I think Dominic has panned the book needlessly. It is not that bad. It is a large book and yes the popups are not the best but they are not bad either. It is definitely a book to have in ones collection. Couple of the pops are large and deserving of attention.

I have collected pop-up books for 35 years and must disagree with Dominic. Yes, the book is fragile, nearly all large pop-up books are (most books this size will develop splits in the gutters if you are not extremely careful). I feel the pop-ups are in keeping with Wright's work. I especially enjoyed the accompanying text and plans. I'm very happy to include this in my collection.

This book of Pop-ups, side by side with the building photographs and original plans and drawings, show all the beauty and majesty of Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous buildings. It's done with grace, and beauty, and style befitting the nature and purpose of the book. The pop-ups are elegant, simple, and yet breathtaking.

Like most pop-up books, it is fragile, paper engineering being what it is. I have yet to see a pop-up book that isn't as fragile as a flower. You should keep this book out of the reach of children. But, it should make a beautiful coffee table item for thoughtful adults, but again, it's destined to be a wonderful collectors item, so only take it out for special occasions.

I read Dominic's review and completely disagree. As a pop-up book collector, I expect pop-ups to be only as complex or realistically depicted as makes sense to its art and that of the story. The pop-ups cleverly give you the illusion of standing back and viewing the structures from a great distance as opposed to viewing a 3 dimentional, detailed miniature.

It works beautifully.

One of the big reasons for reaching for a book on DirectX programming is that while the SDK documentation and examples are generally complete in content, they leave you wanting for both the 'big picture' and for a strategic feel for how to adapt DirectX for your specific needs. This book does nothing to help bridge that gap. The author makes early assumptions about the sort of program you want to write, then goes about writing wrapper classes that obscure all of the functional features of DirectX just to fit his unhelpful viewpoint. You'll spend most of your time with this book trying to track down what DirectX functions are called when, and if they're really necessary, or just the excess baggage of the author's desire to use the same code example for the entire text

This book presents experienced programmers with some help in understanding how to use DirectX. It assumes you already know how to program in Windows. Examples are concrete for the most part, with line by line descriptions of each one. Some take a little time to get through your head, though. The book tends to focus on the programming itself and not on how a certain item might be useful in an actual game. But all in all, it's a rather helpful book. One thing that's missing, though, is a handy reference of all DirectX functions briefly explaining each one. The one included with the DirectX SDK is none too helpful..

This book is a great find for experienced programmers who know nothing about DirectX. Some might complain about the wrapper functions, but they work fine if you don't fight them, and I've had great success incorporating them into my own programs. My chief gripes are the blocky pictures (some of the worst I've seen) and the lack of coverage for Direct3D Immediate Mode and DirectPlay. Of course in DX 3 you have to use execute buffers, which would take up too much space to explain, but DirectPlay could've used some for examples. Also, the supposedly "finished" game at the end of the book that tied everything together was designed horribly and ran rather slow. However, it's an overall good book and I would recommend it to any experience programmers wanting to make the jump to DirectX.

This book is one for the stock car racing lover. Don Keith has captured the feeling and heart of NASCAR auto racing and the drive of the people behind the scenes. The way he tells how hard it is to break into the upper levels and the talent it takes is so very real. I recommend this to any NASCAR fan.

If you've not read the previous 4 books in the Rolling Thunder series, feel free to pick up book 5 and start from here. Young Guns is set in the current/modern day Grand National series and this book apeals to anyone who has ever seen a few minutes of a race on TV.

Keith & Wright take you inside the car with spectacular racing sequences!

The story follows a young driver through his first few races, and showcases the behind the scenes aspects of a race team. The team struggles to pick up a big sponsor and seams poised to make a big splash in the Grand National series.

You won't put this book down until the last page, and then you'll want to know what happens next season.

Here's an intriguing pseudo-historical mystery involving the irrepressible character and speech of Frank Lloyd Wright, "America's Greatest Architect" (although, typically, he would dispute the necessity for "America" in the sobriquet--and may have been right!). FLLW doesn't appear often enough, more's the pity, because he struts through his scenes in all his arrogant super-perceptive glory, putting Our Hero, Merlin--a randomly wimpish/aggressive budding architect come to worship Wright--quite in the shade. Wright seems authentic in speech and attitude, the architectural passages are perceptive and accurate (although I missed having a good picture of the innovative and glamorous Biltmore Hotel [an actual resort]). The characters are fairly well-differentiated, particularly Tom Vernon, Wright's unctuous chief apprentice, and mysterious Rosa of the ambiguous virtue who befriends Merlin. Merlin's character wanders a bit, his motivation is clear but not psychologically convincing; maybe the intended point is he's just a confused young man. Then again, this author makes more attempt at humor than at profundity. Setting a mystery among architects is fascinating, but how a greenhorn foreigner (Merlin) can do better policing than a pair of veteran Arizona cops is not made believable. The plot is well-constructed, and vital coincidences are not glaring, although Merlin's oft-mentioned (but absent) Welsh harp seems to be a loose end, set up for the second novel in this new, quick-reading series by an average author. I'll read the next one, too.

I bought each of the "Gateways" novels expecting a great interaction between all of the Star Trek series, and hoping for a continuation of the plotlines running through the three previous "Deep Space Nine" novels, "Avatar: Books I and II," and "Section 31: Abyss." Sadly, the overall "Gateways" series was a great disappointment to me. I felt forced to read a "Challenger" and "New Frontier" novel, despite my having little interest in either. I also felt forced to buy this $24.00 retail hardcover in order to know the conclusions of the previous six novels. Subjected to substandard writing in all of the "What Lay Beyond" chapters except the "Deep Space Nine" and "New Frontier" ones, and having fallen for this deceitful marketing ploy, I feel extremely ripped off. The only saving grace of "What Lay Beyond" was Keith R. A. Decandido's interesting and satisfying continuation of the "DS9" novels I mentioned earlier. I agree with those reviewers who suggest getting this book out of the library or waiting for the paperback.

The series Book 1-6 was promising, if annoying for having a cliffhanger ending that forced you to buy the next book, or specificially the Book 7 which contains all the endings.

Well after being built-up by books 1-6, wondering if the inconsistencies between those books would be tied together in ST Gateways Book 7, wondering if Book 7 "the grand conclusion of what lay beyond" would put forth a good explanation for the Iconian mystery, tie all the loose ends together and provide good conclusions for the cliffhanger endings of books 1-6...............it was most most most disappointing to see that this was not the case.

Book 7 creates more inconsistencies and the endings are [bad]. Oh some of the endings were ok, but the final ending...for the TNG book in the series...which was SUPPOSED to tie everything together, totally messed it up and failed, completely failed to deliver! I mean...first in books 1-6 they established that once activated a gateway cannot be destroyed no matter what they threw at it because it will simply absorb the energy. THEN in Book 7...suddenly Gateways CAN be destroyed by explosive force...no explanation given!!! Just a lazy author who didn't even read the previous book he wrote and ignored all stuff he established in the previous book! Once again, this is a MAJOR LETDOWN!

I'm not too fond of the Trek editors' current penchant for crossovers, but so far, they've managed to keep things from getting too irritating. This book ends the six stories started in the previous volumes of the series, but doesn't connect them; each adventure is a separate novella.
All of the stories were interesting enough to keep my attention, but the Kirk story dragged on for a while, and provided absolutely no backstory beyond the jacket type. Since this story opens the volume, it may cause readers who didn't pick up all the previous books (like myself; I only bought the TNG and New Frontier volumes) to turn away.
The other stories lacked both these faults, so the enjoyment you take from them is pretty much proportionate to your preference for each series. I knew nothing about Voyager, DS9, or Challenger but the basic concepts, but since each story followed only the captain (or Kira, in the DS9 case), it worked out. In fact, the Challenger story was interesting enough to convince me to pick up the original volume. A warning: the Voyager story involves a somewhat gratuitous cameo from a famous guest star, and the ending is irritating, as we watch Janeway say goodbye to every friggin' ship in the caravan. And, of course, there's the unconvincing explanation to why they didn't use the gateways to get home.
I worship Peter David as a god, so I'll leave the New Frontier review to someone less biased.
The TNG story comes last, and serves as an ending. I won't give away any details, but suffice it to say we do get a definite resolution to the crisis, as well as an explanation to just where the Iconians went, along with a really neat Picard story. One problem: there is a painful TMI moment between Troi and Riker in the last chapter; thankfully, it's brief.
I gave the book 4 stars because all the stories but one were above average, and Burgoyne's one-liner justified the hardback price (you'll now it when you see it).