The Golden Age is another "Elseworlds" examination of comics history. By using such rarely seen characters as Captain Triumph and Mr.America along with the "big guns" of the era (Green Lantern, The Atom,etc.)James Robinson visits a Post WWII America where superheroes are considered suspect, and only those who conform are to be trusted. Using superheroes to comment on McCarthyism may seem to be a stretch, but Robinson makes the story challenging with many twists. The "alternate history" concept gives the author the freedom to take chances, but also eliminates the element of "this can't be happening" suspense. Too many sub plots (Hourman's addiction, Starman's breakdown) get in the way of the more compelling central tale.

Paul Smith's art is a wonder throughout. Shifting from the well-lit scenes of Dyna-man to Paul Kirk's despair, Smith constantly creates visuals that hold your attention and never let you forget the true wonder of this medium; the ability for two dimensional, brightly colored figures to fascinate and entertain.

This was the four-part Eleseworlds tale that put James Robinson on the map and set the stage for his history-spanning Starman series. It furthermore is regarded as the best thing anyone ever did with the original DC heroes since the actual Golden Age.

It's also a lot of fun. Great character play, sharp historic details - with a couple of odd exceptions - and top-notch art by Smith make this a must-read for super-hero comics readers. In addition, it's fairly accessible for newer readers since most of the stars of this comic are not that well-known and thus made accessible for once.

Much has been said about "Marvels" and "Kingdom Come" as being the best comics of the 1990s. But I'd gladly pit this against those, and with its grounding in the real world, it holds its own very nicely.

I'm a huge mark for Golden Age heroes. The major problem with the comic books of yesteryear is that the heroes were two dimensional, completely lacking in personality. They were all upstanding, usually rich, and basically boring, when not in costume. If it wasn't for the creative gimmicks and colorful costumes, the men and women behind the masks were interchangeable. James Robinson's updating of these classic Golden Agers is insightful and refreshing. He takes these legends and creates distinctive, and relatively believable, personal backgrounds for each of them. Yet he does this without diminishing the fun and nostalgia of those earlier tales. While congratulating Robinson, I feel inclined to point out the influence of Alan Moore's Watchmen. While Watchmen may have set the standard for alternate takes on the traditional DC/Marvel universes, Robinson and Smith's work here easily lives up to that lofty standard.

Paul Smith does a great job on the art, subtly employing updated pencilling techniques along with a very distinctive golden age era style. The colors in this book are also great, obviously far superior to the comic books of decades past. My only problem with the art lies with the lack of differentiation between some of the alter egos of these costumes heroes. Since most of these guys basically had the same blonde hair, chiseled features, erect postures, and well tailored suits back in the day, sometimes it's difficult to tell them apart, at least in the early chapters. As you read on, Robinson adds humanistic touches of doubts, addictions, regrets and redemption to enrich the characters well beyond their original incarnations.

This collection covers a complete story arc, which is great, but I must admit that I would love to read more tales of the Golden Age from James Robinson and Paul Smith. James Robinson is easily one of the top 5 to 10 comic book writers out there. Check out his popular, and critically acclaimed, Starman (another update of a Golden Ager) series if you don't believe me.

As a huge fan of James Bond in all his various incarnations, I was interested to find a copy of this book the other day in a sale and purchased a copy. My doubts about its' value however began almost immediately, after all how serious can you take a claim that a book is the definitive account of a subject when the authors start by rubbishing their competitors. For the record there are a number of excellent "glossy" style books with flash pictures that are just as good, if not better reference books than this one. Also the number of different accounts of the James Bond phenomenon make it impossible for anyone to claim their version of events is right and everyone else is wrong. Top that off with the fact that the authors here give new meaning to the word "nitpicking", but ironically while they mention some totally pointless trivia connected with various stories and movies, they actually managed to miss a number of other more important details. At the end of the day this is a comprehensive, though at times patronising, account of the world's greatest secret agent. But don't be fooled, there are better books around if you want, and don't be surprised if "M" puts out a 'terminate with extreme prejudice' order on these two authors !!!

This was a quick pick at an airport one day and I was amazed at all the goodies inside. If you've ever wanted to know every language that Bond ever spoke, what gadget or gizmo he used in which movie, or all the aliases he's ever used, this is the book for you. "The Bond Files" is a great book with all kinds of facts, trivia, and information for each story, comic, and movie. The authors even review the opening title sequences and have a nice synopsis of each movie. They don't miss much with this book.

One of the best books to have on James Bond.

Just what makes him tick? Read and find out!

I wanted to like this book, but it seems to have been put together in a hurry. Mr. Jeffers facts were not checked. I don't know if I should blame the author or the editor. pg 305 - 309, Washington Roebling the NEPHEW of the Brooklyn Bridge builder died on the Titanic, not the bridge builder who lived until 1926.

Brady is NOT entombed in Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn, he is in the ground in Holy Cross cemetery in Brookyn. pg 319

My head hurt from the mistakes! THey are throughout the book. I hope Mr. Jeffers is more on top of his other works - this one was painfull.

This book reveals what, sadly, the recent Burns PBS documentary 'New York' totally ignored; The whole wonderful parade of characters and events that defined the Gilded Age. While the book has flaws (Reggie Vanderbilt was the great-grandson, not grandson, of Commodore Vanderbilt, and J.P. Morgan was not 'the most hated financier' in America) it still does a good job of bringing to life this epochal time. Especially enjoyable are the descriptions of the New York cafe and restaurant society (Emeril eat your heart out!!) that Brady and Lillian Russell were so much a part of. This book is a good starter for those beginning to explore this period. From here then read Strouse's 'Morgan; American Financier', Patterson's 'The Vanderbilts' and Gregory's 'Families of Fortune' and your off to a good start!!

Someone once wrote that there is more to history than wars, treaties, and presidents. This story of Diamond Jim Brady and his platonic friend Lillian Russell makes for great reading of the gilded Eighties, Gay Nineties, and Naughty Naughts. The flamboyant Brady made his money selling railroad equipment and didn't hesitate to spend it on his passion for diamonds, food, or lavishing gifts upon others. It's true that Jim enjoyed advertising himself, but he did enjoy giving gifts to others. When he moved to his West 86th street home on Manhattan he refurnished it with entirely new furniture along with a complete new wardrobe. He introduced New York to the automobile which ran on an electric battery which had a cruising range of thirty-six miles. Since it would be bad for his image if it broke down, he had a friend test drive it for five successive days in the early morning hours. Most people eat to live, but Diamond Jim truly was one who lived to eat. His gustatorial tales fill the book. During the removal of a kidney stone it was found that his stomach was six times larger than normal. I will share a very funny line from the book regarding Jim's wearing of diamonds. It was a rule of his that "diamonds larger than doorknobs should be worn only in the evening." I did find that Diamond Jim had feelings of insecurity regarding his appearance when he was turned down in marriage from a woman named Edna. Jim lamented, "I asked her plenty of times to marry me and she always refused. ...There ain't a woman in the world who'd marry a fat, ugly guy like me." He also offered one million dollars to Lillian Russell to marry him, but she turned him down saying, "Why ruin a beautiful friendship?" If you enjoy American social history you have a treat waiting for you in reading this book.

Kind of boring. He glosses over a lot of stuff that could be good reading real non-chalantly without any explanation. For example, he states that he and several of his guys shot at any Japanese pilot they could find floating in a parachute, no analysis or explanation provided. This would have been an interesting topic to hear more about! On the last page of the book in the epilogue he says that he latter rose to command a carrier but then navy asked him to retire because "the navy didn't need a captain who couldn't handle his liquor". Then the book ends practically right at that sentence. Again, that would have been interesting subject to explore, but again no explanation or analysis. The book was kind of lame, but the picture on the front did get me thinking about building the 1/32 scale corsair model so all was not lost.

for a better account of WWII combat in the air over the pacific, read Saburo Sakai's "Samurai", or Samuel Hynes "Flights of Passage", or "Aces Against Japan" all much better books.

Tom Blackburn's account of VF-17 in World War II does a better job at making a reader feel like they are involved in the scenery of air combat than does Greg "Pappy" Boyington's Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Overall, I was much more entertained, but still came away wanting more than was given. The book does not have the grand sweep of an Amrose book covering a whole theater, but still does a good job at retelling this piece of aviation history.

A must for anyone who is interested Military Aviation. Tom Blacburn's novel, The Jolly Rogers, oulines the genisis of one of the most well known US Naval Fighter Squdrons in existance - with the Skull and Cross Bones still flying today on the F-14B's of VF-103. In two combat tours, the Jolly Rogers not only broke the backbone of Japanese resistance about the Soloman Islands - destroying 154 Japanese aircraft, but also vindicated their belief in the fighting ability of the F4U, having earlier refused to give up their beloved Corsairs for F6F Hellcats. Vividly written, it allows the reader to glimpse what life on the frontline must have been like, through Tom Blackburn's own experiences and feelings. Sometimes funny, always frank and moving, this novel is a must for anyone wanting a comprehensive library on Military Aviation - or with an interest in the Jolly Rogers

First let me tell you why NOT TO BUY this book: You want to learn how to create SQL statements- there are lots of SQL manuals that are better, and easier to use as a reference because they are lighter in pounds. You want to learn advanced issues in creating a database- if you are that advanced you should buy a book about the particular issue you need help with.

Now let me to you WHY TO BUY this book: If you are just building databases complex enough to get into real trouble (and that happens a lot sooner than you may think) you must read this book. It gives an overview of all the problems you need to think about. Very simple databases can get into trouble if you aren't very careful about data integrity and security. This book will raise warning-flags in your head- to find out what do about those warning-flags, however, you may need to go to a book specifically about your application or problem.

I had no previous experience in SQL and I needed to learn it fast for my job. I chose this book because it got good reviews, and I have no regrets that I bought it. The book is excellent for beginners as well as intermediate level programmers. The material is presented clearly and logically, and explanations and examples are very helpful. I would highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to learn SQL as well as to everyone who is looking for a good reference book.

I was forced to buy this book for a database class. I didn't fully appreciate it until I took a programming job and found myself using SQL quite a bit. This book lives up to its name, as it is truly a complete listing of all the concepts in SQL. It gives quality examples of how to use embedded SQL, dynamic SQL, and standard SQL. The authors are to be commended as this book is truly easy to read and quite informative. If you are interested at all in working with database programming, I can't recommend this SQL book high enough!! Plus, there is software included on the CD for many DBMS (Oracle, SQL Server, and others), which makes this book a good value.

This book is one in Zondervan's Counterpoints Series, which presents the view of various (mostly) Evangelical writers on theological subjects. This book is sorely needed because Evangelical apologists have had a history of writing critically and polemically of one another (one thinks of the Clark/Van Til debate), with the result of the layman having a difficult time deciding among the various positions.

The problem with this book is either that the writers are too timid or are more irenic than their label would indicate. There are three authors who present variations on the traditional approach: the classical method (Craig), the evidential method (Habermas), and the cumulative case method (Feinberg). These approaches are quite similar, although some differences do arise. When the reader gets to John Frame's presuppositional method, he expects to get a starkly different approach. After all, Van Til was notorious for attacking "traditional" apologetics as "Roman Catholic" or "Arminian." Well, Frame tells us that he agrees with most of what Craig writes. The final writer, Kelly James Clark (who represents the "Reformed epistemological method"), says the same thing.

Perhaps the editor could have selected a follower of Gordon Clark (a rationalist who denied the proofs of God's existence) or a fideist to present a contrasting apologetic method.

Few books have seriously tackled apologetic method, or how Christianity should be defended rationally. The last book I know of that surveyed options in this regard was Gordon Lewis, "Testing Christianity's Truth Claims" (Moody Press, 1976; republished by University Press of America).

This book presents five different approaches, each represented by one of its exponents: Classical Apologetics (William Lane Craig), Evidentialism (Gary Habermas), Culumulative Case Method (Paul Feinberg), Presuppositionalism (John Frame), and Reformed Epistemology (Kelly James Clark).

Much ground is covered concerning the Bible's approach to apologetics, where apologetic arguments should begin, how certain arguments for Christianity are, and so on. I will simply make a few comments.

The presentations by Craig and Habermas are the most worthwhile because they are the most intellectual rigorous and well-documented. They also tend to agree with each on most things and reinforce each others views. While I tend to favor a cumulative case method (influenced by E.J. Carnell and Francis Schaeffer, but with more appreciation for natural theology), Feinberg's comments are the weakest by far. He never mentions the leading exponent of this view in our generation (Carnell) nor Carnell's apt and well-published student (and my esteemed colleague), Dr. Gordon Lewis. Not one word about either one! His comments are brief, his documentation is thin, and he fails to advance anything very creative or helpful, I'm afraid. A better person should have been chosen, such as Gordon Lewis. Frame gives his "kinder, gentler" version of Cornelius Van Til, which still suffers from the same kinds of problems--most notably the fallacy of begging the question in favor of Christianity. Nevertheless, the notion of a "transcendental argument" for theism is a good one, but it should not carry all the weight of apologetics. Clark's material is philosophically well-informed (one would expect this of a student of Alvin Plantinga!), but apologetically timid. Clark almost sounds like a skeptic at times.

A few bones more bones to pick. The editor refers to Francis Schaeffer as a presuppositionalist. This is false; he was a verificationist with more in common with Carnell than with Van Til. Gordon Lewis's fine essay on Schaeffer's apologetic method in "Reflections on Francis Schaeffer" makes this very clear. None of the writers address the great apologetic resources found in Blaise Pascal. I also found at least two grammatical errors.

Nevertheless, as a professor of philosophy at a theological seminary who teaches apologetics, I found this volume very helpful and useful. But let's not get so involved in methodological concerns that we fail to go out in the world and defend our Christian faith as objectively true, existentially vital, and rationally compelling (Jude 3)!

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy Denver Seminary

I got my copy from Amazon a few weeks ago and the day I received it I could not put it down. This is a wonderful text. The book covers five various apologetic methods from five well known scholars who promulgate and defend each of their own views. Moreover, once each of these five scholars have written why they use a particular method, the other four have an opportunity to respond. The responses are by far the best part of the book. However, the actual essays that cover the five methods give the reader a better grasp on that particular method. This book is helpful in several ways. First, it provides the reader a fairly exhaustive treatment of each of the various apologetic methods. Second, it allows the reader to actually see what proponents of the each of the various methods are saying about each of the other methods. Third, it includes some of the best, if not the best, scholars in each of the various methodologies covered. The contributors include, William Lane Craig (Classical Method), Gary R. Habermas (Evidential Method), Kelly James Clark (Reformed Epistemological Method), Paul D. Feinberg (Cumulative Method), and John M. Frame (Presuppositional Method). The only downside to the book that I can see is the idea that some may think that their particular method was not accurately covered by the scholar at hand. In other words, the Presuppositionalists may wonder why John Frame was used instead of someone else, etc. However, I believe that each method was given a fair assessment and the initial essays with the responses will make the book a wonderful reference for many years to come.

As a resident of Bali year-round, the number one complaint by almost every lonely planet carrying visitor is how inaccurate and outdated the lonely planet guides are. Whether it is Thailand or Indonesia, information that is needed on a daily basis is history by the time the lonely books reach the traveling consumer. Bookstores throughout Asia are piled high with lonely planets discarded by weary travelers eager to lessen their load. Lonely planet books do offer historical perspectives that can also be found on the internet, but the insider's information the first time traveler needs to save money and sanity their first days in Asia is sorely lacking. Updated info on how to avoid being ripped off from lodging to transportation to moneychanging is of primary concern to almost all visitors to Bali that we meet. Books as heavy as bricks with pretty pics are nice but hardly handy when you are in need of fast, accurate information. Try "The Beginners Guide to Bali" on cd-rom- it has weekly updated info and prepares the first time traveler to Bali for the unexpected.

I found this book quite informative and useful in its information about many different aspects of visiting Bali. The book provides wonderful cultural insights, historical background and detailed information.

The only major discrepancy we came across, for instance, was that the book said that Kuta has problems with tourists being hassled by street vendors, but when we went in April, we found that the main street in Kuta (where the Matahari Department Store is) quite the opposite. It turned out that the officials had just recently come down on the street vendors and put a stop to harassing tourists there. Instead, when we went to the center of town in Ubud, we were hassled a great deal by taxi/moped drivers to get us to hire them; this caught us off guard.

In response to concerns that the book isn't current on it's information, I feel that you shouldn't rely on a guidebook for prices, and that as a whole Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok gives the information that you need to know. It tells you in great detail about what there is to see and do, and where things are and how things work. I mean afterall, by the time any book reaches publication, isn't a lot of the information out-of-date? Otherwise, a book would never get published; it would be a newsletter.

I gave this a rating of 4 stars only because when we went to Bali, we didn't travel enough of the country (and we didn't get to Lombok) to give the book 5 stars.

We have just returned from Bali (October 2000) and strongly recommend taking this LP with you. I have been a bit skeptical about the info of some LP's (Mexico-we hardly used it!) but in Bali whoever put this one together knew their stuff. FORGET THE PRICES MENTIONED, they've at least doubled for meals accomodation etc , but then so has the amount of rupee you'll get!! One interesting note. We took a taxi to the Temple of Gudang Kawi, an 11th century temple. LP justifibly raves about it. The only other tourists there we saw were holding a LP. Local tour operaters didn't seem to think tourists would be interested in it and must take them to more boring temples!(and believe you me, they get boring!)

With a book of this nature, it's hard separating an evaluation of the book from an evaluation of the technology itself -- so I won't try too hard. Yes, the book showed certain evidence of haste in editing and proofing but the errors and weaknesses are not of the type to cause an early adopter to stumble. For instance, there is no index but chapters are distinct enough so that it is easy to find the broad categories.

I eagerly picked up this book after attending a very impressive demo of Curl's capacities. Only skimming the two chapters on Object Oriented Programming, I concentrated on the other chapters most relevant to GUI developers of Web-based applications.

Being an ardent practitioner of the W3C's Cascading Style Sheets technology, I was a bit disappointed in Curl's implementation of styles, which seems clumsy and very limited, even considering the differences in syntax. The authors were very knowledgeable on HTML and CSS issues -- which made their reliance on tables for layout a bit disturbing. Does this indicate that Curl lacks equivalents for CSS positioning and layout properties -- or merely that the authors did not happen to see this as important enough to include in examples?

I was dissatisfied with the paucity of examples and the fact that these examples were not of the type of depth to glue the various parts of Curl together. There were some good examples involving 2-D and 3-D graphics which showed the technology to advantage. However, if your primary interest is in form-based Web applications, the examples were sketchy.

The book really needs to have context. Criticism of Java, HTML, JavaScript, etc. is not enough.
The authors must speak more directly to the questions:
{}Does the Web world need another proprietary, Java-like browser plug-in?
{}Does the Curl organization have what it takes to go against Microsoft's .NET, which has a similar architecture and revenue model?

Answer these questions and you not only have a good book, but a real cool winning tool.

Curl is an important new client-side web language that permits you to create web applications that have the same rich interactive power of local applications (Word, Excel) while reducing the complexity that arises from using multiple existing web languages.

This is currently the BEST Curl book on the market. Ok, it's currently the ONLY Curl book on the market, which makes it Good News/Bad News.

Good News: This book does a great job of providing Curl information and "how to" examples in more depth than the Curl manuals. All the major topics are covered, which makes this a good overall reference book. The graphics architecture section is particularly helpful, where the authors describe the overall graphics framework of Curl. This info would save any new user time when learning Curl.

Bad News: by targeting the early adopter, the book is timely, but shows some warts. Some sections still show and describe the last beta version of Curl. The last beta was mostly similar to the current version of Curl, but the small differences are occasionally distracting. The book also has a number of typos and the class descriptions in one table were copied directly from the (free) Curl manual. As most of the authors are from Curl Corporation, this is not plagiarism, but it is not new information either.

Overall, this book serves its purpose by being the first overall book on Curl. The book itself is a great way to learn Curl in conjunction with the Curl manuals. Despite its warts, it is well worth owning.

[Bruce Mount worked as one of the Technical Reviewers for this book. No, he didn't review the section with typos. :-)]

If you have never been to curls website and looked at this new web technology, you do not know what you are missing. In some ways, you can think of Curl as Flash on steroids, although you can do much more than the eye candy Macromedia is known for.

They call this book an early adopter book, but, since I think Curl is most likely going to go the way of Microsoft Agent, it is more a Bleeding Edge book. Unlike Microsoft Agent, however, I do think this technology is very useful.

So, what is Curl? Curl is a new OO technology for web UI development. In many ways, it is what Java promised, with applets, in its early days. The main difference here is Curl is designed to create dynamic, awe inspiring presentations (ala Flash) without a lot of work (once you learn the language, that is).

The book deals with Curl primarily as a UI development language. Through the chapters you will learn to work with 2d and 3d environments, multimedia and even dynamic client interaction. As with all Wrox books, there are plenty of code examples (all downloadable from the Wrox site).

I really love this book, although I wonder if the technology will ever really take off (Curl engine download is huge if you have a dialup).

"The Triumph of Liberty" is best purchased with the notion that you will chew on one or two short nuggets at a time to capture the essence of each "freedom fighter" profiled. Like Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation", it's a compilation of vignettes that illuminate and sometimes inspire, and which can be read in short bursts.

"Liberty" is short on historical analysis and long on basic biographical formula, which made my own read feel somewhat monotonous. Still, it's a worthwhile contribution to the bookshelf of anyone who cares about the rights of the individual, and who knows how precarious those rights have been throughout man's history.

Powell deserves great credit for surveying the last two millenia of Western history to find liberty's "greatest champions". I found myself at the end begging for more analytic input from the author to "put it all together". But I am grateful for his compiling this list of the good guys in the struggle to attain the freedom which we all say we want, and are too often willing to sacrifice by pieces to other ends. The book would benefit greatly from better editorial attention to correct obvious syntactical errors and repetitions. Overall, an admirable addition to the literature of classical liberalism.

In this book Jim Powell attempts to tell us the story of liberty by illuminating the lives of it's greatest champions.Mr. Powell is a great storyteller and for the most part he succeeds in his mission of telling us the story of freedom's champions from Cicero to Ronald Reagan.The book might have been better if Powell had started out by giving us a definition of liberty. In the biblical sense liberty implies the ability to be morally self-governed.This was certainly how Locke, Jefferson and Franklin among other libertarians understood the term.If the concept of self-government is understood as it relates to liberty the author would have to eliminate the chapters on H.L. Mencken,and Albert Jay Nock among others.I agree with a previous reviewer that the book's inclusion of Martin Luther King Jr. is highly questionable.Dr. King was certainly a great man who achieved great things.But He was not a libertarian, He was a socialist.But beyond these criticisms this is an excellent book.My favorite chapter is the one about William E. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone's life was the personification of liberty.Like John Locke and Hugo Grotius Gladstone was a devout christian who practiced moral self-government in his personal life and attempted to impose that same sense of self-discipline upon government. Once again this is a great book, which ought to be required reading in all of our schools. God bless you Jim Powell.