This is one of the most helpful books on WIN 98 that I have seen. Although it's published by the same company as those "dummies" books, it steers well clear of the condescension and verbal clutter of those. You don't need a great deal of experience to make use of the book, though it does make the peculiar assumption that you've upgraded to WIN 98 from a 3.X version, rather than from WIN95. Fortunately, those parts are easily skipped. Less useful are the shareware programs included on the CD-ROM, but the book is well priced for what it contains. You need to know, however, that this is far from an exhaustive treatise on Windows 98. If you are seeking real depth of detail about DLLs and registry files, you will have to look elsewhere.

I found this Windows Secrets book just as helpful as its predecesors. I had used the Windows 3.1 Secrets years ago, in order to become more accuainted with the OS and learn some tricks that don't come well documented, and it certainly helped to do so.

However, if your goal is to become an EXPERT of Windows 98, i.e. learning the whereabouts of the Registry, you might be disappointed.

One last thing: this book does NOT deal with the Second Version of Windows 98. For example, it mentions tons of times a VERY useful un-documented tool called TweakUI, which is not supported by the Second Edition (sadly enough.)

Windows® 98 Secrets makes a great reference book. It has rescued me out of a couple of jams. It covers Tweak UI which Microsoft shuns. It shows how to restore Microsoft Fax which MS omitted. The list goes on...If I ever happen to lose my copy, I will buy another one. Can't say that about many books.

MAGIC TERROR is an anthology of previously released material compiled together into one book. Most of the stories are complex and it only creates confusion to his readers. Some of the stories are very disturbing in which we get inside the minds of madmen, such as the lead characters in ASHPUTTLE and BUNNY IS GOOD BREAD. The first story involves a kindergarten teacher who takes revenge out of something that happened in her childhood. The other story shows the evolution of a serial killer with the help of good old dad.

This collection of short stories is mainly for Peter Straub loyalists who enjoy reading his work. His novels are much better than his short stories. Try THE HELLFIRE CLUB or GHOST STORY for a real fun time.

It is always with a sense of anxiety that one picks up a Peter Straub work...that feeling akin to coming unexpectedly upon the scene of a violent accedent while driving to a favorite vacation spot. Lulled into a false feeling of luxurious complacency, the horrific spectacle of glittering glass and bloodied pavement is at once terrible and fascinating. No matter how many stories one reads in a lifetime, Straub can have that same, irreversible effect on a reader.

"Magic Terror", his latest collection of short fiction, is no different. From first word to last, it is impossible to tear your eyes from the page. His elegant prose wraps itself insidiously around your every thought and lingers there like the remnants of a terrifying childhood nightmare. The seven tales here are classic Straub...haunting and beautiful.

The most astonishing piece is the story entitled "Bunny Is Good Bread". Appropriately dedicate to horror-meister Stephen King (with whom Straub collaborated with on "The Talisman"), "Bunny" is the hypnotic tale of the childhood of a boy who will grow up to be a serial killer. Evoking William S. Burroughs in its disconnected imagery and narrative style, "Bunny" is one of the most grotesque and horror-inducing works of fiction Straub has ever written. The story is worth reading twice, just to be sure that no small detail is overlooked. While the remaining six stories are Straub at the top of his form, it's "Bunny" that stays firmly implanted in ones mind. Worth every penny of the cover price, "Magic Terror" will increase the value of every literary collection that it graces!

I've been a huge fan of Peter Straub's since I read "Ghost Story" thirteen years ago. To this day, it's still just about my favorite book. With the addition of the Blue Rose trilogy ("Koko," "Mystery," and "The Throat"), which is also fantastic, Straub has quite a few titles in my short list of all-time favorite books.

It's his writing that gets me every time. It's always deeply moving, evocative, and poetic. Reading Peter Straub is like experiencing a richly-woven dream from which you just don't want to wake up.

I enjoyed Straub's last collection of short fiction, "Houses Without Doors," but felt it was less satisifying than the novels he had been putting out at the time ("Koko", "Mystery"). The stories in that collection had an experimental quality that worked at times, but sometimes left me feeling they were too bizarre for their own good.

There is a similar pervisity in the stories in this new collection, but I think Straub comes closer in "Magic Terror" to doing what he does so well in his novels. "The Ghost Village," one of the stronger stories in the collection, starts with a great Straub opening line and just builds and builds from there. Fans of "Koko" will enjoy revisiting the haunted Vietnam soldiers of that story.

"Porkpie Hat" and "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff," two more strong entries, are closer in length to novellas than short stories. "Porkpie Hat," which happily combines Straub's enthusiasms for jazz and the past, is a shere pleasure to read. "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff," a riff on Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener," borders on the overly-bizarre, but is more than enjoyable enough to make it worth reading. The prose in this novella is almost downright Dickensian.

"Bunny is Good Bread" is a harrowing psychological etching of the childhood of a disturbed individual who will show up later in Straub's "Blue Rose" trilogy. The Cinderella-esque fable "Ashputtle" is similarly disturbing. "Hunger, An Introduction" is funny, strange, and stirring all at the same time. My least favorite story was "Isn't It Romantic?," which I felt was longer than it needed to be, and as result was too slow and predictable. But even when Straub isn't in top form, his language is always a pleasure to read. Another down-side to this kind of collection is that if you're a big fan, you've probably already sought out at least a couple of these stories in their original places of publication. Of the seven stories collected here, I had already read three. But it was fun to re-read them, anyway.

All in all, these seven tales deliver the reader on a satisfying journey of the psyche, at turns dark and tortuous (also torturous) and alternately achingly poetic. Straub often lingers in the finer spaces where beauty and wonder mix like dreamy liquids with the ether of the human soul. In "Porkpie Hat," he writes that "[a]nyone who hears a great musician for the first time knows the feeling that the universe has just expanded." That same universe-expanding quality can be found in Straub's prose.

If you've never read Peter Straub before, you should probably start with "Ghost Story" or the "Blue Rose" trilogy. The stories in "Magic Terror" tend more towards the category of "acquired tastes". If you enjoy Straub's writing and have something of an adventurous mind, I'd definitely recommend this book.

I felt that this was something of a return to form for Straub. While not as good or as consistant as his best writing, I was more satisfied with "Magic Terror" than I was with his last two slightly disappointing novels, "The Hellfire Club" and "Mr. X." I now eagerly look forward to Straub's new collaboration with Stephen King.

I thought the stories in this collection were well-written, in some cases sliding over into the realm of 'pretentious'. Lots of blood and gore, which I don't particularly care for in a ghost story (in fact, I hurled the book into the wastebasket after reading one particularly bloody specimen). My main objection to the stories is that none of them were particularly scary.

Choosing Peter Straub, author of the classic supernatural tale Ghost Story, as the editor for this was another neat marketing trick by the HWA. Too bad the tales he gathered are less than impressive. Straub's story "Hunger" is literate and fascinating, but most of the rest fall flat. Chet Williamson's offering does get under the skin though, causing a rash of gooseflesh. Die hard horror fans will want to check it out, so I recommend it for at least those two tales.

Peter Straub has selected some extremely interesting ghost stories in this book. Very systematically he looked for stories that depict a deranged mind more than real paranormal phenomena. The ghosts are living in the minds of the main characters and that gives a real twang to the book. No special effects, no monsters with a zipper in the back but phantasms, imaginary beings, delusions, all the result of a mind that does not know where to stand any more. And when you lose your footing, you have the tendency to see the ground floating over your head and the air harbouring a lot of incredible beings and creatures. In other words these stories are perfectly plausible, most of them, and they give you a real feeling of unease because you know you could experience the same thing under some circumstances.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

Having seen and been distressed by other "bluff your way..." books I saw BYWIOP on a shelf in a store and thought, here's a "how to bluff" book that is about a field that is all bluffing! This should be full of useful information, or at least as entertaining as Dogbert!

I picked up the book and was proven correct. This book is very at home next to "Dogbert's top secret management handbook" on my shelf and would fit that way on any cynical bureaucrat's bookshelf.

good book. Briefly described each heroe/heroine in 2-3 pages. fOR 100$ (OR 70$) FORGET IT! sure, its a good book, but not that good. Buy something useful with ur money, a real encyclopedia, but dont waste ur days earning on this book.

Check my review at UNDER VENUS by the same author. This is also a terrible early work by one of the most gifted authors of today. I still think, no, hope, that this book was written by someone only using the name Peter Straub as a pseudonym.

I read this book about 5 years ago and found it very good for a first attempt at writing a book. By reading this, it is easy to see that Peter Straub has huge command of writing and language.
Although Peter wanted to be a mainstream novelist at the beginning, I am very glad he found writing darker fiction more to his liking. After you read this book, check out Mystery, The Throat and The Hellfire Club.

Peter Straub's first novel was far from the realm of the ghostly horror that made him a household name, in fact it was an attempt at writing the kind of novel Henry James did. The narrator, an American expatriot living in Britan, explores the effects of the extra-marital affairs he has had with a british/american woman as well as with his sister-in-law. While not exactly a success, curious Straub fans will find it of interest. Recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed the half hour it took to read this book - that is to say that if you're in the mood for a tongue-in-cheek discussion about gourmet cooking, this is excellent. It is, however, not an instructional book whatsoever. It discusses different utensils and real styles of cooking, but it does not offer advice or recipes. Great as a fun gift to accompany some real cooking stuff.

I'm glad to see that everyone else gave this book a low rating, too. I don't think I've ever given a book one star. I would have given it negative stars if possible. I listened to the book on tape and the selling point was that Kevin Spacey (the actor) was the one reading the the book. Since I always enjoy the movies Kevin Spacey acts in, I thought that I'd enjoy a book he narrated. Not so. The book is about a professor that gets the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel to the United Kingdom to do research on his favorite author who, I believe, is a relative of his. He is chosen as the privileged professor for that year who gets to stay in this enormous mansion and use their one-of-a-kind library. Things get a little weird. He rents a car from the airport and encounters strange people along the way. And when he finally gets to the mansion, the people living there are even stranger. You've got mysterious figures in windows, cobwebbed passageways, and a room full of dozens of miniature replicas of the mansion. The description of the book sounds interesting and eerie enough, but the author is confusing. He adds elements to the story that make no sense. You go over a passage in the book and go over it again without being able to figure out what in the world the author is trying to say. Is it fact or fantasy? What actually happened? Did anything happen? Where did the concentration camp people come from and what do they have to do with anything? What's the story about the mysteriously dying children mean? I suppose it's supposed to be a ghost/horror story. And I suppose that the author knew what he was talking about in his own mind, but he is unable to put pen to paper and make the story make sense to the reader. It seems as if the author got tired of writing and decided to resolve everything all at once so that he could leave this mess of a book behind him. Maybe he should have just stopped completely.

I was looking forward to this tape but after the first half hour it sank into a morass of death metaphors and insecurities. Although I adore the work of Kevin Spacey, not even his considerable efforts could save this choppy audiotape.