An easy-to-read book that gives the full terminology and presents all materials in page-long sections accompinied with full-color illustrations on the facing page. The book covers quite a wealth of materials and is an outstanding priming work on the subject.

Filled with basic information about the samurai. A very good introduction to these great warriors. Covers such things as weapons, armor, military tatics, their culture, etc. The author also have several other books about the samuria that go into deeper detail.

Shiny Shapes: THe Zueghaus Graz

This is a fantastic book for the Arms and Armor enthusiast. Its large format and expansive pages allow some of the best photographs of late medieval armor and weapons that I've ever seen. The photography is stellar, with several items from the Landmuseum Graz in life-size or near life-size detail. I am an armorer and a medieval enthusiast, and this is the crown jewel of my collection.

The text is a little weak on information about the armor, focused rather on the Museum and its past and wanders a bit into the abstract. There is a whole chapter for instance comparing the helms of the past with the facelessness of modern film villians, etc.

On the whole, a great book.

Troy K.

Did you ever wonder how a religious thinker got from Point A (the youthful years) to Point B (adult years where he was now a religous pioneer and the soul that ignited the Religious Science movement)?
If you have, this book is for you. If you're not into Religious Science's change your mind/change your life philosophy this book will still offer some revelations. If you are into it or involved with it, it is a must-read/must-own.
Author Reginald Armor, who died in 1977, was a mere 12 years old when he met the older Ernest Holmes, who even as a young man in his 20s had embraced the philosophy for which he was to become famous. This book traces their lifelong friendship, Holmes' evolution, and the church's growth, from their first meeting (Holme's treatment helped cure Armor's warts) to Holmes' final years.
Don't expect a long, ponderous detailed book. This book is not that at all. It's a simple account of a friendship that lasted until Holmes' 1960 passing. In sections tracing the steps of how Holmes' institute evolved into a church it resembles at times more of a history book than a memoir. These sections are the least interesting.
But Armor also traces how Holmes' carefully considered and precisely articulated spiritual and metaphysical philsophy sparked a movement that would later have profound influences throughout the 20th century. Indeed, many classic and contemporary self-help books and motivational speakers are heavily influenced by his philosophy (the power of visualization; affirmative prayer; and "releasing" an affirmation and having complete faith in it after you make it).
Armor also reveals several fascinating facts: even as a small child Holmes would never stop constantly asking questions (an answer meant he would ask another question), which is how he developed his thought; Holmes started as a public speaker because he truly loved speaking and sharing his philosphy about how applying what he called Universal Law could manifest a person's best good; and Holmes resisted until the very last his associates' attempts to create an church. He prefered a person's one-ness to and with God and felt organized religions' middleman institutions were unncessary. Plus he felt there were "too many religions" already. He made it clear he had no intention of founding a new religion.
In the end, though, Holmes went along with the idea of a church (which today has some members who still maintain their previous religions even as they practice the all-inclusive Religious Science) to help spread his ideas...which he felt were really not HIS ideas, but ideas from a Higher Source.
The bottom line: this is a simply written book which answers some key questions about who Holmes was, what motivated him, and how the then-innovative thoughts that he voiced led to the creation of an actual church.
A MUST if you're interested in the lives of spiritual thinkers.

One of my favorite books for studying weapons, it gives an overview of theevolution of weapons, armour, and fortifications, from prehistory to the twentieth century. A must for anyone who sees military history as a hobby.

This was a great story of a young English gentleman who initially does not amount to much and fails in most of his endeavors. He goes to the Russo-Japanese war as a reporter and is quickly wounded and spends the war in a hospital. He learns Russian and settles down in Moscow where he melds with the local Russians. He is contacted by British intelligence to report on revolutionary activities. He again fails when he is arrested and sent to Siberia (not revealing he is British). After 15 years he is released and on his way back via the trans-Siberian railroad he assumes the mistaken identity of a Russian Commisar. In the midst of the Red and White army battles, he tries to return to England with a Russian aristocrat who he rescues and falls in love with. Does he make it? Does he fail again? How does he survive? Is his love returned? Read the book.

The descriptions of travel in a box car on the T-S railroad make you shiver. These types of descriptions make the reader fee! l one with the story.

The title of Rob Valentine's work The Art of Making Armour: a Craftsman's Guide to Creating Authentic Reproductions is a bit misleading. While it does show extensive photographs of the armourer at work, it offers very little substance in the way of techniques and methods. The text, what little there is, gives the reader scant insight to the craft. For example, a section is dedicated to the fact that his armoury produces their own rivets, while this is an interesting tidbit, it has more of a feel of a company ad brochure than an instructional work.
Often the photos are not in sequence (for example, early in the work, a breastplate is shown being worked, and then suddenly on the same page photos of a chin piece) and lessen the impact of the work. Instead of teaching, the work tends more to show how his techniques offer the client quality pieces, again giving the reader a sense that this is more of an advertisement than actual scholarly intruction.

On the positive side, Rob Valentine makes some phenomenal armor, and I have seen his work. It is excellent. His book also has excellent photos. On the negative, I'm afraid I was a bit disappointed with this book. I didn't learn anything. It is not a book explaining how to make armor, as I was under the impression, but a book giving a basic overview of the concept behind putting together a suit is. Whereas I wanted what tools I'd need and patterns, there are only a few sentences depicting each part of the armor. To his credit, Valentine does not claim this to be that type of book, but other sources mislead me. If you want to know how it's done but don't care to ever do it, this book is fine, but otherwise you don't need it. You can find all of the information on the internet very easily.

Self-taught Rob Valeintine has been hand crafting chain mail and plate armour for more than seventeen years. During this time span he has built more than 200 full suites of armour of different styles and over 600 helmets of all designs. In The Art Of Making Armour: A Craftman's Guide To Creating Authentic Armour Reproductions, Valentine draws upon his considerable expertise and experience to show the neophyte how to construct a complete suit of armour. His "reader friendly" text is wonderfully showcased with profuse photography throughout. The Art Of Making Armour is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in medieval armour, its design, and handcrafted manufacture.

Poe, Frost, e.e. cummings, Shakespeare, Shelley, Rimbaud, Baudelaire,Dickinson,Blake,all great and familiar poetic luminaries, all lighting the stage of life with their brilliance and creativity, illuminating our minds with their eternal brain stimulating art, even influencing languages and society, changing lives and inspiring others. I think Jim Morrison could be rated up here with these monumental cornerstones of Western society. But Jewel? Jewel?! I don't think so. Her poetry has become impossible..Impossible because its actually worse than her music. Something I believed existed entirely within the imagination. Her poetry reads like something scrawled by an overwrought angst ridden teeniebopper restless with the fleeting heart flutterings of the post puberty flatulence called infatuation but mistaken as "love". Bereft of intelligence or wisdom, creativity or ingenuity this can only be rated as "bad poetry". Very, very bad poetry. Laughably dimwitted, flighty and depressingly sad poetry. Sad because the English language in all of its nuances and complexities could be abused in such a way. Its a sad, sad world and Jewel's poetry sums it all up in a neat sad little bundled collection of scratched banality. Its sad that a group of trees had to die for this. This is just...sad.

If you want to read good, accessible poetry that anyone can understand, check out Billy Collins. Don't waste your money on this book. Sure, it's poetry. You can call anything poetry. But it's bad poetry. The only reason this was published is because Jewel has a recognizable name and the publishers knew it would make money. Don't reward such blatant bastardizing of the word poetry by supporting their methods and buying this book. For every book out there like this, there's one less book by a good poet. We're already such a celebrity-ruled culture in every other respect, I hate to see the publishing industry go in that direction as well.

My favorite artist is Jewel. She has an amazing gift for putting together words. This gift is evident in her music and in her two books. This is an excellent book of poetry. I think her brashness and sense of wonder combined create the wonderful mood of this book. You'll find poems about love, humanity, fame, touring, and so much more. If you like Jewel- you'll like this. If you don't like Jewel... why not? If you're not sure about buying this book let me give a sample. The following is my favorite poem in the book and, yes, it is the entire poem. The title is "Shush":

Can you imagine how quiet a plane crash would be if you were deaf?
How unbearably loud a rape?

Buy this book! Its well worth it. Get her book of memoirs as well. Its called "Chasing Down the Dawn".

K.W. Jeter's The Mandalorian Armor is unusual for a Star Wars book in that there is no real battle between good and evil. Instead, nearly all of the main characters represent the bad and the worse. The nefarious, though very popular, bounty hunter Boba Fett is the closest thing this novel has to a hero. Here he is portrayed as the pawn in the plotting of other, more powerful, or at least wealthier, villains. Exactly what these plots are is left irritatingly vague. The motivations and subterfuge are legion. In addition to the schemes of Prince Xizor and the Emperor Palpatine, Jeter continues the character, Bossk, a Bounty Hunting lizard, and creates two new apparently malicious entities, Kud'ar Mub'at, the spider-like "assembler" and Kuat of Kuat, the corporate executive officer of Kuat Drive Yards. All of them are working at cross purposes, but their aims are unexplained, and unfortunately like many books intended to have sequels, this first act has failed to produce any true developments at all. Several chapters are devoted to a hunt which teams Boba Fett with several other hunters against the Shell Hutts, a clan of Jeter's invention. The hunt proves futile and neither the bounty hunters nor the reader are rewarded. The reader is also subjected to Jeter's inconsistency. In science fiction, the structure of the myth is held up by the reader's suspension of disbelief. Consistency in the myth's story line is essential. Contradictions are lethal. Admittedly, in a story arc such as the Star Wars novels where there are multiple authors consistency is less than simple. However, authors who choose to continue characters established by other authors (or films) do not have the freedom to disregard the work that has preceded theirs -- and Jeter's mistakes are glaring. Here are some examples: In The Tales of The Bounty Hunters, M. Shayne Bell establishes that the Gand Bounty Hunter Zuckuss is partnered with the droid, 4-LOM, for the hunt on Han Solo while Jeter somehow asserts t! hat Zuckuss teamed with Bossk. Then, Jeter presents Zuckuss as a bumbling incompetent ("Offhand...I'd say it's a bomb..."), while again, it has already been established by Bell that Zuckuss is highly astute and even prescient. Jeter also crosses a previously uncrossed line in the relationship between the Emperor and Darth Vader. Even though Shadows of the Empire revealed some tension between them, the Emperor's occasional contempt for Vader was never expressed overtly, and it seemed inappropriate in Jeter's book for the Emperor to be so blatantly adversarial. In fact, both George Lucas and Timothy Zahn had previously established that Vader and the Emperor tried to keep from the other certain activities that would fuel a deadly rift. Jeter also ignores the fact that Kathy Tyers had previously written a story about Bossk's attempted hunt of Han Solo. Tyers left Bossk in a position where his chances for survival seemed extremely dim. The fact that Bossk is alive and well approximately two years after the hunt for Solo (which took place during the Empire Strikes Back) deserves some sort of explanation. To be more particular, Jeter declares that the maker of Hutt vessels, including Jabba's sail barge is a division of Kuat Drive Yards. No. It can be easily found in The Essential Guide To Vehicles and Vessels by Bill Smith that the manufacturing company is known as Ubrikkian. No connection to Kuat Drive Yards is mentioned at all. Perhaps a trifling fact, but Star Wars readers would be likely to catch it. One might also examine Jeter's use of the word "barve." Originating in a story by J.D. Montgomery, a "barve" is apparently a substitute in a fairly widely known joke where the "Earth equivalent" would be a cow. However, Jeter has decided, despite the fact that Montgomery has presented a barve as seemingly placid livestock, that a barve is something rather more vicious. So translating his references to barves could result in sentences such as "You're! one dangerous cow, aren't you?" True, one can't be certain what type of creature Montgomery intended to create. Perhaps barves are fire breathing cows. Still, one wonders if Jeter bothered to read the story. Jeter's contribution to the Star Wars legend is not all bad. He continues the interesting central conflict of father against son, or at least progenitor against offspring began by George Lucas. Still, science fiction fans rank among the closest of readers, and they deserve authors and editors who are just as exacting. Jeter certainly should have been able to adhere to established Star Wars story lines much more accurately.

This alternate Star Wars back story gives us a look at just what an ice blooded baddie Boba Fett really is. Those expecting the noble heroics of the usual SW stories had better look elsewhere, this noir stuff of the blackest hearted kind. Chock full of back stabbing and double dealing (and the resulting bloodletting), The Mandalorian Armor satisfies, but you might find yourself wanting a breath of fresh air afterwards. Recommended.

I have always been intrigued and mezmerized by Boba Fett, and this book not only took my level of interest to an even higher level, but brought back much of the magic of the earlier anthologies (eg.-"Tales of the Bounty Hunters," "Tales from Jabba's Palace," etc) where back alley cut-throats, sub plots wound in sub plots, and highest level backstabbing are all par for the course in the Star Wars universe. This is just how the Star Wars universe SHOULD be depicted, dark and dangerous! I couldn't put this book down until I'd read it straight through!

I loved the new characters D'harhan and Kud'ar Mub'at, I would be very anxious to get to know them much better somewhere down the line---get ready for some new spin offs, these characters lend themselves very well to new plot lines and new intrigues!

One problem I noted in this story, though, is where Zuckuss falls into it. It seems there is a slight detraction from the time line here. If the setting is in the events of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, 4-LOM should play a much more significant role in Zuckuss' life than Bossk, especially where partners are concerned!

Overall, I was very refreshed with the darkness and sub-plotting, where every nod or turn of the head has meaning--it fits right in with my original and unwavering impression of the Star Wars Universe!

If the other 2 books in this series are anything like this one, the Bounty Hunter Wars series just *might* run parallel with Zahn's "Thrawn" Trilogy!

Tamar Myers'intrepid heroine, Abigail Timberlake, is throwing a costume party to celebrate the purchase of a new house. She has an interesting assortment of guests, including her ex-husband's second wife Tweetie, who comes dressed as Little Bo Peep. Before the evening is over, Tweetie is found dead and bundled into a suit of armor which has been pushed under Abby's bed. As if that isn't enough, Abby's guests manage to set fire to her carpet and make a general mess of her house. Abby certainly has a motive for murder and she also had the opportunity. For self-protection as well as natural curiosity, Abby launches her own investigation. She discovers that Tweetie had many male friends outside of her marriage and thus there are several people who have a motive for murder. She finally figures out who the culprit is and confronts that person. The motive is a bit weak, and maybe I overlooked it, but I don't recall a solution to another murder which takes place in the book. Myers' ending could signal the end of the series or it could be the beginning of another era. Perhaps Abby has had about as many adventures as she need to.

This was my first Den of Antiquity book and I almost didn't stick with it through the first few gossipy chapters, but once the body was found, stuffed in a medieval suit of armour, the story began to pick up. Abby can't stand to be the object of suspicion, so off she dashes in a frantic effort to find the real killer. The ending isn't wholey satisfying (motive?), but still, this would be a good choice for casual, summer pool-side reading.

NIGHTMARE IN SHINING ARMOR happily continues the Den of Antiquity series. In fact, it's one of the smoothest and most fun in the comic mystery series that began with LARCENY AND OLD LACE. The rip-roaring plot is lots of fun. The book is easy to read, flows quickly and smoothly, and has a fullness and a completeness to it. In other words, it's a satisfying read. But a surprise plot turn makes you wonder -- is this the end of the series? But no! Check out the next one: SPLENDOR IN THE GLASS. Nicely done.