Graphic novels, like comics, have to stand on the three legs of story, writing, and art. If any leg fails, the book fails. I found the story to be great and the writing to be above average. I found the photography to be lacking, though. It is not for a lack ot technique, as one look at the cover image demonstrates (it is actually what drew me to the book--stunning). What bothered me about many of the pictures is the posing of the models. The models come off, well, posed. So much so that they look like mannequins when they should be expressing movement or emotion. Whether this is the fault of the models or the photographer I can't say but the responsibility ultimately lies with the photographer. It detracts from the work as a whole and keeps the book from being completely satisfying.

"In The Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe" is a superb graphic novel, certainly unique in its style. The photographic art is a great concept and it works very well with this "real" story of Edgar Poe. Unfortunately, as an avid scholar of Poe, I still cringe when reading this story, which is great despite its inaccuracies.

First and foremost, the perverted love triangle between Edgar, his wife Virginia, and aunt "Muddy" was a rumor created in passing after Poe's death by his sort of arch-nemesis Rufus Griswold, and there has never been any record to prove it as truth. Additionally, the story continues a variety of false truths of Edgar's life, including his moody character. Readers should be aware that an artist's work is not necessarily a reflection of the artist's life. If that were the case, perhaps it is Jonathon Scott Fuqua, and not Poe, that is plagued by demons.

Overall, this is a great read with a highly innovative art style. Just don't use it as source material for your studies of Poe.

I am new to the world of the graphic novel, but if "In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe" is the standard, I want more. After their strong debut with "I, Paparazzi," the trio-con-brio of Parke-Fuqua-Phillips have realized their potential with this offering. Although it will predictably irritate Poe purists, it shouldn't - because this is just the type of informed speculation that even has a chance of plumbing the source of Poe's sort of mad genius. In the end, the question of Poe's literal demons is left open to debate - a masterstroke, given the ever-enigmatic Poe's legend.
The display of individual talent here is alone worth the cost of the book: Phillips photos are beautifully composed and lit.
Fuqua's writing is altogether spooky as he seems to channel the master himself. When Fuqua/Poe writes, "I laid bare the inner-world of haunted men, of people seeking revenge, of those doomed to die lonely," it's as if Poe is in the room with you. Steve Parke, whom I've been privileged to watch illustrate and photo-restore my own books, is at his apogee this time. Not only is every frame turned into a piece of art, but his casting of Damon Norko as Poe is inspired. If someone doesn't license some of his panels from Poe for posters I'll be shocked. As Joe Bob Briggs would say, "Check it out."

There's not a lot of meat here, mostly just the transcripts of the author's interviews with a very limited number of people in the business. Most of the interviewees take extra care to promote themselves and berate the people off of whom they make their living, and very little of what they do in making a deal is revealed. 94 pages are contact lists, boilerplate, appendices and indexes with information that is mostly out of date or easily obtained elsewhere.

Mr. Lewinski has done his research. Discussing the "how to's" with industry professionals, the author has gone straight to the jugular . . the topic on every aspiring screenwriter's mind: HOW DO I GET AN AGENT? HOW DO I GET A MANAGER? AND WHAT IN THE HE[ck] IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO!?

You've punched out 120 pages of heartfelt goodness onto 8 1/2 by 11 white paper. Now's the time to get serious.

I found John Lewinski's book to be very pertinent to the questions I had as a hopeful screenwriter. His very readable style makes me recommend it highly.

Racist and anti-abolitionist diatribes ruin what could have been an excellent story. The writing is quick-paced, and reads like Tom Clancy,(for good or ill) particularly with his ability to weave several plot threads together and build them towards the inevitable climax at Harper's Ferry. I'm trying to learn more about the secret six, but all this book did was point out how history has been rewritten by the losers - the confederates. Slavery was the fault of John Brown and the people of Boston? I don't think so.

The book shows the kind of men that financed John Brown's Abolitionist movement. They had no regard for the laws and Constitution of this country when it came to their fanatical obsession of the way our government should be governed. After reading this book, one knows that the Abolitionist movement is alive and well, media and all! The American people do not know their history. This book exposes a lot of truth as to what the movement really was: Power to overthrow the government by using the slavery issue to gain power over the states. It was a movement that caused the bloodiest war of our history. The loss of lives was more than any other war the Americans have fought. The Abolitionists were very prominent in their society: Preachers, teachers, and physicians. Because of their staus, they were able to influence the people. The slavery issue could have been solved the same way England solved their slave issue, by compromising and relocating the slaves. The real sad part is John Brown as being hailed as a hero while he should have been tried and hung for the murder of so many inncoent people. This book helps to put to rest the myth of John Brown as being a hero. It shows the fanatacism and cowardice of the Abolitionist movement by their use of others to do their dirty work. In this book, Otto does not take sides. He takes the historical happenings of both sides and allows the reader to draw up the conclusions themselves. He has the book well-indexed so that further study can be made. The excellent thing about this book is that you cannot find many books about the Abolitionist movement. Their movement has been well hidden from public view. (Too bad you only go up to 5 stars. It should have been given 5 and then some. Possibly 10 stars.) If you are interested in another book about the same issue, I recommend Samuel A Aslie's "A Southern View of the Invasion of the Southern States and War of 1861-1865."

The book shows the kind of men that financed John Brown's abolitionsit movment. They had no regard for the laws and Constitution of this country when it came to their fanatical obsession of the way our government should be governed. After reading this book, one knows that the Abolitionist movement is alive and well, media and all! The American people do not know their history. This book exposes a lot of truth as to what the movement really was: power to overthrow the government by using the slavery issue to gain power over the states. It was a movement that caused the bloodiest war of our history. The loss of lives was more than any other war the Americans have fought. The Abolitionists were very prominent in their society: preachers, teachers, physicians, that they were able to influence the people. The slavery issue could have been solved the same way England solved their slave issues, by compromising and relocating the slaves. The real sad part is John Brown was hailed as a hero while he should have been tried and hung for the murder of so many innocent people. This book helps to put to rest the myth of John Brown as being a hero. It shows the fanatacism and cowardice in the Abolitionist movement by using others to do their dirty work. In this book, Otto does not take sides. He takes the historical happenings of both sides and allows the reader to draw up the conclusions themselves. He has the book well-indexed so that futher study can be made. The excellent thing about this book is that you cannot find many books about the Abolitionist movement. Their movement has been well hidden from the public. We are left with the films, fables, poems, books, etc with the one-sided view. All of these are far from truthful. (TOO BAD YOU ONLY GO UP TO 5 STARS. IT SHOULD BE GIVEN 5 AND THEN SOME. POSSIBLY 10 STARS)

every english major and writer should have a freshman comp handbook. this one is okay. it covers everything well enough.and if it weren't for the Little, Brown Handbook, i might suggest the Scott, Foresman Handbook. But the little brown handbook is by far superior, and i suggest that anyone interested in the scott foresman, or any other freshman comp handbook, check out the little brown before making a purchase.

This book is aimed mostly at students and inexperienced writers. The subjects covered range from commonly-confused words to punctuation to creative inspiration to revision to research papers and business letters -- basically, everything. For students, there are sections on how to write for particular academic subjects.

As a general reference, this book has just about everything you'd need, although the sections on computerized research and word processing are a bit outdated. There is plenty of advice for people who need help with grammar or who are trying to make their writing less awkward and more effective. It is well-indexed, allowing you to quickly find answers and advice, which is good because plodding through the book sequentially (even with the help of the table of contents) would be very tedious.

Hey guys, If your not sure this book will help you. I am telling you it will. I had a English course in college,it was required for class. Although, I would usually return my books, I kept this one. It has helped me during the course of my college years. In addition, it helps my sibling who is in high school.This book will help with any English problem you may be having.

This is another guide written in the same sort of format as Lets Go and Lonely Planet. It is a lot thicker than the Lets Go version and believe me, weight and space are important when lugging the thing around a whole continent. Let's Go also has a fair bit more information than Rough Guide in fewer pages. I also don't like the paper the pages are made of in this book as it's not a nice texture, is very thin and the pages stick together when the book's been inside a hot backpack and just don't feel nice turning the pages when it's a bit humid. Rough Guide is also rather opinionated on everything from each hostel to local information booth staff friendliness. I must say I do agree with some comments but a lot I never had the same experiences. That's the thing about travelling one person can have a great experience with a tourism operator and the next not so good. It depends who else is on the tour, in the room, which staff member you get and so on. If this was a constantly updated website that encourages feedback and changed the information regularly than I would see a place for it but not in a guide book. If you follow the author's opinion you'll miss out on some great experiences and even the places he recommends you may still have a bad time at. That's just the way tourism is. I'd recommend Lets Go over this for backpacking around Australia.

This book was a lifesaver for us on our three week vacation to Australia. The maps within it were fantastic especially on our four day drive up the coast. It was very helpful with regard to accommodation, and finding tourist information offices. We didn't leave our room without it on any day of our trip.

I had to read this book for my college history course in World History. The book gave good factual events from an American who had gone to Russia during the five year plan in Stalin's regime. This book is an autobiographical account of an American man's life and marriage in Russia, yet I did not enjoy the deep amount of factual literature that was implemented into the book, since the author did not let the reader become intimate with his personal life or feelings. I felt that this book was more of a textbook than a novel. However, I believe that professors will most likely assign this book for their students, especially for the topic of the five year plan, due to the amount of historical and factual content embedded into the story.

One of the best books ever written about the Soviet Union. This account of the construction of Magnitogorsk -- one of the largest and most ambitious industrial projects ever undertaken -- is deeply personal and moving. Yet, it also manages to communicate the idealism and revolutionary fervor that transformed the agricultural and technologically backward Soviet Union into a superpower.

Pro: Good survey of ancient warfare from Ancient Egypt and Sumeria through the Roman Empire. Physical quality is excellent. The authors are knowledgeable and competent. Extensive use of drawings, maps and art work is useful and effective.
Con: Nothing really new here - much of the excellent art work is borrowed from older works. The authors cover the topics well but do not offer more insight into ancient warfare then previously offerred by earlier out-of-print works by authors such as John Wharry, Sir John Hackett, and Peter Connolly.
Bottom Line: If you need just one general purpose book on the subject, this does the job well. If you need more than a survey of ancient warfare, take a pass on this book and go after the works listed in the bibliography.

This is a very good book for a military historian to have. I liked the illustrations and tactical maps of significant battles. This book covers warfare in the classical world. The authors discuss the rise of various techniques, equipment and the sundry. For whatever reason, the Romans did not seem to develop anything new. They copied the old and improved on it.

I am a fellowship-trained interventional pain management physician, and I purchased this book with high hopes after reading the first review and the editorial summary. I received it, and promptly returned it. It really falls short in my opinion. The positioning pictures uses three pictures that really add very little to the basic knowledge of positioning the fluoroscopy unit. It does not make the effort to explain nuances of using the C-arm to open up the facet joints, etc. The pictures of the blocks performed show only the final placement of the needle, without any guidance on how to get it there, which is what is really needed in a text such as this. Furthermore, the image quality is remarkably poor in some of the shots. I think anyone interested in a guide on using fluoroscopy for pain management is better off waiting for Prithvi Raj's book, which is due in fall, 2002. His book on Pain Management is excellent and I expect nothing less with his upcoming book, which I have pre-ordered.

We have been using this amazing, comprehensive manual in our pain practice for 4 months. The time that is saved by ustilizing the author's concise explainations of correct patient and flouroscope positioning has cut out time per procedure down and increased the quality of images 3-fold.

Included, are flouro images of each simple and complex procedure performed.

I highly recommend this manual to any radiologic technologist, interventional pain management physician, orthopedist, neurosurgeon and physical medicine and rehabilitation physician.

Radiology departments everywhere should have at least one copy for those technologists who are asked to participate in any injection or implantation procedure.

The cost of this easy-to-use book is paid for in a few days of using it!

Scott's book is essentially on Pre-Columbian art. Of 226 pages of text and images, more than half, 138 are devoted to the pre-Conquest period. The Colonial period gets 52 pages, "Art After Independence" gets 36 pages! The book's title is misleading for someone looking for a more satisfactory coverage of the "Modern" period in Latin America.

This is a great general view of Latin American art that helps to put the history of Latin America in perspective. It is easy to read and well organized with maps, timelines, illustrations, and photographs to assit the reader.

Here's the compendium of some of the most bizarre creatures ever found in D&D - this set includes the minions of Chaos that come "from beyond"... not only are they fun for pure Dungeons & Dragons, but we've successfully run a D&D/Cthulhu campaign using these beasties as the main source of terror. Too much fun, and hard to find!

Spelljammer MC is one of those accessories that an experienced gamer can't live without but a younger gamer will find totally uninteresting. Or perhaps not - it all depends on the taste and how likely he is to become a writer. As a monstrous compendium from a long-dead campaign, in the old hole-punched style, with black-and-white pictures, it attracts gamers like flies. Fortunately it is also relatively cheap (not for its worth, mind you, but in a general sense - it costs ten dollars in mint condition) and is easy to find either at the local large hobby store or online at the Wizards of the Coasts site (...). The compendium will not displease the refined, experienced AD&Der looking for something different: the closest thing I can compare it to is either the old Traveller or the new Alternity. Many alien, twisted, warped things, and a couple of robotic terrors spice up the melange. Don't pass it by.