Yes, Frank Herbert wrote other novels than the "Dune" series. Of these, "The Dosadi Experiment" is by far one of the best.

Dosadi is an artificially populated planet with a dark, dark secret. Jorg X. McKie, who was introduced in a companion novel "Whipping Star" is sent to investigate the goings-on on Dosadi, an assignment that could very well lead to his destruction.

Dosadi is a toxic planet, where survivors live either in an overpopulated fortress of a city and survive on their wits, or struggle to live on the poisonous Rim, where the very soil and plants are enemies. The people of Dosadi are tough indeed, but they are a lot more than just tough survivors. They hold a desperate secret that could upset the balance of the rest of the galaxy.

McKie's struggle to survive and to discover Dosadi's secrets make for a really exciting tale. The characters are vivid, creative (all kinds of sentient species) and very interesting. If you love good science fiction, this is a must-read.

Frank Herbert's brilliant novel, THE DOSADI EXPERIMENT, explores the gulf between that which is legal and that which is moral -- and how the former can be manipulated to undermine the latter. As such, it is perhaps the greatest literary rumination on the moral deficiencies of the law ever written. Briefly, the Gowachin race, utilizing legal constructs, has fostered an immoral structure on the planet of Dosadi -- specifically, a savage city whose residents have been exposed to brutally toxic conditions in order to turn them into the strongest, most resilient life forms in the universe. The purpose? So the Gowachin can transplant their souls into Dosadi bodies and live forever. Jorj X. McKie, "Saboteur Extraordinary" -- who previously appeared in Herbert's wonderful WHIPPING STAR -- ferrets out this grotesque scheme. It's a deftly written novel, fully developing the theme of strength through environmental conditioning that Herbert explored in DUNE. Virtually every page is filled with epiphanous concepts that make the reader gasp. This is science fiction and literature at its finest. As far as I'm concerned, it is Herbert's greatest achievement and one of the finest novels ever written.

This is absolutely my favorite piece of science fiction writing! Everything I have read since (by Herbert, or other authors) has disappointed me on some level. Definately a page-turner! The plot is complex,creative and intriguiging, but more compelling than The Jesus Incident. The characters are well developed (I love the McKie character!), and he includes at least one very strong female character. The writing is tight and keeps you interested in the story line. Herbert does a good job of keeping "aliens" alien.

I am very disappointed to see that it is out of print. It is a much better novel than Dune.

As a quick primer, I found this book to be terrific. And the dry humour was appreciated as well. Never thought I'd make it through so quickly, and yet come away with such a good appreciation of the subject matter.

This is good for non-lawyers who work in management and have no idea what IP means, nor how to make this form of property benefit (or not harm) your company.

This book whet my appetite for more details. I would recommend this book for anyone who needs a crash course in IP.

This book took all the mystery out of the complex issue of intellectual property: what it is, how it works, and how it can work for you. Easy to read and comprehensive.

This is a breif review of what this book contains and how usefull it will be to various players. It is writen in descriptive notation (i.e. P-K4), which is difficult to muddle through in our modern, algebraic world, but wonderful fruits will flow from its examination.

Part one is relatively simple, concerning itself with basic planning and the attack on the king in various positions. (Another excellent book on this is 'Art of Attack in Chess' by Vladmir Vukovic in algebraic notation, which is considerably larger.)

Part two is more complex, discussing how to defend difficult positions and pawn configurations in the center. Keres' section on defence is, relatively speaking, a masterpiece and contains many ideas that are virtually indispensible. The section on pawns is also very informative though not exhaustive on the role of pawns. (Hans Kmooch's book 'Pawn Power in Chess' is certainly more in-depth concerning pawn positions that cover the entire board, but it has the special detraction of being almost incomprehensible due to its excessive complexity and needless terminology.)

Finally, part three is generally for the more advanced player. Called 'The Art of Analysis', it concerns mental computation in conjunction with written variations (particularly concerning the endgame). Not for the weak of heart, this section would probably intimidate most novices because the numerous variations often stretch to 20 moves or more. That is not to say that it isn't valuable - on the contrary, this section provides valuable study by any player of any strength, but only relatively strong players will reap the fullest benifits of its study.

Then this is the book for you! Be prepared to do more than read this book. The ideas it plants in your chess brain are the seeds of future success. Keres, with Kotov, two great players of the past have put to paper chess lessons for the ages. Don't worry about the descriptive notation, if you can figure out 12 moves of some obscure King's Indian line then you can master an old way to record moves. Keres' section on defending difficult positions is worth the price of the book alone. Add in his section on the art of analysis and we have a true winner. Granted, adjoured games have gone the way of the wind in many cases but this is still good fertile ground for the correspondence player and for over the board tournament players because it goes into how to assess a position and the ramifications of your decision. Read the book and you will never look at one of your games the same way. Kotov's sections are good too but they are just a bonus for a book that doesn't cost much but is full of instruction and in how a great Grandmaster (Keres) thinks.

The chapters by Kotov on attacking the king and pawn structures aren't bad. In particular, he covers attack in a way I've seen no other author do. The chapters by Keres on defending difficult positions and the art of analysis are phenomenally good. The chapter on analysis examines minutely half a dozen adjourned positions. I have to admit I have found errors here and there,in sub-lines, using Fritz. What is staggering is there are so few errors. The first adjourned position, against a player by the name of Szapiel, takes up twenty pages. Keres brings to light the subtleties and finesses involved in an ostensibly simple position. A salutory reminder to every chessplayer to look below the surface.

Buy the book if you don't already have it. My gratitude to Dover for keeping the book in print.

Along with No Exit (and three other plays), this is a wonderful place to begin one's journey into Existentialism. J. P. Sartre presents the reader with a nice array of stories that encapsulate many of the juiciest of Existentialist themes. I suggest that one concentrate on the feelings of the characters when reading each story - and read it slowly and carefully: philosophers like Sartre deserve the time. I suggest Jeff Reynolds' fine review for the themes of each story. I also want to give praise to Lloyd Alexander (Translator) for his brilliant, readable translations. I have noticed other French-to-English translators who struggle terribly to construct English statements with substance. Alexander captures Sartre's thought with awesome force and detail.

"The Wall and other short stories" is a triumph in literature. Each story explores the depths of human thought and reason through an existential point of view. Each story can be interpreted different by all readers, therefore making this a great book for discussion.

"The Wall" is the first story presented. It consumes the reader because of its brilliant writing style. The story is narrated by a man named Pablo Ibbieta, who is in a jail cell with 2 others awaiting execution the following morning. Every event that transpires that particular night is analyzed almost too thoroughly thus leaving the reader in a trance. I wont get into it too deeply, but believe me, this story is worth reading...i guarentee it will have to be read again. After finishing the story, I felt as though nothing mattered. Who cares if the dishes were not washed, who cares if I would be late for work. Believe me, this story will have a profound impact on the way you think. Don't be surprised if you have a new appreciation for life. This story enlightens the mind.

Another great story from this book is called "Erostratus". Erostratus was a character who wanted to be famous, so he burned down the temple of Ephesus, which was one of the 7 wonders of the world. This is the central symbol of the story, the quest for glory. It also brings up an interesting point when the narrator asks one of his colleagues "Who built Ephesus?" and the colleauge did not know, he only knew who burned it. "Erostratus" in short is one mans decent into madness because of his quest to be remembered. The ending of "Erostratus" is filled with suspense and makes your heart beat in fear. It serves as a grim reminder that there are people of this type, and we should be prepared at any time for them to strike.

There are also 3 other stories, that being "The Room", "Intimacy", and "The Childhood of a Leader", which also draw the reader inside the workings of the mind through an existential window (ie: we are all here by accident, man is condemned to choose).

In short, these stories are all perfect, and leave the reader with a feeling of enlightment. Sartre is an extremely intelligent and clever writer. This is evident in these short stories. So turn off the television, buy this book, and start questioning your existence, you owe it to yourself. Besides, they are short stories, so you will be able to get through at least one a day...that isnt much to ask considering the benefits you will reap by reading them.

'The Wall' rises up as a catalogue of man's solitary and free application of the existentialist's understanding. Sartre leaves no dark corner unlit in what could be considered his most biting renderings of the human condition's anguish in the face of meaninglessness.

'The Wall' itself is an astoundingly suspenseful glimpse at the fine line between life and death, the insanity in ultimate human will-power, and the psychological effects of foreknowing one's own time of death.

'The Room' is stark and vague. Interpretations abound, all from absurd (in itself) to Sartre's most profound writing. Nevertheless, the story's 'insanity' brings about many insights into the world of the individual of nothingness.

'Erostratus' follows quite well, asking whether it is moral, immoral, right, or wrong, to kill and whether a modern man is truly free to commit conscious evil. Furthermore, it questions our modern society's knack for making celebrities of villains.

'Intimacy' is a wonderful story with heavy-handed, deadbolt dialogue, well-crafted absurd heroes, and philosophical wit, wound up in a woman's tale of love, adultery, loyalty, friendship, impotence, and existence.

Finally, 'The Childhood of a Leader' reveals the facist's facade of strength, the soft scar-tissue of their idealistic youth, the true childishness of their anti-semite reactions, and the way in which men allow themselves to follow or hunger to be followed.

Perhaps this is a bit unfair of me, but let's just take a look at two translations of one of Eluard's best known poems, "L'amoureuse."

Translation 1: She is standing on my lids / And her hair is in my hair / She has the color of my eye / She has the body of my hand, / In my shade she is engulfed / As a stone against the sky. /

She will never close her eyes / And she does not let me sleep. / And her dreams in the bright day / Make the suns evaporate / And me laugh cry and laugh, / Speak when I have nothing to say.

---

Translation #2: She is standing on my eyelids, / Her hair mingles with mine, / She takes on the shape of my hands, / She is the color of my eyes, / She is absorbed by my shadow / Like a stone against the sky. /

Her eyes are forever open / She doesn't let me sleep. / Her dreams in the light of day / Make the suns evaporate, / Make me laugh, cry, and laugh again, / And babble on with nothing to say.

---

I posted the two versions so you can judge for yourself, but it seems to me the first is far superior to the second. Not surprisingly, the first is by Samuel Beckett, and his faithfulness to Eluard is not only one of meaning but of rhythm. Alas, it is the second, wooden version that you will find in "Shadows and Sun," and the two translators' tin ears do ill service to Eluard throughout the book. The best thing you can say about this volume is that it contains the French original, and the literal translations should help people with a rudimentary knowledge of French to enjoy Eluard in his own language. But if you can't sound out the French to hear the sonorousness of Eluard's lines, then these translations will give you a very poor impression of the poems' lyrical beauty.

As for where you might find the Beckett translation... well, I don't know. I wrote his translation down in a notebook years and years ago but neglected to write where I found it. I believe it was in a collection of Beckett's writing and not of Eluard's.

I am intrigued by the speeches given during the resistance of WWII, after the first war, at the first surrealist exposition in London, and the 2nd surrealist manifesto of 1924 by angry young men who had seen too much suffering in the war and were looking for a "new language", a new consciousness to overcome the errors of romanticism and super rationalism that resulted in supernationalism and megalomania.

Eluard was a modest human being, in love with life, and love, and Gala, and primitive art. Read Premierement /First of All, admonishing Gala for keeping her "brain in its attic" and forgetting her commitment to her first love, or "She is standing on my eyelids"; or on justice, "Bonne Justice/Good Justice" and "Minuit", on a poor resistance fighter condemned to be shot; or on learning to see with Picasso in two essays and poems from the book "Donner a Voir."

The Historical introduction, Chronological Contents, definitions of surrealism, and bibliography make good reading in themselves. The translations are "seamless", straight forward, do not betray the poet, so provide a fine way to approach the originals on opposite pages.

Pablo Neruda was his good friend, and must have read Eluard long before he wrote "Walking Around."

Paul Eluard was the best beloved European poet of the first half of our century, which William Golding has called the most violent in human history. While illusions were destroyed, this writer wrote love poems, for which he is best known; as medic and infantryman in both world wars, wrote about (while Picasso painted) the devastating bombing of Guernica on market day in broad daylight, during the Spanish Civil War, and the German occupation of France, while he searched for a release from sentimental romanticism and "superpatriotism" held responsible by the Surrealists for the wars, as they recognized the importance of the subconscious and "desire", to find a new language that would help to achieve justice with mercy and release men from the constraints of false values. A historical introduction records this collaboration between writers and painters, who illustrated Eluard's books, with 6 here by Picasso, Chagall, Andre Lhote and Magritte. 6 intriguing prose pieces concern the idea of committed poetry (engagee), Picasso's role in teaching others to see, and the Surrealist Declaration of 1925. Neruda and many others followed the search of this seminal poet. A fine compilation of the poet's life work, with French and accurate, seamless English translations on opposite pages.

The unresolved issues of the Vietnam War have marked a generation. Many are still haunted by the decisions they were forced to make when facing death at such a very young age. How we acted and treated each other still hurts, yet we don't know how to talk about it. Five Reno-bound guys, all with different experiences of the war, revisit their choices and deal with the aftermath of those decisions. Alex Paul spins a good yarn. The plot is lively and the characters believable, as they explore the gritty side of their Vietnam experiences. I think it would make a good movie(I'd like to see Gus Van Sant direct it). I would like to see the Suicide Wall erected.

Alex Paul puts it squarely - the war in Southeast Asia left none of us untouched. All our legends died over there...the men who were killed and go on killing themselves are testimony to that fact. In this poignanat story of buddies getting together - living 'normal' lives after the war - the author presents a mirror for all of us to reflect on our collective loss, and pershaps look at how each of us felt, or "didn't feel" about it. Suicide Wall is so homey and easy to read that the story's ultimate impact becomes even more profound...its about all of us.

This is a thought-provoking novel. I agree that we should erect a monument to honor EVERYONE who served in Viet Nam. Many have taken their lives since the war, many are struggling with the memories. The reader is drawn in to the story and can't put it down 'til the end. This book will be appreciated by anyone who is friends or family of Vet, and I think it will get people talking about this neglected but important subject.

Having read many magnificent authors of existentialist fiction, from Camus to Dostoyevsky to Mishima to Laxness to Selimovic to Abe, I picked up Nausea, a work by an author whose name is synonymous with his philosophical movement. I was very disappointed, however, in Nausea's tone, theme, and progression. It is intended to be a work of literature, not a work of philosophy, but at times I wished Sartre had discarded the pretense of writing a literary masterpiece and presented a mature treatise on existentialism. I always feel that a valid philosophy (or theology) should be easily evident in a real (or literary) situation, and does not require an endless philosophical dissection. While existential literature is often bleak, that is a function of the philosophy itself. Nausea, however, is simply bland. The narrator is without charisma, and therefore can hardly be identified with, and his experience of 'nausea' at his own existence is ultimately tedious and unrealistic. Unlike certain magnificent literary expositions of existentialism, like "The Woman in the Dunes" by Kobo Abe, and "Death and the Dervish" by Mesa Selimovic, "Nausea" did little more than whet my appetite for a better existentialist work and leave me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. In short, Sartre missed the mark--he tried so hard to paint this portrait of meaningless bleakness that his novel has all the life of a smudged black and white newsprint photo. Nonetheless, it is very short and worth reading just for the perspective, but "No Exit" is a far superior venture on Sartre's part

Nausea what kind of a name is that for a book? The sick sweetness of existence. This book exudes the rawness and horror of existence. Antonie Roquentin finds himself in a world with no depth; no reality or concreteness Antoine is horrified of his very existence. The book is a process of Antoine coming to this realization. What he discovers is that we live in a world of shadows and illusions, intellectual constructs that we use to explain the world around us. Freedom, justice, love, humanity, we discover have no reality of their own. Antoine discovers that his very identity has no real reality other then what is in his mind at that very moment. He realizes for something to be real he has to decide consciously to focus on it, that his reality as a person is completely reliant on a moment of consciousness. Even then he doesn't know what it means. Let me feel myself very well, I am so forgotten. The only real thing left in me is existence which feels it exists. I yawn lengthily. No one. Antoine Roquentin? An abstraction. A pale reflection of myself wavers in my consciousness. Antoine Roquentin. . . and suddenly the "I" pales, pales and fades out.

Sartre through out this book tries to make the point that consciousness has no identity. That things are perceived and they exist and nothing more! They are what they are. That by naming something we are changing what it is in our minds. Sartre doesn't believe that a chair is a chair. He asks, is the chair the object in front of us, or is it an idea in our minds? In other words existence proceeds essence. He affirms that we live in a word of existents, not the essences of our language. To get a better idea of what he is saying I quote his famous example of the chestnut the tufts of yellow grass, the dry mud, the tree, the sky, the green benches. Absurd, nature-could explain it. Evidently I did not know everything, this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of it's extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it. Knotty, inert, nameless, it fascinated me, filled my eyes, brought me back unceasingly to its own existence. In vain to to that, to this hard and compact skin of a sea lion, to this oily, understand generally that is was a root, but not that one at all."

Many will say that Sartre isn't a true existentialist, because of this dichotomy he draws. Descartes once pronounced "I think therefore I exist". Sartre has changed this in that he has separated the "I" from the think, and pronounced that nothing but consciousness remains, and that the "I" is an essence and not an existent so doesn't exist. So what does this have to do with whether Sartre is a true existentialist? Some would say that by dividing the world into essence versus existence Sartre is contradicting the very point he is trying to make. That by separating the world into existents and essence he is placing an essence on the universe. Heidegger doesn't do that he refers to it all as Dasein or crudely but "a field of being. " Making no claims or imposing some kind of meaning on it. No dichotomy is placed on existence it just is.

In summary I found this book eloquently explained so many of my feelings and doubts as an existentialist. I would recommend it to anybody that was interested in existentialism it makes an excellent introduction. I feel that it is also an excellent exposition of the human condition

If you like warm, fuzzy literature, this story isn't for you. If you prefer to read fiction that agrees with what you already think, or helps you sleep at night, this story isn't for you. However, if you enjoy engaging, incredibly well-written, (and superbly translated), literature, you will enjoy this book. "Nausea", like "Woman in the Dunes" by Kobo Abe, is not an easy or comfortable story to plow through, but it is a fascinating and superb story. Also, don't pass this book if you are intimidated by all the high falutin' philosophy talk; enjoy this book as the remarkable, if disturbing story, that it is. Excellent reading.

This book is riveting and provided fascinating new information about Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Moore Dunbar. At the same time, it scratches the surface in too many places, relying on feminist cliches instead of substantive analysis. This is clearly a dissertation that was published with out the skilled editing that allows the author to reach new conclusions. Too many times, I feel that a window had been opened for me to get a glimpse into lives, then swung shut before insights had been fully explored.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a magnificent poet who is not known as well as he should be today. Alice Moore is a fascinating woman who deserves to be remembered in her own right. Together they would have seemed to be the perfect couple, living charmed lives. Sadly, their relationship was far from perfect. This book enables us to understand the forces that made these two talented people what they were, that drew them together, and that pulled them apart. Too often, African-American history deals only with slavery in the past and urban poverty in the present. This book shows the "ebony elite" that is too little known, in both its proudest and most difficult aspects. It is a fascinating story of individuals and of the culture that impacted their lives in many unfortunate ways. A compelling story, well-written.

This book is simply that, a book about new American town house. It started with a description of the evolution of town house, rite from the time of Palladio & Vitruvius to the present time. The rest is 20 examples of American townhouses all seemed to be going skyward fulfilling all kinds of tastes ranging from chic, loft style, minimalistic, opulence, romantic. & so forth. There are tonnes of pictures in this book with helpful building plans. I always like variety & after browsing thru initial examples, the rest of the book I really couldn't bother with as they all look pretty much similar. Afterall, a townhouse is a townhouse. Anyhow, this book is beautifully presented & definitely worth keeping if you simply want a coffee book for show. Keep up the good work.

With the cities and suburbs spreading out into former farmland in the form of superstores, fast food chains, and garishly oversized homes reminiscent of motel conference centers, Gorlin and Goldberger present the compelling alternative: the townhouse, revamped, revitalized, and more relevant than ever. No matter what your esthetic, there is a townhouse to suit it, and you can find it in this book. It could be argued, in fact, that the townhouse represents architectural humanism at its best: inherently social, family-friendly, scaled to real human dimensions and needs. In other words, just right. An excellent introduction to an important new trend in architecture and home-building.

It is rather difficult to review Plato's Symposium from a modern viewpoint. The attempts by Agathon's guests, including Socrates, to define love are largely based on the love of boys rather than women. While that is a difficult concept for me to ponder, I recognize that such a social custom prevailed to some degree in ancient Athens and will attempt to offer an unbiased view of the text. Basically, partygoers celebrating Agathon's first victory in a drama contest decide to do something besides drink themselves into a stupor because they are still paying for such activity the night before. Socrates joins the group on this second night, and it is decided that each man in turn will offer his praises to love. Each of six men offer their interesting, diverse thoughts on the matter, ranging from the conventional to the Socratic ideal. Phaedrus says that the greatest good a boy can have is a gentle lover and that the greatest good a lover can have is a boy to love. He stresses self-sacrifice and virtue as the kind of love the gods love most. Pausanias describes two kinds of love: vulgar love is best explained as love for a woman in the interest of sexual satisfaction; noble love is that concerned with bettering the soul of the object of love (necessarily a young boy). The doctor Eryximachus explains love in terms of harmony, and he goes so far as to credit the vague notion of love with accomplishing all kinds of things in a diverse set of subjects. Aristophanes begins by relating a myth about man's origins. When man was created, individuals were actually attached back to back; the gods later split each human entity in half, and love consists of each person's search for his "missing half" who can be of either sex; even when two mates find one another, their love is imperfect because they cannot become literally attached as they were originally. Agathon says that Love is the youngest of the gods, that he offers the means by which all disputes between the gods and between men are settled, and emphasizes the beauty of love (represented quite well by himself, he seems to say).

Socrates, as can be expected, shifts the discussion of love to a higher plane. Claiming to know the art of love if nothing else, Socrates tells how he gained his knowledge from a fictional character called Diotima. He says that love represents the desire to give "birth in beauty," that love is neither a god or a mortal but is instead the messenger between god and man. To love is to want to acquire and possess the good forever and thus attain immortality. Socrates goes on to give a very important speech about one of Plato's perfect Forms--namely, the Form of Beauty. The advanced lover will learn to seek Beauty in its abstract form and will take no more notice of physical beauty; the perfect lover is a philosopher who can create virtue in its true form rather than produce mere images of virtue. This short summary in no way does justice to Socrates' speech, but it gives the general idea. After Socrates speaks, a drunken Alcibiades (Socrates' own beloved) crashes the party and commences to give a speech about Socrates, the effect of which is to identify Socrates as a lover who deceives others into loving him. As both lover and beloved, Socrates is seemingly held up by Plato as the true embodiment of love. To truly love is to be a philosopher.

I myself don't hold this text in as high regard as many intellectuals, but there can be no doubt of this dialogue's influence on Western thought over the centuries. The book succeeds in the presentation of advanced philosophical ideas and as literature. The discussion of the Form of Beauty is particularly useful in terms of understanding Platonic thought. It would seem that this dinner party and the speeches we read are very likely fictitious and represent Plato's thoughts much more closely than Socrates' own views, but it is impossible to tell to what extent this is true. The Symposium is inarguably one of Plato's most influential, most important texts and is required reading for anyone seriously interested in philosophy as it has existed and continues to exist in Western society.

I bought this textbook for my Classical Philosophy class (which was taught by William Placher - check his books out, they're awesome), and the Symposium really got me thinking about what love really is. What's cool about the work is that while each of the speeches make some great points, in the end they never really decide on a final answer, so it's still your call.

I liked the Symposium so much, that I decided to buy it as a gift for my friend. It was then that I realized how superior the Woodruff version is - other versions I found in bookstores featured commentary that was sometimes more than twice as long as the actual work! In this version, on the other hand, the introduction is short but informative - therefore you're not paying extra to hear some other guy give his two cents on Plato's work, when Plato's words themselves are really all you're interested in.