This is collection of short stories that offers a wide mix of speculative genres. Fantasy, SF, horror, and just plain weird. The stories run the gambit and most are good. "Jeo Defined" and "Moon Warrior" were excellent stories and well worth purchasing the book. Even just the so-so stories were enjoyable and all the authors are names to keep a look out for. In the end, this is a book of up and coming writers and a few of them will no doubt be big names someday.

I didn't know what to expect from this collection of short stories but I was happily surprised. The stories cover a wide range from fantasy, science fiction, and horror to those hard to classify strange stories. Each one is worth reading. My favorites were the one about a radio personality who was singing the Siren's song and the one about a criminal who is forced to undergo "augmentation" to control him. Some wild stuff for a great read.

I like the drawings very much--they are fresh, clever, and amusing caricatures of more or less famous people seen as alligators. The poems are wonderful--original works of wit, which complement the drawings but go beyond them in subtlety and humor. Good book!

Whether it is Oprah Winfrey, Alligator Commentator or Lorena Bobbitt, Penile Amputator, Noel Miller gives the reader much more value than the minimal cost of this amusing book. This publication will amuse your friends, family, and dinner party guests for years to come. It is a classic! I am sure that the author's work will far surpass the fame of the Blue Dog. Louisiana should be proud of this great combination of art and poetry

Here you'll find: Van Richten's Guide to Fiends, Van Richten's Guide to the Vistani and Van Richten's Guide to Witches . If you are looking for rare monsters you sould look in this accessory.

This is the one you HAVE to get. I have ALL the Van Richten "Guides", but this one carries the "Guide to Witches" which has never before been published! So, if you thought you had it all, you don't. Don't be fooled, however, with volumes 1 & 2. If you have ALL the Van Richten "Guides", you already have ALL of 1 & 2 and most of 3. The "Guide to Demons" is nothing more than "Van Richten's Guide To Fiends"! It was renamed for these publications. Volume 3 is the one to get!

Covers the source of supply from the spiritual perspective. As such it covers the elimination of wrong ideas and attitudes and suggests ways to allow prosperity to appear in one's life. It is non materialistic in approach recognising that prosperity comes as a reaction to what is in an individual as first cause and is not determined by the world. It cautions against the use of mental tricks to attain an objective.

Emphasis is given on what attitudes, beliefs and techniques will bring about prosperity. Sound advice is given on the nature of life from the christian perspective, the importance of placing oneself in the flow of life where giving is more important than getting and the importance of the grateful heart in the recognition of the source of supply.

A good book that could be better. Some points are underdeveloped and that is a lapse in a book that is so opposite to the materialistic world view that supply is in the economy whereas the author's message is that it is within you.

An easy book to read containing thoughts to make you think. No difficult economics. Makes a lot of sense.

I loaned out my old copy and never got it back, so just bought a new copy....does that tell you how much I like this book?

I've read my share of prosperity books, and this one is at the top of my list with Howard Caesar's audio book, "All About Prosperity".

If you're looking for some get rich quick type book, well this isn't it. I imagine that's one reason why he gave it the name he did, instead of emphasizing prosperity in the title. It's about changing your thinking about finances, health, relationships, all facets of prosperity. If you believe that changing your thinking will change your life, that we can control our thoughts and by doing so improve our over all circumstances, you'll find this book extremely helpful. Eric Butterworth comes from a very spiritual, and yet very practical level. He challenges many ideas that you might have studied in other prosperity books. Without naming her, he does challenge some of the prosperity techniques taught by Catherine Ponders and others. This is not to say that you should read him instead of her. To completely understand prosperity thinking, you should read both perspectives and then be guided by those principles that seem right to you. If you are open to a new perspective, and not bound by a fixed and rigid mind, you will find a lot of helpful material here.

"Spiritual Economics" is based on the spiritual laws and dynamics of abundance. One of the key elements of this books that raise it above a lot of spiritual law type writings is how practical this book is. Eric Butterworth tackles some very complex dynamics in a very pragmatic, understandable way.

Eric's writings are based largely on the philosophy of the Unity Church (a Christian Church of a different ilk). If you have a strong mainstream Christian faith, you may find some of your current beliefs being challenged. I challenge you to meditate on those challenges and work your way through them, expanding and better understanding your faith positions. I'm currently on my second read of this book (the first read of the 230 pages only took a week!) and am amazed at how much more I'm getting out of it a second time.

One of the Quick Tips I mentioned in this issue of ACHIEVE is to ask yourself "How can I apply this to my life?". It was in reading this book that I discovered this question. To get maximum benefit out of this book, keep asking yourself this question. Integrate this material into your life and you will be amazed at how much more you can manifest.

Some of the main ideas I got out of the book are: * I am responsible for all manifestations in my life, i.e. everything. * As I evolve, so does my manifestation potential evolve. * I need to do what I can with what I have where I am to manifest my desires. * I need to build the demand before the supply will manifest. I need to have the containers in which to put the supply once it comes. I need to become the kind of person who experiences that which I want before I can truly achieve it. * If things are tight, something has to give. I need to give selflessly of myself to the Universe. I strongly urge you to go out TODAY and order this book.

If you have programmed in another language before, but not Delphi, this is the book for you. After a quick overview of general programming concepts, Pascal data types, etc., it goes into a thorough description of the Delphi 3 language and features. I did wish that it had more info on database programming--5 chapters wasn't enough for me!

This is one of my favorite Delphi 3 books, as it covers material not easily found elsewhere. This is not a beginner's book by any means. The coverage of DLLs, COM, and threading is outstanding. This is a book for those who want to delve more deeply into the relationships between VCLs and the WinAPI.

I purchased this book with a view to learning more about OLE and COM which is covered very comprehensively. But I found that once I started reading the other chapters I could not put the book down. Some people have commented that this book is a poor teaching aid. This is not what this book sets out to do. QUE's guide puts this book at Accomplished to Expert level. If you are an experienced, professional programmer who needs an excellent reference book, buy this. You will not regret it.

The XP book market is getting increasingly crowded; this book differs from the pack as it walks through examples in an easy to grasp format. The book is geared towards Java developers; this is not a problem per se but non-Java developers should be aware of this. My copy of this book is beaten and worn!

I think this is one of the only XP books that links back into Agile Modelling. This is very helpful as XP readers sometimes get the impression that XP throws the baby out with the bathwater; design is still important!

Another aspect I liked was the inclusion of quite few photographs; this helps bridge the gap between the words and understanding. If you're seriously interested in using XP you should get this book.

Where was this book 2 years ago!

No muss, no fuss; just a straightforward exposition of what XP is, and what it is not. If you are wondering what all the fuss over XP is all about, this book won't disappoint you. XP is commonly characterized as "Forget planning, just code!" This book clarifies that misconception, and others. It is really directoed at answering the question "How come XP projects don't collapse in chaos?" After reading this book, XP didn't sound nearly as crazy as it does on the newsgroups.

Although I have been a follower of XP and have read David Astels works before, I was initially apprehensive on reading another book on XP programming.

One of the goals of XP is to be succinct and iterative - ironically I had difficulty finding XP books that had followed the goals of XP. My assumption is that many of the books have been rushed to publication.

"Practical Guide to XP" has many more plusses than minuses. There are actual hands-on examples, with code. About a quarter of the book is devoted to test and source code from an XP project. I am normally not a big fan of having complete source code from a project in a book - aside from making the book heavier it generally serves little purpose. In this particular case, it makes sense as the processes of XP can be "followed through". XP is a development process/philosophy - as such it is better for newcomers to follow an actual implementation to fully appreciate the concepts.

This book will help somewhat to clear the fog on the many views on XP. XP, like all development methodologies, is a combination of art and science. There will be many views on methods of practicing XP and each project will be unique. This book will help you decide what you need to use for your particular project.

Hope this helps - please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

I was hoping to get an insight on ASP.NET when I purchased this product, as an experienced developer I would say that this book is too basic for me. This book can be great for a beginners who are just getting into making websites dynamically.

One thing I found somewhat bothering was the fact that it's quite jumpy. In some parts of the book there are portions that say "we will get to this on chapter blah" and what bothered me was that the concept was used in previous examples. An average reader, in my opinion, would want to examine the code and see how it works. The likely chance that he/she will read through the other chapters and look back is less than likely. More than likely they will get confused if they tried to jump through some sections to understand this certain porton. For example, in one of the first 3 chapters they used IF statements in the examples to explain some of the Radio Buttons Functionality. Now someone who doesn't know C# out of the bat will be confused!

Read this book for an overview only...

Excellent resource for all ASP.NET AND C# beginners. as well as a quick reference for C# and some ASP.NET basic configuration. These guys did a great job in putting together a logical sequence of chapters that will help the reader successfully learn to code basic ASP.NET web pages using C#. I especially like the general overview of the C# language and Object Oriented programming.

Know what you are buying, because some readers commented it was "A bit too basic" and that is probably a technically correct statement however relative to your level of expectation.

I used it to first phase into ASP.NET for which it was extremely helpful. Later in the development cycle of my initial application the book lost its use but I keep coming back to it for quick reference.

A must for anyone coming from a classic ASP development environment into ASP.NET, C# and Object Oriented Programming. Worth every penny.

As a reviewer for Wrox, I was pleased to be given this book to technically review. I found that this C# version of Beginning ASP.Net very informative and highly useful.

Written in a typically good Wrox style, every facet that a beginner would be interested in is covered. However, not just beginners will gain from this book but also "intermediates", especially those not familiar with C# will also gain a lot from this books contents. I especially liked the Web Services chapter as well as the debugging chapter.

I would certainly class this is one of my top Wrox books.

There are much better books which helps you with your day to day tasks than this book

This is not the only book you should have! Lots of material considering reference integrity are NOT well cover (1 paragraph). Answers to question are frequently wrong and NOT as well written as the Sybex books. Take your chances here.

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, ich habe meine nächste MCSE-Prüfung(70-026) am 16. April. Wie aus der Beurteilung zu erkennen ist, soll das Buch "MCSE Training Guide: SQL Server 6.5 Administration (Covers Exam #70-026) by David Lafferty" sehr gut sein. Leider sind meine Englisch-Kenntnisse nur durchschnittlich, deshalb meine Frage: Gibt es dieses Buch auch in deutscher Sprache? Mit freundlichen Grüßen Karl-Heinz Schneider

Discovering Fossil Fishes written by John G. Maisey is a book covering fish fossilization through out history. Spanning more the one-half billion years fishes are older than dinosaurs and have links to the tetrapods on land.

This book is highly illustrated with art work one nearly half of the pages with the dialog on the other half of the book. Fishes have a unique evolutionary history that stretches back in time, they are incredibly ancient and include the ancestors of all the limbed vertebrates living on the land.

I found the book to be highly readable and easy to follow as this book could be read and understood by those twelve years old or older. There are color illustrations along with fossilized pictures comparing both. This gives the reader a good approximation as to what the fossil would look like in life.

From their ancient ancestors, the craniates, fishes evolved not once, in a single lineage, but multiple times, filling countless biological niches. Given their long evolutionary history, itis not surprising that so many species of fishes exist today; one new fish species evolving every 18,000 years, or about 55.5 species evolving per one million years. The sum total of fishy diversity through time is far greater than now, and the evolutionary history of fishes is a vast and comples subject.

But, the author wrote this book with the layreader in mind and the prose are simple but very effective. as more fossil fishes are uncovered we will know better what the ancient world looked like and come to discover more of our own ancestors.

Maisey is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. With this work he has brought the evolution of the fishes to the popular science reader. My only major complaint about this book is in format. I would like to have seen it arranged by geological period as apposed to taxonomic group. I also think that a more visual group of cladograms arranging all the fishes would have been in order. Many cladograms are included but they only show small snippets of the relationships between fishes and you have to piece a larger picture together throughout the book. The illustrations are excellent and you will have a hard time finding so many images of fossil fish, if you are just interested in seeing images of fossils then this will be great for you. I also liked how he discussed the development of major morphological features. While a person of specialized interest might be aware of these, having them all in one place is convenient.

If you have a developing interest in fishes or in vertebrate paleontology than this book would be good to have. It would also be a nice compliment to any library including material on natural history.

I came across this book while finishing my MSc at Guelph. The book soon made its rounds among all the ichthyology students and faculty. It is well written, lavishly illustrated and nicely designed. Seeing this volume going for so cheap surprises me. I paid 5 times more for mine. Any student involved with fish taxonomy, evolution and general biology MUST get this book. I found the lateral views a bit goofy but the paintings of creatures in motion in their habitat are superb. People who are interested in early life on our planet should also consider having a look at this one. BRAVO Dr. Maisey!

This is a solid read for any interested homebrewer, but I would personally recommend the Papazian book as a first read for the new brewer. This book deals in some highly technical aspects of water chemistry and various chemical reactions that take place in your beer during different phases of brewing. Personally, much of that was more than I wanted to handle so I skimmed and moved on to the more approachable sections on the 'how to' and 'why' of making beer. It is a good book in that it breaks each step of brewing into a short chapter and discusses only that portion for a few pages, making it an easy reference book to refer back to when trying to see something specific. I recommend this book, but caution that it is not a breezy read as Papazian sometimes is.

This is definitely the second book you should buy for homebrewing. I would say it is second only to "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian due to it's slightly more advanced content. It gets into the technical side of everything that an intermediate homebrewer wants to know about to become an expert and most important make GREAT beer. This book is a must have to that homebrewer striving to reach that next level in understanding the science that goes into brewing that "perfect for you" batch of beer. Enjoy!

This book contains a lot of good info, which I've found to be both interesting and useful as I get back into brewing after a break of a few years. I have Papazian also, and of the two books, I pick this one up more often, and find what I'm looking for more easily.

Despite the comments of some other reviewers, one doesn't need to be an all-grain brewer to find this book useful. I'm creating my own recipes using extracts and specialty grains, and find this book to be very helpful.

However, Miller is pretty repetitive. It is only a slight exaggeration that there are 3 chapters on each topic: on each on theory, equipment and method. I find that there is a moderate degree of repetition of material across these chapters. A consolidation of each topic into 1 chapter could well result in a 1/3 reduction in pages for the book.

I'll echo another reviewer, who commented negatively on the recipes towards the back. They are really just lists of ingredients, without discussion on method (eg. mash temperatures) or variables.

Having made these mild complaints, I'll go on picking this book up every day or so as I think about what to do for my next brew.