This book was about many tales that the famous poet Edgar Allen Poe wrote. It includes stories like the "Tell Tale Heart". It really impressed my how he came with the surprising endings and I really like it.

My favorite tale was a tale tell heart. If you like scary stories I suggest you get it. It keeps you on the edge of your seat you just can't wait to read more. You can't stop reading it it's so good. I really didn't like some of the tales but you can decide for yourself. I liked the detail of the book alot. He was a very instesting writer. So buy and review it yourself.

I was *very* impressed by the use of a great, but terribly ill (both physically and mentally) writer and the era approaching the American Civil War as the two frames of reference for this story. The characters, especially the lovers Lenore and Danton, emerged (and in a very interesting way) from the context of these two keenly complementary aspects of the story.

Both Poe (giving us an individual, personal context) and the state of the country at that time (giving us a global context) hold tremendous promise and energy (crystallized in the characters and relationship of Lenore and Danton), but they both also hold inevitable collapse that finally must be faced and "lived through" for any of that promise to have even a chance to survive and see a better day.

Interestingly enough, the story is also a poignant one for our own impending time of crisis as well. (At the time of this reading, America is on the verge of a second war with Iraq, and the world does indeed seem to be on the verge of a new era - with a frightening global climate that apparently will have to be fully faced and lived through in the years to come for our own promise to see a better day. And what of the natural and economic environment these days?)

I thought the above was a very impressive and interesting way to show a story of the poignancy of the human spirit - all the more so because Poe was a real man whom we can know to some extent through his work and the works about him and because the era was a real time that most Americans are deeply familiar with (and are still feeling the effects of).

I also liked the immersion into the literary style and flavor of Poe's time - I think that was successful and quite consistently handled throughout, a fine challenge in itself.

And I thought the story was well realized for the most part - especially Poe. From the first pages, an immediacy with the Poe character was quite well established.

However, I didn't feel the Lenore character was approached as well as she could have been. I thought all the elements were there of a compelling character at the heart of the story, a character that could hold the immense promise of the story's heart/soul. It's the approach, not the character, that I felt could have been better. Unlike our "in the flesh," direct introduction to Poe, our introduction to Lenore was much more removed from the character than I would have preferred. We were given all of the vital information about her and the overall climate of her world that we needed to know, but I would have preferred to learn this information through much more direct experience with her and her world, although we had more of that in the novel as it progressed into the present time. Then that information would have been more "vital" to me. Maybe it's just the approach to the introduction of Lenore that left me feeling more disconnected from this important character than I would have preferred. I got the idea and knew what she was supposed to mean for the story, but with a more experiential introduction to her, I might have connected with her better. And I wanted to, so I think that's good and speaks well for the character and her promise for the story.

Still, the *approach* used with Lenore notwithstanding (at least with our introduction to her), I felt that all of the elements were there for this wonderfully intriguing conceptual novel, some of those elements quite well realized. And I loved what the novel was going for regarding the human spirit and the context(s) it used to show an especially brave and poignant story of that spirit - on an individual as well as collective level.

If I could give the potential of this story a star rating, I'd give it 5+ stars. Only because I'd like to see some still further development of the story's potential, I give it less than that.

I'm looking forward to what Frank Lovelock may write in the future.

good for research papers and stuff. dont get it just to read though coz it gets really boring

First, I have to say that I'm a long running fan of Rudy Rucker, and have read every book he's written, fiction and non-fiction. To this day, Software, Wetware, and Freeware reign as three of my favorite books. I read (though struggled would be a better word) through this book, forever keeping an open mind, hoping that it would get better, but could only come to the conclusion that this is a bad book. It's vaguely interesting at points, and Edgar Allan Poe being one of the main characters is kind of fun, but overall, it's a childish, boring, and uninteresting pile of trash. Seriously. If you see it, burn it. If you have already read this book, please don't let it deter you from his other works, such as "Software", "Wetware", "Freeware", and "Hacker and the ants". It pains me to think that Mr. Rucker wrote a book as bad as this.

Like the reviewer below, I've read almost all of Rucker's work, including his short-story output, which is excellent. Unlike him, I really enjoyed this book. Poe fans and lit majors will get a kick out of it, and casual readers of SF will enjoy it as well. Perhaps not as good as the Software/Wetware/Freeware novels, but very enjoyable, and on a par with White Light and Secret of Life.

This is some of the most famous stories that he has gathered. Famous writers like Poe, Dickens and Wilde... In my oppinion this book is just as many others of this sort. They have the almost the same stories in every book. And after some of them you get pretty tired of them. I didn't like it at all, but i Know that some of you will.