Okay, all of you that can't stand Riley will be pleased to know he only makes a minor appearance in this trade! Yay! Ahem. This trade features issues 29-30 of Buffy and 15-16 of Angel. The story begins with Angel being attacked by all sorts of demons because they believe he sent some lady after them. Turns out she, a former flame of Giles', is in league with the watcher's counsel but is rogue (they have no luck, do they?). She has a grudge against Angel because she is a descendant of a man who was tortured by him. The flashbacks to his torture are pretty scary, the way Angelus messed with his mind I can see why Alexa would want revenge. However, Giles is right in his reason for breaking it off with her -- she really enjoys the visceral aspects of killing way too much, the blood and gore and violence. Buffy has to go to LA after Weasly and Cordy get hurt, AND she leaves Riley behind! One star off for his small, annoying appearance. At any rate, the story is fast paced and a good crossover. The artwork is clean and easy to follow and there is a really funny part with Anya and her lack of tact. All in all this trade is worth it for Buffy or Angel fans.

Backk in the days when comics were 25 cents I used to read a lot of them. Now that they come out for over 10 dollars, they are actually a rare treat. Of course, the production qualities are way better than what I used to read. When I read the description of 'Past Lives' and discovered it was an Angel/Buffy special, I decided it was one I had to get, and I am please to say that I was not disappointed.

Angel finds himself under attack from not one, two, or even a small group of demons, but a continuous stream of the very meanest in Los Angeles. Every single one of them mad at him because an unknown woman was cutting a swath through the underworld claming that she worked for Angel. This is serious bad news. In no time at all Cordelia and Wesley are among the wounded and Angel looks like the before picture in a plastic surgeon's office. The scent of badness reaches all the way to Sunnydale, and soon Buffy, Giles, and the entire Scooby Gang are on their way to help.

The team quickly discovers that the freelance lady demon killer is actually an agent of the Watchers, who has convinced them to arm her with whatever she wants from their armory of magic weapons. Smarting from the embarrassment of having two Slayers who are ignoring them, they seized the chance to restore their waning reputation. Unfortunately they failed to look deeply enough into the motivations of the beautiful Alexa Landry and they wind up unleashing a nightmare. She is hell bent on destroying Angel and anyone who is his friend. Alexa has a past with both Giles and Wesley, but with Angel her hatred extends back centuries. Back to the time that Angel, as Angelus, destroyed first the mind and than the life of Sir Andrew Landry.

As you can tell, this is going to be one titanic struggle. Thanks to the fact that comic books have an unlimited special effects budget, the visuals are out standing. Great fight scenes and moody returns to Angel's past are the work of veteran pencillers Christian Zanier and Cliff Richards. The story line is another barn burner from the pens of Chris Golden and Tom Sniegoski, who also need no introduction. Dialog is as good as it can get in this kind of writing and even Anya manages to get some great lines. If you've wondering which one of the Buffy and company graphic novels to get, this is the one.

This book is definetly for an avid fan! Christopher Golden is a great author with fantastic ideas. The graphics of this novel were outstanding, and the plot terrific. A must have for any Buffy collector

Set in the third and fourth seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is a medley of eight stories buy a variety of authors and illustrators. The keynote tale is the two part 'Food Chain,' which traces the fate of a young juvenile delinquent who first runs afoul of a high school student/very bad demoness, and then, when that doesn't work out, invokes a demon who likes murdering all his friends. Buffy, of course, to the rescue.

Other tales include 'The Latest Craze,' the story of what happens when owning miniature demons becomes a fad for the rich and snooty, and 'Double Cross' about a demon who resembles the Alien on steroids and has a knack for being in two places at once. Then there is 'One Small Promise,' a Buffy/Riley tidbit and 'City of Despair,' an interesting story that pits Buffy and Angel against each other in a final confrontation in yet another dimension. The remaining two tales are 'Bad Dog,' in which Oz is freed to so that a geek with low self-esteem can drain Willow's power, and 'Punish Me with Kisses,' a ghost story that is a bit too cute.

On top of offering a set of interesting, well conceived stories, 'Food Chain' has a stellar cast of illustrators. Both the stories and the full page artwork offer a far greater variety than the regular Dark Horse productions, which gives the reader a chance to appreciate different styles and better understand the arcane art of comic book production. If you aren't normally drawn to the graphic novel format, but want something that offers a representative sample of its potential this is the one to own.

Richard B. Wright has penned a novel that is written with poetic style and grace. Clara Callan centres on the two Callan sisters - Clara and Nora. Nora, the younger sister has set out for New York to advance her career as a radio performer. The subdued Clara, remains in Whitfield were she continues on as a school teacher. Both of the Callan parents have died and all that remain are Clara and Nora.

The novel is compromised of letters that are sent between the two sisters over the period of 4 years - 1934-1938. In between the letters, Clara keeps a journal that details her life in her small Ontario town. Through the journal entries and the letters, the reader will become part of the Callan sister's lives. Clara Callan will have the reader look beyond the ordinary to the complexity that makes life. Each sister will face numerous challenges and obstacles that strengthen their hold on themselves and each other.

Set at the time of the great depression and the onset of World War 2, Wright was able to make the 30's come alive. Aside from the pending war, he details the events of the time with such description and authority. The reader experiences the marvel that 'Gone With The Wind' incited and the fist color movie, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. We experience the telephone and the amazing birth of the Dionne Quints.

Richard B. Wright is truly a master of his craft. Clara Callan is a novel that is destined to reach further than just a Canadian audience.

Clara Callan, the protagonist of Wright's novel, is a small town spinster in the 1930s. She lives a reasonably comfortable life thanks to the inheritance of her father's house and a job as a local schoolteacher. Through her diary entries and exchanges of letters, mainly with her more glamorous younger sister Nora, Clara reveals herself to the reader. Wright has created a believable character that "grows on you" as her personality emerges little by little. Life's difficulties during the Depression years, in particular for a single woman in rural Southern Ontario become apparent through the description of daily events. However, a very dramatic personal incident and its aftermath force Clara to confront her new circumstances in a very direct manner. While she was accustomed to express her daily experiences and reflections in poems, events interfere and poetry becomes impossible. She recognizes "how suddenly a life can become misshapen, divided brutally into before and after a dire event." Her beliefs are challenged and so is her self-contained whole-ness as a person.

Clara's personal story is embedded in the realities of the mid-thirties where unemployment is rife and poverty spreading. Although at the periphery of the main thrust of the book, Wright alludes to the emerging pre-war anxieties. He touches on the contrasts between city and rural living, utilizing Clara's reluctance to accept such innovations as the telephone, as an example. Yet, the regular Saturday trips to Toronto, perceived by her as a necessary escape from the village, lead to a new, important phase in her personal development, giving her also a new taste of independence. She visits her sister in New York, although in rather difficult time in her life. Cleverly, Wright lets her visit pre-war Italy as a third party to her sister's vacation. It allows the author to add impressions of the growing political conflicts in Europe as a backdrop without losing the focus of the story.

The counterweight to Clara is Nora, who could not bear small-town Ontario and leaves for New York to "make it in radio". She becomes successful as a radio voice in daytime "soaps" and her personal life seems to take on some aspects of a soap opera itself. Nora is privileged in finding a solid rock in a glamorous female friend, Evelyn, while her on and off affairs are far less successful. Clara, always concerned about her sister and her superficial lifestyle, attempts to remain the firm family base for her sister, but her own life story places her more and more on a shaky ground. She finds advice and empathy through her correspondence with Evelyn.

Clara Callan is a very engaging story indeed. Wright successfully places himself into the mind of a woman: Clara's personality quietly and gently takes hold of the reader as one follows her in the exploration of the multifaceted realities of her time and place.

BOOK BLURB: 14-year old psychic Blossom Culp isn't looking forward to life in high school. Thanks to stuck-up Letty Shambaugh, Blossom's not included in the class Halloween project, so she can't help transform Old Man Leverette's place into a haunted house. What's worse is, Letty has her sights set on handsome Alexander Armsworth. Wanting to get back at Letty, Blossom secretly explores the eerie house with Alexander.

Suddenly everything goes berserk, and Blossom's hurled from 1914 into a time warp. Through her psychic powers Blossom's found a new way into the future, where she's surrounded by Valley Girls and computers. But will those powers work in reverse?

Blossolm Culp steps into a time warp. And compared to her puney powers its amazing. IT's really suberb because it gives a funny but serius view about her life and how the future is always there. IT's Exxelent, Magnifzent and fuuny all in one.

This book includes Incredible Hulk: Return Of The Monster, Incredible Hulk: Boiling Point, and Banner.

The first two parts of this book are a change from what we've expected from the Hulk in the past and let me tell you that change is sometimes a good thing. In this case, it's a great thing. Bruce Banner/the Hulk gets caught in a web of a secret organization's conspiracy and he is on the run from their notorious agents. While this sounds like a cliche, it's really not -- a big part of why it's not is, well...how many cliched conspiracies include the Hulk in them? Yes, the Hulk and Bruce Banner are strong enough characters to make even an ordinary-seeming plot really, really good.

It's a new twist on an old concept that just works out well.

As for those looking for the classic "HULK SMASH!" version of our brute, this book's got PLENTY of that in here thanks to Banner (by Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben). There are also a few scenes where the Hulk destroys many things in the other portions of the book, too.

It's well balanced between the Hulk's classic destructiveness and fugitive ways. The only difference is that it's seen through a new, fresh perspective. It's different. It's cool. But, most importantly, it's good. And that's reason enough for you to buy it.

This hardcover collects the recent "Incredible Hulk" storylines "Return of the Monster","Transfer of Power", and "Startling Stories: Banner" mini-series. What a great compilation! You have the suspenseful, masterfully-paced writing of Bruce Jones, and the powerful artwork of John Romita, Jr. The Hulk has not looked so, well...incredible, since Dale Keown's run in the early 1990s. This storyline is a perfect place to re-acquaint yourself with the Hulk since it begins a new run, and presents a much more believable Hulk than has been presented in the comic book in recent years. Fans of the Lou Ferrigno TV series will enjoy these stories. Nuff said! Buy it!!!

Wow--this is one fascinating read, less about ghosts than true Time Travel! The plot hooks you right in subtly, then proceeds with inevitable events, to conclude with a satsifying ending. Of equal interest to boys and girls, this book attempts to answer the adolescent quandry: how do you know when a girl has a romance on the side?

Three California-grown kids are suddenly confronted by New York City's pop culture and Victorian history when they vacation there for two weeks with their parents and family dog one summer. The boys hear/dream voices at night and see strange, anachronistic sights by day. Soon they themselves are slipping through temporal portals, first by surprise, then by design. They gain information and perspective about the family that used to own their rented, multi-storied house. Yet their adventures are not always the same year in the Past, nor the same season as in the Present.

Of course their parents are clueless about these historical peregrinations, but it becomes more serious than mere parlor tricks--invisibly observing social interactions of the 19th century. The kids gradually realize that they have a task to accomplish in the Past; they they were chosen to perform some unselfish act for strangers long dead. Soon it becomes a true rescue mission of utmost urgency, yet the kids face grave danger themselves, if they can not get "back to the future." How much must they sacrifice for these strangers who have unwittingly touched their lives?

Do the kids have the right to attempt "unfinished business," thereby tampering with history, even it it proves to be compassionate meddling? At first they exist 90% of the time in the present and slip back or make contact with the past about 10%. But as the novel progresses they spend increasingly more time in historical New York City: the freak blizzard of March 1888. Can they get back in time to accomplish their self-imposed mission, yet not become trapped themselves? And if they succeed, how many family histories will be altered? Peck's tongue-in-cheek humor about teenage lifestyles lightens up an otherwise serious read. This is great stuff--even better than Blossom Culp!

In "Voices After Midnight" Chad,Luke,their older sister Heidi,parents and family dog Al take a vaction from California to New York City. When they arrive there Chad and Luke are hearing voices late into the night-after midnight.This house is a least one hundred years old, are they hearing voices from the past? Heidi is acting stranger by the second, is it becuase of her mom's friends daughter Jocelyn? Or something else? Now everytime Chad and Luke open doors slowly they go back to the past-to 1888, or 1929 or just a couple weeks ago. Soon they start to see the Dunlaps people that lived there over one hundred years ago. Chad is starting to think his brother is right, mabey they do have a gift or better yet a mission. Can Chad and Luke change the past to save the Dunlaps from the bizzard of 1888? When they go to a New Year's Eve party at a very rich family's manor they find their sister-Heidi waltzing with non other than Tyler Dunlap. Then they find out that she is also living in his old bedroom. Tyler can't seem to take his eyes off of her-but he's also asking questions she can't answer. Heidi makes the owners of the house daughter VERY angery at Tyler for waltzing with someone other than her. Luke and Chad are very suprised that Heidi of all people has the gift to travle in time. They're soon to find out that if you're wearing clothes from the past you're visible. Tyler has a younger sister the same age as Chad -Emily, and Chad has a little crush himself. Can Chad,Luke,and Heidi save Emily,and Tyler from freezing in the blizzard of 1888?

A young boy is sent to live with his uncle--a former movie stunt man on a Texas ranch, by his irresponsible mother. Narrated in the first person by introspective Uncle Coot, this story introduces an unusual animal hero: a real but winged colt born to their neighbors. Young Charles grows to love the colt named ALADO (Winged One) and considers his uncle a true western hero.

Alado learns to fly of course, but he endangers himself and causes great trouble for the two humans who are trying to cope with a mythical creature (Pegasus). Charles, the bookworm, desperately wants to prove himself a cowboy like his uncle; they both must sort out their feelings for each other and for Alado. Can a freak of nature survive in this modern world of exploitation and greed? An interesting and enjoyable book for readers of all ages.

My favourite animal is dog, but anyway, this book is the best book I ever read. It is great story, I love the part when the colt flew up on the mesa, and Uncle Coot went to get it.

I did enjoy this book and am glad I purchased it. It has been well researched and a lot of thought has gone into the text, although there are a few glaring omissions.

This book is so readable and so filled with anecdotes and facts about the girl singers, the best of all time, those who sang with big bands and on recordings. There is everyone from Doris Day to Patti Page, even Teresa Brewer. An easy read too. All the girls were the best of the era. There is even Diana Krall that Grudens picks up on as a future best, and it has come true. He knows about all of them, mostly through personal interviews. The photos are simply wonderful. if you want to read about your favorites, Helen Forrest, Rosemary Clooney, Jo Stafford, Lynn Roberts, Connie Haines, and Lena Horne, get this book. There is also a tribute to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. The book is worth the price and is a timeless book for your collection.

The stories about the girl singers are so rarely written about. Interviews with Doris Day, Kitty Kallen, Rosemary Clooney, Jo Stafford, Teresa Brewer, Lynn Roberts, Diana Krall, Helen O'Connell, Connie Haines ( the best of them all) Helen Forrest, Peggy Lee and others are simply wonderful. I feel I now know them all. And the tribute to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald is beautiful. There's even a nice story about Josephine Baker that I loved. Five stars for sure.

Richard Preston knows how to make readers uncomfortable. He needs to spend more time getting his characters to be believable. In the Cobra Event, Preston describes the search for an "unsub" or unidentified subject who wants to spread a terrible disease throughout New York and the world for some vague, ill defined reason. Coincidence plays too big a role in this novel, and although there aren't any real loose ends, too many events seen contrived and coincidental, or just too easily resolved. In particular, I thought that finding the bio-research facility and the suspect's apartment more suited to a 30 minute TV drama than a serious novel. Most of the characters are about as well developed as those on sit-com. The more factual parts of the book, the autopsy in particular, were well written and frightening in their own way. Even with cutting edge biotechnology as a primary focus, the writing was never too difficult to follow. This is a book that is topical, informative and just well enough written so that a reader wouldn't be embarassed to recommed it to friends. It does, however fall far short of being good literature and more closely resembles a first draft of a screenplay for the film industry.

Richard Preston has written yet another frightening book about the possibilities of bioweapons. About the world we now live in. This book centers on the testing and attemtped release of a biological agent in New York City.

As the Centers for Disease Control, The FBI and the Military all scramble to identify the virus you see the daunting task that such an operation actually is. You see the fear and the concern of the experts. You see that even if you do everything right, it still may go wrong.

This book is frightening because of its realistic possibility today. It centers around Dr. Alice Austen and her dispatch from the CDC to investigate the event in the early stages. The story line follows her through the tracking and identification process of the virus. The description of the effects of the virus are also frightening.

Bottom line, this book is engrossing and reads easy. The author does a great job and communicating both the impact of the subject he is writing about and the depth of the characters that he is creating. A very good book.

Superbly researched and detailed account of a fictionalized biologic attack on the U.S. by a lone terrorist using a genetically manufactured "killer" virus. Admixed within the story were excerpts describing the basic concepts of biologic warfare research as conducted in countries such as Iraq, Russia and the U.S.

The story is seen throught the eyes of Alice Austen, a doctor working as as epidemiologist for the Center for Disease Control. She is drawn into the intrigue created by a seeingly unrelated outbreak of a deadly unknown virus in a 17 year old affluent high school student and a nameless homeless man. Eventually it is determined, through the intervention of the FBI, that someone has created a lethal virus, is testing it using human guinea pigs and is preparing to release it among the general population. This bioterrorist, who calls himself Archimedes must be uncovered and stopped.

In our increasing paranoic age of terrorism, this book should be required reading for all officials concerned with homeland protection. The alarming threat of bioterrorism seems very real and unfortunately almost inevitable.

I've seen some reviews that criticize the book for being too stream of consciousness and others for not being s.o.c. enough. The fact is, for the most part it's not s.o.c. at all. (See the Chicago Manual of Style, 10.45-10.47 and note the example they give...Joyce knew how to write s.o.c.). A better word for A Portrait is impressionistic. Joyce is more concerned with giving the reader an impression of Stephen's experience than with emptying the contents of his head. What's confusing is the style mirrors the way Stephen interprets his experiences at the time, according to the level of his mental development.

When Stephen is a baby, you get only what comes in through the five senses. When he is a young boy, you get the experience refracted through a prism of many things: his illness (for those who've read Ulysses, here is the beginning of Stephen's hydrophobia - "How cold and slimy the water had been! A fellow had once seen a big rat jump into the scum."), his poor eyesight, the radically mixed signals he's been given about religion and politics (the Christmas meal), his unfair punishment, and maybe most important of all, his father's unusual expressions (growing up with phrases like, "There's more cunning in one of those warts on his bald head than in a pack of jack foxes" how could this kid become anything but a writer?)

It is crucial to understand that Stephen's experiences are being given a certain inflection in this way when you come to the middle of the book and the sermon. You have to remember that Stephen has been far from a good Catholic boy. Among other things, he's been visting the brothels! The sermon hits him with a special intensity, so much so that it changes his life forever. Before it he's completely absorbed in the physical: food, sex, etc. After it he becomes just as absorbed in the spiritual/aesthetic world. It's the sermon that really puts him on the track to becoming an artist. One reviewer called the sermon overwrought. Well, of course it's overwrought. That's the whole point. Read it with your sense of humor turned on and keep in mind that you're getting the sermon the way you get everything else in the book: through Stephen.

After Stephen decides he doesn't want to be a priest, the idea of becoming an artist really starts to take hold. And when he sees the girl on the beach, his life is set for good. That scene has to be one of the most beautiful in all of literature. After that, Stephen develops his theory of esthetics with the help of Aristotle and Aquinas and we find ourselves moving from one conversation to another not unlike in Plato (each conversation with the appropriate inflection of college boy pomposity). In the end, Stephen asks his "father" to support him as he goes into the real world to create something. I like to think that this is an echo of the very first line in the book. The father, in one of many senses, is the moocow story. The story gave birth to Stephen's imagination and now it's the son's turn to create.

This is such a rich and beautiful book. I suppose it's possible for people to "get it" and still not like it, but I really think if you read and re-read, and maybe do a little research, the book will open up to you the way it did to me.

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is James Joyce's autobiographical novel, first appeared in book form in 1916. After over 80 years it is still read and studied all over the world highlighting the place it has received in literature. It portrays the early and teenage life of Stephen Dedalus. This is the same character who later appears in 'Ulysses' (1922) as a matured adult.

Joyce walks us through the life of Stephen Dedalus in five stages written in a third-person narrative. Anyone interested in Joyce's intellectual, spiritual and physical journey of life should read this great classic which is the prelude to 'Ulysses', one of the best novels ever written in the 20th centaury.

As Ezra Pound correctly predicted 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' would "remain a permanent part of English literature" for centuries similar to the place 'Ulysses' has reached in literature.

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN does not so much solicit deep thoughts and great emotions so much as it wrings them out of the reader. To finish this book is not to feel uplifted and encouraged for Stephen Dedalus, but to feel that at least he has made progress and knows enough of his strengths and weaknesses that he may make something of himself. Is this not possibly where we are left at the end of all great coming-of-age novels?

Joyce takes us through five stages of Stephen's youth. As a boy in 1890's Dublin he hears his father arguing that Irish nationalism has been sold out by the Catholic clergy. Soon Stephen's hands are "crumpling" beneath the paddle of an unjust priest. He becomes a leader in his class, an intellectual in a world where many believe: "If we are a priestridden race we ought to be proud of it. They are the apple of God's eye." Later Joyce spends eleven inimitable pages on these apples explaining in colorfully exhaustive detail what it would be like to be baked in a hellpie (for God is loving but God's justice is harsh). Five pages on the physical tortures of the eternal fire, and six more after a break about the mental tortures--Dante himself would be impressed. Fear of hell scares Stephen sufficiently enough to repent from his teenage brothel-frequenting phase. He goes to rather interesting extremes of devotion, even considering the priesthood as a vocation. But his questioning nature is even too intellectual for the jesuits and he discovers another path for himself at and after college.

Joyce writes poetic, often urgent prose: "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to create life out of life!" becomes one of Stephen's clarion calls. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN should be read by anyone looking for one of the best tales of intellectual, physical and spiritual awakening we have. Its beauty is best savored slowly. The rhythms might be difficult to pick up at first, but it really won't take very long until you will have a hard time putting the book down.