himself. Scattergood is in a lose-lose situation with his natural support mechanism, the police investigators, being in the pocket of the DA.

That Scattergood's wife walks out on him at this very time makes his life almost unbelievably challenging. His own parents seem to have more sympathy for his wife than for him. He is almost penniless too with heavy financial commitments leaving him with virtually no discretionary disposable income. Far from bringing any relief into his desperate situation, a casual and very sexual affair, only adds to his unhappiness and causes his guilty conscience to work overtime. He desperately loves his wife and would do almost anything, legal or illegal, to have her return to him.

At the stage where only a few pages of the book remained to be turned, I was concerned that all the loose ends in the tale couldn't be neatly tied up. Were my concerns real or unfounded? You will have to read the book for yourself and find out. It is an excellent story and easy to read.

I was surprised to find that this may be the only book which Colin Harrison has written. I have read reviews of "Afterburn", "Bodies Electric" and "Manhattan Nocturne" written by Colin Harrison, but it seems that may have been another author with the same name. There was no link or reference to "Break And Enter". My research is clearly not yet complete.

It is always a pleasure to discover a new author and be able to look forward to the promise of reading all his/her other books. Colin, if it wasn't you who wrote those three other books please pick up your pen, or fire up your lap top and start on another novel.

Samuel Palmer as a young man was a disciple of William Blake, but had already struck out as an artist of the imagination. When he met Blake, Palmer confessed that he set about creating works of art "with fear and trembling." "Then you'll do," Blake said.

Harrison's book contains what look to me like superb reproductions, admittedly small, of early masterpieces such as the suite of six pictures that includes "Early Morning." Here also are some of the less distinctive landscapes of his long period (pictures from Italy, etc.); and magnificent etchings from late in his life.

Geoffrey Grigson's Samuel Palmer: The Visionary Years remains, in my opinion, the best first book to read about Palmer, but the reproductions in Harrison's book are much better and, in any event, Grigson is out of print.