Now that fantasy RPGs are looking for new cultures to exploit, Russia has finally come into its own. Mystic Russia is, as the back of the cover states, about "...Russian Myth, but given that ol' Rifts® twist." It does a servicable job of bringing Russian monsters to life, and to a lesser degree, the O.C.C.s of Russian folklore.

The monster section is the best part and obviously the primary reason for the book, as they're placed in the front (which seems peculiar to me). Most are pulled right from Russian folklore, but a few seem like someone thought the picture looked cool and threw in some statistics for it, like the Demon Claw. Of particular note are the Koshchei (remember that guy from the AD&D Monster Manual II?) and the Kaluga Hag on page 27, my vote for what the Blair Witch looks like. The artwork throughout the book is above par.

Speaking of witches, as usual, this book heavily emphasizes that magic isn't real and neither are witches. Unless you are a practicing witch, in which case, please don't be offended. Mr. Siembedia points this out on page 1. And page 10. And page 72. And 73.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of all the books Mr. Siembedia writes are the finger-wagging, condescending quips that are littered throughout the rules. For example, on the topic of the evil Necromancer as an O.C.C., he advises to "...please respect the G.M.'s decision and move forward with the game." Move forward with the game? We were in the middle of an argument and the author's narrative made us stop, turn to that passage, and suddenly realize we should all just "move forward with the game" and stop arguing about the rules? This kind of condescending blather is presumably due to the younger target audience, but I'm sure they find it insulting too.

The Pact Witch, Hidden Witch and Old Believer O.C.C.s are interesting looks at Russian folklore and magic, although occasionally the spells are so specific as to be of questionable value (spoil water, curdle mlik, spoil wine, and spoil eggs could probably be grouped under spoil food). The Necromancer and Fire Sorcerer are reprinted from other Rifts books. It's disconcerting to see (NEW!) in front of the Bone Magic section. So the rest of the spells aren't new? Of all the O.C.C.s, the Mystic Kunzya stands out as truly unique, super-smiths with a penchant for super weapons. Super-powerful unbalancing weapons, but hey, you don't play Rifts for game balance anyway.

The Gypsy section is suspiciously generic. While the first crop of O.C.C.s delve into very specific spells of limited usefulness, the Gypsy section is devoid of detail. Professions like the Chovihani are missing completely, unless you use the Hidden Witch, which is not what Chovihani were about. This would be a perfect place for such spells as steal liver and a variety of thief protection spells that Chovihani were known for.

The last section seems like an afterthought about Sovietski tanks and war machines. This is Mystic Russia, right?

All in all, this book is a servicable resource for most role-playing games. However, as a Rifts supplement, it's fluffed out with a lot of material in other books under the guise of being reprinted for the "player's convenience."

This book is an average supplement for the RIFTS role-playing game. I own most of the supplements for RIFTS and I don't use this one too much in my campaigns. Most of my players have shown only marginal interest in the contents of this book. It is an okay companion to the Warlords of Russia worldbook, but otherwise probably not worth the price of the book. This book is similar in character to the England world book. There is a lot of information about the folk lore of the region with a few characters thrown in. If you enjoy reading world books just for the information, then buy it. If you are looking for a world book for Russia, get Warlords of Russia instead.

This book is an excellent book for all Rifts players. In most of my campains I have used this book to make NPC villans and also it is an excellent world book for choosing player characters. This is one of my favorite Rifts world books out there along with Warlords of Russia another excellent book.

At last, a series for the Rifts universe. While many people critiqued the first book for having printing errors in it, the second does not appear to have any of these problems. If anything; the second book in this trilogy leaves me wanting to read more (which is good).......Our heros have been betrayed and now are getting ready to be sent out to the wilderness on a suicide mission again! Oh My! Hopefully the next book will have a bit more combat action in it (both magic and conventional). A good read so far if you like Rifts, but not necessarily a must have Sci-Fi set of material.

Deception's Web, the second part of Adam Chilson's Rifts triology vastly improves upon the first novel. For one, the editing has improved by a quatuam leap, and although it has a few problems, it's much better than the first.

The writing improves as well. The first part is almost a straight action story, and while interesting, it didn't do much to grab the reader's attention.

Deception's Web tones down the action and ignites the intrigue. As Lt. Sorenson's party returns to Chi-Town, they are met with court martial and deceit. A traitor is in their mists, and Sorenson's life hangs in the balance. Strange alliances begin to unravel the deception, but there's more to come.

The characters are also given a greater chance to develop, allowing for the strange friendship between Van and Darren to come to life, the tensions between other party members, and of course, Kramer, er, Kro-Mar, for the great comic relief.

Reading this book I got the feeling that Mr. Smith couldn't quite decide if his audience was the layman or the surveying professional. For example, very little mathematics is used (even though there are topics in the book which would have been better served by a more mathematical treatment), while on the other hand many terms are used as though the reader should be familiar with them already.

I found the lack of a glossary frustrating, as was Mr. Smith's habit of using concepts chapters ahead of their defintion. The difficult subject matter was further obscured by numerous errors in the figures and text (such as refering to velocity as the second integral of acceleration.)

In the end, the book did give me a good qualitative feel for the issues germane to geodesy, but I had to work very hard to extract that information and found myself immediately looking for a more perspicuous text.

I bought this book to fill in knowledge gaps, not to learn geodesy as an expert. It answered lots of questions I had had about measurements, how surveys are performed, geodetic systems (datums and so on), the WGS, and the use of gravity. The details are all there, within about 100 pages in the middle of the book. Not bad at all.

This subject by its nature requires a mathematical treatment, so although the book does not go deeply into the math, it's sometimes heavy reading. Many of the illustrations deserve careful study, too. It's not light bedtime reading. I carried this book around for several days during and after a large GIS conference and periodically dipped into it. It works well in small doses.

I found Mr. Smith's book to be very informative and well written. He covers many aspects of geodesy from early history to modern application. He is apparently very knowledgable and has a broad spectrum of experiences which he writes about. There are some instances when Mr. Smith tells a large amount of information, maybe more than the average reader would require. There are other times that I wished he would tell me more. He has a writing style that tends to skip around alot. Just hang in there and you will get the information in another chapter. There is always the bibliography for reference, if, Mr. Smith didn't cover it, which is rare indeed. He covers such obscure subjects such as: coriolis effect, isostasy and dynamic heights. Throughout the book all of the illustrations are simple yet understandable in almost all cases.

James Buchanan entered the presidency in 1857 under difficult circumstances. This book tries to elucidate Buchanan's southern position, his inability to coalesce the factions in the Democratic party, and allegiance to a Jacksonian era of the past. Although the author does not portray Buchanan as a shrewd politician, he does recognize that the president tried to avert a Civil War. Furthermore, the chapter about secession clarifies the disunity in southern politics. In addition, the author explains how the slavery dispute thwarted Buchanan's quest for territorial expansion, especially his desire to annex Cuba. Besides, this penetrating study analyzes the economic panic of 1857 and the ultimate corruption in Buchanan's cabinet. In summary,Buchanan emerges as neither weak nor incompetent, but rather a man who had a clear purpose in mind. Unfortunately, Buchanan did not ameliorate the animosities about slavery and he has gone down in history as a much disparaged president. The prose made it a bit tedious to read. Also, the author treats some topics with such brevity (for instance the panic of 1857) that it helps to already have some familiarity with this subject.

This book on the presidency of James Buchanan, as with the others in this series, is relatively short (under 200 pages), and is not meant to be a biography of Buchanan. It does, however, present an adequate discussion of the highlights of the Buchanan presidency in the political, economic and social context of the times. The author provides ample evidence as to why most historians rank Buchanan near or at the bottom of the presidential ratings list. At a time when the nation was rapidly heading toward civil war, Buchanan consistently failed to understand northern sensitivities and perspective on the important issues of the day, the most significant of which was the expansion of slavery. Moreover, Buchanan, who was from Pennsylvania, surrounded himself with cabinet members who reinforced his pro-southern views. There is much discussion in the book of the influence these men had on the President. Among other highlights are the relationship between Buchanan and Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, the effects of the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scot case, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Buchanan's surprising foreign policy objectives, and secession of the southern states and how Buchanan reacted. Although at times Buchanan seems to disappear from the narrative, this book would be of interest to readers who would like to become better acquainted with the administration of a president who served at a very crucial time in our history, but about whom not much is generally known.

When I was learning to drive, there was an emphasis on the "last clear chance." In the realm of responsibility for road accidents this is the principle that even if the other driver made the mistake, if you had a clear chance to avoid the accident, you could be held responsible. In trying to determine blame for the causes of the American civil war, by the time James Buchanan became president the last clear chance to avoid the war had probably passed. While the overwhelming majority in all areas were strongly opposed to disunion, the minorities in favor of the forced abolition of slavery and secession had grown large and influential enough to determine the course of history. Therefore, any analysis of the presidency of James Buchanan must be done with that in mind.
While no examination of that time can avoid an analysis of the issue of slavery, Smith makes one point that seems lost on many other commentators. A great deal of ink has been used in analyzing the economics of slavery and many argued that it did not make economic sense and would have ended. Others argue that it provided an effective source of cheap labor and would have remained economically viable. As Smith so succinctly points out, both points are of questionable validity. Slavery was no longer an economic issue, but a cultural, social and emotional one. To the south, slavery was their culture and any attempt to criticize, hinder or eliminate it was considered an attack on their very existence. In this environment, economics are a secondary concern, a point made very well in the book.
What will be surprising to many people is how expansionist a president James Buchanan was. I am in full agreement with the author that he was the most imperialist president the United States has ever had. For unlike McKinley who took Spanish territory, Buchanan's goal was to impose a brutal slavery on the new territories. He was very activist in the foreign arena, running foreign policy with a strong interventionist hand. However, nearly all of his plans for expansion were of dubious merit. The most wild was the attempt to purchase Cuba from Spain and make it another slave state. While slavery existed on Cuba, it was very mild relative to what existed in the United States and it would have taken an enormous "pacification" effort to impose American rule. Other schemes were to annex additional segments of Mexico as well as parts or all of central America. Fortunately, sectional rivalries prevented any bipartisan consensus and Buchanan would not act without support. The only plan for territorial acquisition that was eventually completed was the only one that could be executed without conflict, namely the purchase of Alaska from the Russian empire.
Clearly, Buchanan was a president who took the Southern side in most disputes, which sometimes placated the southern radicals and other times emboldened them. Could he have done more to reduce the tensions? Of course. Would it have made a major difference in the outcome? Almost certainly not. The forces in favor of dissolution were becoming so powerful that only blood could have led to a long-term conclusion. Despite his southern leanings, Buchanan was a Unionist who was the last president before the war. In that position, he was the last person to have a chance to avert the conflict. He made many mistakes and if there was any chance at all to avoid the war, those mistakes eliminated it. Smith explains all this in describing the presidency of a man who could have been one of the greatest presidents of all time if he could have found a way to satisfy a set of unsatisfiable conditions.

As a beginner in warehouse managing, the book is very general and does not provide any useful learning to me. In the discussion of communication, it does not touch on web based technology among warehouse, suppliers and customers. It actually focus entirely on the expensive traditional EDI technology.

I recommend this book primarily for the extensive content. At over 900 pages, this book is enormous. Though you may want more detailed information on certain topics, you will at least find some useful information on virtually every topic related to managing a warehouse. The book is actually a collection of chapters written by different authors. Each chapter can be read independently of the others, which makes this a very good reference book.
Because of the multiple authors, there is some redundancy between chapters and inconsistency in the quality of the content.
If you're responsible for managing a warehouse, you should have this book on your bookshelf.

This is the highly demanded second edition of The Warehouse Management Handbook. The second edition offers 39 crucial, leading-edge chapters, each written by a different noted warehouse management expert. There is not a more complete guide to the science of warehouse management in print. Numbering almost a thousand pages, The Warehouse Management Handbook, Second Edition is literally brimming with information that will improve warehouse performance and the bottom line. This book is a must for every warehouse.

Chapter topics include: Third Party Warehousing, Warehouse Space and Layout Planning, Simulation, Hazardous Materials Management, Environmental Concerns in Warehousing, Automated Guided Vehicle Systems, RF Communication, Warehouse Management Systems, Electronic Data Interchange, and Loss Control.

Special features in this book include a comprehensive index and two case studies. The Warehouse Management Handbook, Second Edition is the standard warehouse management reference, and is an ideal text for industrial engineering courses of study.

At first Bond Films, co-authored by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, looks simply like a brief outline of each of the James Bond films. However, delving deeper reveals that compiled within the Bond Films is actually quite a wealth of information from a variety of sources.

Each film has a standard set of sections devoted to it, which are all discussed in the books introduction. Some of these sections include information on fashion decisions in the films, the advancements of particular continuing characters including M and Miss Moneypenny, the box office returns for the films, award nominations and film trivia. The most interesting sections, and those which make this a successful book, are those which discuss scenes cut from the film, source to screen information, real world influences and parallels, product placement details, critics responses to the film and social references in the film. It is the latter which may prove to be the most interesting to Bond fans as they summarise information which hasn't previously been made readily available.

Despite some 'gem' sections there are two which could easily have been left out. The first is 'quotes', everyone enjoys particular quotes for varying reasons and it seems unnecessary for the authors to attempt to define which are the best of a particular film. Also unnecessary is a section called 'The One With'; a section that informs you how to remind a friend which film you mean. For instance, The Living Daylights is given as "The One With: the rock of Gibraltar, the milkman and the cello". Some may find the section interesting, the 'hardcore' Bond fan will find it a statement of the obvious.

It is obvious that a lot of work has gone into summarising material to include in the book, particularly for some of the aforementioned sections.

It's good to see areas dedicated to the majority of Bond films, Never Say Never Again included. While 1967's Casino Royale is included in the book it is disappointing to see that the 1954 version of the book is not. While, admittedly, it was only a telemovie it is undoubtedly an important part in the history of the cinematic James Bond.

Bond Films, co-authored by Jim Smith and Stephen Lavington, isn't the best Bond book ever, but it's obvious that the authors never intended for it to be. They had an intention from the start, stuck to it and in doing so successful created an interesting source of information.

An above-average book on the Bond series. In my opinion, the book's major lapses are when it tries to put the Bond films in historical context. The most notable howler here is a lengthy discussion of the effect of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo on the UK (page 139). This whole analysis is flawed because the UK was exempted from the OPEC embargo! The book also stumbles when it discusses the Thatcher government. For one thing, it claims (page 177) that the Thatcher government was elected in September 1979 (it was actually May 1979). Secondly, the book makes much of the fact that the same Defence Minister appears in the Bond films pre- and post-1979. The book claims (page 169) that for the character Frederick Gray still to be Defence Minister after the 1979 change of government, he "has pulled off the biggest party political defection in British history." In fact, it was not unheard for a minister to serve in both the late 1970s Callaghan Labour government and in the Thatcher government--for proof, see page 546 of Kenneth Morgan's book CALLAGHAN: A LIFE.

Another flawed discussion occurs when the authors claim that DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER "was very much ahead of its time" because "the idea of space-based lasers was not seriously mooted until US President Ronald Reagan's 'star wars' program of the 1980s" (p. 114). In fact, space-based weaponry was the subject of international diplomacy well before the 1980s--it was even covered by a 1972 arms treaty. Another space-related error occurs when the authors give the wrong year for the first space shuttle mission.

The book takes a decidedly rose-tinted view of Timothy Dalton's box office performance. You would not know from this book, for example, that all of Roger Moore's 1980s Bond pictures scored higher US admissions than either of Dalton's films. More generally, the authors take a scattergun approach to the reporting of box-office results, sometimes reporting world grosses, sometimes only US grosses. Moreover, for both OCTOPUSSY and NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, box office rentals are incorrectly given as box office grosses. Many of the other box office comparisons in the book are misleading because of the failure to adjust for inflation.

As far as the reviews themselves are concerned, I was pleasantly surprised to see some kind words said about A VIEW TO A KILL and some reservations about GOLDFINGER. Otherwise, the reviews report quite conventional views about the films; indeed, the opinions expressed here about the first eleven movies are virtually interchangeable with those in John Brosnan's classic book on the Bond series. Sometimes the influence of previous books, while understandable, is TOO intrusive. For example, Barnes and Hearn's judgement on THE SPY WHO LOVED ME in their book KISS KISS BANG BANG was that it was "a slick...'greatest-hits' package" (page 129 of 1997 edition); Smith and Lavington's judgement on the same film is: "A slick, pacy 'greatest hits' package" (page 154).

There are numerous misquotations from the films as well as misspellings of names of characters, cast members, and historical figures. Most of these errors are minor but avoidable. On other issues, such as the running time of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and how many of the Bond films are solo-scripted, the book's errors are more serious.

The Moore films are repeatedly criticised for making the James Bond character well-known throughout the world rather than a secret agent, ignoring the precedent for this in two Connery Bonds--Bond made the papers in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and was world-famous in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. (Barnes and Hearn's book on the Bond films was also guilty of this double standard.) Other inconsistencies appear to be a by-product of the book being written over a long period. For example, page 33 claims that "throughout" the Bond film series, Soviets were never Bond's main enemy--ignoring FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, which is acknowledged on page 176 as a film where the main villains are Soviet-backed. And the statement on page 177 that "politicians had been either anonymous or not obviously based on any one person" in the films before FOR YOUR EYES ONLY seems at odds with the authors' own account of the conclusion of GOLDFINGER: "[the] plane Bond is taking to meet President Johnson..." (page 41).

In the first 2 chapters the authors do a good job of explaining why variable costing is better than full absorption costing. Thereafter the book fails to add much more than that. I learned in university that variable costing is better than full absorption costing, so this is nothing new - what would be more useful would be ways to use both systems simultaneously, seeing as full absorption costing will be with us for SEC and IRS reporting purposes.
Great start, but left with a feeling that I hadn't really learned much in the end.

This book was the best summary of the Thinking Process I have yet read, but it's title suggests an accounting focus. The accounting focus lasted just for the first section. The real value of this book was the case studies where they discussed some of the benefits and pitfalls experienced by some companies that implemented TOC ideals.

This book I read, Albert Einstein, was a very interesting book. It showed little known facts about his life that were very interesting to know. The book told how Einstein got to be smart. It also showed his life accomplishments and famous things he did. I reccomend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the life of Albert Einstein.

The dealing of and with spiritual scribing which was unlike a mere Ouiji-board experience. Suzy Smith pulls her readers into a plausible explanation of William James' afterlife imparte. Ms. Smith teaches Mormon-like dogma disguised as James' musings as viewed from his eternal realm, with Ms. Smith unwittingly being chosen as his only scribe. The scribe, (Ms. Smith), attempts to pass off her inscriptions as William James' style and as she knows nothing about William James, is not highly educated and just a housewife, how could she possibly pull off such a grand hoax? This sounds somewhat reminensent of Joseph Smith's humble station and his scribing for the angel Moroni in The Book of Mormon. (Possibly a curse for those named Smith.) Although the story is a bit far flung, it has a capturing quality that is refreshing to read as a fictional work.

This book did not live up to the expectations which its title would suggest. The audience for the book seems poorly targeted: a numerical mathematician would find the mathematics elementary and the C++ content incomplete; a C++ specialist would be better served by a text on Engineering Mathematics; and a scientist/engineer could locate more comprehensive libraries with little difficulty. The book is accompanied by a 3.5" disk which gives source code for some rather pointless function test routines, examples from the book together with a compiled library with header files and an executable example. I was annoyed to find that the implementation source code requires the payment of $30 + 7% tax to the author using a reply coupon. Since the author's libary is 16-bit Borland C++ and I am a 32-bit Visual C++ user, I found the library of little use. My overall impression was of a package feeling somewhat dated (indeed I found myself checking the publication date) and rather pointless. In conclusion, I could recommend better texts for this subject.