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.

This book is an easy and effective way to prepare for the Toefl test. It offers a step-by-step program that helps you improve not only your test-taking strategies, but also your language skills. At first I was afraid that this guide only offers exercises and practice tests like many other test guides. But I was amazed that it also includes forty-eight wonderful "mini lessons" that taught me essential knowledge and information needed for the test. There are three complete practice tests which helped me analyze my weaknesses and become familiar with the format of the actual test. The exercises of the Listening Comprehension part also have tapes that accompany the book. And it helped me a lot because it's like taking an actual test without all the tension and stress. I became more familiar and comfortable with the test format. Before I bought this book, I had no clue how to prepare for the Toefl test. But as I went further into it, I could feel the progress that I have made. When I finished the three practice tests, I got a pretty good score and I was very glad that I had chosen this book.

I run an educational advising center where we also administer TOEFL tests, and "Peterson's TOEFL Success 2001" is the most popular TOEFL preparation product we have. Students often report increases in their previous scores after using this book and cassettes.

First, let me state that I've been playing M:TG for about 6 years, am a huge fan, and have read all the books in the Artifact Cycle plus the Mercadian Masques book. I'm reviewing this book in comparison to the other books I've read as well as the knowledge I've gained about the characters through playing M:TG.

Each chapter is written by a different author and is from a single character's vantage point. The chapters are tied together by a series of "Dark Room" chapters where a librarian tells the story to a youth. The book is, for the most part, very well written. However, each author has a different style so it lacks some consistency in a few parts. It becomes frustrating when all you can read is one character's account of what happened. This effect is magnified when you realize the book spans the Weatherlight, Tempest, Stronghold, and Exodus expansions. Many times I found myself wondering what the other characters felt during any given situation. Authors also seem to have left out many minor details which can add up quickly.

I am very critical of this book because it is such an important chapter to a much larger book in the Magic Universe. My one major gripe is that each chapter focuses on only one character, instead of attempting to portray what everyone else sees and feels during each situation. Overall, I give this book 3 1/2 stars (7.0 on a scale from 1-10). It really is a good read, but to me it just wasn't in-depth enough. It's more of a general overview of the events that transpired in each of the 4 expansions mentioned earlier.

However, I strongly recommend reading this as it will make nearly all of the other books easier to understand. It also helps to add to your overall understanding of the Magic Universe

This book was very good - it was a major part of the Magic Universe. This book only gets four stars for two reasons.

1) The climax was very lacking. It just seems like the authors assumed that you would piece everything together. There was no big battle or anything. And what is up with leaving Eirtay behind? And Crovax turning into a vampire? Starke's story never resolved, and many characters were never touched on at the end.

2) Errors! I was astonished at the number of grammer errors, typos, and printing mistakes that the editors should have caught. I felt that I was reading a rough draft.

Besides this though, the book was well written and I liked learning about each character from their viewpoint. A must read for any Magic fan!

Like most fantasy books, this story starts out centering on one event (in Rath and Storm's case, the event is Sisay being kiddnapped), but towards the end, however, the picture becomes larger. For example, Gerrand's goal to save Sisay turns into a quest to save two worlds. Unlike a lot of fantasy books, Rath and Storm uses a unique system in which each character tells a pat of the story from his/her/it's point of view. Rath and Storm oozes with character and emotions are portrayed as well as the plot of the story. Each character has a unique history, and they are altogether an unruly bunch. My favorite character would have to be the living statue, Karn. In his tale, the capturing of emotions is so perfect, I swear I felt as if I were Karn himself! By the end of the first tale, I found myself hooked. I would recommend Rath and Storm to enyone who plays MAGIC, or anyone who likes fantasy books

At the end of "Knight of Shadows", the series had a lot of open threads (the wheel ring, Julia, Jurt etc). Unfortunately, Mr. Zelazny chose the quick and easy way to solve it, and in a miraculous way all ends well. The superb plot and storyline of the first nine parts are not continued in this part, and the only reason for buying it, is that the Amber series is not complete without it. Alas.

I have had this tape on order for months, and I was quite excited when it arrived. That excitement dwindled when I poped in the tape and found that it was not Roger Zelazny who read this story, as the printed cover stated. The story is still good, but the 'flavor' that was built up by Roger's interpretations of his characters was spoiled for me.

Worth the listening, but not worth getting excited over.

This is the tenth and the last (official?) book of the Amber Chronicles (the first one is Nine Princes in Amber). Although not everything is explained (isn't it the same in life?), it's a wonderfull ending. I wish if Zelazny was still with us he wrote another five parts.

In keeping with the spirit of this collection of short shorts, billed as a "picture book for grownups," I'll try to keep this brief. The stories in this collection, all classified under one of four catagories (Love Stories, Crime and Mystery, Not Quite S.F., and Off the Wall) are consistently intriguing, running the gamut from subtle to brash, outrageous to poignant, macabre to mundane. Flensed of unnecessary detail, Rogers ' telling vignettes force readers to fill in the blanks, allowing their own points of view to act upon the prose. Thus, the reading experience is transformed into a true collaborative effort, a joint venture where Rogers' imagination blends with that of his audience. Forsaking the luxury of a slow buildup, Rogers plunges his readers into various worlds, makes his points, then leaves as quickly as he came, leaving the reader to marvel at what he has just experienced. The stories in Flaming Arrows affirm that reading is indeed alchemy, proving once and for all that, at least in writing, size doesn't matter. It's a lesson that many of Rogers' peers need to learn.

I'm now using this book to prepare my toefl test, and I've never taken toefl test before. Therefore, I'm not sure if this book is harder than the real test or not. However, it gives me main directions to prepare for the test and many information about toefl when I knew nothing about it. I like the "sample tests" at the beginning of each 3 sections for reflecting my recent comprehention, and the kits and lessons improve my answering skill and comprehention toward questions. This book also contains lots of practices in each section. If you have tapes to go with the book, it will be even more effective to study. There is a small chapter for the TWE, too. Because there are 3 practice tests at the end of this book, I suggest to divid the study schedule into three stages, and take 1 practice test after a stage for better understanding of your comprehentions now. Test-taking keys, lessons, along with the practices I mentioned before, this book may effectively sharpen your test-taking tactics.

I bought this trade paperback as my re-entry into the world of Dark Horse Predator (and Alien) comics, mostly based on the reviews here. Having been a long time fan of both franchises, I've read much of what Dark Horse has to offer, so I know what they are capable of. However, it is my opinion that Predator: Kindred falls far short of that mark.

The plot is readable, but I think it is far from riveting. As stated above, it's about a Predator in a small Oregon town that hunts the most violent persons within the community. I suppose there is a small amount of potential here, but the "boogie monster" in the small backwoods town is an overused cliché among the horror genre. There are only so many ways to present this sort of story before running out of material to make it fresh. So it is with Kindred. The Predator does not make much of an appearance before the fourth chapter, so that leaves you with the character development of the townsfolk. But these people are just as uninteresting as the plot; they too are all cliché. You have the wife in an abusive relationship, you have the man whose father tried to bully him into becoming a "man's man", and you've got the uninformed general populace who rally behind a leader so that they can blame an innocent scapegoat. It all seems very rehashed.

Then there is the art, one of the most important aspects in a graphical medium such as this. To put it simply, it too left MUCH to be desired. The first thing one notices is a severe lack of detail in the pictures -- the people seem to be nothing more than outlines and many times there is not even a background drawn in a given panel. One would think they would put extra detail into the Predator, but he was just slightly more interesting than the townsfolk (and what's with the bird-like heel claw? I don't remember THAT in the movies...) His ship (which also only makes its appearance in the fourth chapter) seemed more like a white football with ridges than something deserving of a Predator. Aside from the lack of detail, the sloppy lines, and the pupils of the character's not quiet in line with the other (giving them a bizarre and unintended insane quality), the color was not well done. There is no shading given to ANY of the characters, just flat, pastel coloring. It is my opinion that if a comic just contains the "base colors", the pallet should at least be interesting. However, most of the coloring was very "soft," giving the story more the look of a Sunday "funny" than a horror story.

All in all, I have to say Predator: Kindred was not very entertaining (there is obviously a reason it is out-of-print as of 6/25/03.) The two things I can say for it is that the covers (shown in a gallery at the back) by Igor Kordey are amazing, and the design of the book (not including the actual comic) is very well done. I think those who are interested in Kindred will be happier looking at the cover art than actually reading it.

I enjoyed reading this one, though there isnt much of predator in the beginning, but the grand finale is great... Action and art is good.. and a really good story.. nice characters and of course a mean mother****** , the predator... Get this one!

Wow! This is seriously cool. The artwork in particular is very atmospheric and draws you right into the environment. In this series (which ran from Dec 96 to Mar 97) the Predator has set up in Fleener Creek, OR and he's laying waste to rednecks, cops and a busload of escaped convicts. It's up to the spunky Sherrif's daughter to sort him out and send him packing. If Dark Horse kept up this standard of output regarding the franchise no doubt it wouldn't be dead in the water today. If you dig the Predator then go out and buy this 'un. It's way past cool.

I was very disappointed with this audio cassette. The one-hour cassette has limited information and is not worth the money. I have a library of audio tapes filled with great information. This is not one of them. I found the narrator voice very annoying to listen to. The tape reminded me of a college professor lecture. I will never buy another tape without checking your reader reviews. I want my money back!

I guess I was expecting more than a single tape for my $10. I think there is probably a lot of good information in the book, but it's hard to tell from a single hour of talk on a single tape. I recommend getting the book and forgetting the tape for this one.

Roger Fisher and William Ury, of the Harvard Negotiation Project, brought together all the strategies of negotiation and explain how to use them and why they work. Many of the strategies seem like common sense, but the authors give concrete examples to help the reader become more aware of the good methods.

At first, I thought this would be another book which simply gave pointers on good negotiation. The writers go a step further and discuss what to do when faced with a party which uses unfair negotiation tactics (like threats or good guy/bad guy). Invaluable.

This is all written in an easy-to-read format and well worth the time to read.

Soon after I read this book, I tossed it out along with my retro polyester pants and orange creepers. The concept of the novel is a clever one and it starts out as being cute and funny. Even as a gay male, I could identify with Phoebe and a lot of her unwise choices in men.

Then somewhere along the line, the book loses what little bit of charm it has and suddenly you're finding yourself not liking Phoebe that much. As each man revolves his way through her life, you begin to dislike her and her choices more and more. Some of the boyfriends listed aren't even boyfriends but rather fantasy characters, penpals and in the case of Arnold Allen (the only Black guy who stereotypically appears on her list) a criminal. By the end of the novel you're thinking that she deserves everything that has happened to her. Some guys aren't good enough, others are too good and why doesn't she have any friends? One word for you Phoebe: THERAPY!!

At first I thought this was going to be a Sheila Levine for the new millenium. Whereas Sheila's self-depreciating humor and poor choices in men endeared you to her, Phoebe's self depreciating humor had you hoping she would grab a bottle of sleeping pills and end it all. I guess Mrs. Rosenfeld is a fairly talented writer as she was able to evoke such dislike for her protagonist from me, but overall this novel went absolutely nowhere and was a complete waste of my time. I liked Bridget Jones better and that's a stretch. I wouldn't really recommend this to book anyone. If you can find a copy, check out Gail Parent's 'Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York'. Although it's well over trhity years old now, it still maintains a crisp, hip, cutting edge feel to it unsurpassed by any other writer writing in the same vein as What She Saw.

Wherein we observe the development of a girl from 5th grade to about age 27, a girl that we eventually realize is quite attractive, though she has the persistent belief that she's a Dawn Weiner. It could make a great film. While I think Lucinda Rosenfeld has a good ear for dialogue and gives us painfully well-executed visuals, to the point where I felt I had been there myself (because, what young self-involved American female hasn't?) I thought the writing tired and too desperately-trying-to-be-trendy. It's the kind of book that would've made an impression about 10-15 years ago, but now the market is just too saturated, and let's face it - descriptive language a la Confederacy of Dunces has been immitated ad nauseum. Judging by the age of the character, Rosenfeld probably did write like this 10 years ago (in college), so it's too bad she didn't try to get it published then. Now, though, I think she'd be great writing for current female TV characters -- could give them something interesting for us to watch!

dreadful and fun is the conundrum i'm put in when i begin to go back through the quite thick entanglement of the boys, boys, and men i've dated, and in the book "what she saw", i was given the chance to delve into someone else's mess.

each chapter takes a look at a different boy/man the main character dated/went with/screwed. a fun idea, but there's such a distance on the page... it's difficult to understand her convictions. i wanted to laugh, and groan in aggreeance, but was left slightly unsympathetic and befuddled. the book begs to be written in the first person, but for some bizarre-o reason lucinda rosenfeld gave us a third person story.

after reading the first chapter i thought it was clunky, and decided to shut it for good, but i was at work, with nothing elese to read, so i kept going, and somehow fell in. i still didn't really like it, but felt hooked nonetheless. weird.

i gave it four stars due to the 'it hooked me factor;' what does it all mean? i suppose it's just as confusing as what she really did see in all of those guys.

Basically good information included, but the format was difficult to follow, and the type so small it was really hard to read.

This book successfully guided my husband and I, first time dog owners, through all stages of adding a dog to our family. It offers advice on how to solve every problem we faced, and solved them conclusively. We found it indispensable. Although we had up to 7 dog training books that we had bought or taken out from the library, this was the one we always found the most helpful.

This book is the best book on dog training I've seen sofar. The directions are clear, with very good pictures. The method is very dog and owner friendly. The introduction is very good, the explanations and the tips are very helpful. This is a great book, and I have recommended it to a couple of friends.