This is a collection of short stories. They each have a different theme but the common thread of the book is that what starts out to be a disaster or problem ends up being the best thing to happen to that person. This is a good book for the young adult but as an older person I found it a bit boring.

Just so you know: this short story collection is no relation to _Moon Called_, _Moon of Three Rings_, _Mirror of Destiny_, or even the Janus series' Mirror of Thanth.

"Desirable Lakeside Residence" - So says the sign beside the lake: one of the few remaining on the continent, where people need breathers to venture outside on the streets of cities. But something strange has been happening to it, ever since a geologist's rock collection - including lunar samples - was dumped in.

"How Many Miles to Babylon?" - A girl in our world, after suffering an apparent mild concussion in an accident with her boyfriend's motorcycle, might be developing some form of ESP.

"Moon Mirror" - Set in a world not seen before or since. This one isn't quite satisfying, although it's well written; it leads to the attempted opening of a gate, but the finale isn't really an ending. To my knowledge, the missing continuation of this story hasn't been provided in any other story to date.

"One Spell Wizard" - The only Witch World story in this book, and with a much more humorous note to it than many of its companion stories. Saystrap isn't a total failure as a wizard, but he simply can't cast a spell that will last longer than a day or so. But he's fed up with living in a cave, and takes on an apprentice to better his lot. Not for more serious spell casting, but for a sideline in fraudulent horse-trading that requires an accomplice. :) Alas, even apprentices develop minds of their own...

"Outside" - See also the earlier, shorter version "London Bridge" in _The Book of Andre Norton_. This novella-length revision tells the tale from the viewpoint of the little sister rather than the tough older brother, in a world of domed cities, walled off from the pollution and desolation outside, where the adults were lost years before to plague. As I said for "London Bridge", check out _The Girl Who Owned a City_ if the basic storyline interests you.

"Teddi" - The narrator and his little brother Joboy, two of the ever-rarer 'Nats' in a world of Littles, have been trapped, as Joboy dropped Teddi in a field during a scavenging trip out in the fields, and went back at the wrong moment to get him. The 'Nats' (naturals) are the original unaltered human stock, after laws were passed that everyone had to go through genetic alteration to become 'Littles' (a draconian solution that helped ease some of the problems of limited living space and resources). The Littles, it turns out, want slave labour - Nat children being easier to transport and direct than heavy machinery on the new planet they're colonizing. The Littles failed to take all the facts into account, though...

"Through the Needle's Eye" - Also appears in _High Sorcery_ (see my review for details).

"The Toymaker's Snuffbox" - The toymaker in question was content with his lot, and when he found a small elf woman weeping within one of his dollhouses, he insisted that it must be a dream. But he helped her out of kindness (a witch had stripped her of her hair just before a great ball, and the toymaker was quite capable of making a wig to suit). Not satisfied with his reply that he wanted no payment, she left him a gold snuffbox; and when war came and he lost his business, it proved to be more than met the eye. This really ought to be a well-known classic fairy tale, but it hasn't been anthologized much to date.

Peter Notron's SystemWorks 2.0, which is obviously NOT written by Peter Norton, has become a verbose, 500+ page paperback requiring small print because of unneeded cliches, confusing explanations, and superfluous tangents. Most information is there, but the writing style has become difficult to comprehend without sitting in front of ones computer and following it step by step. Let's get back to basic, concise English writing. Unfortunately it is presently the only book available covering this suite.

This book is the most treasured of all the books and magazines that I now have. I was so shocked that the exact version 2.0 is well written about. This book is a total help. God bless you folks for printing it. I will be spreading the word to buy this valuable book. Thank you.

The author explains everything pretty good, but there are two things that bother me: 1. The examples are too complex. He doesn't tell me HOW to actually create a button, he just gives me this example where he creates 20 different types of buttons. 2. The books' organisation is not very good. Some things that are mentioned in Chapter 3 should better be put in the appendix, sometimes the author just gives you too much. Before he even teaches you how to create a button, you already know how to make a print preview and how to capture the mouse.

I spent 2 hours in a technical bookstore looking for a book on MFC that discussed palette control. This was the only one that did and it even included an example. Even though there are two errors in the code which prevents the palette example to work correctly in 256 colors mode, the author still has the merit of being the only one to have the courage to explore that difficult subject.

Most difficult areas of Microsoft Foundation Classes are equally well explored. The whole book has an excellent educational progress structure which makes it easy to follow. The CD contains clear examples for each chapter.

In my opinion, a must have if you work with MFCs.

I personally did not like the book. The language did not appeal to me---it sounded so utterly flat. The scenes were unrealistic (I would accept exceptional happenings but they must be told vividly). In addition the events were tangled and the heroines' and heroes' feelings so exasperatingly tentative. If you do not like Vicorian priggishness, you probably would not like it. If you do read it, it might give you a stronger sense of appreciation for well-written books. Voilà tout.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is more than a manners work! A classic tale of early 19th c. upper middle class English life, Austen's work is important in the development of the novel mainly because of how she creates and intertwines her characters. Austen's characters cannot be easily removed from the novel without considering the effect on other characters. Her characters grow and change. Although the plot describes Elizabeth Bennet's non-pursuit turned pursuit of Mr. Darcy, the novel addresses the role and status of women and issues of class division. The additional essays of the Norton Critical edition provide a sound critical foundation for study and discussion of the work that are missing from "everyday" editions. P&P is a fine novel from an important English writer. The Norton Critical Edition is the recommended edition.

This book, the first Science Fiction I remember reading after Jules Verne, introduced me to the idea of parallel universes. The hero is a teenager, so this was a book I could identify with as a young person. It takes for granted space travel and living on the moon, two important ideas in other science fiction. It is a simple story, but well written

If you're expecting something in Devlin & Emmerich's universe, this won't be what you had in mind. Yes, there are long-lived aliens with many wonders from a dying world, who sought out a new home when their own world lay dying - but their lost homeworld was *Earth*. Yes, they found a primitive people struggling to survive - but they offered learning, not tyranny. Unfortunately, both the Star Lords and their now-resentful protegees feel it was a mistake - the Terrans don't want to lead the people of Gorth into their own old mistakes, and some of the Gorth leaders feel that the Star Lords have deliberately withheld their last secrets: their seemingly eternal lives and strange weapons. Now the ships at Terranna are preparing to space once more, this time seeking an empty world.

Kincar s'Rud, like so many of Norton's star characters, has lost everything - in his case, on the night of his grandfather's death. As the son of his grandfather's eldest daughter, he is the rightful heir - but the "s'Rud" branding him as the son of Rud, one of the aliens of the mysterious city of Terranna, turned his mother's people against him. Both his parents died years ago, and his mother's kin have cast him out, so he seeks Terranna, hoping to reach it before the last ships leave.

But as it happens, some of the Star Lords can't bear to leave their adopted home, so they came up with an alternate solution - a Star Gate, which travels not through space or back in time, but crosstime - to an alternate version of Gorth's history. (Combining the notions of crosstime travel and space travel is relatively rare in SF, oddly enough.) Those seeking the Gate include some of Rud's kin - his brother, for one - so Kincar s'Rud is welcome to join their search for a Gorth where intelligent life never arose, which they can settle with a clear conscience.

Their first attempt, while unsuccessful, brings them to a history they can't pass by - a world where the Star Lords came indeed, but to a Gorth with a far more advanced civilization - and to which they deliberately brought enslavement and misery. The feel of the story reminds me of Norton's later collaborations with Mercedes Lackey in creating _The Elvenbane_ and its sequels.

Can one group of Star Lords undo the evil done by another - especially when Gorth's people have good reason to distrust all of them? And if they can intervene, do they have the right to try?

This book collects two of Andre Norton's novellas in one package. Both have to do with planets where safaris are conducted for the pleasure of wealthy offworlders, and both leave the reader wanting more in terms of either explanation or detail.
The first, "Star Hunter" (1961), is the better of the two. In this one, the safari leader on the planet Jumala has cooked up a scheme whereby he can exact revenge on the space syndicate that has done him dirty. His scheme involves planting a young man on the planet with a set of conditioned memories, and passing the young man off as a lost heir. The scheme goes awry when unsuspected native life on the planet rises up and starts setting traps for the safari men. The story certainly moves quickly, and there is no dearth of action and monsters and color. But in the end, there is also no explanation for any of the mysteries we have witnessed--only a vague hinting at best--and this reader was left extremely disappointed. Rather than being left with that "wonder of space" and the mystery-of-the-cosmos feeling that Norton might have been trying to convey, all that most readers will be left with, I feel, is a sense of being gypped.
"Voodoo Planet" (1959), at 62 pages, might not even be considered a novella; more like a long short story. This tale constitutes the third installment of the Dane Thorson/Solar Queen series, and is a rather weak entry in this otherwise terrific bunch of books. Here, Dane, Captain Jellico, and Medic Tau are stranded on Khatka, a planet that had been settled many years ago by Africans after the Second Atomic War. Our boys fight off many alien creatures in the wilds of Khatka--the fight with the rock apes is a highlight of the story--and help conquer the evil witch doctor who is trying to overthrow the legitimate government. Magic is thrown about left and right with only a superficial, mumbo-jumbo explanation of how things are done; something about ancestral memories. When all is said and done, the reader has enjoyed the sequences with the alien monsters but is left shaking his/her head at the implausibility of the magical elements. What might have worked in a tale of the "Witch World" somehow doesn't fly in this tale of hard sci-fi survival.
And let's not even go into how Norton makes up words such as "discordinate," constantly uses the word "turgid" instead of "turbid" (as in "the water was turgid"), and constantly uses expressions such as [the other figure was] "still very still." Her early works certainly did lack polish, but even here, in some of her lesser early work, the Norton flair for telling an exciting tale with color and drive comes through.

The two novellas herein do not form a novel when put together; they're both set in the Council / Confederation universe, but don't involve the same characters. Why they've been allowed to be out of print so long passes my understanding.

"Star Hunter" - Ras Hume was blacklisted as a star pilot, courtesy of the craziness of the drug addict who was 3rd owner of the Kogan-Bors-Wazalitz line, which left him with high-profile commendations (the records couldn't be wiped after the Patrol got them), a pension, and a plasta-flesh hand. In his new career as a member of the Out-Hunter's Guild, he's been able to console himself with exploring new planets to open for safaris for the rich. On the newly-discovered world of Jumala, he found (and didn't report) something that may let him extract some payback from the company that cost him his career - if he can bring together a scheme involving port-rat Vye Lansor and crime boss Milfors Wass.

Vye Lansor is really the focus of the story: one of the down-and-out youngsters who appear often in Norton's work. On the occasions when they manage to scramble out of the pits into which life has tossed them, they don't live happily ever after, but they manage to build a life for themselves - if they survive.

"Voodoo Planet" - Over the years, this has been the hardest to find of all the _Solar Queen_ stories, fitting into the narrow gap between the end of _Plague Ship_ and the beginning of _Postmarked the Stars_, when the Queen is being refitted to pick up her new contract as a mail ship between Xecho and Trewsworld. Only Captain Jellico, medic Tau, cargo apprentice Dane Thorson, and Sindbad (ship's cat) are aboard when a Chief Ranger from Khatka, Xecho's sister planet, comes calling.

Tau, as a hobby anthropologist specializing on 'magic', is fascinated by Khatka's people rather than its legendary hunting preserves. The original colonists broke out of a concentration camp in Africa during the Second Atomic War, then started a reverse-apartheid system. (That aspect of their culture appears to have been eliminated by the time this story opens, though.) Now somebody has dug deep into their cultural weaknesses, and is using 'magic' to psychologically drive key men in Khatkan politics to their deaths. Tau is asked to bring Jellico and Thorson along, and try to uncover whoever is behind this reign of sabotage and murder.

If planetary cultures of African origin interest you, try Norton's _Android at Arms_, which deals with another such planet at greater length and in more detail.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
By: Robert Louis Stevenson
Reviewed by: E. ...
Period:6

This book is about a man that has somehow brought out an evil side of him. He is a scientist and he makes a concoction that has brought out the evil part. At first the man is able to be somewhat aware of what the other person does, but it gets worse and he looses control. He has few conscious moments and often wakes up not knowing what has happened. His friend learns about the evil side, but has no idea that both of the men are the same. As the friend learns more, he becomes closer and closer to the horrible truth. Then the evil side kills a man and he hides by becoming the good man and hiding in his house. The friend thinks the evil man has killed the good one, but he soon finds out something is very strange about the whole situation. Then the friend receives a letter from the man and he gets the supplies asked in the letter. A man meets the friend and makes a concoction. Then he drinks it and all of a sudden the man turns into his friend that seems to have been revived from the evil side. The whole story is a mystery as the friend finds more clues.

The thing I liked was how the story was set up and how the whole thing was a mystery so that it kept you interested in finding out the answer. It got confusing at times and I had to re-read parts to find out the clues and truly understand it. "pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death-there stood Henry Jekyll! " The good man had only a little power left and he needed the concoction to make himself regular again. The person that his friend saw was a mixture of evil and good with the good barely holding out. After that, the friend was told everything and he listened in shock. This part didn't come until near the end so that it was a twist in the story that is unexpected.

The book may have been good for its story line, but parts of the story got to be repetitive and it got to the point where it was boring and it was hard to keep going. The end really disappointed me, because the story was pretty decent and then the end came and it was bad. The end was supposed to be a letter written from the last words of the good man that was losing his power to stay in control. The letter was at least twenty pages and was filled with confusing sentences and the same information being repeated over and over. It got tiring and boring very quickly, so that I struggled to keep reading. I finally made it through and the end of the letter said that the good man was saying he was going to end his miserable life. "Here, then, as I lay down the pen, and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end. That ending would have been good if it wasn't after the most boring part in the book.

My favorite part of the book was when the friend and the butler of the good man break into the study to get the materials wanted by the man. It was my favorite part because lots of clues start to come out and it's the point right before finding out the truth of the evil and good man. My least favorite part is the end when the same information is repeated and the words are so confusing that it is very boring. Overall the book has a good way of keeping the reader suspenseful, but it also does the opposite with the repeated parts and the story may seem a little over stretched.

This is another first-rate critical edition from Norton. The text is cleanly printed with careful and accurate annotations. Both the critical and the backgrounds and contexts essays are well chosen. Sections on performance adaptations on stage and screen and on literary, scientific and sociohistorical contexts are particularly useful.One of the best critical essays is the editor's own. A detailed Stevenson chronology and an accurate selected bibliography conclude the volume.

the book tells you the ways to survive in the game.With the book you will play a better game.

This strategy guide is perfect. It has everything a Fallout player needs. It has descriptions of weapons, armour, non-player characters (NPC's) and more! And the maps are extermly helpful. Some may say it will spoil the game but that's not true, the guide offers you help if your stuck or want a piece of info. You don't have to read the whole guide if you think that will spoil everything. I myself read the whole guide and I think it didn't spoil the game at all. Actually, I think it made the game even more interesting! So for all the Fallout players this is recommended but of course many will want to try beating the game without help but that is nearly impossible because every Fallout player needs help every once in a while.

- Vitali Gusatinsky

I bought this strategy kinda of weary about if it was gonna ruin the game. It didn't! I'm tellin you friend this book has it all for when your stuck it doesn't give the game at all what it does is guide you. I Highly recemend it to all!!!

As other reviewers have reported, this book is not up to Andre Norton's standards. Its characters are somewhat sketchy (especially the latecomer character "Marcala,"...). Zazar seems intriguing; there are hints about her past, but little attention is paid to her in the text. The emotional focus of the book is clearly on Ashen Deathdaughter, so I was disappointed that so much of the book was spent examining other characters -- Ysa, the Queen, for example, gets chapter upon chapter of page-time, though her character seems forced and stiff.

The physical environs and cultures described in the book are somewhat better treated. It seems clear that the kingdom of Rendel is meant to resemble medieval French culture, with its intricate politics and emphasis on grace and beauty. The "Sea-rovers" are rather less convincing as Viking analogues, but nonetheless rather interesting. The Bog-culture I thought poorly handled, particularly the habit of the Bog folk to speak in ungrammatical "ugh ugh me savage, kill you good" fashion. It goes beyond the point of adding regional flavor and well into the realm of caricature.

The book's single biggest flaw was its pacing. It took an AGONIZINGLY long time for all of the disparate characters to meet one another. If you think of Ashen, Obern, and Ysa as the three main characters, I'd say about two thirds of the book passed before any one of them met any one of the others.

That said, the series might have potential. Now that each of these characters has been introduced, in the next book the authors can roll up their sleeves and get down to some actual story with all the elements that have been set up. This first book seems to me to be mainly a way of setting the stage for things to come, though it certainly could have been better done in about half the space.

I mentioned above that this book is not up to Andre Norton's standards... Notice that the book is *co-authored.* I think most of the actual book was written by Sasha Miller, and that Norton served primarily for oversight and advice.

I am somewhat doubtful of Ms. Miller's abilities based on this book; but you have to start somewhere, so I would be willing to buy and read one or two more books of hers before rendering a final judgement.

I love Andre Norton. When I discovered SF, it was Norton who turned me on. Her collaboration with Sasha Miller hasn't diminished her ability to string together a fascinating world. The land of Oak, Ash, Yew, and Rowan has the potential to be as interesting as Witch World.

In this initial book in the series, however, we are treated to Ashen who never really takes the novel into her own hands. Instead, she reacts. Reacts to Zazar, the witch-woman who raises her, to the Bog people among whom she is raised, and to the man who captures her. Prince Florian (Ashen's half-brother) is not much of a character either. All he is is greedy. Although the Sea Raiders are set up as good-guys, their cold-blooded attack on the bog people put me off.

I liked Queen Ysa. Alone among the characters in TO THE KING A DAUGHTER, she knows what she wants and sets about getting it. The fact that Ashen is in her way means little to her--and why should it? Ysa believes she is doing what is right for the kingdom and there is every evidence that she is right. At least she is making decisions and moving the book forward.

The writing and the setting are too compelling not to look forward to the next book in this series. Although I had troubles with the novel, I still found it hard to put it down. Just don't expect a WITCH WORLD.

To the King a Daughter is the first volume in the Cycle of Oak, Yew, Ash and Rowan trilogy. This new fantasy series describes the history of Rendel during the period after the strike of the great thunder-star has freed the Great Foulness. Once there were four great powers in the world -- Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan -- but time and war have reduced these powers to shadows of their former glory. The King of Oak is a drunken lout, the Queen of Yew is a magical schemer, and Ash and Rowan are nearly dead.

In this novel, a woman pregnant with the King's daughter, and Ash's heir, flees to the Bale Bog, there to give birth and die. The newborn is named Ashen Deathdaughter by Zazar, the Wysen-wyf who delivers her. Ashen is raised as Zazar's apprentice, doing lessons and chores and running through the boglands. Since she is an Outlander, the bog-folk would, by custom, have tossed her into the nearest bog, but Zazar protects her. As she grows older, the young men are somewhat ambivalent about her, both attracted and repelled.

The soldiers of the Yew who have followed Ashen's mother's party believe that the pregnant woman has been lost in the mire, which would surely please the Queen, for now there would be no others to dispute her son's right to the throne. Of course, the young prince is only concerned at this time with bargaining for a pony of his own and, as he grows older, he learns that visits to his ill father are worth plum pudding for desert. So like his father, Queen Ysa thinks, but there is still time to train him to loftier pursuits.

In the far north, the only city of the Sea-Rovers has been destroyed by the tsunami following the thunder-star strike. The surviving ships rendezvous with their High Chief, Snorri, in the land of the Nordens, but then sail on to establish a new city on some hospitable shore; to repay the kindness shown them, the Sea-Rovers transport a Norden emissary, Count Bjauden, to Rendel. Unfortunately, after near three years of battles, the Sea-Rovers are driven out of their new lands by a enemy from the northern ice regions and they have to flee again, this time to the Ashenhold in Rendel. Snorri's son, Obern, is sent ahead to scout and to find a safe harbor.

In Rendel, Queen Ysa spins her webs and, after she gains the four great rings of Oak, Yew, Ash and Rowan, uses their magic to forward her plots. She has virtual control of everyone in Rendel...except her own son. Indeed, the young Prince, out of spite, commissions one of the house servants to assassinate Count Bjauden and leave his body in a ruined city in the Bog.

This series is based on an archetype in many religions, the weavers of lifelines, who have been known in various times and places as the Fates, the Norns, Brigit, and other names. Certain trees are significant to most of the Western European religions, but the mythos of the Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan is specific to the old religions of the British Isles and France, particularly to what is now known as Wicca. Thus, the background of this story is drawn from the mythology of Pre-Christian Europe that has figured so prominently in other Norton stories. However, the story overlays this religious context on the architecture, dress, customs and mores of Western Europe of about the 14th century CE, yet with neither the influence of Rome nor the competition between England and France.

Sasha Miller has previously contributed a story to Norton's On the Wings of Magic anthology in The Turning series of Witch World related writings. She has also written Ladylord, a fantasy novel similar in plot, but not treatment, to Moore's Jirel of Joiry. Insofar as I am aware, this is the first novel that she has co-authored with Norton.

Recommended for Norton fans and anyone who enjoys war, magic and feudal politics in a fantasy setting.

With all the books I have ever read this one comes to mind as the only one that has ever turned my stomach. I am sure there are many other ways of treating a subject like homophobia without going this route. I gave it one star because there was no option lower.

Tom Wolfe does a fine job of carving a network TV news magazine crew with sharp, satiric strokes. He creates a situation that is both engaging and topical. It's an entertaining diversion, but ultimately I didn't feel particularly amused, enlightened, or otherwise moved by this story. In part, this is because there is no follow through with the key plot elements (murder, journalistic excesses) protrayed. More important, Wolfe settles for allowing key characters to fire off their points without effectively engaging one another. I had little sense that the narcissistic producer, Irv Durtscher, was any different at the end of the tale.

There was a story worth telling here. Wolfe takes on issues as troubling and challenging as homophobia & tradition vs. diversity in the military, and investigative and story-making zeal vs. accuracy and fairness in broadcast news. When a novelist of Wolfe's stature takes on issues of this size, to produce but a diversion feels almost li! ke exploitation. Can America come to terms with market-driven investigative journalism? Can America tolerate a military subculture intolerant of diversity, and can a military forced to relinquish part of traditional prejudice develop an effective identity? I think that Wolfe is very adroit at sketching self-absorbed caricatures that can amuse us with these themes as a backdrop. I'd like like to see him try his hand at characters capable of movement and growth.

The genius of Tom Wolfe lies not in his ability to devise ingenius plots; but like Dickens a century and a half before, he has the uncanny ability to capture many contemporary personality types with a very few verbal brush strokes. He then puts those created characters into a situation, consistent with contemporary reality. This is what he did in Bonfire of the Vanities, and this is what he did again in the audio novella, Ambush At Ft. Bragg. Anyone who has ever written a novel, which strives for verisimilitude knows that at some point your characters at least try to take over the story. We all find our original plot schemes bending,at least, as we interact with our creations. But in Tom Wolfe's case, one strongly suspects that it isn't even a battle. He first creates characters which perfectly reflect the contemporary American reality, and then chronicles the inevitable interaction of those characters. His novels plot themselves; and plot themselves with a reality which reflects the genius of their creation. In this short work one will see a picture of contemporary American TV "Journalism" that one may not like. But it sure does ring true! The man is a modern American treasure.