This is an enjoyable and wimsical tale set in White Wolf's World of Darkness halfway through the second millenium. Unfortunately this book is no longer in print, but White Wolf, in an effort to remedy this, has reprinted it along with the second book in the series, Blood and Fire. I just finished my first read through the book, and soon I will be telling this tale of the Giovanni's beginnings, via the fall of their founders, the ancient Cappadocians. I hope others who read this will feel the sense of awe and fear that the World of Darkness conjures in me.

The Giovanni Saga 1 makes up the first of two collections of books detailing not only the creation of the Giovanni clan but the time and events leading up to it. This edition contains the now out of print first two books of the Giovanni Chronicles (The Last Supper and Blood and Fire). The first book details the main players in the Conspiracy of Isaac, the founders, and other minor players. The second explains the beginnings of Clan Giovanni and the troubles it faced in the beginning. The entire book is set up as instructions for the storyteller, with ideas for live-action roleplay and character stats. The book, aside from a very nonlinear and detailed chronicle, can also be enjoyed by simply reading as any other book. The book includes detailed storyteller information for every possible variation in the story. I recommend this book for anybody who plays vampire, is interested in the Giovanni, wants to host the greatest chronicle ever, or just wants to read a really neat book.

This is an enjoyable and wimsical tale set in White Wolf's World of Darkness halfway through the second millenium. Unfortunately the books The Last Supper and Blood & Fire are no longer in print, but White Wolf, in an effort to remedy this, has reprinted them in this superb compilation, I await the next parts of the series. I just finished my first read through the book, and soon I will be telling this tale of the Giovanni's beginnings, via the fall of their founders, the ancient Cappadocians. I hope others who read this will feel the sense of awe and fear that the World of Darkness conjures in me.

We travel quite a bit and spend a lot of time beforehand getting information about the food where we're headed. Before taking off for Turkey some 3 years ago we bought "Eat Smart in Turkey," (there are several countries covered in that series), which was just what we were looking for. We used LP guides a lot, so welcome the debut of their food guides. Bought the one on Spain for an upcoming repeat trip and expect this guide to be helpful. No McD's for us!

As frequent world travelers, there are certain "rituals" we perform prior to departure. Chief among these familiarizing ourselves with the local cuisine, and preparing dishes we expect to be eating. This little volume does the best job I have ever seen in explaining local food and drink, food preparation tools and techniques, and regional variations on all of these. Some recipes are included: the paella is the easiest I have ever prepared, and equally flavorful. The book is beautifully illustrated and whets one's appetite for travel to Spain as well as eating there. Descriptions of restaurant types are excellent: do YOU know what to expect at a horno asador, versus a terraza? And just what sort of drink WOULD you find at a sidreria? The one downside of the book is the lack of specific recommendations of restaurants, tavernas, etc. This is somewhat countered by a very precise guide to recommended stalls to visit in the Barcelona market. However, other guide books would have to steer you to eating establishments. The section on "Fit and Healthy" eating should be read by any traveler to a foreign country. Kudos to Lonely Planet. We look forward with great enthusiasm to their editions related to other cuisines.

As frequent world travelers, we have certain "rituals" we perform prior to departure. Chief among these is "studying" food - reading and preparing dishes from appropriate cookbooks. We're going to Barcelona and Costa Brava in May, and have prepared numerous Paella dishes. The recipe in this book is much easier to prepare than most and equally excellent in flavor. We had read in Saveur Magazine a bit about Sidrerias. (Cider Houses, but not as in the bestselling book.) The Lonely Planet guide gave much more information. The one downside to this book is the lack recommendations of good restaurants, bars, etc. Perhaps their travel guide does this, but it would have been much better to incorporate this into the volume under discussion. The book is extremely well organized, and it's easy to access information on virtually any food-related subject. This would be a great addition to the library of anyone interested in Spanish cuisine. The section on "Fit & Healthy" does a much better than usual job of explaining potential risk factors for American tourists, and how to deal with them. This will be one of three books we bring with us to Spain. I look forward to acquiring any other titles published in this series. Kudos to Lonely Planet.

I paced myself, reading chapters a few at a time. I could have read it straight thru but the act of stopping every once and a while lead to exploration of the depth of this author's research. A great break from the common plots and storylines used so often by the greatest of writers. Richard I would enjoy very much a sequal. ENCORE!

I originally bought this book on the recommendation of a good friend of the author. Not knowing what to think the cover would hide I picked it up hesitantly and then hours, days later put it down with barely a break in between. The story flowed before me as if it were a screen play-- better than many Ive seen. I enjoyed every bit of this novel and found both truth and humor with the very (American) militaristic style of the main character. Not only did I enjoy this book, but having leant it to several International friends, African employees, VISO, CUSO and U.S. Peace Corp, they enjoyed it as well! This book would make an entertaining gift for many. Way to go Richard!

Somewhere in space-time, there is an intersecting plane, a place where the fiction writer meets along an infinite line of points with the characters and events s/he has created. That line blurs with Richard Jones's first novel, Cocaine Alley. He brings such realism to the story, in such a matter-of-fact, low-key, believable way, that the reader finds it hard to decide just how much of this detail, just how much of this 'fictional' situation, is indeed invented from whole cloth. Jones is masterful at presenting his main character, Sarge, as a man shaped by the military experience of his youth, but possessed of such quirks and insecurities as the fear of growing old alone. He has crafted this character with an even-handed sense of balance. With his moments of self-deprecating humor and guilt regarding his eating habits, Sarge becomes endearingly human. He also commands a high degree of respect for what he's seen and done in service of his country. Richard Jones brings the reader a well-crafted, noteworthy story, told plainly and strongly, without excessive wordiness. The brief character descriptions give just enough to go on. From there, Jones trusts the reader's ability to fill in the blanks with her/his own imagination. Memorable moments, such as the exchanges between Sarge and the leader of a local motorcycle gang, linger after the book is finished. The love story adds a touch of sweetness. As a child might say when presented with an enormously entertaining event, 'Do it again!'. I look forward to seeing more of Richard Jones' work in print.

You really do have to be a Catholic to truly appreciate this wonderful book. As a Catholic schoolgirl entering her eleventh year in Catholic school (scary, isn't it?), I can fully relate to this. I honestly don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my entire life.

You know what the funniest thing about this book is? Everything in it is true...from the different kinds of nuns to Father What-a-Waste (sigh); from the description of mortal and venial sins to the purchasing of pagan babies. Well, they don't sell pagan babies anymore, but they did in my mother's day.

Even a staunch Catholic like my grandmother would have to crack a smile at the descriptive, colorful language and the abfab portrayal of the sometimes ridiculous traditions of the world's most scandalous, under-fire church. This book is a must-read for all Roman Catholics, practicing or no.

I laughed all the way through this, which must be a sin! If you are a Catholic like me you will remember everything this book talks about. In fact, I had forgotten a lot of it. I'm a little surprised it did not go into Knights of Columbus Halls (a.k.a. - the Catholic bar) and Bingo (a.k.a. - Catholic gambling) a little more. But heck, they sure covered everything else. I have to go now, I have to finish crossing myself and say a few dozen hail Mary's.

...because if you went to Catholic school, you can relate. I first read this book ten years ago when I was in Catholic school, and the nuns didn't take it away from me (amazing!). I laughed my a** off. For those of you who have read it and aren't Catholic, yes, we do practice for everything, yes, the nuns are that bad (but they don't have clickers anymore). This book is hilarious. Please, please get it and read it, cover to cover. You will laugh every time you read it.

This book includes Incredible Hulk: Return Of The Monster, Incredible Hulk: Boiling Point, and Banner.

The first two parts of this book are a change from what we've expected from the Hulk in the past and let me tell you that change is sometimes a good thing. In this case, it's a great thing. Bruce Banner/the Hulk gets caught in a web of a secret organization's conspiracy and he is on the run from their notorious agents. While this sounds like a cliche, it's really not -- a big part of why it's not is, well...how many cliched conspiracies include the Hulk in them? Yes, the Hulk and Bruce Banner are strong enough characters to make even an ordinary-seeming plot really, really good.

It's a new twist on an old concept that just works out well.

As for those looking for the classic "HULK SMASH!" version of our brute, this book's got PLENTY of that in here thanks to Banner (by Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben). There are also a few scenes where the Hulk destroys many things in the other portions of the book, too.

It's well balanced between the Hulk's classic destructiveness and fugitive ways. The only difference is that it's seen through a new, fresh perspective. It's different. It's cool. But, most importantly, it's good. And that's reason enough for you to buy it.

This hardcover collects the recent "Incredible Hulk" storylines "Return of the Monster","Transfer of Power", and "Startling Stories: Banner" mini-series. What a great compilation! You have the suspenseful, masterfully-paced writing of Bruce Jones, and the powerful artwork of John Romita, Jr. The Hulk has not looked so, well...incredible, since Dale Keown's run in the early 1990s. This storyline is a perfect place to re-acquaint yourself with the Hulk since it begins a new run, and presents a much more believable Hulk than has been presented in the comic book in recent years. Fans of the Lou Ferrigno TV series will enjoy these stories. Nuff said! Buy it!!!

If you don't live in US, simply FORGET this book! If you happen to live in Europe you'll find totally wrong frequency informations in this book. Simply, no help at all! They need to change the name of the book to: "US passport to world band radio".

I am part of a team of volunteers that are building an orphanage in the Andes of Peru. For my first six months I was isolated from the "world", except for my excursions into Cusco. I decided to get a s/w radio and hook into the news from VOA, BBC, and Voice of the Andes. Now, every morning, I wake up to a new world perspective.

This book was critical in determining my radio choice. This is the "Consumers Report" for world band radios. I bought the top rated Radio Shack (Sangean) portable and couldn't be happier. It was an excellent value and I got it on sale! If you haven't bought a world band radio yet, this book is a must read before you purchase.

The section on antennas is also superb. Though, with my simple portable, a sophisticated antenna is not feasible. The guide also helps you to find and tune into World Band stations. It pinpoints stations by time and channel. "Passport" is a first-class introduction to the world airwaves. Highly Recommended

I use the "blue pages" of this book every time I listen to shortwave. If I scan the SW broadcast bands and hit a signal I'm not familiar with, PTWBR can tell me what it is in seconds.
No one should be without this publication if they listen to shortwave. I buy a new one every year.

One wouldn't suppose that a kidnapping tale could be funny. Well, it wasn't a roll on the floor laugh-fest, but this novel did offer plenty of head-nods to irony. Suzie Q, the luckless kidnapping victim is fresh and clever and has a wry sense of humor about her. While gagged, tied up, and freezing to death she still has plenty of Irish pluck. Suspenseful and interesting, ironic and frightening, this book is wonderfully done and a pleasure to read!

I really enjoy this book it kept me on the egde of my seat the whole time I was reading it. I really thaught that Suzie Q. was ganna escape on Gerards motorcycle. I think that she could have gottin' away on his motorcycle. I like the way the book ended with her getting rescued and Dodie going to jail. I hope you enjoyed my review

I love mysterys most of the ones I read are more like thrillers I didn't know what to epect when I picked up Suzie Q all I know is that I couldn't put it down. It's a great book

The book has many mistakes and trying to get the code to work is difficult. I hope Mr. Irvine comes out with a new edition or a place where one can get the code that works. Besides the errors the book is an excellent teaching tool

The book is great but there are lot of errors in coding while following students disk. Especially DoctorsX1 and 2.

"students really find his explanations easy to understand. One student told me yesterday he had never learned so much from just reading a textbook. Pretty good comments." Merrill Parker, Chattanooga State Tech. CC

The first two-thirds of "The Salmon of Doubt", as assembled by Douglas Adams' editor, consists of essays, lectures, magazine articles, and other short pieces written by Adams. It is an interesting glimpse into his mind, his work habits, his love of computers and gadgets, and his views on religion, atheism, and evolution. As an added bonus, the last third of the book contains the first eleven chapters of what was meant to be Adams' new Dirk Gently novel (although he tantalizingly hinted in interviews that he might turn it into a sixth "Hitchhiker's" book), also named "The Salmon of Doubt."

The essay/article portion of the book, while interesting, does have an unavoidably hodgepodge feel to it. Most of this material will be familiar to diehard Douglas Adams fans (in fact, much of it has already been printed elsewhere - little here is new material), but it is nice to have it all gathered together in one place. Unfortunately, no index or table of contents is provided, so finding a particular piece is rather challenging.

The portion of the book actually devoted to "The Salmon of Doubt" is very intriguing. As the editor notes, the eleven chapters are stitched together from three separate "versions" of the novel that Adams was working on at the time of his death. As a result, some of the chapter transitions are very choppy (and of course the story sputters out without a proper ending, although this does seem vaguely appropriate for a Dirk Gently novel). However, I found chapters two through seven of the book to be very engaging; a bit rough, certainly, but this was shaping up to be a great Dirk Gently novel. It was with sadness that I reached the end of this story and realized that there would be no ending, and further, no other novels from Douglas Adams.

I don't fault the editor for assembling the story the way he's chosen to, as an amalgam of three different manuscripts - I'm sure this would have been his suggestion even if Adams were still alive. Still, I would love to see a completely "unedited" version of the novel, i.e., one that includes all three working versions; I think that would be fascinating to read. It's certainly a tease to know that certain parts of the different versions were skipped over in assembling this edition.

Having said that, I still do think this book is a must-own if you're a fan of Douglas Adams and his work, due to the inclusion of the unfinished novel. However, when reading "The Salmon of Doubt", you must be prepared to read an unpolished, unfinished story; if you're able to read it in this frame of mind, it's actually very rewarding.

In May of last year, the world lost one of it's greatest minds, wits and writers when Douglas Adams suddenly passed away. Thankfully, "The Salmon of Doubt" gives us once last glimpse at the universe through Adams's wonderfully skewed eyes. Part autobiograpy, part tribute and totally brillant.

Filled with various essays, interviews, short stories and the first ten chapters of his last, unfinished Dirk Gently novel, this book is a MUST OWN for even the most casual fan of Douglas's work. Here, beyond two headed ailens, hypergalatic bypasses, electric monks and homless Norse Gods, we get to know Douglas Adams the man. Though fans will mostly want this book for the Dirk Gently material (Which is 100% laugh out loud stuff), there are some truly wonderful gems to be found in the pages of this book that you'll want to read and re-read over and over again. If there was ever a doubt, Mr. Adams proved that essays can be entertianing, educational and thought provoking.

Do not pick up The Salmon of Doubt expecting a complete novel. Given time Adams' would have converted it into a brilliant final product. Sadly, however, that will never happen. The novel is unfinished, but better to be unfinished than completed by someone else.

The book is more than the uncompleted novel, however. The would-be third Dirk Gently installment occupies fewer than 100 pages at the volume's end. The rest is taken up by an amalgam of tidbits from Adams' life. The book's success is the essays, short stories, letters, interviews, many of them in print for the first time in Salmon. They accomplish what no novel ever could; they portray Adams' as a human being.

Salmon is to Douglas Adams' what I, Asimov is to Isaac Asimov. It's not an autobiography, exactly, but it's as close as print gets to establishing a dialogue between the reader and the author. A great many people admire Adams' for is brilliant wit. This book allows us to admire him for much more.

I frequent a message board where a rating of "5" means "Comedy Gold," and that is why I give A Salmon of Doubt five stars. It is hilarious. The essay, "Cookies," used as a plot point in So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish, is a brilliantly narrated anecdote. The reflections on canine behavior in Maggie and Trudie gave me a sleep-preventing giggle fit. The novel portion is jerky in places. An astute reader will spot some filler lines, gaps in continuity, and things that would most likely have been left out of the final version, but no one is pretending that it is whole. Salmon is exactly what it sets out to be; it is a requiem, a tribute to a great man.

This was the very first book that I picked up on C#, while I was using Beta 2 of the .NET Framework. I come from an ASP/VBScript and Visual Basic 6.0 background. Since my focus with C# was ASP.NET programming, it was less useful to me than a beginning C# book that would have focused on ASP.NET programming (Such as Wrox's beginning ASP.NET using C#) but of course, this book makes no such warranty.

It's goal is to teach you the C# language, and on that count it works very well. But be warned, the lessons go very slowly until about Chapter 9.

I think there would be a market for a book such as "Teach Yourself C# in 21 Days -- For VB Programmers" that could move faster (you used to do loops this way in VB, here's how to do it in C#.)

You will probably be less than thrilled writing console applications as the book has you do, but I don't think one could come up with a better way to teach you C# from the ground up, without requiring the explicit use of Visual Studio.NET.

A long-term corporate client recently requested a class in C#, as they have an interest in learning about the language but are not yet ready to adopt it for development. To prepare for the class, my first action was to read this book. As I worked through some of the more interesting exercises, I was struck with how easy they were. Very few are more than two pages and all were easy to understand. As I closed the book, I was pleased with my knowledge of the language.
As I went on to write the material for the class and began creating the exercises that I would use in the training, there was no difficulty as I was well-versed in most of the syntactic differences that C# has with C++ and Java. Since I have a set of standard exercises that I use in my other programming courses, this made it very easy for me to build the lessons.
The exercises are also well-suited for anyone with a minimal programming background. Even someone with little experience can work through them if they possess the determination to do so. I recommended it to my students as a book that they could use to fill in the details that it was necessary for me to leave out.

Focus of this book is on the language itself - It doesn't get side-tracked talking about Visual Studio and .NET in general, like many C# books. It is written in a clear, friendly tone and the concepts and definitions are easy to understand. The organization is also well thought-out. Like all 21 Days books, it is divided into 3 weeks of 7 days (chapters) each. In this book, Week 1 covers language basics, like using the compiler, variables, operators, control statements and an introduction to classes and methods. Week 2 goes into more intermediate language topics like enumerators, arrays, exception handling, inheritance, interfaces and delegates. Finally, Week 3 introduces a some advanced C# topics like operator overloading and reflection as well as demonstrating how C# fits with the rest of the .NET world, specifically, the .NET Framework, Windows Forms, Web Services and Web Forms.

One caveat: If you don't have a lot of programming experience, the first couple of days cover conceptual topics that may be a little confusing. Don't let that trip you up. Just skim over them ignoring anything you don't understand and head to Day 3. That where the real meat of the programming topics begin and from there it starts at the beginning and builds on itself, as you'd expect.

I particularly liked the Week In Review sections that provided extended examples (often several hundred lines of code) that demonstrate the concepts covered in the previous week. Cross-references make it easy to look up anything that is unfamiliar. This really helps pull together the concepts and helps you understand how to apply them to real-world code.

Overall a great tutorial that doesn't skip around or backtrack like so many computer books do. The organization also makes it a good reference for looking things up after you learn C#.