I've studied many martial arts ever since I was 5 starting with tae kwwon do, then wing chun kung fu, then tai chi followed by jeet kune do and I train in all the arts. This book advertises that it can find the right martial arts for you. That is an incorrect statement as there is no PERFECT martial art for every type of person but rather a mixture of all the arts. Learning just one art that was recommended by a book and seeding its advice is not a good idea as you techniques and such will be limited to the art. However, this book gives good information about each specific art and gives you an idea of which is a good art to start learning. As Bruce Lee said, don't be confined by arts or system, but rather try to learn the techniques from two or three arts mentioned in the book.

With many of the "For Dummies..." and "Complete Idiot's Guides to..." books you sometimes don't know what you are getting into. Some are great and some are not worth the paper and ink they are made with. In this case it is defiantly the former!

In clear, concise language the author gives a great background, history and dissection of martial arts. He doesn't stick with only one art, but rather explains all the major arts in a fair and balanced manner. The sections on cross-training and nutrition were also great.

The only think that was lacking was a mention of western boxing or savate. Both of which, in my opinion, are fine choices for the beginning martial artist.

I'm a Black belt in Tae Kwon Do I, wanted to try a new form of Martial Art. This book provides just about everything you need to pick the right Martial Art for you. It's got a easy to follow training guide. I highly recommend it,I give it a perfect 5-Star

Marion Jones is one of the Most Important Athletes in Sports over the past Decade She has forever changed what a Athlete can Proclaim as Goals.She had a Great Year at the Olympics.She will only get better with time.this is a Good Solid Book on Her I can't wait to see what Her Next Journey shall be She is Very Talented&Hard Working Person&very Down To Earth.

This is a really good book about Marion Jones, the athlete who is trying to win five gold medals at the Olympics in Sydney. It is written in a fun way, and things aren't really slow for long periods. I am a track athlete, so I understand and can relate to the 200 meters, 100 meters and long jump (these are the events that she competes in). I think that it would be more enjoyable reading this book if you are famillar with track things. This book also covers her basketball career and when she was younger. I am a big femenist and I like to read about women who have changed a lot in sports, and this book informed me more about a great star.

This book really gives you insight you wouldn't normally read about. The book starts when she was born, and continues up to the 2000 Olympics. Rapoport does an excellent job in writing about Marion. You go through the pain with Marion. I couldn't put the book down.

While the story about Lythande was fairly interesting, I found myself asking at the end, "So, what was the point?" The book reads more like a short story. While somewhat entertaining, it just didn't seem to have enough plot to it to warrant making a whole book from it. I can understand printing it as a selection in an anthology, but not in this format. I have thoroughly enjoyed Bradley's wonderful Darkover series but this just falls short of the quality I expect of her. I believe this book is simply a way to make money off Bradley's name.

...is my impression of this fairy tale like story. The female magician is conjuring her way in the usual charming wit and manners through one of her many old friend's (in no way surprising after a few centuries of lifetime) wedding ceremony in a medieval setting. With a cheerful smile on my face, I finished reading the little book with the pretty cover (hardcover, therefore its price). Just too short. I'd recomend it as a gift to casual readers or as a children's book for second grade. Isn't there someone you've always wanted to turn onto MZB?

I am delighted to have the opportunity to read yet another story of Lythande the magician. Previously I've read stories in magazines or anthologies and was quite surprised to see one long enough to rate its own book. I was first attracted to the book by the wonderful dragon on the cover and by the author's name. What a wonderful surprise to find it was a story about an old friend. Those who are looking for a meaty story may be disappointed, this is not heavy-duty "literature", but for plain old reading enjoyment I find Bradley's Lythande stories to be just right and her latest episode is an enjoyable romp through a most unusual wedding.

As the title indicates, this book is a collection of ghost stories and stories about other supernatural phenomenon such as shades and poltergeists. There are 13 chapters (imagine that). By chapter 6 the storyteller's "formula" begins to emerge and the stories become rather predictable. The storyteller (Kuclo) is a (self-proclaimed) witch (see page xi of the preface)of the Scottish coven of Green Witches. She is affectionately known as "Gundella". In addition to her stories, Gundella provides guidelines for the use of the Ouija board and instructions on how to hold a seance. This book was not as much fun as I thought it would be. I cannot recommend it to anyone.

Kuclo in her preface presents some interesting facts about witchcraft in the British Isles during the Middle Ages and her descent from the Green Witches of Scotland. This would make an interesting subject for a book on its own. In Michigan Haunts and Hauntings not only does she present ghost stories but also includes folklore, spirit communication techniques, poltergeists, phantasms of the living (astral projection), place memories (Shades in the Night) and exorcism. The poltergeist chapter is the most detailed I've read in the books I've reviewed for Amazon.com about paranormal phenomenon. I believe however that it's not shades and poltergeist activity that haunt the Bower's Harbor Inn but instead the ghosts of the original owners.

Kuclo provides maps showing where these areas are located so that readers can investigate for themselves. She inspired me. There are two stories that I'm planning on looking into because I want more information than she provided. I enjoyed Haunts!

Being the co-founder of the Michigan Anomalous Information Network, I am often asked by people "where would be a good place to start researching strange happenings in Michigan." This book is where I send them. Marion was a charming person and insightful writer. She explains stories and legends with a quick clarity that most writers lack. This is a must have book for anyone interested in Michigan and it's paranormal history.

Armistead, Barbara: "On the Trail" features two of Kindra's band from _The Shattered Chain_.

Bigelow, Jane M.H.: "Tactics" Neither Bronwyn or her cousin Danilys are Renunciates. Bronwyn's marriage is disintegrating, as her husband Donal cares only for warfare; when he isn't fighting, he talks tactics at the dinner table. When he's killed in battle, however, the tedium stands the cousins in good stead.

Boal, Nina: "The Meeting" A magician from another culture, with reversed male/female social roles, strays onto Darkover.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer: "The Legend of Lady Bruna" was cut from _Thendara House_, where it would have been a story-within-a-story read to Margali and Jaelle.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer: "Knives" Marna, a contemporary of Gwennis of _Thendara House_, has often ventured to the local Guildhouse on business - but this time, although she's a year underage, she seeks sanctuary from her stepfather's abuse and her mother's disbelief.

Breen, Walter and Jaida n'ha Sandra each present a version of the oath - Breen's analysis of *the* oath, Jaida's a version tailored to 20th century society. Breen was MZB's husband, incidentally.

Carter, Margaret: "Her Own Blood" Gwennis' putative father often called her six-fathered when he beat her for her 'seizures', but she didn't know it was true until her mother brought her to Dom Elric - the only man who could have given her flame-colored hair, let alone the untrained, unidentified laran that brings on the seizures. Gwennis' life as a junior servant is a vast improvement, but given that Elric's only son is like to die of haemophilia, her life may not remain peaceful for long.

Holtzer, Susan: "The Camel's Nose" Seven Domains society is notoriously technophobic, but there are anomalies in every society. Elinda's love of technology drew her into the Renunciates, and from thence to study Terran engineering. Upon seeing her first bicycle, she feels it's obviously superior to a horse, and Cholayna Ares is willing to let her try this unusual entering wedge for technology, which falls outside the ban on powered devices.

Kramer, Sherry: "The Banshee" Janet Rhodes, Terranan biologist, gets more than she bargained for when her hosts introduce her to the fine art of banshee-removal.

Lackey, Mercedes: "A Different Kind of Courage" Rafi's rejection from Keeper training drove her into the Guildhouse to escape being sold into marriage as a broodmare. Her oathsisters see her as a disastrous failure at everything she tries: she's almost supernaturally clumsy, and timid to boot. But when a courier team is to be sent to Caer Donn, her familiarity with Keeper protocol puts her on the team, despite her inability to defend herself. (Compare her with the more assertive Herald-Chronicler Myste in _Exile's Honor_ - neither lady can fight her way out of a henhouse. If you like this story, try Elizabeth Moon's 'Gut Feelings' in _Lunar Activity_, where a similarly timid personality develops backbone under pressure.)

Paxson, Diana: "The Mother Quest" Caitrin raised her son to the age of four - but no male past five may live in a Guildhouse, so she finally gave him up to his father's custody. Four years later, word has come of his death - but Donal's half-sister follows hard on its heels to mount a rescue operation.

Riggs, P. Alexandra: "To Open a Door" Buartha fled rape and betrayal in the Domains to a hermit's life in the Hellers with her daughter. But now her daughter's laran is beginning to flower

Shannon, Maureen: "Recruits" The narrator is the housemother of the Sisterhood of the Sword's new house in Caer Donn, left to the Sisterhood in gratitude by a man whose sister left a life of prostitution to join the Sisterhood. Since they're forbidden to actively recruit, Maellen worries over how anybody will find out they're here - needlessly, as it turns out. *Everybody's* heard of old Larren's will. There's an old saying that every Renuciate's story is a tragedy, but the motley crew of recruits who appear on the first day test that theory.

Shaw-Matthews, Patricia: "Girls Will Be Girls" My favorite. Catlyn, Dalise, and Ariane react to the standard 'your childhood has put chains on you' with laughter - 'well, they *tried*.' They're wild - a living challenge to sober Renunciate discipline, even without the practical jokes. :)

Shwartz, Susan: "Growing Pains" Like 'Girls Will Be Girls', this story makes the point that a misfit in the outside world may also be a misfit in the Guildhouse. After the fall of the Forbidden Tower, Catriona can't get laran training even at Neskaya. She plans to follow her foster-brother into the Empire, but her oath-sisters see Ann'dra's payback of old debts as a violation of the oath.

Silvestri, Margaret: "Cast Off Your Chains" Marissa Del Gado has hired Guild guides to take her into the desert - but her real goal is to rescue her sister Teri. Teri, it turns out, fell into the hands of Dry-Town slavers - and after escaping, has her own goal: establishing a new Underground Railroad.

Verba, Joan Marie: "This One Time" A childhood story of Lady Bruna Leynier, told from her mother's viewpoint. When Lord Alton leaves a skeleton force at home during a bandit-hunt, another band of raiders attack the estate.

Waters, Elisabeth: "Child of the Heart" As with Caitrin in 'The Mother Quest' (see above), Jamilla has given birth to a son - but she has chosen to give him up at birth.

Wheeler, Deborah: "Midwife" Trapped in a banshee's nest while travelling alone, Gavi helps the egg hatch - only to have the giant predator imprint on her. :)

If you've grown tired (as I occasionally do) of fantasy and science fiction filled with either damsels in distress or "women warriors" who seem to spend most of their time half-dressed, give this collection a read. You'll feel much better.

The quality is uneven, of course, and there were some stories I didn't particularly care for (which kept this from being a five-star review). My two favorites were "Knives" and "A Different Kind of Courage," but your mileage may vary, as always.

There's something for almost everyone here, unless you WANT half-dressed warrior women and damsels in distress. :)

A foundation stone to understanding the Guild of Renunciates (Free Amazons). The characters have great depth, and the plot is compelling. They should reprint this book!

Scholar Cendri and her husband, Master Scholar Dal, come to the xenophobic planet of Isis/Cinderella. Because this planet has a very strict matriarchal society, Cendri poses as the master scholar while Dal is relegated to the role of her possession and assistant. They are nominally there to study what may be ruins from the race that seeded the galaxy, but while there they find that their own assumptions about gender and power are called heavily into question.

I'd like to stress that this isn't a bad book, and MZB completists will certainly not regret reading it, but the ideas that are sketched out here are developed more fully and with much more grace in both the Darkover and Avalon books. The gender politics come over a little bit too heavy-handed and occasionally make it difficult to focus on the plot.

I have to say I started reading MZB via her mainstream novels the Avalon series. But moving onto her other works, 'The Ruins of Isis' ain't that bad. It's about an anthropologist travelling and exploring the Matriachate Isis/Cinderella under the disguise of an archaeologist. There's conflict between her and her husband, the planet's politics, people and an unveiling of those mysteries that hold the city together. Shows insights into anthropology and our society. Defintely recommended.

This is a classic Bradley book. Travel to another world called ISIS/CINDERELLA. A world where the woman is the dominant sex and the men are just playthings and slaves - wonderful. It's quite enlightening and i think more men should read it and take a few tips. Anyway it all comes crashing down around them in the end. I wont give it all away and spoil it. READ IT! I loved the book so much i even named my daughter Isis Cinderella after it.

This anthology contains stories that are mostly good, if not great, writing. But there is one of them that I must point out is decidedly NOT a canonical Darkover story; Ms. Bradley has always said that she doesn't necessarily consider stories in these anthologies to be canonical, but "Cradle of Lies", by Deborah Wheeler, is several orders of magnitude less canonical than most; in it, Ashara Alton is the chosen successor of Varzil the Good, and still a young and unproven keeper when he dies. This is distinctly NOT what we saw in Bradley's own novel, "Shadow Matrix", and although the story was well-written and interesting, I found the inconsistency distracting.

The rest of the stories are all interesting, of varying quality, but ranging from so-so to excellent; none of them were bad. Also, in her introduction to "Poetic License" by Mercedes Lackey, Bradley indicates that Lackey is her chosen heir to the Darkover series, a relevant and interesting fact now that Bradley is dead. I wonder if this also applies to the "Sword and Sorceress" series? I suppose we'll find out eventually.

The book was good, though, as with most anthologies, a bit uneven in talent. The stories seemed from different periods of Darkover's history, which could make it difficult to understand if you're not familiar with the world itself. Still it gave multifaceted views on some familiar characters and introduced well-rounded new ones. I can honestly say that there was no bad or boring story in the book, though this would not be a choice place to begin the series.

I liked the Darkover shorts in this book and particulary liked a very short one called A Matter of Perception by Lena Gore.. I have never seen this author before but I very much liked her style.. I would like to see more... I think she has a good grasp of the vagaries of Darkover... I like the way she sort of yanked you back and forth until the very end... Good style..I wish Ms. Bradley had prompted her for more.

I found this book as a whole to be quite disappointing. The stories are mostly very short -- there are 25 stories in a book a bit more than 100,000 words long. Now there are plenty of outstanding stories at lengths less than 4,000 words, but in this case too many of the stories are sketches. Often, key details are baldly told, not shown. Often, the backstory is quickly sketched in, not developed. Often, the heroine's abilities are arbitrarily revealed, not in any sense organic or believable. Most of the pieces are competently assembled sentence by sentence, but too many are poorly structured scene by scene, or are unconvincing as to plot logic.

I'll mention a few of the better pieces. Dorothy J. Heydt's "Lord of the Earth" has Cynthia travelling to Corinth, and there encountering Poseidon in a bad mood. Two stories use very similar twists involving magical familiars, though they are otherwise quite different: both were light and enjoyable: "Familiars" by Michael H. Payne, set at a magic school with a squirrel as the familiar; and "All too Familiar" by P. Andrew Miller, in which a hedge witch inherits a variety of familiars whose wizards and witches have been killed by an evil sorcerer. Laura J. Underwood's "The Curse of Ardal Glen" is a bit darker than most of these stories, about a town which has had to sacrifice a young woman to a mysterious smith every seven years for decades. Dorothy J. Heydt's daughter Meg Heydt contributes "Openings", which I liked for its engaging main character and her slightly unexpected talent. Esther Friesner is usually reliable, and her story, "Grain", is solid entertainment, about a girl apprenticed to a brewer woman, who encounters a goddess with a god problem. But these storeis, the best in the book, are no better than decent -- there is not a single excellent story in the book, no story that thrilled me.

So if the book isn't entirely a loss, it is very disappointing. I think Bradley had rigid ideas about story structure, and about story content, and her editing projects suffer from including too many stories that read too similarly, and from being too forgiving of competently written stories which fit her template but which have no fire -- no originality -- no special reason to make one want to read them. If you've been reading these books with enjoyment all along, this one may satisfy, though I don't think it's as good as some of the earlier volumes. Otherwise, I can't really recommend the book.

A wonderful collection, and a wonderful tribute to Marion Zimmer Bradley. Too bad there's only one more to come. Her skill for finding new talent will be missed.

This series of fantasy stories with women as the heros is as good as ever. This years mix of tales has a lighter more upbeat feel. All of the stories are good. Some years it seemed as if the editor was trying to do stories with a certain type of message, which always annoyed me, but not this year. Or, at least not that I could tell. In the intro it is stated that MZ Bradley has passed away. I hope her ideas for more collections hasn't.

The vast majority of the book has no relation to the title. There are great passages, but they are largely buried under dozens of pages of yammering prelude, silly bickering, and attempts at drunken humor. James Morrow's Blameless in Abaddon covers the same theme with much greater depth and breadth.

While interred in Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel witnessed a trial. While such things are not unusual, this trial was. It was unusual because of the defendant: God. God was tried for violating the covenant by turning his back in silence on the Jewish people in their greatest hour of need. God was tried in absentia, without anyone present being willing to take on the role of God's defense attorney. God was declared guilty, after which the "court" prayed. Contradiction? Perhaps. But this incident, which served as the inspiration for *The Trial of God*, is part of the long Jewish tradition of arguing with God. While Job is God's most famous interlocuter, we cannot forget the dispute the founder of the Jewish people, Abraham, had with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The trial of God is really a trial of faith; this is why the "court" prayed. They are torn between their devotion to God and their complete disappointment in God's silence. This struggle of faith is the story of *The Trial of God*, in which it is the least faithful of all, Satan, that comes to God's defense. Wiesel is fond of retelling a story about two Holocaust survivors, one a rabbi, who meet after liberation. The survivor asks the rabbi how, after all that has happened, he can continue to believe in God. The rabbi retorts by asking how, after all that has happened, can the other *not* believe in God. Wiesel has often echoed this paradox in his own sentiments. This is the paradox which *the Trial of God* presents us; it is a story of doubting trust and trusting doubt which, as Wiesel suggests, might be reconcilable only in protest. Perhaps *The Trial of God* is Wiesel's act of faith; perhaps it is an act of condemnation. I suspect that for Wiesel it is both. Anyone who pays careful attention to this work will be highly rewarded by it, not because of the answers it gives (for it gives none), but (in good Wieselian style) for the questions it raises.

The trial of god by Elie Wiesel is a stunning play about mans relationship to God and trying to understand him. The book deals a lot with the subject of faith and the trials of the Jewish people. It is a play worth reading more than once.