Isn't it wonderful that the latest dinosaur finds can make their way into a children's book so quickly? This collaboration between paleontologist Philip J. Currie, children's nature writer Colleayn O. Martin, and illustrator Jan Sovak is a fact-filled visual treat. This is a presentation of about two dozen recently discovered or described dinosaurs. There's a half-page of description, a sidebar of taxonomy and vital stats, and on the facing page is a colorful, dramatic painting of the critter in life. Your kids love dinosaurs as much as you did, right? So what are you waiting for? You can't miss with this one.

some of the stories here are not in any way connected to Lovecraft. Wolfe's story here is interesting, but doesn't really get to be horrible. a story about out-of-the-body experiences is pretty good, but something seems amiss in the ending. a story about a stuffed animal amused me. also included are some mediocre stories, and also some really dull stories. the collection is perhaps not the worst in history, but you can easily do better.

Lovecraft "tribute" volumes appear to be developing into a sub-genre all of their own and this book is...definitely one of them. I leave it to the English major to define the difference between pastiche and plagiarism, to distinguish between stories influenced by, written in homage to, or containing ideas directly stolen from Lovecraft. All these are represented in this volume, as well as a couple of tales that seem to have no connection to Lovecraft's work at all.

Of the thirteen stories collected within, four or five are memorable. Three of the stories--arguably the three best--Gene Wolfe's genuinely chilling "Lord of the Land", Gahan Wilson's whimsical fantasy "H.P.L.", and F. Paul Wilson's "The Barrens"--have also more recently appeared in the Arkham House collection "Cthulu 2000." Also worthy of mention is Brian McNaughton's darkly humorous "Meryphillia", possibly more reminiscent of Clarke Ashton Smith's oeuvre than of Lovecraft's, and Mort Castle's Poe-esque "A Secret of the Heart."

There is a touchingly affectionate introduction by Robert Bloch and a short afterword by each author, sharing a little of what Lovecraft meant to him (unsurprisingly, all the authors are "hims").

If you have already read the three volumes of Lovecraft's work in print, the collection of his revisions "The Horror In The Museum And Other Tales," the two Arkham House tribute volumes "Tales Of The Cthulu Mythos" and "Cthulu 2000," and you still want more, perhaps this book will fit the bill.

Like all short story collections, this one has varying levels of quality. The average is so high, however, that it's well worth picking up if you're a fan of horror, mystical SF, or especially a Lovecraft fan. The stories show the influence of the Great Old Ones in Elizabethan England, the space program, the pine barrens of New Jersey and astral space in dreams. And, in the standout story of the book (H.P.L. by Gahan Wilson), Lovecraft appears as a character, as do Clark Ashton Smith and many, many, many bad things from his works. Of special interest to fans of Edgar Allan Poe is the first story in the collection, which ties the cosmology of Poe's stories together with Lovecraft's, repaying the obvious debt to Poe all writers of the macabre incurred since the 1800s. Buy this book.

I believe that I must have adored the Find Your Fate books when I was much younger. Certainly, the copies I currently own (retained from my youth) bare the markings of extreme use. In our day, after trudging three or four miles back and forth to school, we youngsters didn't have fangled, complicated video games to take our minds off of gruel and dirt, so we had to resort to the Find Your Own Adventure Books in order to satisfy our desires to interact with fiction. Okay, so much of that previous sentence is a lie, but many of these books actually were a lot of fun to an eight-year-old.

Sadly, INVASION OF THE ORMAZOIDS isn't the best Doctor Who Find Your Fate Adventure available. Philip Martin doesn't seem particularly suited to the second-person narration aspect of these books, and a lot of the book seems very contrived. The protagonist of the novel, the ubiquitous "you" is (according to the illustrations) a fairly androgynous looking, person, who upon meeting the Doctor immediately forgets his or her name and swipes a moniker from the TARDIS control panel. The two of you (mostly you) wander around in the twenty-fifth century at the edge of the universe trying to seize control of the Master Genetic Code Signifier. The Master Genetic Code Signifier is a device that, when properly used, allows the user to create perfectly synchronized ballroom dancers. In the wrong hands, this could lead to galactic domination. Or something. An evil guy called Darval is looking for a good galactic domination weapon and has designs on the aforementioned Master Generic Code Signifier. You have to stop him and the only way you can prevent the dastardly plan from coming to fruition is to blast things with lasers.

The book isn't terribly appealing from a Doctor Who standpoint. Most paths that you can take end up with you separated from the Doctor and forced in to a fairly standard action adventure. It's not overly interesting and most of the time it doesn't really feel like a Doctor Who adventure. I'd recommend some of the other FYF books, in which you actually get to interact with the Doctor and his companions.

(A warning. K9 appears on the cover but isn't in the actual text of the book, so try not to be too heartbroken when the little fellow doesn't appear.)