A masterful story of cunning, treachery, determination, and bravery. Brian Jacques' tale of how the Redwall Abbey came to be is truly a must-read for any fan of the Redwall series, and for anyone who has not read one of the Redwall books, Mossflower is a great place to start!

The story is full of riddles, songs, memorable characters, and one cannot forget the battles of the peace loving woodland creatures versus the evil troops under the command of the the merciless wildcat Tsarmina. The brave Martin, clever Gonff, the strong Skipper of the Otters and a plethora of other colorful characters make this book one not to miss. There's something for everyone in this book, action, humor, love, mystery, and riddles that make the mind boggle!

Truly one of Brian Jacques' best and most beautifully done works, also a fantastic tale for all ages! This was the first of Jacques' books that I ever read, and I've looked forward to any of his new books ever since

And I mean SERIOUSLY; he doesn't treat it as some kind of mysterious and superfluous aspect of Flash that Web Designers will never have the wherewithall to cope with, as the other writers have done. He not only suggests good and well thought out general programming techniques, applicable to most programming languages, but he also picks apart every single aspect of Actionscripting. This is an awesome task; not even the documentation that ships WITH Flash is useful for a real Actionscript programmer. Indeed, it is as though Macromedia somehow didn't WANT us to use Actionscript effectively, or wanted to make money by selling some aftermarket handbook to Actionscript that they never ended up producing, their documentation is so bad.

Anyone who has delved deeply enough in any other Actionscript book has almost certainly lost hope for programming Flash. The other books I've read have been fine for the casual programmer; they touch upon the possibilities of Flash, but never have the guts to go on in and get dirty in it. Do they talk about how to organize your code to make it legible, reusable and object oriented? Do they tell you the execution order of actions when the .swf is actually RUNNING? Do they talk about creating Objects and using those objects effectively (and I don't mean graphical objects). Colin Moock's book does.

This book could singlehandedly create a wave of sharp Actionscript programmers, so that the world at large takes it seriously as a programming language that's capable of great things; not just lukewarm lead-the-mouse-to-the-cheese type computer games. And stupid Anime wanna-be intro movies that anger website customers.

One thing I wanted from the book was a delving into which aspects of Flash movies tax the processing power of the computer most, and what techniques exist to avoid them. We all know alpha-ed out graphics and moving large, intricate pictures slow things down, but I wanted to know the real nittly-gritty on which things do it and how. Admittedly, though, this would be looking a gift horse in the mouth. This book has changed me as a Flash programmer forever.

Colin Moock starts you off easy with a gentle introduction of programming, but it quickly becomes a very steep learning curve after chapter one. The non-technically literate may want to try another book first. That said, it's brilliant and a must-have for anyone that's serious about learning ActionScripting.

This book is highly technical, and after learning to code with it, I suggest you give Flash Math Creativity a look to see what cool tricks you can do with your newly aquired AS skills.

It is easily the most comprehensive guide to ActionScripting in Flash I have ever seen. The first 2/3 of the book is divided into concept-based chapters - Variables, Loops, Events, Objects, Arrays, etc. This is great for when you think you know what you're trying to do, but you need some prosaic insight into the options you have, and some tips on avoiding pitfalls.

The last 1/3 is a detailed ActionScript Reference that puts all others to shame. It covers everything. Where Macromedia's ActionScript reference barely explains many commands, and almost never gives example code, Colin's guide has several realistic examples for every single entry. It will never fail to mention that one little quirky behavior that would otherwise keep you up all night debugging.

It is not a book of tutorials, and this is a good thing. Now there's nothing wrong with tutorials - they're a powerful tool for visualizing a complete process - but sometimes you want to just look something up. I use it incessantly: my copy of ASDG is only two weeks old, but the dog-ears and post-it notes make it look like I've owned it for years.

It is a book that I can honestly say has made as much a difference to my creative relationship with computers as the legendary Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide. Thanks, Colin!

Badrang was Lord and Tyrant of the Eastern Coasts. One of his slaves was Martin. Martin defied Badrang and was tied up on the roof of Fortress Marshank. During the storm at night, Rose and Grumm see Martin up on the roof. They are a mouse and mole from Noonvale to find Rose's brother Brome who is somewhere inside the fortress. In the morning, Rose and Grumm use slingstones to drive away the hungry seabirds intent on eating Martin.

Martin did not die like he was supposed to so Badrang puts hin in the prison pit where Felldoh and Brome are. They escape and get split up while at sea for a while. Brome and Felldoh wash up near Marshank and Rose, Martin and Grumm end up by the Pygmy shrews' caves. There they meet Pallum. Pallum, Rose, Grumm and Martin go on a quest to Noonvale, Rose's home, for an army to rid the land of Badrang. Brome and Felldoh stay with the Rambling Rosehip players.

The ending is the tragic battle of Marshank. Read the book to see if Martin wins!

True friendship and love shines through all obstilcals. once again you wonder just how Brain Jacques thinks up of all of these juicy books. the pick em up, never put em down book is back and this one will really have you pacing on your floor, wondering if she or he will make it through the hard difficulty. again saddness arrives but Joy comes also. Don't miss out on another wild ride of a Redwall Series books! I'm warning you, you'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll have your emotions hangin on by just a thin thread when reading these books. Soon you'll be cheering the battle cry of the wild badgers and hares of Salamandeston, " Eeulaliaaaaaaaaaa!"

here you'll feel as if you are watching them, the silent character in the back who knows what's going on and has the brains to figure it out. Get caught up in Jacques's world of talking animals and and funny characters. Made for all ages. But i think 6th graders and up are more able to read and understand these books better, but hey i started in 4th grade!

I would say this is an action adventure book. I say this because Mark travels all over Transall, and while traveling he meets up with different primitive tribes. He has different exciting adventures with each tribe.

People who like adventure or action stories would love to read this book because of all the exiting things that happen to Mark on his search through Transall to find the blue light that warped him into the distant future. I think this book should be read by ages seven and up and mostly read by boys.

My two favorite events of literature are setting and theme. The setting of this book is a mixture of the forest and the mountains. The theme of the book is what it's like to live in a place you don't know anything about.

I would rate this book like this: five stars on a 1-5 star scale.

Chapman clearly explains each language in a five chapters. Along the way, he includes experiences from real-life couples. After uncovering each language, Chapman uses the next couple of chapters to help the reader discover his or her own love language as well as the spouse's.

Whether you are newlyweds or have been married for years, this book is highly recommended above any other book on marriage. More than likely, a reader will discover they have misunderstood a mate because they were using the wrong language! I'm seeing my mate in completely different light now. :)

--- reviewed by Ty for Christian Bookshelf

Brian Jacques creates intricate plots and subplots, but always keeps the main action moving forward. He delights readers with his dialects and language variants of some of the creatures, most noteably the moles and sparrows. The peculiar speech of these characters is a challenge to anyone who reads this aloud, but my kids, who are now 10 and 14, can't get enough of these books for family reading time. If you haven't discovered the world of Redwall, it's time you did!

ELIXIR has all the elements of a superb read: an edge-of-your-seat plot, nonstop action, mystery, romance, and sensitive portrayal of realistic characters, with the added fascination of imagining... "what if this could really happen?! " "Would I want it to?!"

I look forward to Gary Braver's next novel, and hope he continues to contribute his high quality writing for years to come.