If you're a thinking baseball fan you need to read this book. It covers every player you've heard of, and most of those you haven't. After reading this book, your next step is to go to their website ... on a daily basis for more of their top notch writing and analysis.

Their team articles are insightful, witty, biting and entertaining. I find myself grabbing one of my three copies from my shelf and enjoying them, even if I pick the one that's three years old. How many other baseball annuals can you say that about?

Thanks guys...keep up the good work.

Baseball Prospectus opens up a new world for the uninitiated and continues to inform those of us who've studied the game. Just put it on your springtime shopping list each year, kind of like grass seed.

After years of withdrawal symptoms from missing my annual dose of Bill James, I have at last found a substitute. These guys are not always on the nose -- their obsession with positions is a bit limiting to my mind, for one thing -- but they're right a helluva lot more often than they're wrong, and they've already proven themselves prophetic in many instances (for example, the White Sox's migrating back to the middle of the pack and the Mets' collapse). Plus, they're good writers -- not only are their analyses far more cogent than most sportswriters (admittedly, not a difficult task, since most sportswriters, not to mention analysts, can't tell their rear ends from their elbows), but those analyses are great fun to read for aesthetic reasons.

Anybody who really cares about the game will love this book.

This anthology contains some wonderful stories by new writers who, I'm sure, will be seen more of in the future. There are a mixture of stories for all tastes, and only one or two I didn't like. My favorite story was "An Idiot Rode to Majra" by J. Simon. It's a fun, beautifully written story about a young man who outwits the system of the new, oppressive government. Other notible stories are "The Plague" by A.C. Bray (a pied piper story), "Time Out of Mind" by Everett Jacobs (a love story through time), "Hello and Goodbye" by Michele Letica (the far future controled by green peace), and "Market Place of Souls" by David Lowe (a young girl's journey through life and other's bodies). Worth the read.

A good slice of home (Earth), past and present, on an alien world. Some elements reminisent of Jurassic Park, but don't let that fool you. Especially with the Neanderthals and other pre-modern people. Here, they are not depicted as a bunch of grunting, primitive "cave men," but as an intelligent people whose emotions and sense of spirituality are more devoloped than our own.

Dave Wolverton is an okay author. I read some of his other stuff (this includes other SW short stories he did for the Tales Of series,) and liked them. But it is so obvious that he is in over his head in this one. Take the plot: When Leia goes to marry another man, Han kidnaps her and drags her off to a planet he had won in a card game (!?!,) which turns out to be inhabitted by a race of force-sensitive witches(!?!) who keep Rancors as pets (!?!) and battle more another tribe of witches. Now, is it just me, or is this a little silly? This ultra-politically correct book tries not to insult any minorities, but manages to offend it's majority: the Star Wars fan. Admittly, Wolverton had a hard job, making a novel out of the premise of how Han and Leia wed in the Thrawn trilogy, but Steve Perry had an even harder job with Shadows Of The Empire and he managed to pull it off. Say, I wonder what it would have been like if he had written this...

"Courtship" has everything: a romantic love triangle, comic dialogue at times, plenty of action, and a high coolness factor. I was satisfied with these additions to the Star Wars universe because they felt distinctly Star Wars -- including the planets of Hapes and Dathomir. Han's a little soft, which gets annoying, but overall the characters are kept in touch with their correct personalities. The story goes like this: With the shattered remnants of the Empire scattered throughout the galaxy, the New Republic is struggling to build a solid government, and eventually seeks help from the highly political planet of Hapes. They agree under one condition: Leia will marry the dashing Prince Isolder. Of course, Han has other plans, so he kidnaps Leia and runs off with her to the remote planet of Dathomir, but they are soon abducted by a group of Force witches that inhabit the planet. So it's Luke and Isolder to the rescue, of course. As usual, Luke is on a Jedi-related quest of his own, this one revolving around a crashed Jedi schooling ship in the swamps of Dathomir. Overall, a worthy use of your time and a very entertaining book.

I loved the whole idea of the story. I always wanted the authors to give a good-detailed description of how Princess Leia and Han Solo got together and this book explained it. Mr. Zahn skipped all the way to the first few months of Princess Leia's preganancy. This book talked about her struggle between Prince Isolder and King Solo (Han Solo). It was funny and I laughed out loud in a few parts and I had to read some parts to my friends because I had never heard Leia and Han fight like that before. It was also so cute the way Luke and Teneniel Jo met and fell in puppy love. This was the best book yet and I wish George Lucas would make a movie from this book. I think it would be a blockbuster. I can't wait to see the prequels. This is a great site. Thanks!

I was excited to read this book because I enjoy time travel books and have always been impressed with L. Ron Hubbards writing. According to the introduction of the book, Hubbard wrote the story as a screenplay and then Dave Wolverton converted it into a book. Usually, things go the other way and people say "compared to the book, the movie stunk!" In this case, unfortunately, the book stunk. I read about 50 pages before I began wondering if it was a pre-teen book. I read 50 more and began wondering if I was wasting my time. I was certainly wasting my time. The characters are preposterously simple and unrealistic. The scenarios they encounter are never set up well and the characters reactions are out of a saturday morning cartoon. The protagonist is a near imbecile and he is by far the most intelligent character in the entire story. Save your time and money, this one misses the mark.

I like L. Ron Hubbard's style and have read many of his books. This book may have had his name on it, but it didn't even come close to being a Hubbard novel.

The premise of time travel with a military vehicle was an interesting one. The story went along fine until three indian squaws came into the picture. Dave Wolverton depicts the squaws as being illiterate, dumb and drunk. I did not appreciate the way he portrayed them.

The novel has some interesting sequences and isn't a bad read if you just want light reading.

A VERY STRANGE TRIP By L. Ron Hubbard & Dave Wolverton. This is a most unusual book, a work that could fit into several different genres or else fall in the cracks between. Though it features time travel, it's not exactly science fiction. It's often funny, but it's not purely a comedy. Though it has sociological overtones, it is by no means a textbook guide to past civilizations. It's actually exactly what the title says, a very strange trip. The book was written by Dave Wolverton, based on a short story by L. Ron Hubbard. Wolverton has written eleven science fiction and fantasy novels, including a couple of Star Wars books, and can always be counted on for solid, all-inviting prose. Hubbard should need no introduction to even casual readers, as he is famous for such works as Battlefield Earth, Final Blackout, and the Mission: Earth series, as well as his works on Scientology. The story opens with the hero, Dumphee, transporting secret military equipment across the country. The all-terrain vehicle he is driving gets bumped and Dumphee finds himself several hundred years in America's past, at a time just before the French and Indian War. There, he meets up with three Native American women, and takes them along as he continues his bounce into the past. The group makes stops along the way in the days of the Mayans, a time when mastodon and sabertooth tigers roamed what are now the Great Plains, and then farther back. At one point, the group even goes on a Tyrannosaurus Rex hunt, using rocket launchers and other modern weapons. During the time-spanning, Dumphee continues his trek toward his original destination of Denver, even though the Denver of the past is not the military base it was in "his" time. Along the way, he learns about love and life from his companions. Then the group bounces back toward the present, with a layover in the early days of the westward sweep and the European push of Native Americans from their homes. Dumphee finally makes it to his base, both in time and space, where he learns that he is in jeopardy because of his knowledge. This book is great fun to read. It's an adventure story of the type that was common in the era when Hubbard learned his chops, a style that mostly died out with the advent of the motion picture industry. Happily, Wolverton recaptures that sense of innocent wonder and delight in a book that will keep you turning the pages.