Just like the two other releases in the Archie Goodwin classics ('Deadly Pursuit' and 'Rebel Storm') Escape to Hoth offers mediocre stories and art. One positive about these books is that they do offer some continuity and fill the gap between 'A New Hope' and 'Empire Strikes Back'. Buy if you love Star Wars, but ignore otherwise.

Here is probably one of the most unique SW comics. The reformatted serial comic strip from the days of yore has a feel all its own, which can be both good and bad. nonetheless, it throughout contains an adventurous Star Wars-type feel. The art has a very comic-strip-serial quality too it and fails to acheive a dynamic sense like many other comics, despite the reformatting. I've also noticed that Leia looks nothing like Carrie Fisher for some odd reason that presently eludes me. The massive collection feautures a long line of stories ranging from high-quality to utter blabber. The actual evacuation from Hoth and its subsequent excape is the real gem of the collection, featuring a sense of drama and suspense rarely seen in any Star Wars story. It also helps greatly to fill in the story of the war between ANH and ESB.

It's not in any means the best SW comic out there, but its a reasonably enjoyable and interesting series of adventures highlightesdby an excellent 1st 1/3.

This graphic novel is a great history filler for the time that lapsed between A New Hope and Empire. When read sequentially after the first two volumes, it becomes a whole new movie explaining how and why the rebels chose to go to Hoth and helps to give a better understanding of the main characters motives. All in all, a great read for any Star Wars afficinando!

"Bad" is jazz argot for "great," which this book certainly isn't. Not that the book is misleading or unreadable. But in the post-Wynton era, the most constructive efforts have been toward taking jazz beyond the obvious, overly familiar, acceptance of its place in an oral cultural tradition. (Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" were improvised, oral poems delivered in a culture that had no written alphabet, but where does this take us?). To get a keener understanding of why jazz is not simply a folk tradition but an art form, about what makes jazz different from rap and hip-hop, the reader should attend to the analyses of Gunther Schuller, Wynton Marsalis, Billy Taylor. For penetrating and provocative insights into the oral basis of the music, the reader should examine Leroi Jones' "Blues People." Or for an "oral history" of the music itself, the reader couldn't do better than Shapiro and Hentoff's "Hear Me Talking to Ya." Were it not for the author's reknown as a popular performer, it's doubtful this book would remain in print, at least not without substantial revision and expansion.

I strongly disagree with the reader from Kenosha, WI, who claims that this book is obvious and dated. When it was first published, nobody had ever attempted to take the oral tradition of black music seriously. Sidran's book was the first real go at such an approach, and for that alone, it's required reading for any musician with an interest in black music forms. It is true that his thoughts are everywhere today, and that some of his ideas have become canon-like, but why should that stop us from reading them? Like the reader from Kenosha, WI, we are all free to disagree with Mr.Sidran's line of thought. Personally, I find the book a lot more interesting than any of his recordings. It is well written, at at times even entertaining.

Mr. Sidran is a songwriter, singer and jazz pianist. He holds a doctorate in American Studies from Sussex University and has hosted a number of National Public Radio programs on jazz involving weekly interviews with Jazz musicians, the latter forming the basis for his work "Talking Jazz: An Oral History" [1992]. In this work, Mr. Sidran helps us understand that the basis for many of the unique Black contributions to the creation of Jazz music stem from the fact that these features were derived from the African oral cultural tradition. He goes on to explain that an oral culture is different from a literate culture [i.e.: European] since it is based on speech which is an improvisational and spontaneous act. In "Black Talk," Mr. Sidran discusses how singular elements of black music such as a "vocalized tone" and a "peculiarly black approach to rhythm" helped Jazz evolve into a unique American art form. One of the most, instructive, illuminating and unique books about Jazz ever written.

I expected this to be an excellent primary source, full of information on General Jackson, his campaigns and his "foot cavalry", as well as the exploits of the Second Corps after Jackson's death. In addition, I hoped to find some interesting description of map-making during the war. I was quite disappointed. Hotchkiss' memoir is made up of diary entries with an occasional note added later. And they mostly concern the weather, troop movements, and where he slept that night. They are almost devoid of description, emotion, and overall detail. Though Hotchkiss does mention making maps, of course, it's in brief statements like "Reduced Charlottesville today". His account of Jackson's death reads rather like "Jackson died. Fine clear day." It's hard to say whether this dullness represents something about Hotchkiss' personality (unemotional engineer, perhaps?) or is simply a function of the way he wrote his diary. In any case, though scholars of the period will want to glance at this, I found it not very useful and utterly unentertaining.

i really liked this book cause it was cool and i like historical books cause theyre intersting.the end.

This book is the second part in a series of collections which brings back all those classic Star Wars comics. Although it is nice to have all these hard to find classics available again, the stories and art just don't match up with whats being produced today. For great Star Wars comics, check out the Rogue Squadron books also being distributed in paperback form by Dark Horse.

Not a must read, but certainly helps fill in the gaps between the movies.

This book is more about Archie Richards' personal investment philosophy than it is about ETF's. I'm not sure who his target audience is, but I can assure you if you want to learn about ETF's, you are going to be spending about 75% of your time reading about Archie's personal opinions about the investment world and what is wrong with it. The other 25% covers what ETF's are and how they work. It may be good info. if you want to be the Cliff Claven of ETF's at your friendly neighborhood bar. But if you want to learn how to use ETF's as a viable investment, you would be better off going to the websites of the sponsors for these funds and read their free information. I can think of only one market that can benefit from this book - those of you who have never invested in your life, are VERY conservative and are prepared to buy and hold your investments for more than 20 years. For the rest of you, don't waste your time or money.

The inner workings of Exchanged-Traded Funds are well explained in Richard's book. Do-it-yourself investors would be wise to learn about ETFs, and then apply that knowledge to better diversify their holdings and save expenses. Richard's book offers the sophisticated and the novice a single-source reference that can make you money over the long run. Building a well-diversified portfolio and then managing it is difficult, but "All About Exchange-Traded Funds" provided me with the insights that only an experienced advisor, like Richards, can offer. If more people had understood the essential precepts found in this book, far less money would have been lost during the past few years. Read it and profit by it.

This left out way too much of the story line. Do yourself a favor and rent the movie this was close to the worst book I've ever read. Please don't waste your money on this book. go spend some more money and buy the movie.

Wonderful wonderful book. Exciting, terrifying and haunting at the same time. The final battle for the empire proves to be positive for the rebels, who pull together at the last minute and fight for all they're worth!

This book has decent historical content, but the softcover construction and printing are very shoddy. Not worth the price; try to find it used. Finally, it only covers up to 1988, so don't be fooled by the 2002 copyright date as I was.

I've been reading a lot of vampire books for several months now and really enjoy the variety that's out there. I don't mind that a vampire's abilities vary widely from author to author; and as far as I'm concerned, vampires can be dashing and romantic, troubled and soul-searching, cruel and violent, well-mannered and fastidious, filthy and decadent, or any combination thereof. Archie E. Ouglie's vampires, Anton and Alexander, are savage, merciless feeders yet can exhibit caring feelings for others of their kind and even an occasional mortal (at least in Anton's case). The book read rather disjointedly which, I think, could have been avoided by more fleshing out of all the characters, their histories, and the story itself. The back of the bookcover said this was to be the first in a trilogy about Anton. Though I would love to read more about Anton and Alexander, I can only hope Mr. Ouglie avails himself of more competent proofreaders before going to press with a second book; Bloody Kisses was littered with errors. Originally I'd given the book 4 stars strictly because I so liked his portrayal of vampires; but after reading it a second time, I decided to move it down to 3 stars because the disjointedness and very obvious gaps in the characters' histories really bothered me. As stated earlier, the whole story needs more descriptive details, more padding. I even considered 2 stars, but I really, really liked Anton and Alexander.

Archie Goodwin is one of the old names in comics; he's been kicking around since the '60's. Nevertheless he's never been a particular favorite of mine. Chaykin pretty much ditto.

Stan Lee originally invented Nick Fury as Sgt. Fury, a WWII character, then reinvented him as a sort of Napoleon Solo super-spy knockoff. The character languished until Jim Steranko used the strip (then paired with Dr. Strange) as a vehicle for his incredible efforts at expanding the graphics medium. Steranko pushed the comics envelope in a major way, but the superhero aspect prevented him from getting beyond camp. Nevertheless Steranko invented some clever characters and took the series WAY over the top.

Goodwin can't get beyond the stereotypes and Chaykin is no innovator. That's about it.

Despite what the previous reviewer claimed, Nick fury has always been a premire character in Marvel Comics. This graphic novel by Archie Goodwin and Howard Chaykin is a good spy thriller from start to finish and it reveals Fury's more human side beyound the spy nature of his work. Great for Wolverine fans also. This book was a great read.

I couldn't agree more with the previous reviewer. This dictionary had a great premise, but fell far short in the execution.

I would expect to see some words included that are often misused, such as "affect" and "effect". But "Gentile", "civil", or "rotund"? There are a number of words that I can understand being included, if only for their similarity to other words (as above) or because the are actually foreign words (nom de guerre, for example). But most of the words included are not particularly confusing, much less difficult.

The good thing? The definitions are clearly worded.

In a nutshell, there's a reason my local library has it shelved in the juvenile section. For them, it would be a dictionary of difficult words. Advice: peruse it first. See if the majority of the words are truly difficult for the user.

What a brilliant idea this was: publish a relatively small dictionary that defines the difficult words, and eliminates words like "cat", "mouse" and "dog". I need never again plod over to the bookshelf and drag down one of the two hefty volumes of my Oxford Shorter Dictionary.

Well was I surprised. I decided to give it a test run using the book I was currently reading as a source for words to look up. Indeed "cat" and "mouse" are not to be found in this dictionary, but neither are "juridical", "ineluctable", "sibylline" and just about every other lesser used word that I came across in my reading. What the Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words (ODDW) does is take a slice out of the middle, so to speak: no simple words, and yet no really difficult words. The sample words that I used above ARE to be found in my Oxford Pocket American Dictionary, a book of about the same physical size as the ODDW. Here are some so called difficult words that are found in the ODDW: "absolute", "intelligence", "privilege", and "anxious". If you find those words to be difficult then maybe this should be your choice.

This might be a good selection for a middle or high school student, but, in my opinion, is of no value to an adult who is a fairly avid reader of non-fiction. Not recommended.