I was thrilled to buy this book, as it was John Glenn's flight back in 1962 that first got me interested in spaceflight history - an interest which endures to this day. I also flew all the way from Australia to attend the STS-95 launch, and consider it one of the greatest occasions of my life. This book is very well written, as it should have been with two professionals at the helm, and obviously a lot of background work was done on the text prior to the launch. It reads very well and easily, and the photo choice (although the reproduction of some is quite poor) is excellent. For such a well researched book, however, the authors should have paid a little more attention to what actually occurs in the final ten seconds of a shuttle launch, as they got that wrong and - hey guys! - the teacher who died in the Challenger explosion was Christa McAuliffe, not McCauliffe as you state on several occasions. But they are mild irritations in an otherwise worthwhile, and certainly timely, book.

Although written with the unmistakable Waugh polished style, this book is mostly composed of previously published material in the various author's correspondence compilations (The Letters of E. W., The Diaries of E. W., etc).

The reason behind the set of letters compiled for this book contributes for the prevailing gloomy mood: by the end of his life Waugh, a fervent Catholic and declared conservative, was struggling to his last breath to prevent the implementation of the modifications proposed to the rites of the Catholic Church after the 2nd Vatican Counsel. It is manifest throughout the book that Waugh was aware that his was destined to be a lost battle but that hasn't deterred him to keep on fighting to defend what he considered to be of the best interest for the Catholic community.

Nevertheless, as in all of his writings, the reader will always be met by pearls of wit whose refreshing effect is much enhanced by the unexpectedness of their appearance amidst the melancholic spirit of the book. By that alone, the book is worth reading.

Compulsory volume for Waugh fans.

The City starts with admirable intentions in its attempts to identify the major problems currently besetting Los Angeles. To a wide-eyed USC urban theory grad student, this collection of essays succeeds, replete as it is with jargon such as "post-fordist economies" and such. However, to any other reader, the writing style seems to be an attempt at making the book inaccesible to anyone without a Masters degree. If the writers wished to be read only by academics, then they should state that aim on the cover. Despite the "urban planners symposium synopsis" feel of The City, several valuable points are made. Most notable was the interesting explanations of the dangers of the current hour-glass economy and the subsequent creation of first-world and third-world cities within a city. In addition, the multi-aspect historical essays exploring the growth of the cities (I especially enjoyed the "L.A. as a design product" piece) were interesting and even occasionally enjoyable. However, the essays, in their self-described (and laudable) and not entirely succesful attempts at approaching urban theory from multi-disciplinary viewpoints, became somewhat redundant (not necessarily a bad thing considering the density of the stuff) in trying to force a tie-in to each other. Finally, the authors clearly mark their territory as knee-jerk liberals with their conclusions regarding the so-called LA 4 as "angry young men in search of social justice and making a point by beating Reginald Denny to a bloody pulp." As a former and soon to return resident of Los Angeles, I felt that such an apologist point of view is sorely out of touch with the realities of the place. Their points on racial and social injustice in the city are well-taken, but this sort of racialist pandering is absurd. If you can keep your eyes from glazing over while reading this, there are some valuable conclusions here which make The City worth reading. But be prepared to wade through a morass of academi! c dribble on the way.

The book supplied the reader with good information about places in St. Paul (and the surrounding area) where F. Scott Fitzgerald could be found in his early years. There were also a lot of pictures of the houses and buildings. It would have been nice to have more details, however, instead of just having a brief description of the locations.

scymanski has an ok story here. price has a good one about the gorgon. that one was very enjoyable, and had some lovely details. otherwise, this was dreary read. so many of these stories were not only badly invented, but seemed so uninspired to. i almost felt sorry for the writers, for making so bad stories. i think this is chaosium's worst.

I admit, I only flipped through the book so I'm not able to give you an in depth review. However, from what I saw and read here all is true.

Game Design Theory & Practice from Richard Rouse instead has all the in depth information you will be missing in this book. Where you get 2 pages about game psychology in John's book you'll get a whole chapter of useful information about what players want and expect .. and TONS more!

I personally wouldn't even consider publishing the information provided in John's book as a FAQ on the web, not to speak of publishing it as a book...

This book did not add much to the theory of game design. A majority of the book was concerned with the scripting of a game like that of a movie, which is unfortunately not how a majority of games are made. I would not suggest this book to the majority of people interested in game design, or to those people current designing games. It really has very little to help with or add.

...would be a more accurate title. The actual title is very misleading; as is the publisher's claim that it is for an "intermediate and advanced" audience. I read it in spite of the negative reviews because I'm a professional developer, (8 years of delivering hit titles using a major license), and I'm always looking for good texts in my field. I like to learn from my peers when I can. This book did not provide such an opportunity. All of the negative reviews are accurate, and I only wish I had heeded their advice to avoid this book.

I'm a computer engineering student and have been studying this book for 3 months and I've concluded that it's impossble to learn from. In almost all of the examples, the author skip steps that are vital for students who have never analyzed circuits in such detail before. The reading is difficult to understand, even after reading each chapter two or three times. It's as if the authors wrote this text to impress their colleages. I'm fortunate that my professor explains the material faily well. I'm definitely going to sell this book back at the end of the semister and use the money to invest in a useful circuits text. I highly recommend you do not buy this book, I wish I never did.

Take my suggestion: "Don't ever buy this book". I am a second year student and my school use this book as a text for Introduction to EE. Since my instructor is so bad in explanation, at the very beginning, I thought, I could rely on this text for understanding. I HAVE READ EVERY SINGLE WORD IN THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS AND REPEATED SO MANY TIMES AND STILL, I DON'T COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THINGS. Very vey hard to follow. If you don't believe what I said, read it yourself before buying it.

This book is extremly difficult to learn from. The material that is covered is not explained very well for someone just starting out. There may be one of two reasons for this, either the authors know the subject matter so well they lost touch with the basics or they more or less wrote the book to impress their peers.

why dont people let me read their stuff so i dont have to buy it i just want to copy it to do my english assignment!!!!!sheesh im pissed!!!!