This book supplements the GURPS Traveller system by describing the history, organization and tools of the mercenary's trade. Written by two veteran Traveller authors, the attention to detail is refreshing in a gaming supplement. The mercenary's life is thoroughly described in the main text and typical of the GURPS products, spiced up with lots of interesting snippets on the sidebars. New templates and new equipment will be of interest to players keen on dishing out (as mentioned in the preface) "Grade-A violence to all comers". The only (minor) fault I could find is that the sample characters are not particularly inspiring.

The original Mercenary book was arguably the most exciting of the supplements published by the now-closed Game Designers Workshop when I first started playing Traveller. This new version for GURPS Traveller is even better. Easily the first supplement I would get for the GURPS Traveller system.

In "The Outward Urge" (1959) John Wyndham writes, along with his alter ego Lucas Parkes, a story describing four generations of a British, space-faring family - the Troons. The title of the book refers to a compulsion felt by this family to leave Earth and head for the stars. In their eyes there is a destiny to be fulfilled: to spread out and conquer ever-widening reaches of space.

The first chapter takes place in 1994, when the first space station is being built and mankind is yet to claim the Moon. (Wyndham never dreamed there would be footprints on the Moon just four months after his death.) The rivalry between the United States and the Soviets is intense. Britain is somewhat neutral. Ticker Troon, 24, is taking part in the construction of the space station when the project is almost sabotaged by an unknown, wandering missile. Ticker's bravery saves the lives of his fellows and the project but he never sees his new-born son Michael...

Fifty years later Michael Troon is the commander of a British station on the Moon. On Earth the northern hemisphere is being pounded in a nuclear bombardment. The extent of the damage can only be guessed at but casualties are known to be in the millions. Shocking statistics for a war that has only been going for ten days. Much of the northern hemisphere is reduced to ash.

After the Great Northern War countries of importance are now in the southern hemisphere. The strongest of these is Brazil. In 2094 Geoffery Trunho, the first man on Mars, becomes stranded after a misadventure with the landing module. He writes an account of what happened, in the hope that someone will find it one day. From his description, Mars is a dreary, desolate place to be marooned.

By 2144, Australians have landed on Venus. (One of the Troons became an Australian citizen.) This causes something of an uproar among the Brazilians, who consider space to be their province. It looks as if their monopoly of space is being challenged and plans are made to save face. Will Australia and Brazil come to blows?

At the time "The Outward Urge" was written space travel was still a dream. The best views of space were in the paintings of Chesley Bonestell, even though they were fanciful. Lucas Parkes wrote the parts of the story detailing the science (such as it was then), in an effort to make the book more believable. In the end you can't help but agree with the Troons - space needs to be colonized, and soon. In the event of an apocalyptic meteor smashing into the Earth it would be comforting to know that other planets are populated. The human race needn't become extinct.

I don't think I know anyone who lives this lifestyle. I have a fantasy that these people really do exist. I hope not.

The story was so well written that I felt as if I were right there in the room as all this was unfolding and, of course, there was nothing I could do to stop them. This was a story of extremes. The good was so good, the bad was so horrible and permeated so many lives, the surprise really was that.

There was a note inside the back of the jacket that John Lucas was writing another novel. I hope it's just taking him a long time to do and that there will be another. I look forward to reading more of his ideas.

The head of the FBI is targeted for death by a group of Indians bent on getting personal revenge for something the FBI man did early in his career. However, in planning to get to him, they make it appear as if a war is called on the white man¹s sins against the Indian people. John Sandford creates an excellent story, set in the context of the Native American people living in Minnesota. Deputy Chief of Police Lucas Davenport investigates the murders along with New York City Detective Lily Rosenthal. An interesting addition to Sandford's Prey series.

In his second outing, Lucas Davenport hunts a family of disgruntled Native Americans who have big plans for a political bad guy (who really does deserve to die.) He also meets a new woman, and you may find yourself not liking him very much afterwards.

However, by introducing us to the many faults of Davenport, Sandford goes a long way in making him even more real. And, if you keep reading the Prey series (and you should) you will find yourself taking satisfaction in Lucas' maturation process as much as in his hunting down the bad guys.

Read this book, and keep reading the Prey series

I enjoyed this book more than the others in the Prey series because I am a Native American, and my last name is Love. The characters may have been homicidal, but they also had pride and character. Lucas Davenport is very intense and a bit homicidal himself. Excellent thriller series, Sandford never weakens, his stories are always strong, intense and complete

I would be unfair to say that the 883 pages were a total waste, but it wasn't worth it for me.

The title of the Book is "ASP XML", and from this title I choose this book, because I wanted a book that would help me to use XML in ASP. That wasn't the case in some of the book examples.

The book content (without the case study) is only 15 chapter that spans 366 pages covering all different aspects of XML and XML integration of ASP. The information presented is very basic and lacks basic knowledge of XML, for example XSL was covered very poorly in the book ( MSDN was more helpful to me than the book). Chapter 11 through 14 were very useful though, especially chapter 14 that covers useful XML procedure libraries.

The case studies spans around 180 pages, there are 6 case studies. They were very confusing to me and none of them helped me solving any of the business requirements I was tackling.

The rest of the book contains appendices that are useful to have them all in the same book, but you can get them over the Internet for free.

Last word to say is that I was disappointed with this book.

The chapters are laid out properly and are easy to understand. It helped us to learn a great deal about incorporating XML into ASP.We recommend this book to anyone who wants to further expand their knowledge of XML in ASP.The authors did a really good job on explaing XML for ASP developers.The depth explainations of the case studies & examples and XML are really great and relate to real world examples.The chapter explaining about the SOAP is really good which helped us a lot personally to implement an in my current project . We personally thank Dinar Dalvi for his help and support to answer our questions and immediate feedback for our emails.

Excellent! for ones who are pro to ASP and need to intergrate XML with ASP! A must buy!

The book John Lucas: Winning A Day At A Time by Joseph Moriarity is like a roller coaster ride though the ups and downs of the life of John Lucas. He takes you though each stage of John's life; from his early years before high school and how he won the Junior World Cup and his basketball experiences. Then he went to high school in N.C. and his first experiences with drugs. He set many college records at the University of Maryland and was the star of the team and NCAA. When he made it to the NBA people thought he could have been as good as Michael Jordan, but he got addicted to hard drugs like cocaine. The author skips through how John got kicked from team to team and went from rehab to rehab. His drug addiction tore apart his family and almost ruined his career before he finally got on track with his life.
This book is a very slow read and it trudges from chapter to chapter. It has some good times where it's an enjoyable spot; but I would not recommend buying or reading this book unless you feel interested in his life experiences and drug problems. It's not worth the time to stumble though the pages. I skipped pages at a time and still found myself in the same place. The novel is just a slow timeline of the life of John Lucas.

As a fan of the exciting "Prey" series, I have read all previous releases in chronological order, finding both the character development and the tough cases always a fascinating read.

"Easy Prey" features a completely different Lucas Davenport... stumbling along, following wrong leads, confused about his personal relationships. He's having a few bad days, just like the author, John Sandford, certainly cannot have been up to his usual standards when he started this novel.

"Easy Prey" reads as lifeless as the main character seems to appear. The storyline is hard to follow, and even though I plowed patiently through the 400 pages, always expecting things to finally take shape, this book is a huge disappointment, right up to the weak ending. Even without having been part of a series, this novel wouldn't have worked.

The first five "Prey" novels are among the best thrillers I've ever read, the next couple fo Davenport instalments were OK, but "Easy Prey" falls terribly short of the mark. While Lucas Davenport used to be an ambigious, interesting character, his main role in this book is being half awake, mumbling "Aw Jeez" or "Ah man" all the time. I'm handing these words right back to the author, hoping for a new "Prey" that will rekindle the thrill.

Lucas Davenport is called in to head the investigation into the strangulation death of supermodel Aliiee'e Maison at a society party following a photoshoot; the investigation soon uncovers the body of Sandy Lansing stuffed in a closet and the complications begin. As the story unfolds, these deaths are followed by evidence of drug use, lesbian sex, incest, and further murders interspersed with the complicated family and personal relationships of the people involved. Given all the interrelated aspects of the plot, the narrative jumped around a great deal and was further complicated by the influence of Lucas' personal relationships on the plot.

Readers of this series know that Lucas has been estranged from his former fiancee Weather Karkinnen since the horrific hospital shootout in SUDDEN PREY; this is the story that allows Lucas and Weather to have a chance to begin to reconnect. Meanwhile, his former girlfriend and fellow cop Marcy Sherrill plays a crucial role in the story, and Lucas is fascinated by and attracted to Alie'e girlfriend, the former model (who has taken up pottery) Joel Corbeau. And just to add a further complication he is distracted by a chance meeting with a college girlfriend who rekindles old memories (and perhaps more). Another female integral to the plot is Rose Marie Roux, who is still the chief of police and very worried about the political complications and widespread media attention. Finally Lucas needs to call on his old friend Ellie Kruger (Sister Mary Joseph) for advice once again.With the added backdrop of Lucas' personal relationships, at times Lucas and old friend Del Capslock seem even more confused than the reader and not at the top of their game.

I enjoyed the book, and found it a very fast and engaging read. But I read it as a Lucas Davenport fan rather than a devotee of the PREY series; I have just recently started the series and have been reading the books out of sequence and thus did not have the disappointment of some of the long time readers that this represented a break in style from the earlier works. This is about Lucas and how this case causes him to reevaluate his life and his relationships, the murders are clearly a means to that end for the author. Thus, the case was confusing, and some of the elements seem quite contrived relative to most of Sandford's books. Finally, the solution to the last of the unsolved murders and the ending of the book were not as at all foreshadowed as they are in most police procedurals and classic detective stories.

Thus, if your goal is to get to know Lucas, this book does a good job of character development and is four stars on that basis; it includes the usual supporting cast and the expected clever exchanges between Del and Lucas. You will be disappointed if you are expecting a book that follows the model of the previous books in the PREY series, as the many one and two star reviews indicate. While I definitely felt it was a wothwhile read and recommend EASY PREY, be prepared for what it is - a book which transitions the series from straight police procedurals to stories involving more character development and more complex storylines with interrelated subplots.

This was a great Lucas Davenport book.fast and somewhat confusing....It took a long time to sort out all the characters that Sandford gave us. And I even liked when he started to recall past events from the other Prey books, but it took a lot to keep up with this one. I was not prepared for the "villian" at the end. I kept thinking I had it figured out and then ...Wham! ...my suspect is murdered too. I couldn't make the connections and the ending was not as well prepared as some of the other books he's written. But that doesn't mean I won't be waiting for the next one out..I WILL. The ending here is a cliff hanger for sure, and I will refrain from giving my opinion on that...don't want to give away everything. Others have mentioned poor editing and I did see evidence of that too. I can't give an exact example right now, but I know there were instances that were repeated within one or two pages of each other. That happens to all writers I'm sure. All in all, this is a recommendation for anyone that like police procedural/mystery/suspense type books...get it now.

I've always been a Lucasfilm/Star Wars fanatic, and have always gobbled up any shred of info, whether it be about the stories, or the behind-the-scenes realm. I'm one of those fans who knows the names of the modelmakers responsible for those great, worn ships in the original film.

And while I am a bit over the top in regards to what I know, this in no way absolves John Baxter for the mountainous errors in his work. Just because I'm sharp on a lot regarding Lucas doesn't mean that Baxter's innacurracies won't be such a sin if they fall on uninformed ears.I won't go through each and every flaw, but let me just warn you that this book drops the ball repeatedly regarding what Lucasfilm fans would call rudimentary data.

I t's best to bypass this mess and select David Pollock's "Skywalking" instead. It's the oldest and still the best bio on this great talent. Another book that proved to be immensely entertaining (though only covering the era of the first trilogy) was Garry Jenkin's "Empire Building." If it's behind the scenes Star Wars stuff you're after, then this is absolutely THE book to get.
In closing, I'm most disappointed with Mythmaker because it pales in comparison to Baxter's Steven Spielberg bio released a few years before. It makes me wonder how accurate (or innacurate) THAT bio was.....

I am a big George Lucas fan and I found a few errors in this book. The one that really bothered me was that the author repeatedly stated that Jim Henson did the puppeteering and voice for Yoda. IT WAS FRANK OZ NOT JIM HENSON! That was soooo annoying! I kept wishing that the author was around so that I could just scream it in his face!

Other than these small details, the book was pretty good. But still, I can't help but wonder what else was inaccurate that I just took as new information.

This was the first real biography I read of George Lucas; since it I have read Dave Pollock's Skywalking, which is a far better and balanced look at the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas.

John Baxter's bio on Lucas is really mean toward its subject. In his narrative of the filmmaker's life he routinely slams Lucas, pointing out all the mistakes George made in his life and never really focusing on the happiness Lucas has brought to millions of moviegoers with the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. In the end, it seems Lucas wins over Baxter with The Phantom Menace, but considering how much Baxter seems to hate George Lucas, I think I'm reaching a little bit.

Not only does Baxter hate Lucas, his book is littered with typos and errors. He never once gets the name of Steven Spielberg's college--Long Beach State--right (he calls it the University of California, Long Beach at one point and California State College, Long Beach in another). He mangles some of the details of The Phantom Menace as well (says that Valorum was played by Ian McDiarmid, when it was Terence Stamp who really played him). Some of the more gossipy parts in the book are backed up with shoddy references, too.

Another problem is that Baxter goes off on a lot of other tangents that are only vaguely related to Lucas. For instance, he discusses what Francis Coppola was doing while Star Wars was being produced, and the problems Star Wars' director of photography--Gil Taylor--had with Stanley Kubrick. Better editing would have eliminated these parts.

If you want a better and more balanced account of George Lucas' life, read Skywalking by Dave Pollock. Pollock doesn't take a critical machete to Lucas' life or films and there aren't any editorial mistakes.

These little essays, taken one by one, offer interesting and insightful perspectives into different literary and cultural aspects of English and American society "from 1750 to 1900." But its hard to see how they embody (as it says on the flyleaf) "Our understanding of a fundamental literary shift of perspective, that from Romantic to Modern." Further, while "Romantic," is fairly easily understood and classified as a literary and cultural perspective and easily recognized as such. What is meant by "Modern"? Does "Modern" mean what was modern in 1900, or now, or a thouroughly different perspective on things extending from 1900 to the present? The book offers no real answer.-The overall effect of the book is that of small, extremely academic, essays crammed together without any bridges between them to explain what Lucas is trying to do here besides provide an anthology of his essays. Apparently, according to the flyleaf, we are to pay "close attention to key words and phrases" if we are to see how this book offers an invaluable contribution to "critical methodology." Take it from an old English Lit. Graduate student, this is but another contribution to academic doublespeak. Just read the essays on their own. They aren't half-bad. But, in general, run for the hills when you start hearing terms like "critical methodology." Terms like these destroy the meaning in language (Thus, of course, destroying language itself) and, further, push many a graduate student toward despair.

I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it. The story is clear enough, but the writing style is very bland. An attempt is made at Yoda's style of speaking, but without much success. The illustrations are not quite right. There's no excitement here, either in prose or pictures.

Though it's a book for kids (my guess, ages 8-12), it seems to me the small size would put off most children.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone except a Star Wars completist.