Having studied Chinese traditional martial arts for more than fifteen years, I really appreciated the fresh perspective presented in Lessons From the Eastern Warriors. The book explains the common historic and philosophic background for many of the Chinese fighting arts. Not being a Kempo practitioner, I was not familiar with its background and enjoyed reading about its connection to Kung-Fu. Explaining and illustrating common connections between Chinese Kung-Fu and Japanese Kempo is pulled off very well by this author. There is a superb cross-section of fighting techniques chosen for inclusion in this book. My training in Ch'ang Ch'uan, Northern Shaolin and Ch'in Na gave me a special appreciation for the book's lessons. I especially like the way the author teaches how to set up and counterattack an adversary. The book's discussion on blocking and countering with the same hand are very well explained. Closing an opponent's centerline and counterattacking is a vital area of defense often neglected in other works, but extremely well done in this book by Fred Neff. Trapping an opponent is apparently either avoided or not known by other authors, because it does not show up in their works, but is well covered in this book. Lessons From the Eastern Warriors has an excellent section systematically showing several ways to trap an opponent. Another unique area of presentation in this book is its section on grappling on the ground. This subject is neglected in many martial arts discussions, despite the fact that it may be an actual danger in a fight. It seems that many martial artists prefer to pretend that they will not ever end up on the ground with an opponent. This is very foolish. I was very happy to see this book not avoid the subject, but instead give some good tips for handling fighting on the ground. One of the greatest assets of the book is its willingness to avoid the stereotypical presentation of Kung-fu and to instead cut new ground with a presentation that is both fresh and very useful. I have added Lessons From the Eastern Warriors to my small library of martial arts books and strongly suggest others do likewise.

Having studied Chinese traditional martial arts for more than fifteen years, I really appreciated the fresh perspective presented in Lessons From the Eastern Warriors. The book explains the common historic and philosophic background for many of the Chinese fighting arts. Not being a Kempo practitioner, I was not familiar with its background and enjoyed reading about its connection to Kung-Fu. Explaining and illustrating common connections between Chinese Kung-Fu and Japanese Kempo is pulled off very well by this author. There is a superb cross-section of fighting techniques chosen for inclusion in this book. My training in Ch'ang Ch'uan, Northern Shaolin and Ch'in Na gave me a special appreciation for the book's lessons. I especially like the way the author teaches how to set up and counterattack an adversary. The book's discussion on blocking and countering with the same hand are very well explained. Closing an opponent's centerline and counterattacking is a vital area of defense often neglected in other works, but extremely well done in this book by Fred Neff. Trapping an opponent is apparently either avoided or not known by other authors, because it does not show up in their works, but is well covered in this book. Lessons From the Eastern Warriors has an excellent section systematically showing several ways to trap an opponent. Another unique area of presentation in this book is its section on grappling on the ground. This subject is neglected in many martial arts discussions, despite the fact that it may be an actual danger in a fight. It seems that many martial artists prefer to pretend that they will not ever end up on the ground with an opponent. This is very foolish. I was very happy to see this book not avoid the subject, but instead give some good tips for handling fighting on the ground. One of the greatest assets of the book is its willingness to avoid the stereotypical presentation of Kung-fu and to instead cut new ground with a presentation that is both fresh and very useful. I have added Lessons From the Eastern Warriors to my small library of martial arts books and strongly suggest others do likewise.

Kung-fu methods are heavily taught in the book on Fighting from the Eastern Warriors. The description and illustrations in this book are exellent. The approaches to fighting are exitingly different from the normal kick-punch covered in other karate-based books. The techniques are explored and illustrated so nearly anyone should be able to learn them from reading this book. It is a great guide to Kung-fu and its Japanese derivative art of Kempo. It is highly recommended as not only an enjoyable reading, but as a guide to help build a fighting repertoire.

Japanese martial arts way is intrigingly explored in Lessons From the Japanese Masters. The story of Japanese fighting arts unfolds through its history and philosophy in the beginning of the book. Philosophic concepts are explained that make the self-defense taught in later chapters more relevant. I especially like the way that author Fred Neff explains how the philosophic concepts can apply to not only physical conflict but life generally. Included is a superior cross-section of Japanese fighting approaches for description and depiction through pictures. I found the joint locks taught to be fascinating and plan to make them an enduring part of my martial arts practice. Throwing techniques are also well presented. There is even a part of the book covering how to defend with locks and throws when you are forced down on the ground. Commendable is the emphasis on ethics and safety in the use of fighting techniques. This is a book that should be highly praised and well received for use by children and adults alike.

Ancient Japanese principles of fighting are well explained in Lessons from the Japanese Masters by Fred Neff. There are misconceptions spread about self-defense, that reading Lessons from the Japanese Masters can dispel. Having been invovled with Japanese Karate for many years, I get sick of hearing the so-called do whatever it takes crowd of self-defense theorists. Equally unrealistic are those naive people that say you do not ever need to take any offensive action in a fight just stand back and try to exploit and attack with a simple trick. Neither of these tactics work, because the former theory of do whatever it takes may not only be immoral but illegal. The later naive stand back and exploit theory, ignores the fact that you cannot always just evade harm or counter with something simple. Lessons from the Japanese Masters is all about real fighting situations including the need in an all out fight to use strategy to set up an adversary for techniques that may end the fight. The book provides concisely and in an easy to understand manner the necessary historical and philosophical foundation for the Japanese fighting arts and then proceeds to explain and show how to fight both standing and on the ground. It not only provides necessary lessons to prepare for a simple attack, but for an all out fight as well. Lessons from the Japanese Masters is right on point.

I have four different books and a set of audio tapes about the Enneagram. I have studied numerous personality profiling systems, most of which are based on two dimensions of personality only. The Enneagram is by far the most accurate and useful system I have experienced, and this book is the best of the ones I have studied. Its descriptions of the types are clear, insightful, and "dead on" accurate. I recommend you let this book be your first experience with the Enneagram.

"Other Voices, Other Doors" will introduce you to the work of Patrick O'Leary. The book is chock full of charm, wit, compassion, style, and voice. A wonderful collection. But what else should we expect from the author of the marvelously inventive novels, "Door Number Three" and "The Gift"?

Reading Lessons from the Fighting Commandos helped crystallize my own fighting experience. The neighborhood where I grew up was rough and tough, so my brothers and I learned early to use boxing in a street fight. As a teenager, I hung around a boxing gym. In the process, I learned a lot about boxing and picked up tips on street fighting. In high school, I was on the wrestling team. I later studied at a local school that emphasized a gung-ho attitude coupled with the use of open hand blows. The abrupt open hand attacks were easily countered by what I had earlier learned in boxing and wrestling. Sparring with the others in class was too easy, because I had no real problem defeating them using a combination of boxing and wrestling. I switched to a combat jujitsu school where the instructor told me that the toughest guys he had ever known had boxing experience. He went on to relate how during WWI and WWII some countries trained commandos for warfare through a combination of boxing, wrestling and other moves drawn from various sources. Now this brings me to Fred Neff's book on commando strategy that is by far the best book on fighting I have ever seen. He tells it the way it is, not how others fancifully want to hear it. His book combines boxing, wrestling and jujitsu to make a person ready for the street. My considerable experience tells me that this is an effective combination. I especially like the way he teaches to manipulate the adversary into being hit or open for a takedown. Face it, no street fighter is going to stand there and let you hit him with a series of open hand blows. The reality is that you had better learn to figure out a winning strategy and be ready to improvise along the way. Such a strategy often involves moving in and out with blows like in boxing, while being ready to use other techniques and tactics as needed. The strategy section near the end of the commmando book encourages the reader to learn to think, adapt to the opponent and to be prepared for an all-out fracas. This book is necessary to read for anyone who is serious about learning real self-defense.

The balanced presentation on self defense in Lessons From the Fighting Commandos makes it an excellent book for children and adults alike. After my husband's death, I noticed my son's depression and withdrawal from activities. His schoolwork greatly suffered and I found that it was nearly impossible to get him to read. Finally, I bought Fred Neff's book on Lessons From the Fighting Commandos for my son hoping it might at least get him reading again. At first he looked at the pictures, but within a short time he was reading the text. A few days later I came home and saw him standing in front of the mirror practicing lessons from the book. As time went on, it became clear that the book had a profound effect on my boy. He started taking an interest in athletics and reading as well. Lessons from the Fighting Commandos is a book any parent would love because it not only gets children interested in reading, but teaches other valuable lessons as well. It avoids the irresponsible approach used by other books that tell children that self defense involves a kill mentality or that one simple blow will defeat any attacker. Instead, Lessons From the Fighting Commandos teaches that to be good at self defense, like any other discipline, requires learning its principles, hard work, persistence, conditioning and developing the ability to think analytically. These life teachings transcend self defense and transfer to other important endeavors as well. I love the book for what it has done for my boy and strongly suggest its purchase for children and adults.

I have been involved in studying combat related fighting tactics for many years. The combat techniques and tactics taught in Fred Neff's book on Lessons from the Fighting Commandos is what I know from experience works. This book gets right down to business in teaching real fighting. There are a lot of armchair theorists that ignore the effectiveness of boxing and wrestling for street combat. These sports are based on hundreds of years of experience of what works. In a real fight, I have seen the effectiveness of boxing and wrestling. There are times where hitting someone with an open hand will do nothing more than hurt your hand. Anyone who thinks that you can simply move in on a good street fighter and take him out with open hand blows every time is living in a fantasy world. What it takes to win out in a no holds barred fight is the type of knowledge imparted in Lessons from the Fighting Commandos. Other books often ignore the fact that in a real fight you cannot always rely on blows to end the fight. What often happens in a fight is that you end up wrestling with your adversary. Fred Neff's book gives some good wrestling moves that from my experience work in a fight. You cannot prepare to defend in a fight without having both hitting and wrestling skills. To me Lessons from the Fighting Commandos is a five star book, that anyone who wants to learn real fighting will enjoy reading.

Patrick O'Leary weaves a masterful tapestry of magic and wonder in 'The Gift'.

He is clearly a master of the English language. Every sentence evokes wonderful imagery. This is one of those books where I was on the edge of my chair throughout.

There's not much more I can add that hasn't already been mentioned in previous reviews. It's a fantastic book. I disagree with the previous reviewer, it can please people coming from different viewpoints. A Robert Jordan fan will enjoy the magic and the evil crows and the magnificent quest..whereas more sophisticated readers can appreciate the subtler nuances.

Those of us who enjoy all kinds of fiction can sit back and bask in a wonderful experience.

Focused, imaginative and lyrical O'leary's "The Gift" is a fine new offering in a genre suffering under the weight of too many authors who can't figure out how to tell a story. Repleat with intriguing characters and an ingeneous plotline O'Leary tells his tale in a voice reminiscent of Alan Lightman and Michael Swanwick. So, don't waste your time letting bad stories get into you... pick up "The Gift" and treat yourself to something new and unusual.

This is probably the oddest book there is in this genre. Oleary is a new uprising writer, who has a real talent in storytelling. Now, SciFi Fantasy is one thing, but what this guy's doing is a whole lot of a different art. And you'll love every minute of it. This story is actually an excuse for Oleary to do his best - Storytell. The layout is some kind of an Earth-like world, only technologically retarded. It tells the story of the ancient Wind Wizards, who crashed to the planet, and made it their own; it tells the tale of a young deaf King, Simon, who's healed by the dark Usher of the Night, only to become a Sentinel. He then starts on an adventure with only one thing set on his mind - Revenge; it tells the story of a little orphan, Tim, who's destined to more then he's ready to bargain for; it tells the sad story of a lost species of magic, the Watermen, who are at the point of extinction. Science-fiction, Fantasy and Story-telling meet in an exquisite mixture of high-tense adventures, humor, bizzare and night-marish sequences of the S.King kind. If any, this book's worth the reading. You'll LOVE it - every one of its 287 pages.

I looked forward to "Door Number Three" after reading the jacket cover. I like SF that plays on issues of time and alternate realities and the like. This book was not at all what I hoped for. Mr. O'Leary writes well and fluidly. His story has a staccato quality that must attempt to highlight the discontinuities of reality that he explores. For me, the result was a book that was difficult to "get into." The main character is appealing. This was not the case for the others, including the mysterious woman from an different plane of reality. The ideas are interesting, and the writing is crisp. The story execution falls short, however.

A neurotic psychotherapist and his patient who claims she was abducted by aliens, a time machine, a Mad-Hatter-like inventor who hides out in a Catholic church rectory, a homicidal police detective who gets religion, deadly femme fatales addicted to sugar, an endearing pet bird with genetically engineered super-intelligence. These are some fo the elements of this stunning novel, which is as imaginative as Neil Gaiman's "Nevermore." By turns hilarious and suspenseful, with a surreal sense of humor reminiscent of Douglas Adams ("The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy"), this book is a wild coaster ride, full of surprises and revelations. But it is not purely plot driven. The characters are engaging, original, and come to life. If you're tired of the same old, same old, try this book!

O'Leary uses this story, involving aliens, Feds, and time-travel as a framework to explore interpersonal relationships and how we are strangely tied to our particular perception of time and unknowingly shaped by psychological forces that we're unaware of.

The story is actually two stories in one; the first being a psychologist dealing with a patient who claims to be an alien, and the second being the psychologist having to confront messy family issues in an attempt to figure out why he is the way he is.

Overall, the writing is excellent and the story well-told and engaging. If you're the type that likes to ponder things this book is a great springboard to get you to poke around a bit in your own psyche to figure out what forces have shaped your own personality and perceptions.

A quote near the beginning of this book makes a reference to C. S. Lewis's The Great Divorce, commenting on "the smugness that tainted everything Lewis ever wrote." Aside from the fact that I think this quote reveals more about the author's own prejudices than it does about the actual tone of Lewis's writing, I could only wish that this book had been half as good as most anything written by Lewis. When I came across this in the bookstore I was intrigued, but upon reading it I failed to find it really captivating or affecting. At first I found the plot to be a bit confusing, but then about half-way through I found myself really starting to connect with the story. By the end, however, I was thoroughly disappointed. It wasn't that the writing was horrible or the story totally without merit, it's just that it ultimately didn't move me very much at all. A good part of the reason for this is that I so strongly disagree with the worldview presented in the story.

This is the story of two brothers and a meditation upon the meaning of life and death. The philosophy behind the story reminds me of my college existentialism class. It embraces the idea that death is the final end, and that knowing this fact makes our time here truly meaningful. Even if we could go on to an afterlife without pain and suffering, this would take all true meaning out of our lives, and therefore, all of the world's prominent religions are wrong. While I can't speak for all the world's religions, I can say that the version of the afterlife that O'Leary presents is a far cry from any genuinely Christian understanding of it. Once again, I think this reveals more about the situation of the author than it does about what it means to be human. I daresay that those who have known true pain, suffering, and loss might not find the idea of a better world to come so unappealing. Interesting how almost all those who take this sort of existentialist attitude towards the meaning of life and death are those who live in the relative material comfort and safety of late modern western civilization.

In keeping with this "death is the end" materialist view of life, the story concludes that our personal moral behavior ultimately doesn't matter all that much. Thus when one of the two main characters in the story commits adultery with his brothers wife, he is told that God (whatever that means) really doesn't care all that much and has better things to do than "keep score." As if adultery was nothing more than a faux pas or a minor personal flaw, rather than a fundamental betrayal of one of life's most important relationships. Surely it is not necessary to see God as a small-minded keeper of moral tabs in order to understand that the actions we choose might have moral import. Contrary to the philosophy of this book, the idea of judgement and the afterlife tell us that our choices and actions are of ultimate importance. If death is the final end and then we are gone forever, ultimately to be forgotten, then why should anything we do really matter? How does a view of life like this one find meaning or solace in the face of a horrible moral evil like the Holocaust?

To be fair, there are some well-written passages, creative and original ideas, and a strong ending that gives the story a certain sense of poignancy. Ultimately, however, I was so profoundly turned off by the worldview that permeated and informed this entire book that I couldn't truly enjoy it. Perhaps those who find themselves more inclined to agree with the author's perspective will find more to enjoy here.

I have to disagree with the other reviewers here about this book. I liked Door Number Three a lot and came to this book with fairly high expectations. I kept waiting for the plot to become clear, to figure out why characters were doing what they were doing, if there were different "realities" or dimensions or what. Frequently I said to myself, only 40 more pages. Well, I finished it but just barely. Leary wrote a confusing muddle of a book. It is sort of obvious early on that the 2 brothers are living in another dimension, whatever that means, why they are there is not explained, that the other dimension has different rules is not explained. It is never clear to me why some people are killed, why they have to be killed so often, who the aliens are (though in the end, you have it figured out but not why they do what they do). I think Leary probably had an interesting idea to write a book, he just wasn't able to write a good book about it. Better luck next time. Like I said, Door Number Three is very good.

Intricate plot. A web of imagery that is so reminiscent of James Joyce. It also has a Freudian feel. I think read that in a review somewhere, but it is totally true. I think this novel shouldn't be classified as science fiction, but a real modern classic. But who am I, right?
Characters cope with death and life through incredible means. The aliens were very important because of who they were and who they chose to speak to. His representation of how a child's mind works, how the characters deal with repressed memories, was so real. His represntation of the pure male emotional experience is very revealing. Incredible. Wow! I am just totally blown away by his attention to detail and his emotional dream-like imagery. On some level, very disturbing and certain plot turns really caught me off-guard, but in the scheme of the book it all makes some kind of crazy sense. Three nights in a row I stayed up from 10pm-2am to finish this book. When I read Door Number Three I was on vacation and my husband threatened to throw the book away, because I could not put it down. His books are the type you can read again and again and still think about them for days afterwards. I hope he continues to write more.