To me it is free-flow reading, and descriptive of the natural surroundings he encountered near and afar, on this 5,000 mile journey into the Real America. How many reading of this journey wanted to leave their cubicles and mundane suburban life behind while reading "River Horse?" I did. And I have!

This book can be a bit "prosy" and he offers thoughts and views on "this and that." It is quite an interesting journey. Give it a read. LHM is free, and can make you dream.

The characters seem a bit more likeable than in Virtual Light; Yamazaki makes a stronger mark than in the other book, and Colin Laney is just a guy who can't figure out why his talents should mean as much as they do to the people around him. Chia McKenzie is a headstrong kid out of her element, but likeable. The bad guys aren't as nebulous but instead are a present threat; among them are the Russian mafia and Laney's truly witchy old boss who wants her pound of flesh.

It's really pretty close to call, but I prefer this one just a hair over Virtual Light. Of course neither is Neuromancer, which I still consider to be Gibson's crowning achievement. Idoru is a great read, especially for a Gibson fan.

I enjoyed Idoru not only because it is a good science fiction book, but also because it is a good story with an interesting plot. I found it fairly easy to read and it kept my attention. Compared with many of the sci-fi novels I've read, this one was refreshingly direct. I never felt slowed down by excessive descriptions of odd technologies or confused by scientific jargon. (If you're a huge fan of the strange futuristic environments, it does take place in twenty first century Japan, and there are plenty of extraordinary elements to keep you entertained. After all, it's a science fiction novel!)

The main plot line of the novel is centered around a rock star who wants to marry an entirely virtual woman, and the people who are investigating this strange situation. Colin Laney is a man who has been hired by the rock star's employees to find out what exactly is going on, and Chia McKenzie is a fourteen year old girl from the rocker's fan club who has been sent to Tokyo to find out if her idol is indeed marrying a virtual creation. Gibson follows these two on their way through Tokyo, and while doing so creates a fabulous picture of bizarre clubs and exceptional buildings that have sprung up in Japan since it suffered a huge earthquake.

One of the best parts of the book is Gibson's way of describing the settings and situations. Having also read Neuromancer, which is considered Gibson's best achievement, I can say that I enjoyed Idoru a great deal more. It is written in a much more straightforward style, and I simply found it easier to understand and more interesting than Neuromancer.

As far a sci-fi novels are concerned, Idoru has its share of computer related and technological scenes. Many important incidents occur online, and having an entirely virtual character of course requires advanced technology. In my opinion Idoru is a perfect book for a science fiction fan or a fan of William Gibson's work. It is also an excellent book if you are just looking for a good novel to read in your free time.

The play has the first of Shakespeare's many brave, resourceful and cross-dressing heroines, Julia.

Shakespeare always used his fools and clowns well to make serious statements about life and love, and to expose the folly of the nobles. Two Gentlemen of Verona has two very fine comic scenes featuring Launce. In one, he lists the qualities of a milk maid he has fallen in love with and helps us to see that love is blind and relative. In another, he describes the difficulties he has delivering a pet dog to Silvia on his master, Proteus', behalf in a way that will keep you merry on many a cold winter's evening.

The story also has one of the fastest plot resolutions you will ever find in a play. Blink, and the play is over. This nifty sleight of hand is Shakespeare's way of showing that when you get noble emotions and character flowing together, things go smoothly and naturally.

The overall theme of the play develops around the relative conflicts that lust, love, friendship, and forgiveness can create and overcome. Proteus is a man who seems literally crazed by his attraction to Silvia so that he loses all of his finer qualities. Yet even he can be redeemed, after almost doing a most foul act. The play is very optimistic in that way.

I particularly enjoy the plot device of having Proteus and Julia (pretending to be a page) playing in the roles of false suitors for others to serve their own interests. Fans of Othello will enjoy these foreshadowings of Iago.

The words themselves can be a bit bare at times, requiring good direction and acting to bring out the full conflict and story. For that reason, I strongly urge you to see the play performed first. If that is not possible, do listen to an audio recording as you read along. That will help round out the full atmosphere that Shakespeare was developing here.

After you finish Two Gentlemen of Verona, think about where you would honor friendship above love, where equal to love, and where below love. Is friendship less important than love? Or is friendship merely less intense? Can you experience both with the same person?

Enjoy close ties of mutual commitment . . . with all those you feel close to!

There was room for improvement; some of the characters could have used a bit more attention (Alfred the Englishman, for instance: we hear more about him than we actually see of him, and although a devout Christian, he evidently has no compunction about bedding any available woman; if this attitude was acceptable according to the Christianity of the times, Mr. Sanders should have tipped us to it), and after having our interests built up about the Mexica Empire, we never get to see it. I kept getting the feeling that Vladimir Khan was supposed to be a historic figure, but I couldn't figure out who. And the novel's three or four references to gays were marred by blatant stereotypes; attitudes toward homosexuality were different in the East of this era, and a closer look at those attitudes' carry-over to the New World would have been interesting. And interesting though it was to see a world in which it was the whites who were the minority, often enslaved and denigrated, this situation wasn't given quite enough attention; I kept wondering where the word "Nasrani" came from, too, although it was obvious what it meant ("Christian").

Furthermore, the title really doesn't have much to do with the book itself (nor does the cover with the plot, although that's obviously not the writer's fault; why didn't the publishers use a scene of Finn facing the Cossack-Native-etc. army? That would have actually related to the story and still have demonstrated the alternate earth premise); the "journey to Fusang" only comes up in the last fifteen pages or so. The interactions between the Chinese in "California" and the Muslims in "Louisiana," and those of both with the Natives (no "America" here, so we can't say "Native Americans"), demanded more attention, as did the opium/slave trade (I thought opium was introduced to China by the British, who in this world are in no position to do so; interesting that slavery apparently knows no racial boundaries here, but slavery has been denounced in every culture in which it has occurred, and we hear little abolitionist talk (the heroes regard it as immoral, but don't seem to consider it something that can be fought).) and the "new" versions of various nations and continents, and certainly there should have been some new religions or "heresies" that sprang up as a result of these various interactions; the book should have been longer, with more space for such details, or better yet, had a sequel, or a few. The novel ends with the perfect opportunity for Finn and partner Yusuf to set out for new areas (the Mexica Empire, the unexplored North, or back across the sea to Europe or Africa or elsewhere), and, upon checking, I was surprised that the writer didn't return to this world; I'd certainly like to. Although all in all only somewhat above average, for what was apparently a first novel, this was a remarkable piece of work.

The Open View challenges the classical-Philosophical view of God preached and taught by so many in a systematic and decisive way. Our traditional understandings of immutablity, providence, sovereignity, and immpassiblity need to truly be re-examined in the light of our practice/experience and, as the authors so argue, in the light of the Biblical text. Aristotle is put in his place, sorry, but the un-moved mover is not the God of the Holy Writ. To be ever changing and relational is to be Divine. I Give this Book a strong 10!!

... I am sure that some of these examples worked, but only in the head of the author who authored the chapter. I am so upset about this one; ...

The layout is sloppy and poorly thought out - eg they have 2 pages of code and THEN they describe what is happening in the previous 2 pages, requiring you to be costantly flicking back and forth. Simply repeating each line of code with its explanation would have made it so much easier to read (authors should check out "OOP with Actionscript" to see how it SHOULD be done).

The code that is included is full of stuff like

gotoAndPlay("whatever");//used to be gotoAndStop

making it obvious that the author hasn't even bothered to clean up their code before slapping it in the book. When covering a complicated topic like this, having comments that reveal the "mistakes" that the author made along the way is confusing, annoying and inexcusable (not to mention very revealing about the amount of effort [or lack thereof] that went into this book).

Save your money

cheers

I thought this book was unique in that it didn't get into the hows and whats of Flash, but straight into some very interesting example code. It also doesn't focus purely on Flash, but integrating flash with web application server products like ColdFusion and ASP.

While I'd never be able to create any of these examples on my own, it was quite cool being able to walk through each code example and see how everything works. Some of the Flash code was a bit hairy to follow, but they did attempt to explain it. Rather than learning what the code meant, I just read the comments stating what the code does and moved on. Unless you're experienced in flash, you won't be able to follow the code line for line. However, wading in example apps above your capabilities is a great place to learn.

Each chapter is a different example application, focusing on a dynamic backend. Some use ASP, some use ColdFusion, etc. So you can pick your middleware of choice and they'll be an example here for you where you can view both the Flash code, as well as the code it interfaces with to achieve dynamic content.

I wouldn't recommend this book as your soul source of Flash instruction, but it is a unique book rich with very usable example code. I didn't learn much Flash actionscript from this book, but I did come out of it with a good understanding of how Flash can be dynamic, using XML to communicate back and forth to your scripting language of choice. If that's what you're after, this might be a good book for you.

The book could serve as a valuable reference if it had an index. Since it doesn't, I failed to find the value of the book. This is a shame because I think if this extra time had been committed (for the index or other cross reference lists) then it could have been valuable.

First, a lot of the things were related to some relatively obscure Bible passages. There was virtually nothing in the whole book that would be appropriate for Christmas, and only one idea that related to Easter. Some of the more well known basic concepts or stories, typically taught to children in the lower grades, like Noah's Ark, creation, the Good Samaritan, the rosary, the season of Advent, are also either not represented at all or represented by only one or two crafts. So, Easter gets the same amount of attention as Jacob's gift to Esau (that's ok--I had to look that one up, too; see Genesis 33:11).

Second, the vast majority utilize candy.

Third, in many cases the edible part of the craft appeared to be just an afterthought for the sake of getting it into the book. For example, one craft involves making a puppet out of a paper bag. The edible part of this craft is that you fill the bag with candy, then use the puppet after you eat the candy! A lot of the ideas weren't that new or orignial, they were just old ideas with candy added to them. Many would be just fine crafts with the "edible" portion deleted.

Fourth, even though you use food in all of these crafts, you wouldn't necessarily want to eat them. At least one involved gluing jelly beans to paper. Another was a game involving ice cream cones and marshmallows, where you were throwing the marshmallows around. Assuming everyone would miss at least one throw, who wants to eat marshmallows that have landed on the ground? Just because you use a food to make a craft doesn't make it an edible craft!

And yes, there are patterns, but only 13 pages worth. And 3 or 4 of the pages are for basic enough things that you don't really need a pattern.

The book is listed as being for 2nd through 6th graders, but aside from a couple of crafts designed as snacks, I think the majority of this is well beneath 5th and 6th graders. First and 2nd graders are probably the best audience, although they may need assistance in putting some of the items together.