One of the most memorable (anonymous) quotes I ever heard was "If you've got a message, send it Western Union". The usage is with a subtle irony, as the speaker disapproved of the practice of leading a reader on with the carrot of an interesting story, and then whacking the reader with a stick to pound in a moral lesson.

That may be the case with "A Death of Honor". While the science aspect is fascinating, the socio-political background for the novel is oddly unrealistic. There are rules in Science Fiction. For example, anything is believable if you can sell the concept. And that doesn't happen here.

In this case, the author shows us an America of the future as regimented in it's way as in Orwell's 1984. I waited and waited for some explanation how this all came about. No explanation came. The author depicts life in America as having become one wild party, with no family structure allowed, children raised by the State, and government officials that openly use torture and murder to punish resistance.

America has become the mirror image of Soviet Russia, with no freedoms left, Secret Police, no emigration allowed, the works...And nowhere was there any suggestion that any great cataclysm had occurred to change American society. As if we would stand by and allow all children to be abducted and raised by the State, and never blink. No, without some explanation of HOW such a ridiculous, warped society could happen, it just doesn't fly. I can imagine stringent eugenics laws following a nuclear war, for example. Nope, the author just uses the Fear of war as his justification. Unlikely in the extreme, as we know that in the face of war, people cling to traditions.

My only conclusion is that the author has a strong dislike of American culture, and no appreciation for the strength we derive from family ties. These traditions do not fall away overnight, nor would we allow such legislation to take away our rights. The book ends with the crowds of huddled m! asses, trying to escape from America (!) singing a British Anthem ! I haven't read such Anti-American claptrap since I read Michael Moorcock's Nomad of Time.

Johann's words are weaved into an intricate design that gives one a real peek into the life of Faust. With startling insights and a clear focused writing style, Johann has created a book that is easy to read, informative, and a must for your bookshelf.

"Happy Valley" is by no means a western, and truly does not need to be categorized as one. The book is a philosophical fantasy filled with characterization of metaphors, involving the basic struggle of Good versus Evil. Max Brand, the author, just chose to use a somewhat western setting to this story of fantasy. To enjoy the book, a reader certainly has to have full appreciation of the various analogies used by the author. As for entertainment, I really enjoyed Chapter 23 in which Chip Lander describes his excitement for the newest female to move into Happy Valley. Overall, reading the novel is certainly not a waste of time.

You will find in this book a very thorough writing of this magic 19th century masterpiece. The text is in both German (the original Goethe's) and French and all the Hector Berlioz indications are written down (French only). As nothing can be perfect it lacks at many pages the indication of which instrument is playing, although you can figure out who they are when you are reading music you have no time for this.

When I discovered Drew Gilpin Faust's edition of Augusta evans's novel, _Macaria; or Altars of Sacrifice_ while working on a college research paper, I was excited to find an example of the writing of a woman I had read brief mentions of in various books and an example of fiction published in the South during the Civil War. Although Evans's writing is flawed, as was pointed out even during her lifetime, when writing was often more flowery, by occasional digressions to show off Evans's learning--as when one of the duel heroines has been observing the stars through her telescope and muses on astronomical history--Evans's story is compelling and valueable. The story concerns two heroines living in Mobile, where Evans lived by this time: Irene Huntingdon, who has been raised in luxury but seeks to be strong and to find meaning in her life instead of simply spending her time and her father's wealth on fashion and shallow socializing, and Irene's poorer, artistic friend, Electra Grey, with whom Irene remains friends despite both a longstanding grudge that Irene's father holds against Electra's family and Irene and Electra's enduring love for the same man. Faust explains in the introduction that a Union general banned his soldiers' reading of _Macaria_, which had been republished by her antebellum New York publisher soon after its publication; while Evans's southern characters often showed too much materialism, snobbery, and insensitivity to make the South seem like an unquestionably superior region, her refusal to write as if she accepted the by then explicit northern view of slavery as a centrally important issue in the war and her portrayal of her central characters' personal growth do give strong signs of why the general who banned it might have worried that it would weaken some people's commitment to restore the union and to accept the view of the war, promoted by the time of its publication, as a fight against slavery. A final reason for _Macaria_'s value is its resolution of the question of women's role in the South, regardless of class, at least as viewed in the emergency period of the civil War; _Macaria_ does not end with the usual conventions of nineteenth-century domestic novels, and Faust's introduction provides some mixed contemporary southern reactions to the way in which Evans chose to end her heroines' story.

This book tlls all about how people lived in the early times... from free blacks to slave blacks... and from slave blacks to slaveholders... great information... especiall for doing research stories...!!

Speedy is the story of an amazingly talented young man who uses his speed and agility to confound his enemies. This story is very fun to read and not a sentence of it is boring or slow paced

...but, by the same token, not all that great, either. Michael Swanwick is one of science fiction's most accomplished literary artists, and for good reason. However, Jack Faust falls short. Mephistopheles, the classic character from the many re-tellings of the equally classic tale Faust (one of the more prominent of which was written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), can be viewed as evil incarnate. However, I would put him a notch lower than that, since his malevolence falls short much of the time. As the story goes on, though, Mephistopheles becomes more than simply two-dimensional and fleshes out into a fully realized character, his evil notwithstanding. The novel loses steam, however, when Faust begins to descend, morality-wise. The plot also begins to wind down, until we reach the horrendously predictable ending. Swanwick, I think, couldn't find anywhere else to go with the novel, so he slapped on the ending and sent it off to the publisher. Despite all the bad things I've said about this book, however, it's good and worth reading. Swanwick is clearly a good storyteller, but Jack Faust isn't up to his usual par.

Although not as richly rewarding and complex as "The Iron Dragons Daughter", this is another well-written, dark and ominous work by one of science fictions greatest story tellers. I have read many reviews and comments about this novel that stress (all too strenuously) the faults in Jack's character. Maybe I enjoyed the novel so much because I EXPECTED THEM!! It's a story about greed. The greed for knowledge, recognition, and power by all of the major characters. Knowing well the original tale by Goethe, I was well prepared to deal with Faust and all of his bungles.

Rather I found the true protagonist to be Mephistopheles. True he IS the "devil" in the tale, and the object of his desire IS the destruction of the human race, but he states this in the beginning and Faust still makes the pact! Who is the REAL devil there? Mephistopheles even goes so far as to warn Jack that once begun it will be unnavoidable, but Faust is so naive about human nature, and ignorant of his own faults that he is sure he can prevent it. The way that society exploits Jacks 'wonders', and its leaders wrestle over the newfound power, by the end of the novel I WANTED Mephistopheles to win. Humanity gone by-by. But then again, maybe that's because I (unlike Faust) understand human behavior all so well.

I highly recommend this book. If not for the challenging and emotional work usually derived from Swanwick's novels, then for the thought stimulation alone. Even those who disliked it have strong views about it, and anyone with an interest in history, science, sociology, (or all of the above) should read it and form their own opinion. And if that fails to stir your imagination, it is still a well-paced, fun read. And certainly worth your while.

Few science fiction novels are set in pre-renaissance Europe. In fact, I can think of none besides "Jack Faust". I see this book largely as an allegory for the present day, in which we invent new technologies--often astonishingly powerful ones, with far reaching effects--faster than society can come up with new mores and social structures for dealing with them. As such, the author does a good job of presenting his warning to us by means of a fictional history whose events seem as obvious and unavoidable as tomorrow's dawn once they are set into motion. And yet he does so in a way that kept me turning pages one after the other.

As a whole, however, I found certain aspects of the book somewhat disturbing. More so because I cannot tell whether they come from the author himself or are natural artifacts of the story and the characters' evolutions. If you do purchase this book (and don't get me wrong; I'm not sorry I bought a copy), be prepared to confront some subtle mysogynies, racist attitudes, and the like. But as I say, I cannot tell whether these are the author's own beliefs or simply reflections of the times in which the novel is set.

Disregard this warning at your own risk! Martin Greenberg believes that everything should be translated according to Wordsworth's dictum that poetry should be in the "ordinary speech used by men"--regardless of the language of the original. Could you imagine Shakespeare's sonnets being translated into common, slang-filled, modern-day say French or Spanish??? Well, that is what this absurdly dumbed-down version of Faust manages to do. By all means, read either the Oxford World's Classics paperback version by David Luke (easily the best) or the Stuart Atkins version in Princeton's Collected Works series. This book is trash, pure and simple!

This is an excellent translation of an amazing book.

Not only does Greenberg's translation rhyme (as opposed to the free-verse versions of lesser translators), but it's a great deal more intelligible to modern American readers than the other translations I've read. Nothing has been dumbed down, this book radiates the same brilliance and wit as the German original.

I highly recommend it.

After comparing most of the major English translations of Faust (Luke, Kaufmann, Arndt, Wayne) I found Martin Greenberg's to be the most beautiful and accessible of them all. Greenberg does an excellent job of suiting the tenor of the verse to the dramatic occasion, ranging from low comical to sublime lyric. Whereas the majority of previous English translations tend (mistakenly) strive for a uniformly "elevated" tone, Greenberg's translation gets the nuances right. A central idea running throughout Goethe's works is that in any comprehensive formulation of life, extremes must be united. The range of poetic styles in Faust--from high to low, comic to tragic, beautiful to sublime, "volk" slang to epic vaunt--also follows this general rule, and again Greenberg's sensativity to this range is wonderful. While the other translations are not bad, if you really want to experience the fantastic emotional-intellectual rollercoaster ride of Faust, this translation does it best.

During the late 60s, 70s, and 80s Soviet dominated Eastern Europe was pre-eminent in Olympic sports. None was more so than the late unlamented East Germany. This account uncovers the means to that success as well as the cost to those individuals.
At the 1976 Olympics, The USA's swimming champion, Shirley Babashoff, asserted that the then overwhelming dominance of East Germany's swimmers was due to drugs and "blood doping". Many in the Western media said she had sour grapes.
When the Berlin Wall fell, the former East Geramn athletes came forward with their accounts. Many were administered drugs without their knowledge, being told they were "vitamins". Those who suspected, complied because of the competitive advantage or fear of being set off the elite squads.
In later years, former athletes had medical problems or had offspring with disabilities. The medical problems were similar in most cases, deformities in offspring, problems with fertility, or problems relating to seconday sex characteristics(deepened voices with females or breast cancers with males). Even during the 70s and 80s there were anecdotes of East German female athletes that exhibited overly agressive behavior and having masculine builds.
Many doctors who administered these drugs were or are still practicing medicine in the new reunited Germany. The author followed the efforts of the former athletes to get compenstion from these doctors through the German courts.
What is so disquieting is that there are athletes the world over(American athletes included) that are still using these drugs even when the side effects are widely known. This is all in the name of winning. To the USA's credit the government isn't systematically administering these drugs.
To think many years ago many sports pundits thought the US should try to imitate East German methods.

"Faust's Gold" provides a fascinating account of the state sponsored exploitation and doping of innocent young girls for the purpose of glorification of the former East German regime thru international sports success. I was prompted to read Dr. Ungerleider's latest book thru some of the glowing reviews in the New York Times, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. I was not dissapointed. Dr Ungeleider does an amazing job of assimilating what must have been thousands of government reports documenting this state run doping program into an easy to read book that will provide future generations with invaluable insight into a totalitarian regime and the abuses it fostered to support its false goals. Dr. Ungerleider should be commended for linking these past abuses with the current problems facing the sports world, and his work will hopefully give future athletes pause before they engage in the use of performance enhancing drugs."

As a physician whose contact with competitive sports is limited to that of a spectator, I read this book with only a vague notion of the doping of athletes and the use of performance-enhancing drugs. I considered these activities as a minor and peripheral part of the Olympic games, believing that the IOC could and did expose them before they might influence the outcome.
"Faust's Gold" shattered my naivete about the glory of international sports competition and revealed an unremovable stain on my otherwise noble profession by a few despicable East German doctors. Perhaps other readers were aware; I wasn't, and I wish everyone else will read this book before watching the next Olympics.
I admire Ungerleider's ability to treat a politically and emotionally charged subject in a scholarly manner while keeping the reader riveted from beginning to end. A must read.