Not to dismiss acknowledged contemporary story writers like Updike, or Carver, or Doyle or Oates or a dozen others you may have read in school or out, Andre Dubus is BREATHTAKING! He captures the angst of the internal, the behavior of the external, the glint of the physical detail, the subtlety of emotion like NO other contemporary writer. After reading hundreds of short story writers, I have never been so moved and learned so much about he human heart. Put down your DSM-IV, therapists, put away the existential tracts of Camus & Sartre, and PLEASE put away that post-modern numbing theory. Learn about life through the characters, places and situations you shall discover among these brilliant tales. Now, here is a true anecdote. I had read a story in this collection "Killings," and said to myself, this would make a FABULOUS film. I was all set to translate fiction to the screenplay genre. It was going to be a stunning work no studio would turn down. Then low and behold, it was all in vain. This story became "IN THE BEDROOM," the award-winning film. So obviously, my intuitions were confirmed. Read these stories for confirmation of what it means to be alive, for here you will discover the principle behind Joseoph Campbell's remarks about the meaning of myth: "Life is struggle; life is pain, but by God, you know you're ALIVE!

I was 17 and a senior in high school when I came across an article in the paper about a series of benefit readings that were being held to raise money to pay for the medical bills for Andre Dubus. I called a number and got a schedule, and then agonized over which Saturday reading I would attend - should I go to hear Kurt Vonnegut and E.L. Doctorow or John Irving and Stephen King? I ended up choosing the latter (mainly because I had a crush on John Irving!)

In the weeks leading up to the reading, I thought it might be a good idea to find out more about this Andre Dubus, so I went to the bookstore and bought Adultery and Other Choices. I was astonished. I immediately borrowed every Andre Dubus book that was available at the library and devoured every word. I'm a New Englander and was raised in the Catholic church, and I related to Mr. Dubus' stories.

At the reading that Saturday, I had the honor of meeting Mr. Dubus. He was in a hospital bed, and was obviously still suffering from the accident, but he was smiling and seemed to be a little surprised at the size of the crowd. He was gracious when I thanked him for his stories. It makes me sad that there will be no new Andre Dubus stories, but I am so grateful for the ones he gave us while he was here, all too briefly.

I return to Andre Dubus whenever I get hungry for a really good short story. However, after recently experiencing a Matt Fowler's revenge in the movie, "In the Bedroom," I revisited this 1996 collection of short stories. That movie is based on one of the twenty-three, stunning stories collected here, "Killings." Novelist Barbara Kingsolver has said that "a good short story cannot simply be Lit Lite." Rather, "it is the successful execution of large truths delivered in tight spaces." Confronting issues including a bereaved father's revenge ("Killings"), abortion ("Miranda over the Valley"), difficult relationships ("Adultery," "The Winter Father," "Voices from the Moon," "The Pretty Girl," "The Pitcher," "Leslie in California"), religion ("If They Knew Yvonne"), obesity ("The Fat Girl"), fatherhood ("A Father's Story"), rape ("The Curse"), sexuality and death, Dubus triumphs in delivering profound truths in these "tight spaces." You won't find happily-ever-after endings here. Rather, these are emotionally compelling stories that feel too real to be fiction. And they will leave you coming back for more.

G. Merritt

Breece Pancake killed himself with a shotgun in Charlottesville, Virginia on Palm Sunday in 1979. He was 26 years old at the time and had just completed a graduate writing program at the University of Virginia. Four years later "The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake" was published, a collection of twelve stories that posthumously established his literary reputation as one of the finest short story writers in twentieth century American literature.

Pancake grew up in the hollows of West Virginia and each of the carefully wrought stories in this collection deals with the seemingly desperate lives of the working poor in that part of the country. They are remarkably crafted stories, written with a deep sense for the locale and the people from which they are drawn. They are also models of precision, the kind of stories that deserve to be read over and over, studied for the way in which they use foregrounding and the mundane details of everyday life--albeit everyday life that quietly screams with the desperation of poverty, deadening work, drinking, promiscuity, and brutality-to draw complex portraits of people who endure, even when endurance is no more than a substitute for hope. As he writes in "A Room Forever," the story of a tugboat mate spending New Year's Eve in an eight-dollar-a-night hotel room where he drinks cheap whiskey out of the bottle and eventually ends up with a teen-aged prostitute: "I stop in front of a bus station, look in on the waiting people, and think about all the places they are going. But I know they can't run away from it or drink their way out of it or die to get rid of it. It's always there."

The best of these stories are "Trilobites," "The Honored Dead," "Fox Hunters," and "In the Dry." But there really isn't a weak story in the bunch. Every story is captivating, every one an exemplar of what good short story writing should be. At the end, the only thing that disappoints, that leaves the reader discomforted, is the thought that Pancake died so young, that these are the only stories we have by a truly remarkable writer.

In this volume, the writer's surviving voice really hits home and stays there. Like that perfect song that stays in your head and carries you through the day, Breece Pancake's words and wisdom echoe through the reader's mind forever after reading them. In this life, there is always something around to remind of a Breece Pancake story. From the time weathered fossils in the creek beds to the rare West Virginia 120 m.p.h. strait stretches, after reading this volume I see Pancake everywhere, no matter where I am in the world. Like the trilobite preserved beneath the earth that hides it, these stories are a tangible (and for some reason widely unknown), history of a time and generation that, like the tragedy of Pancake's suicide, is destined to be repeated if ignored.

There are times when things come together in such a way that you know it's perfect. It can be a phrase of music, a blending of colors and sounds in film, or, in this case, the words of a story. This book tells stories that fall together in a timeless way, but are still firmly rooted in a specific place and time.

Having grown up in West Virginia, there were parts of these stories that spoke to me from a sort of "native" perspective. But more to it was the emotion that was the core, the skin and the stitching of each of these stories.

It's a good book to own. To read from when you feel like being taken to another place for a while. And to carry a piece of that place with you once you put the book down.

Fantastic book. Pithy style, very readable, no fluff, excellent as a reference. Anyone coming to Java from C++ should get this book. About the only thing I would do to improve it would be to have at least a short chapter on database access.

This is one of the first books I bought to get an understanding of Java and how it is comprable to what I already know of C/C++. This book is the perfect starting point, giving every comprable declaration to C/C++. Kudos to the authors, can't wait for a more up-to-date version though.

Even though this is one of my oldest Java books I keep going back to it. I wish it would be updated for the new Event model and swing however. The coverage of the 1.0 JDK is very good and I still go back to the gridbag description and examples when I get confused.

How the author captured the intricate part of the three main characters healing with no one left behind is the freedom any person of childhood trauma hopes for. My beliefs went to a different level of hope as the story evolved. The story touched my emotions so deeply. I felt closer to the author and the characters The ending totally surprised me and I cried for quite some time trying to process it all. It is a story of trauma, secrets, unconditional love, and the need for one another that we all internally hope to get in life. There was no codependency in these relationships, but a genuine dependence on God.

The rage I felt inside picturing my own child in a house of darkness hoping I would rescue her hit me more deeply than anything I have ever read. The author characterizes the people involved so well, I felt like I knew them.

I was really moved from the beginning. I was very impressed by the book. How one character saves the other is truly from and about God. I had tears in my eyes at the finish of the book. God will use this book for healing. The overall spirit of the book, is that there is a God.

Andre Auw has the rare understanding of what makes excellent therapy. As clinicians we too often rely on the tricks of cognitive behaviior approaches, too scared to really engage with our clients.

Bravo Andre, please write more!

Andre Auw was my professor in graduate school (Psychology of Human Relations). I have never forgotten his gentle wisdom. he has left a life long impression on me. Now his latest work, Gift of Wounding, reafirms the notion that Peak experiences need not always be positive. He is a gifted writer, an empathetic and intuitive practitioner. I will certainly require my Humanistic Psychology Classes to read this work.

Buy this book! Why? Because it contains wisdom that touches your life, told in a gentle penetrating way that moves you to action. I have known Andre Auw for 7 years as a client and now as a friend. He has shared his wisdom and energy to bring me through several crisis as: the death of my spouse of 37 years, the death of my mother, the ensuing lawsuits brought about by a powerful political step-brother, two difficult significant other relationships, and others. All through this, his patient and loving presence showed me the way to call forth our inherent resources to face these situations. What surprises me is that he is able to put all of this into a book through well chosen stories and pithy concluding remarks to each. Highly recommended.

Z is for Zorglub was the 15th Spirou book Franquin made. He then left the comic to focus on his own character Gaston la Gaffe. In Z is for zorglub we'll meet the mad scientist zorglub who wants to dominate the world. However, there is one spirou book even better than this one: Le dictateur et le champignon: In which Spirou and Fantasio must battle Fantasios evil cousin Zantafio (whom is the archvillain of the series)

I have around thirty of the hardcover Spirou and Fantasio graphic novels, in Spanish, from when I vacationed in Spain as a boy. As a college student now, I look back on those days fondly, and these graphic novels have aged extremely well. This French comic series are adventure stories similar to those found in the more famous Tintin books by Herge. However, in my opinion, Spirou and Fantasio are far superior...more whimsical and imaginative (the character Marsupilami originated in the series' pages before being bought by Disney). Spirou and Fantasio travel the world, toppling dictatorships, fighting mad scientists, traveling to the future and the past, and stopping organized crime rings. A few years back, a series called El Pequeno Spirou (or Little Spirou), spinned off of the Spirou and Fantasio comics. Little Spirou stories are one page comic strips (like those that appear in the Sunday paper) full of hilarious lowbrow (and award-winning) humor. The main character is Spirou as a child, and Fantasio, unfortunately, doesn't appear in the stories. These too are worth getting. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have stated, it's hard finding these graphic novels outside of France (and Spain). Hopefully, as with Asterix and Tintin, these books will someday reach avid young readers everywhere.

I read all the Spirou stories as a child when we lived in Belgium, and then afterward when we had moved back to the US. In the 60s, they were serious rivals of Herge's Tintin for the hearts of European kids. For some reason (undoubtedly some financial or distribution reason I'm unaware of) they have yet to catch on in America. Hopefully, the American printing of Z Is For Zorglub, one of the more fantastical, even outlandish, of the Spirou & Fantasio adventures, will kindle an interest. My daughter is a convert and I'm beginning to teach her French so she can read my old Spirous, which I've kept all these years.

Moon of Three Rings is the first novel in the Moonsinger series. Krip Vorland is assistant cargomaster on the Free Trader ship Lydis. Maelen of the Kontra is a Moon Singer of the Thassa. Both have come to Yrjar on Yiktor for the great trade fair.

In this novel, Maelen has been approached by Osokun, son of Oskold, and an off-worlder, Gauk Slafid, of the Combine. They want Maelen to lure a member of the Lydis crew into a trap to gain off-world knowledge and weapons. Maelen refuses, yet is troubled by the plot. When Krip and a fellow crew member attend her beast show, she has her partner, Malec, approach the off-worlders, offer a tour of the show, and then bring them to her so that she might question them and better understand the conspiracy against the Free Traders.

After she has introduced all the animals to the Free Traders, she asks them about the possibility of a touring beast show among the stars, but then they are interrupted by a oddjob boy, who she has tasked with watching an animal dealer, Othelm of Ylt, suspected of abusing his creatures. When Maelen begs leave to go, Krip asks permission to accompany her and they go to the dealer's tent, where they find a badly abused barsk. As Maelen goes to the animal, Othelm tries to attack her with a poisoned snik-claw knife, but Krip paralyzes his hand with a stunner. Maelen provides a token payment for the beast and removes it from Othelm's custody.

Krip reports the incident to his captain. After checking the persona tape on Krip's belt, the captain absolves him of any wrong doing, but still limits him to the ship and the ship's fair booth as a precaution. Later the duty priest and fair guards come to take Krip for judgment. Since he is busy with important customers, the captain stays behind but retains Krip's stunner and sends along another crew member. The priest and guards escort Krip to the fringe of the fairgrounds, where they are attacked by another party and Krip is taken captive.

After recovering full consciousness, Krip finds himself in a pit within a Yiktor fort. Osokun has found another way to gain a captive for his plot to extort weapons and knowledge. While he is waiting for a reply to his demands, Osokun also has Krip tortured in an attempt to break the off-world conditioning. When Krip awakens again, he knows that the only way that he is going to survive is to escape his captors.

After Krip's capture, Maelen senses his condition and leaves the fair to rescue him, taking along the barsk and several other animals with useful capabilities and skills. She doesn't know where Krip is located, but follows the pull of her wand eastward.

Like some other novels by the author, this story is just barely science fiction, for it postulates powers that are much like the magic of Witch World. Some of these powers are beyond the present day speculations of psionics; switching identities between bodies, for example, is an old standby of fantasy tales, but not in the parapsychological repertoire. However, this notion has been used in a variety of SF tales, including Schmitz's "Resident Witch".

This novel also differs from most other works by the author in that the heroine initially appears less than lovable. While caring deeply for her animal friends, Maelen has little empathy for anyone who is not Thassa (and not much even for the Thassa). Moreover, she arrogantly believes that she is more capable than any other living Moon Singer, as evidenced by her belief that she will be the first to tame a wild barsk. However, these flaws of personality are quite deliberate, as the storyline takes a step beyond the coming of age tale to an account of developing maturity and wisdom.

Recommended to Norton fans and anyone who enjoys tales of personal and interpersonal growth in a space adventure setting.

This book is great. It is one of the first sci-fi books I read as a kid. I became a fan of sci-fi in large part because of this book. I hope to get a copy for myself soon.

I found this book to be good reading same as the other reviews except no one mentioned a sequel Flight in Yiktor.

My qualifications: I used to live 4km from Hameln ("Hamelin", Anglicized), Germany! It's near Hanover, if you're looking on a map. Regardless, I was happy to find this treasure. This is the most vividly illustrated version I've seen.The illustrations are splendid, & the book is nice & large. After seeing ANATOLY IVANOV's illustrations, other versions just don't do the story justice. The text is printed in what i would decribe as "default" calligraphic italic, adding to its charm, if not its "authenticity". I give it a big 5 RATS!

This book would be a wonderful treasure for the pictures alone. Kate Greenaway, noted children's illustrator, has created a magical world of beautiful children, innocent faces, and romantic, nostalgic costumes. The colors on these pages are breathtaking, and the details (although Greenaway is always faulted for not drawing hands and feet well) are superb. This story is not for very young children, as it contains some troublesome themes. For the older child, perhaps 7+, the story might provoke some interesting post-read family discussions about honesty, trust, and the actual state of the children at the end of the tale. This is even a beautiful book to give to adults, as the messages about human nature can be appreciated on a deeper level.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a very different children's classic. Few other children's picture books tell a story in Victorian poetry. The book isn't just original; it is excellent. I have always enjoyed Robert Browning's poetry, and this is no exception. I was surprised at how easy it was to read this book compared to some of Browning's other verse, and it was pleasing to read, especially considering that this is focused toward children. I loved all of the poetic techniques used by Browning. His iambic tetrameter in couplets works very well for young readers, and I loved his use of anaphora and internal rhyme. The story is, of course, brilliant. It is the usual folk tale that every child has heard and needs to hear. It teaches its lesson, and Browning's version is even more entertaining than other versions. Also, the illustrations by Kate Greenway are fabulous. It is impossible to imagine this story in Browning's Victorian verse without Greenway's Victorian artistry. This is a true children's classic, it should definately last for years to come, and it makes and excellent buy for children or for libraries.

This book is SciFi not fantasy. The only thing in common with the movie and TV series are the animals. This is much better than they are as it is the original. Even the Beast Masters name is different in the book. In the book his name is Hosteen Storm, a retired soldier and his animals are genetically modified with increased intellegence and empathy so they can bond with him. While trying to avenge the death of his mother he discovers an ancient alien city and finds out that Earths enemies are still around.

The Beast Master is the first novel in the Beast Master series. Hosteen Storm is a native of Terra, an Amerindian, a Galactic Commando, and a Beast Master with an unusual affinity with animals, who is mustering out of the service to be repatriated on Arzor. "The last desperate thrust of the Xik invaders had left Terra...a deadly blue, radioactive cinder", leaving the native Terrans homeless and in shock. Some had gone mad, killing themselves and others. Finally, all Terran troops had been forcibly disarmed. Since Hosten has not displayed any symptoms of such delayed shock, the service medics reluctantly agreed they could not deny Storm's release.

Storm, with Baku, Ho, Hing and Surra, his commando team, travels to Arzor on a troop ferry and then looks for employment herding horses to the auction to be held during the Gathering at Irrawady Crossing. To prove his ability to ride, he tames a young stallion and introduces him to Surra, the dune cat. When the horse tolerates the cat breathing in his nose, Storm gets the job without further questioning. He claims the stallion as his working mount and names him Rain-On-Dust. Since the horse herd is an attraction for covetous natives as well as wild animals, Surra patrols the camp at night and Baku, the African Black Eagle, scouts the route by day as they proceed cross-country to the Gathering. On the first night, they encounter a yoris and Storm, Surra and Baku kill the lizard in a coordinated attack before it can harm the horses, but its scent and hissing causes the horses to stampede.

With the herd scattered all over the area, the drivemaster hires some Norbies, the native sentients, to track down the horses. It soon becomes evident that someone has separated the herd and stashed the small bands in out of the way places. However, even the Norbie trackers cannot determine who has done this.

While the horses are being returned to the herd, Storm spends some time gentling a few of the wild stock to replace riding animals lost in the stampede. The other men soon come to respect his skills and he gains an even closer relationship with Put Larkin, the drivemaster, and Dort Lancin, an old Arzor hand who is teaching him finger talk and other lore. However, Coll Bister has developed a hostile attitude toward Storm for some unknown reason.

Storm has also become accepted by the Norbies as a fighting man with a fighting bird totem. Gorgol, the youngest of the trackers, is drawn to storm by admiration and curiosity, providing Storm with lots of chances to practice finger talk as he answers Gorgol's questions.

At the gathering, Storm fends off a couple of attempts to kill or maim him, in which Bister seems to be involved, and meets Brad Quade, the man he has come to Arzor to see, but not quite yet. He accepts a job with the Survey Service to locate and explore the Sealed Caves within the High Peaks.

This novel is vintage Norton, but with an older protagonist than usual. However, there is the psionic bond between man and animal, natives who are strangely like his own kin, and a deadly danger that must be faced. Moreover, there is the element of hope that survives among disaster.

Recommended for Norton fans and anyone who enjoys tales of competent and talented persons, dangerous but friendly animals, and mysterious alien artifacts.

Back in the '50s and early '60s Norton wrote some excellent and original science fiction, before turning mainly to fantasy writing. This book is one of the best of that period, an excellent adventure that anyone of any age can enjoy.

Hosteen Storm is the Beast Master, a mustered out soldier after the end of Xik war, who has managed to keep his military team of animals together - two meercats, Hing and Ho, an eagle, Baku, and a sand cat, Surra, genetically enhanced animals that Storm has a strong empathic and near telepathic bond with. Arriving on the planet Arzor that he chose as probably best for a man who prefers outdoor living, that will provide him employment opportunities for himself and his team, he quickly adds one more member to his team, a rugged, quick footed horse he names Rain-on-Dust. Hired on to help herd the native equivalent of cattle, he makes friends with the local native intelligent race, the Norbies, a people whose anatomy precludes their being able to talk and have therefore developed sign language to an art, whose culture in many ways mimics that of Storm's early life. Storm's heritage is that of the Dineh (Navajo), a name which simply means 'The People' in their own language, and he was partially raised by his medicine-man grandfather, a heritage he clings to, as Earth has been destroyed by the Xiks in one of the last acts of the war.

This is the background beginning to Storm's search for new home, one that respects his heritage and can use his talents, with a buried unsatisfied anger at the Xiks, a festering grudge against a man named Quade, and a conflicted self image. As he travels through this new planet, events lead to his discovery of a buried city of the Old Ones, a race that traveled the star-lanes long before man (note that this long vanished race appears in many of Norton's books of this period), and to discoveries and actions that will eventually help heal his hurts and provide him with a more complete, mature image of himself and the world around him.

As the above indicates, character development is quite strong in this book, applying not just to Storm but also to his animals and his Norbie friends. Also strongly in evidence is Norton's excellent look at the Native American culture, something she developed in several books and obviously cared deeply about. The story line itself is fast paced, with plenty of action, and will make you greedily keep turning pages, till you unhappily turn the last one, and realize there is no more to enjoy. Though much of Norton's prose is fairly prosaic, there is sheer magic in her bits-and-pieces revelations about the Old Ones, a magic that will fire your imagination and enter your dreams.

Thematically this book has much to say about prejudice, honor and friendship, the importance of roots, courage and self-image, and the validity of alternate cultures, all quietly slipped in amongst all the action.

This work bears almost no relation the movie of the same name, though it was supposedly based on this book.. About all the movie kept was the concept of the animal team - the rest of the plot and setting was totally changed, and in doing so completely lost the power of this story. I believe Ms. Norton had her name removed from the movie credits, quite rightly not wanting to be associated with such a poor, mangled 'interpretation' (if you could even dignify it as such) of one of her finest works. Try this book, give it to your sons and daughters, loan it to your friends - this is one of those books that the term 'sense of wonder' was invented to describe.

The Stars Are Ours is the first novel in the Astra duology. Mankind had reached the Moon, Mars and Venus, but found little to justify terraforming, so interplanetary flight was used only for scientific research. However, the three space stations provided a number of services, including astronomical and meteorological observations and refueling interplanetary flights. One of these stations was invaded by unidentified armed men who turned certain installations into weapons which they unleashed against the planet. A major portion of the planet was completely devastated and the loss of life was incalculable.

Among the survivors was Arturo Renzi, who had lost his entire family. He began to preach the evils of science and was welcomed as a great leader throughout the world. However, his message was too liberal for some of his followers and he was assassinated, apparently by a Free Scientist. For three days after the assassination, Renzi's followers engaged in a furious purge against scientists and techneers, hunting them down and killing them. Then Saxon Bort, one of Renzi's chief lieutenants, assumed command of the leader's forces and established the tight dictatorship of the Company of Pax.

In this novel, a decade or so later, Dard Nordis is the son of a Scientific family, living with his older brother, Lars, and his niece, Dessie. Lars and Dard, together with Lars' pregnant wife, Kathia, had fled the purge, but the escape had left Lars a twisted cripple and his wife an amnesiac. After Dessie was born, Kathia retreated into her own dream world until her death. Now Dard, Lars, and Dessie live on a farm far from any population center and the only nearby farm is Hew Folley's place. Dard doesn't trust Folley, for he wants their farm. Then one night, a Pax 'copter lands in the snow just before the house and armed Peacemen surround the building. Dard has the others gather food and supplies and sends them down into the cellar, then torches the house. Moving aside some rotting bins, he uncovers a tunnel, sends Dessie ahead, and helps Lars struggle down the passage.

After the Peacemen leave, Lars sends Dard out to leave a packet for his Scientific underground contact, but Dard hears a shot shortly after he drops the packet and runs back to find Folley clutching a squirming Dessie. Dard throws his knife and fatally injures Folley, then discovers that Lars is dead. With no other recourse remaining, Dard and Dessie return to the contact point to wait. Lotta Folley finds them there and gives them food and a scarf for Dessie; Lotta knows that her father is dead, but she recognizes that he was a man full of hate and who liked to hurt people. Besides, Lotta likes Dessie and liked her mother even more; they were the only people that ever treated her as a real person instead of an object. Lotta takes the rifle back to the barn to fool the Peacemen.

When Lars' contact arrives, Dard convinces him to take Dessie and himself back to safety. They spend the night in a cave, but a Pax 'copter is circling the area when they awake. The contact, Sach, leads the Peacemen away so Dard and Dessie can proceed to the next point in their journey. They move away from the cave along a bare ledge as far as they can and then jump into a snow drift on the edge of the woods. Their journey is fairly easy until they reach the river; the ice is too thin to support even Dessie's weight. After looking up and down river, Dard finds only one place that may support them, an arch of ice covered with snow. Dard carries Dessie across, slowly and carefully, then rests for a count of hundred on the other side. Again heading to the peak that marks their goal, Dard hears the 'copter return and throws Dessie and himself into a tangle of bushes. The men in the 'copter rake the bushes with fire. He and Dessie scoot out the other side, but find it to be a wide sweep of open ground.

This novel is another of the author's post-apocalyptic stories, but the emphasis herein is on spaceflight. Mankind had achieved interplanetary flight and was working on interstellar flight when some irrational terrorists destroyed civilization. Other fanatics then ripped up civilization into even smaller pieces and tried to ensure that ignorance would reign forever. The Scientific community, however, was working on a stardrive and that work was continued in hiding.

This story contains several of the characteristic signatures of the author's space adventures, including special talents and aliens, but does not include mutations nor symbiotic animals. This novel shows the beginning of galactic-wide human civilization and Star Rangers shows the ending of that civilization. Of course, some of the other stories may be set in a successor society. This story is definitely a little dated, but it is still a pleasure to read, as is the sequel, Star Born.

Highly recommended for Norton fans and anyone else who enjoys tales of desperate spaceflights to planets around other suns.

The Stars are Ours! Was the very first book I purchased with my Babysitting money waaaaay back in the sixth grade. If you read only one Andre Norton Book this is the one..but if you are like me you'll get hooked on anything that Ms. Norton has or will write! I lost my original copy,but found a copy in a used book store...it was as exciting reading it again at 50 something as it was at 12!

This is one of two books that hooked me on SF (the other was Red Planet by Heinlein) when I was thirteen. I was captivated. If you want to get your kids away from the video games and into reading SF, get them this book.