David Lang's book explains why the Catholic Church takes the position that she has no power to alter the matter used in the sacraments. The matter or material used in each sacrament, whether water in Baptism or wheat bread and grape wine in the Eucharist, matters because it originates in divine choice. Lang shows how that divine choice fits into the long panorama of salvation history recorded in the Scriptures. Lang also relies on philosophical argument to show how particular matter makes a difference. This reasoning also applies to the issue of priestly ordination of women because the proper matter for the sacrament of holy orders is a male candidate. Lang's work illustrates the Catholic view that God works through particular forms of matter and so makes the choice of matter significant. Lang's arguments counteract the New Gnosticism prevalent in modern Western culture that views distinctions between different types of matter as unimportant. It is worth reading because it exposes how the desire of some to arbitrarily change the sacraments contradicts both divine revelation and human reasoning.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested on why the Church so adamantly insists on the importance of particular material substances for the valid use of the God-given means of grace. This book convincingly demonstrates that controversies surrounding such seemingly trivial issues as wheaten vs. non-wheaten bread for the Eucharist evince the great chasm that exists between most of contemporary thought on the one hand and a *truly* Catholic worldview on the other. A philosophical and Scriptural tour de force!

Regardless of whether you are a great leader or are working to achieve successful leadership, this book provides great devotions. If you are searching for something on motivation then you look under the subject heading of motivation and see what stories are available. Each story is motivating, inspiring, and has modern day settings.

The stories are from some of the great leaders of today as well as some from the not so distant past. The devotions will assist any leader in determining a solution for an issue. Leadership Devotions are accompanied by scriptural references so you do not just read what someone else has said or done, but what God says about the same topic.

A great addition for any leader's library, "Leadership Devotions", should be on the shelf of all leaders. It doesn't matter whether you are a leader of many, few, or one, this book will stimulate you to become a great leader.

This book is really two books in one. A VXML tutorial and an overview of all the technologies used to build voice applications. The authors, in the overview portions, have presented detailed information yet have made it manageable enough to allow the reader to gain a good hold of the material without getting lost in the detail. Where the book really stands out though is in the VXML tutorial. The tutorial is written in a layered fashion in which the basic concepts are presented before moving on to the next more advanced feature. At each step an example is used to help make the concepts concrete. I loved the fact that the authors never underestimate the my intelligence nor did they seek to impress the me with their advanced knowledge. I was very happy to find this in a recently published technical book. I was able to move quickly though the tutorial building on the example presented. I bought the book hoping to come up to speed on new voice application technologies having been out of that field for many years. The book has done that and I consider it one of my better tech book buys.

Worth the wait to receive this awesome book of poetry, prose, and pictures. An excellent Christmas gift for anyone who knows what it's like to work hard for the money.

I really liked this book because of its strong practical outlook. It could be titled : Some useful tricks to remember your true nature. However I would have liked some more insights. I hope I am not unfair to Douglas Harding but, reading it, I sometimes got the feeling the teaching was based on hearsay. The book is based on conversations and on workshops that he conducts and it has this kind of workshop marketing flavour sometimes. I do not agree with the assumptions that this is even shorter Short Cut. The "tricks" are helpful to remember who we are but they do not form a true teaching> It might be a shortcut but how far do you really want to go ??

This book edited by David Lang, is one of the most accesible books of Douglas Harding. It may bring you from hear - say to look - see. Highly recommanded.
Douglas and Catherine have visited me in my house here in Belgium, and they are wonderful people, indeed. I hope you can meet them one day.
You can read the preface Douglas wrote for my first book on my website, []

Jan Kersschot, author of "nobody home"

We study the ancient wisdom texts because we feel they may be able to help us understand who and what we are. But what we quickly discover is that these ancient texts, whether Zen such as Seng-ts'an's 'Hsin-hsin-ming,' or Buddhist such as the Prajnaparamita 'Heart Sutra,' or Vedantic such as the 'Ashtavakra Gita,' even when quite short, as these three are, are by no means easy to understand. One could easily spend a lifetime studying the original texts, their translations and commentaries, and still end up no wiser. Ultimately, what they demand is not so much understanding as insight. What is Brahman, or Emptiness, or Seng-ts'an's 'Not-Two'? How does one really find out?

Traditionally one approaches a Master, attends to his words, and practises meditation. Then, after prolonged meditation, insight may come. But not everyone can avail themself of a Master. Some of us have to make do with texts. And meditation can take years. And we are busy and harassed modern folks. Is there a simpler, easier, faster way of arriving at insight? Amazingly, there is. If you really want to grasp what all the great Indian and Tibetan and Chinese and Japanese Masters and Sages and Rishis have been trying to convey to their disciples down through the centuries, all you need do is read this book.

Why, after these thousands of years, it should have been left to an Englishman to discover a simple mental act, an act which anyone can perform anywhere at any time and which unlocks the mystery of 'Not-Two,' I have no idea. But after spending more than twenty years puzzling my head over Eastern texts before finally discovering Harding, I can assure you that his instructions for "reversing the arrow of attention" really do work. His are the most important books I have ever read.

Attention is a bit like a compass. The act of attention which you are bringing to bear on these words as you read them is like the compass needle. Just as the needle always points North, your attention is almost always pointing here, out here. You give no thought to this. But the answer you seek is not out here.

Make Harding your Master. Let him neatly sever your head. You will quickly find that the 'Not-Two' is not a mystery any more. For by following his simple instructions you will have become it.

A book that shows the whole field well. It goes beyond the tutorial books and has handy source code for some practical programs you should run. It also covers resources. I had my school library buy a copy after reading the authors' post on Usenet about the book in comp.lang.fortran. But with computers at home who can access Fortran?

On the verge of the 21st century, FORTRAN as a language is practically dead, since it does not offer modern programming facilities and features commonly found in newer languages.

With the user base declining in quantity and quality (Misha Kagalenko sets a vivid example of the decline in quality), new books on Fortran, especially those that provide essentially no new information to the readers, are almost doomed to fail.

To expound a little more on the example of Kagalenko, his remarks about relative performance of FORTRAN compared to C++ show outstanding ignorance about the state of contemporary computing.

I've read the other reviews, and if you'd rather not bother with this one, just go read Nathan Burgoine's.

For me, this story was not unreadable by itself, but I realized pretty fast that I should have read the "Avatar" books first, if for no other reason than to fill in the blanks. There were just way too many interesting new characters obviously introduced in "Avatar," that I knew nothing about. But Ro is back where she belongs, and I'm happy for that, even if I still don't have all the details.

It was a different story altogether from the Voyager Section 31 novel, "Shadow," and to compare that one with this would be unfair. Having said that, I'd now like to give "Shadow" even *more* credit, written as it was without benefit of a lovely DS9 relaunch story arc.

But I digress. This story was very compelling. In fact, it had it all: adventure, horror, romance, a decent villian with a Khan complex, a b-plot on DS9 (carried over from "Avatar"), aliens ya wanna save, and our "I Spy" hero, Julian Bashir. I particularly liked one nasty S31 bit near the front, wherein Julian was "asked" by Cole to help the cause once again. Very insidious.

But even though this story had resolution, I could still see a number of threads left unraveled on purpose. Not sure if I'm pleased or ... about this, as it will clearly mean I'll need to keep buying the books if I want to keep up, and it's already getting to be a bit much for me. (I mean, "Gateways" is a seven-book series. C'mon! I couldn't get through "New Earth," and that was only six, nevermind "Double Helix" or "New Frontier.") Then again, that IS what it's all about, now innit? Heavy sigh...

Update (12-4-01): The above having been said, I must now add: If you really want a high-class, well-told adventure, read the two "Avatar" books first, then go from this one straight to Book Four of "Gateways," the DS9 installment titled "Demons of Air and Darkness." And here I was, grousing... Shame on me! Clearly, I should have paid more attention at Shore Leave. Anyway, these books read like the series - with the added benefit of thoughts and narrative to provide way more depth and heart than the show could ever hope to.

Don't be decieved. Though this book falls under the SECTION 31 umbrella, it's more a continuation of the new DS-9 timeline begun in Avatar. The books main story finds Dr. Bashir, Ezri, and Lt. Ro in the Badlands facing off against a Khan-esque villian. Thankfully, the story doesn't spend too much time on the moral or ethical implications of Section 31. In fact, Section 31 only serves to set Bashir off on this adventure. Action and phaser-fire abound, but the characters are the real focus here. Bashir has some well-written exchanges with both Ezri and Ethan Locken, the story's villian. Their exchanges reveal new insights into both Ezri and Bashir's personalities. Lt. Ro and the station's new Jem'Hadar 'ambassador' also play prominate parts in the story, with Taran'atar recieving some much-needed characterization. Events on DS-9 are also explored, with particular focus on the station's mysterious new first officer, Elias Vaughn. All-in-all, this book is wonderful continuation of the new Deep Space Nine relaunch, and a decent stand-alone story to boot.

OK, you'd think that a series of novels named "Section 31" would actually have Section 31 in it, right? That's the only gripe I have with this book. Now, I'm a DS9er, so I can't tell you how the other books in this "series" do in addressing Section 31, but in Abyss, one measly agent is included at the very start of the book, that's it. A shame too, because I find Section 31 to be one of the coolest inventions the un-inspired Trek screenwriters have come up with since the Borg. I could just see the first few chapters, with S31 agent Cole talking to Bashir, played out on a movie screen. And, like Avatar, because of the continuing nature of these novels, ALOT of space is dedicated to character development instead of the actual story. I like these new characters, especially Elias Vaughan and Tarana'tar, but it's so much easier to relate to characters you watched for seven years. And, also, with the addition of Ro Laren, any hopes of a true-to-book DS9 movie right now look impossible, because Michelle Forbes, who played Ro on TNG, refuses to come back and reprise her role. But, on to the story. It's a good one, with the usually tantalizing issue of racism at the core of the story. It has to do with cloning, genetically enhanced humans, and a little sub-plot involving Empok Nor which is a good intermission from the story, instead of intrusive like the "bar-goings-on" parts in The Mist (#3 in the Captain's Table series). I won't give away the story. The build-up of the story, especially when Dax, Tarana'tar, Bashir, and Ro try to sneak into Locken's compound, is exciting. But, alas, like many-a Trek story, it's ending is a bit too cut-and-dry for me. Still, I LOVED LOVED LOVED the exploration of the Jem'Hadar in Abyss. Tarana'tar is shaping up to be my favorite new character. In fact, I believe the Jem'Hadar part is the best thing of this whole story. It's a good novel, except for the whole title thing that is really bugging me more than it should. I had the same problem with Avatar. That story really didn't have much to do with the actual Avatar story arc, yet it was named Avatar. But, I think that's because of a larger problem in the DS9 universe. I love DS9, it's my fav ST series by far, but why did Ira Steven Behr, Brannon Braga etc had to get rid of Ben Sisko? O'Brien and Odo I will miss, and Worf as well, but Sisko was the best thing about DS9, and he's the coolest captain in the Trek universe (Picard's too perfect, Janeway's character wasn't given a chance to grow throughout the show because of Voyager's "cabin-fever" nature, and Calhoun is like a Federation Eminem). Believe it or not, although DS9 was my fav series, I found a lot of the Bajoran mess to be tedious. I mean, a weak-ass race full of religious nothings does not stir up the intrigue in me as much as, say, the Klingons or Ferengi. Sisko was what made even the Bajoran stories cool. And, I also think that nothing will EVER top the Dominion War in terms of major Star Trek events that are the most memorable and epic. But, get Abyss, it's a good read, especially if Bashir is one of your fav characters or DS9 is one of your favorite shows.

Dr. Robert Lang takes David Wark Griffith's un-scripted film (The Birth Of A Nation) and breaks it down shot by shot.