In some ways, I may have been right. "The Grand Design", Marco's second, is a more coherent affair than his first effort. Editing is obviously no longer a problem. "Design" is therefore obviously more representive of what Marco can do than "Jackal".

In other ways, though, I was very wrong. The problem is, "Design" shows that Marco is, as present, not capable of doing all that much. It might be more coherent than its predecessor, but it is no better. Marco continues to struggle both with his characters and with his plot.

With regard to character: the protagonist, Richius, remains an utter dunce. Marco's attempt to re-introduce an arch villain (Biagio) as an born-again hero is interesting but unconvincincingly presented. In fact, the only appealing character Marco manages to portray is a toy-maker, whose presence in the story is, however, contrived.

With regard to plot: the "grand" design giving rise to the title is based solely upon the unconvincing assumption that it would be A Jolly Good Idea to blindly attack Biago's island retreat. If you think about it, that's not good idea at all. In fact, it's downright stupid.

Any book is, by definition, constrained by its author's intellectual capacity. A reader doesn't generally have to think about that (which is a great tribute to most authors). In the case of Marco, however, you can't get around this fact. You find yourself reading a story which is not logical, based as it is upon flawed and unconvincing premises. In short, you find yourself reading (and criticising) a writer, not living a story.

"Design" is not a good book. I recommend it only to casual readers. And I give it three stars only because I know a lot of readers are, indeed, casual, and couldn't care less about criticism such as mine (they may well be right, come to think of it!). Those readers may well enjoy this book, if only because it's a quick and easy read.

A final note: Marco has been compared to George R.R. Martin as a writer of "military" fantasy. That's ridiculous. If you like Martin (and you should) don't read Marco. Check out Steven Erickson instead. Now that's an intelligent (and seriously exciting) writer!

Abandoning his earlier concentration upon Richius, many of the earlier secondary characters, as well as some new ones, are given equal billing in this book, doing much to expand upon the complexity of the author's story, not only in terms of its characters but the storyline as well. Marco handles the shifts in perspective deftly, and, unlike his first novel, has imbued them with greater emotional intensity. As always, his characters are both sympathetic and flawed, though I believe in this book the author has taken his characterizations to a new level, with only his original hero changing relatively little from the first installment. As his presence is less obtrusive amongst the varied cast here, problematic elements about Richius that persist from the first book are less noticeable and intrusive.

I guess the biggest problem that I have with the character of Richius is that he seems not to learn from his previous errors, paying great lip-service to the destructive nature of vengeance, vacillating back and forth between participation and regret, yet persisting in its pursuance, once again placing all he loves at risk for the illusory goal of retribution. As the self-destructive and empty reward of revenge and consuming hatred is a major theme of this novel, echoed again and again, it would be more convincing if the main hero experienced an epiphany equal to those of Herrith, Simon, and Enli. Instead, he often seems simply carried along with events.

I would have given this work a greater score were it not for the implausibility of events that take place at the book's conclusion. Not wishing to give the end away, I will only say that an act of forgiveness takes place that seems weakly founded upon one character's response to another, and while some effort is expended to provide reasons for the character's change of heart, I found it unconvincing. Further, in structure the conclusion to this book is very similar to the last, an emerging device that I think it would be better for the author to jettison. Nonetheless, the author is moving from strength to strength, and this book should do much to remove the doubts of earlier detractors. Certainly one of the better series currently going, (I find myself in accord with the praise of an earlier reviewer, author Victoria Strauss--not surprising, perhaps, when you consider she's mentioned in the book's acknowledgements), and I heartily recommend it while you wait for the release of Martin and Jordan's newest books later this Fall.

I won't get into too much of the story line, because other reviews have covered that, however I do want emphasize the development of characters in this novel are amazing. The reader finds themselves feeling for, not only the heroes and victims in this book, but the antagonists as well. No character is one sided, being wholely evil or purely good. Even the most righteous can have moments of moral weakness.

There were two books I've read this year that I could not put down. This was one of them. The other was A CLASH OF KINGS by George R. R. Martin. John Marco has been the only other author to capture my imagination and fantasies and keep me eagerly guessing throughout the entire book as well as Martin has in the last few years. He is truely proving himself to be a fantasy giant on the ranks with Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, George R. R. Martin, and even J. R. R. Tolkein himself.

This book is a must read for fantasy fans and I am fervently awaiting the sequel, THE SAINTS OF THE SWORD.

Mann walks us through a revealing series of presidential administrations and policies, starting with Truman's, and ending with Ford's. Each has a role in gearing up the meat grinder, some more honorably than others, but none comes off looking good as the country spirals ever downward toward disillusion and defeat. Ditto for the senators who opposed the war (Fulbright, Mc Govern, Mansfield, et. al.), lawmakers who, despite hours of pious rhetoric, could never get their legislative act together. Scarce mention is made of military or protest developments except when either influences major political decisions. As a much needed political chronicle of that 30 year span, the book succeeds admirably.

Mann's perspective is primarily a liberal one (which probably explains one particularly misleading review), but favors no individuals, liberal, conservative, or radical. He emphasizes the extent to which official hands were tied by red-baiting rhetoric of the cold war, in which every communist, nationalist or internationalist, was seen as taking his marching orders from Moscow. Such cramped thinking refuses to distinguish a national liberation movement from an international communist conspiracy, thereby setting policy on a one way track that no one could get off of. Here Mann is on solid ground. But on the allied topic of the domino theory, there is more truth to that theory than liberals such as Mann like to admit. The problem for defenders of the theory is that southeast Asia is not where the dominoes fell. Rather they fell in Central Africa (Angola, Mozambique, the collapse of the Portuguese empire) and Central America (Nicaragua, El Salvador, to a degree Guatemala). As more recent documentation has shown, rebel movements in each of these contested venues were boosted considerably by US defeat, demoralization, and subsequent lessening of a will to intervene. So in the rather ironical sense of being right for the wrong reasons, conservatives understood better than liberals the global stakes of intervention in southeast Asia. Be that as it may, Mann has written a very readable and revealing account of how Washington got us into that bloody mess in the first place.

Patterson not only deftly illuminates his main cultural theme - the "Grand Expectations" which the American people experienced during this period - but also the curious mixture of supreme self confidence coupled with a nagging insecurity about the "communist menace", and finally, the slow erosion of that confidence following the assassination of the Kennedy's & King, and the debacle of Viet Nam.

Patterson's integration of description and analysis is seamless, his depiction of the events and people is acute, and his notes are a goldmine of sources of further reading.

The book is recommended to anyone with an interest in this era.

What was most interesting to me was the powerful influence religion had on our society and the conflicts that arose during the Civil Rights movement and the Age of Aquarius. Patterson noted that Americans remained the most devoted church-goers throughout the troublesome 60's. The church became the rallying point of the Civil Rights movement, and also served as the bastion of white supremacy. Such contradictions made for volatile conflicts as each side felt it had the moral upper hand. The seemingly all-pervasive drug culture may have captured the public's imagination, but by and large America remained a nation of social conservatives.

Patterson provides good overviews of the Korean and Vietnam wars, tying them into the ideology of the Cold War. He shows the seamless pattern that ran through these conflicts, as well as other conflicts in which the US found itself embroiled in during its effort to defeat communism. The costly battles left millions of Asians dead and no clear victories, tarnishing the reputation we had achieved after WWII as the champion of democracy. He illustrates how each president from Truman to Nixon tried to avoid these conflicts, but somehow could never shake the "Losing China syndrome."

It is a well-documented book covering a tremendous amount of ground. Patterson steers clear of polemics, opting for a well-balanced assessment of the era. Naturally when one takes on such a broad subject, certain discrepencies do arise, but there are no glaring errors, and the book has a narrative grace that leads the reader effortlessly through the tumultuous events.

Professor Patterson,the author of diverse, acclaimed books on this period, draws on an impressive panoply of sources from which he has crafted a judicious assessment of the period from Truman through Nixon.

I find that he strikes the proper timbre in examining this critical period of great American responsibilities and major domestic and international challenges.

One great strength is his sensitivity to economic and social shifts. Another strength is Patterson's keen insights into the personalities of Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, and Carter, with Ford mentioned in passing.

In 790 pages of narrative, some of my favorite examples of quirky history must be excluded. I particularly regret exclusion of the Ford-Kissinger Mayaquez fiasco, in which 41 marines lost their lives rescuing 38 "hostage"crew members who had been released before the rescue operation commenced.

One problem in writing contemporary history is that new, essential source materials are continually being made available. In a subsequent edition i would hope that Professor Patterson might incorporate insights from:

Fred Emery's "Watergate: The Corruption of American Politics and the Fall of Richard Nixon," together with the excellent 3-video "Watergate" shown on The Discovery Channel;

John Lewis Gaddis's "We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History;" and

Jeremy Isaacs' & Taylor Downing's "Cold War: an Illustrated History, 1945-1991," which is a companion book to the superb, 24-episode CNN Cold War series.

I tought the book was great. It discusses a working class success story from the struggle of a poor artist to world wide fame. It is too bad about the differences that came between the members but the theme is common to many great bands, not just Grand Funk Railroad. Mark has found salvation after personal struggle and I feel that is protrayed very well. Mark is very opinionated and these opinions are discussed as is by the author.

As a musiciaon I would have like to hear a bit more on equipment, especially the WEST sytems the band used that were unique to Michigan.

The difficulty with Terry Knight is another unfortuante event yet Knight was well within all his legal rights.

The discussions of poor contracts and relationsips of artists that sour is common to many talented groups. I don't view it as a personal assult on Don Brewer as discussed in some of the books reviews.

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH is an immensely engrossing story. I found that the time line--four days to solve a murder that had occurred four weeks previously and had gone cold--in order to save his wife, Frannie, from suffering more indignities and consequences for protecting a friends's secret, was exciting and compelling. From the first chapter, I wanted to finish the book FAST! I love when a book hooks me like this, and that is what all of Lescroart's books do...grab you and keep you going and going until you reach the suprising, satisfying conclusion.

By the way, listening to one of his wonderful books on tape, HARD EVIDENCE, I learned his name is pronounced la-sqwaa--soft "a." Something fun to know!

In this book, Hardy is an attorney whose wife somehow gets "involved" in a murder investigation of their children's classmate's mother. In order to clear her name, as it were, Hardy works with a friend in Homicide and undertakes his own probing, and as it turns out, dangerous, investigation of the murder.

The book is a compelling read from page one. Although I freely admit I'm not the best at guessing "who done it", the twists and turns the investigation takes really blew my mind. The clues were there, but there was no way I could put it all together. I guess that's why I'm a reader and not a crime investigator ;)

I really can't recommend this book highly enough. I'm certainly looking forward to reading more of Mr. Lescroart's writing. Hopefully, you will too :D

It displays an unabashed and unapologetic view of the U.S. as a world 'hegemon' (author's word) and divides the rest of the world in 'vassals' (author's word), rivals, 'pivots' and strategically irrelevant countries. Western Europe and Japan are the prominent members of the first category, Russia and China of the second. The pivots are the countries that have strategic choices important to the U.S., such as the Ukraine. United Kingdom is an (amusing) example of strategically irrelevance.

The book proceeds by systematically and often tediously analyzing case-by-case scenarios and what-ifs concerning the strategic impact of the policy decisions of the players (vassals, rivals and pivots) in four main theatres: Europe, Russia, Central Asia and the Far East. The analysis seemed rather un-principled to me but by the end I could discern some key points. The most important of them is that the U.S., despite is global hegemony cannot afford wars but it has to maintain its dominance by smartly playing the rivals against each other so that a major global rival does not emerge.

I think the book's shocking disregard of democracy and national self-determination is quite consistent with the way the American administration tends to act in international affairs. Unfortunately, the current administration does not seem to take the book's main advice regarding the need for America to avoid outright wars and to dominate through smart diplomacy.

But a conclusion based on geostrategic and military goals only is not complete without other elements of power (culture, society, education, technology, economy and cultural resilience). 20th century gave us hard lessons. In 1900, people firmly believed that only 3 powers would survive: British Empire, United States and Russia. Some added Germany without much conviction, nobody talked of France or Japan. China was ready to be carved up and India was a British colony. In 2000, United States are at the top but with deficits in line with the British Empire a century ago. Japan nobody talked about is world second largest economy and despite loss of WW II is presently achieving its sphere of Coprosperity in South-East and East Asia. This time with the tacit approval of most partners. Germany is world third largest economy and achieved all its geostrategical targets (including integrating all of Europe and chasing the British out of India), even while loosing two world wars and being divided for 45 years. France was number four and still is number four. The British Empire no longer exists, Hong Kong returned to China, Britain is becoming more federal and is at position 5. China did not only chase all foreigners but is a serious world player. India is the other Asian giant whose shadow starts looming. And Russia collapsed.

To resize the importance of military forces: China used guerilla, India non-violence, Japan and Germany are more succesful with their industrial strategy, France survived with a mix of culture, trade, high-tech (Concorde, TGV,..), diplomacy and military. Britain did not loose a war and Russia was a superpower.

After reading this excellent book, everybody will be able to draw his own conclusions.

Anyone concerned with America's national security should be reading this book. The fact that it is four years old (older if one considers the intellectual gestation period), simply adds historical proof that its author is, as the Chinese have noted publicly, America's greatest strategist.

This book is written in plain English. That alone sets it apart from the next level down. This is a carefully presented essay that makes eminent sense. It deals with the most important region in the world: the troubled Eurasian land mass. Rich in resources, rife with ethnic conflict and water scarcity issues, it is surrounded by major powers with global ambitions: France and Germany to the West, Russia to the North, China to East, and Iran and Turkey to the South. A number of clearly presented maps add considerable value to the book.

With a level of calm and reason that is rare in books of this sort, Brzezinski provides an understandable yet sophisticated articulation of a real-world "grand strategy" essential to the future of America in this new century. His strategic vision honors both France and Germany as co-equal and vital elements of a new European community; shows how the larger Europe (ultimately co-equal to America) is essential to the salvation of Russia; makes the case for an American-Chinese strategic accommodation as the anchor for America's involvement in Eurasia; carefully integrates America's direct and special relations with Japan, Korea, and India as the bowl beneath China and Eurasia, and then concludes with decisive evaluations of the future importance of drawing Turkey into the European community while encouraging Iranian-Turkish collaboration and Iranian commercial and commodities channels from Eurasia out to the world. In passing, the author validates Australia's new strategy of working closely with Indonesia to resolve the latter's many ethnic issues while establishing a southern line against excessive Chinese influence in the region.

There are numerous subtle and deep insights throughout the book, from the observation that war may now be a luxury only the poorest of nations can afford, to why China should consider America its natural ally and why Russia is at risk of becoming genetically Asian instead of European within a generation or two. The author proposes a new Trans-Eurasian Security System (TESS) that engages Russia, China, Japan and America-one would assume that at some point Turkey, Iran, and the new Europe would be included. The author gores a number a sacred oxen, including those associated with the demonization of Iran (this should end) and the exaggeration of China as a global threat (it will at best be a regional super-power at the high end of Third World per capita earnings). While other poor Nations have defeated America decisively (Viet-Nam, for example), the author deliberately itemizes China's 3 million men under arms, it's 9,400 tanks and 5,224 fighters, as well as its 57 surface ships and 53 submarines, and offers his final judgment that China and America have too many common interests to permit a demonization of China to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it might if China were confronted across the board and denied its reasonable historical claim to having influence over the region that hosts the "Middle Kingdom."

A special note is in order about the importance of this book as an antidote to two viral infections now afflicting many otherwise excellent thinkers. This book is a marvelous, deeply grounded treatment of the historical constancy of strategy qua "enduring interests" and grand players-as much as one may wish to speculate about the globalization and localization of international politics, Brzezinski puts it all in a grand strategic context that is compelling in its logic as well as its understanding of the deep cultural threads that we must weave together if we are to survive one another's less enlightened machinations. Another strength of the book is its avoidance of the technophilia that has corrupted strategic thinking at the highest levels. The Revolution in Military Affairs and the "systems of systems", while well-intentioned, are both devoid of serious strategic reasoning-as Colin Gray among others have pointed out, technology is not strategy, nor does it follow that strong technology will defeat an enemy with weak technology but a stronger strategic culture and the ability to wage war by means other than force on force.

This book, together with Colin Gray's "Modern Strategy", Robert Young Pelton's "World's Most Dangerous Places", the two books by Robert Kaplan on his travels in the Eurasian region, and both Michael Klare's book on "Resource Wars" as well as Marc de Villier's book on "Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource", will make any intelligent person as conversant as they need to be with the most pressing geopolitical issues of our time. If one adds Joe Thorton's book on Pandora's Poison, David Helvarg's book on "Blue Frontier: Saving America's Living Seas", Larrie Garrett's book "Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health", and William Shawcross on "Deliver Us From Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords, and a World of Endless Conflict", the lesser but still vital long-term issues of the environment, public health, and ethnic conflict will be fully appreciated.

I mention all these books deliberately, to make the point that it is Brzezinski's book that is both the foundation and the capstone for integrating the analysis from these other diverse renditions into a grand strategy. No one else has done it. He is America's foremost strategist and likely to remain so for some time to come.

The story is magnificently presented with compassion and clarity. All the details are there- the events leading up to the masacre of the Romanovs, the early details of Mrs. Anderson's return to public scrutiny, the complicated trials and associated cast of charaters. After reading this book, one is certain it is she. The final riddle is only how the DNA test was "fixed" to arrive at the results that deny Anna Anderson her true identity even from the grave.

Mrs. Wurts fantasy novel have been a favorite of mine since I first encountered "Curse of the Mistwraith" and this book will not disappoint the fans of the series. Well... almost. Maybe it's the price of paper going down, maybe it's just a trend, but you get a feeling lately that fantasy authors who write series just let themselves go (Wheel of Time, for example). The whole series, and this book in particular, could use a serious tightening.

Because, all in all, while all of the old characters do all of the old things in this novel, nothing much happens. The whole book could be summed up in about 3 paragraphs. and it should have been.

So if you've got some time to kill, have fun. But I'd recommened speed reading it, and waiting for some more monumental things happening in future volumes.

Which I will no doubt buy.

have fun

This series is fantastic, and I would recommend it to any lover of SF/F. However, I do recommend starting with the first book Curse of the Mistwraith. It will save you much frustration, and increase your reading pleasure infinitely.

The Grand Design series of books are worthy of any philosophical discourse. They tackle every aspect of spiritual life in a down-to-earth context. Whether the reader is sceptical about an after-life or unsure about a world other than what is immediately visible to us, every word that is read in the book has deep, intimate meaning.

It is a work illuminating on all levels. I thoroughly recommend these books it to anyone interested in what the life on earth is all about.

Though Paul seems at time a romantic, quotting descriptions of places from epic poetry, the Illiad, or modern works of fiction, time and again he finds something different, and often that is a great deal more gritty, spent, or to use some of his massive vocabulary, enervated, melancholy, moribund, or lugubrious (I had to use a dictionary several times in reading it, but hey, I learned something). Though some of it comes off as depressing, some quite depressing, I wouldn't have it any other way; he tells it like it is, describing the places he really saw and the people he really met. Avoiding the tourist's Mediterranean, not wanting to just see ruins, castles, and pretty beaches, Paul shows us in this work how the people live, work, and play in the countries of this great "Inner Sea." Expressing "traveller's guilt" at times for being a "voyeur," Paul observed often times the sorrows, tragedies, and miseries, but also the joys and the friendliness, of the inhabitants of this part of the world.

Paul does not romantize any of the countries he sees. He describes in detail the desolate look of the Spanish seacoast in winter (Paul deliberately traveled in the toursit off season), of all the English-language signs, cheap hotels, billboards, shops selling cheap souvenirs, trailer parks, all waiting forlornly for the summer hordes of tourists, a vacation mecca that was more English than Spanish. He goes into considerable detail his efforts to understand the bloody spectacle that is the bullfight in Spain, talking to Spaniards everywhere and even attending a few (and watching some in smoky bars in Spain), but never develop a true comprehension (or liking) for it. He visits war-torn Slovenia and Croatia, sharing dirty hotels with desperate refugees, worried about snipers, harrassed by police at border checkpoints, looking at bullet and mortar holes in ancient structures. His time in Albania is surreal, a land of screaming and whining beggars, virtual starvation, a land that just recovered from one of the most xenophobic dicators in history, one that mandated everyone has his own bunker and not even own his own car - his description of Albania alone was worth the price of the book. Northern Cyprus he spent some time in, a ghost-town, a phantom nation, one that doesn't exist except in a legal limbo, cut-off from the rest of the island by the Green Line, forever a truncated failure of a country, in reality an expensive Turkish colony. He referred to Greece as "the ragged edge of Europe," a poor country that was basically a slightly better Albania as it were, a nation that was not really modern and an EC welfar state, and despite its rich cultural history, the people of that nation today - he writes - are not really truly aware of or part of the heritage of Aristotle, Pericles, and Archimedes. I could go on at length here, but suffice it to say his portraits of each country are fascinating. Some are a bit brief; he doesn't spend that much time in Slovenia for instance (not as much as he did in Croatia for example), and I got the impression in Morocco he was just glad his trip was finally ended.

The book is not perfect though. Some of the locations I thought he would spend more time on, specifically Jerusalem, Istanbul, and Venice, but perhaps if he did the book would be massive. At the very least in Istanbul there were political and terrorist problems, thus complicating his stay. All in all though I found this book quite worthwhile.

At times his natural cynicism gets the better of him, but his writer's eyes and ears leave us with beautifully rendered descriptions of the places he visits and the people he meets.

My favourite chapters include his hauntingly beautiful descriptions of the mountainous terrain and secretive people of Corsica; his chronicles of the aching destitution that is Albania; his comparisons of cruise-bound Turks and land-bound Israelis; and his coming to terms with Alexandria.

Thank you Mr. Theroux for a thoroughly enjoyable, thought provoking, and ultimately funny romp of a read through the Mediterranean.