Scott Rice, ed., It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Best of the Bulwer-Lytton Contest (Penguin, 1984)

It seems like a can't-miss idea, right? Publish the thousand or so best of the myriad entries the Bulwer-Lytton contest got in 1984. And, really, there's a lot of funny stuff here. But two hundred pages' worth does get old. Definitely a bathroon-read kind of book. It does divulge such brilliant bits as "a crowded elevator smells different to a midget," though, so it's worth your time. ** 1/2

It was a hot and dusty night (for you see, dear review reader, I live in a desert, where the nocturnal temperatures sometimes do not go below 90 degrees -- that is in the height of summer, as when I began this humorous tome I am reviewing) when I sat down to read the submissions of frustrated Victorian 'wannabees' who have more time on their hands than American Vice Presidents (present times excluded, of course) to dish out poorly conceived sentences modeled on that paragon of forgotten 19th Century literature, Bulwer-Lytton, whose flowery prose brings to mind the brain of soap opera producers who don't know when to stop; and neither did I, because this book was so darn funny, I almost wet myself -- therefore, I highly recommend it as a pleasant diversion better than Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- and that's saying a lot.

The editorial review claims that this is the fourth collection; I believe that this is in error. This is the first, the original, copyright 1984, with entries from the first year of the contest.

The Bullwer-Lytton fiction contest (named for Edward George Bullwer-Lytton, who is responsible for the novel "Paul Clifford" (1830) which is famous for the opening line, "It was a dark and stormy night...", often spoofed, most famously by Snoopy in the "Peanuts" comic strip) has been an annual contest since 1983, the object of which is to write the worst possible opening sentence to a hypothetical novel. To be honest, this one isn't QUITE as funny as "Dark and Stormy; the Final Conflict", which is the only other collection that I've read yet, but it is still well worth reading if you have the particular warped sense of humor to enjoy parodies of overblown purple prose.

As a story, this did not hold anyones interest for very long. However, the use of food-- rice, as the common ground for families in this multicultural neighborhood, has an understanding appeal. Simple recipes make it an ideal tool to use at home as well as in the classroom.

Read this story to them. Then photocopy the recipe pages. Eating and preparing international rice recipes then become playacting, for this book is all about how, in a multicultural neighborhood, in one delightful evening, all of the households prepare special, spicy and indigenous dishes with this one simple staple. It is a story of our differences. It is a story of our similaries. Moreover, it is a celebration of how rice is the canvas upon which we paint our works of culinary imagination.

This book shows children that we may all be from different cultures, but in the simplest ways we are very much the same. It is a good first day of school book, or good multicultural education book!

If you have programmed in another language before, but not Delphi, this is the book for you. After a quick overview of general programming concepts, Pascal data types, etc., it goes into a thorough description of the Delphi 3 language and features. I did wish that it had more info on database programming--5 chapters wasn't enough for me!

This is one of my favorite Delphi 3 books, as it covers material not easily found elsewhere. This is not a beginner's book by any means. The coverage of DLLs, COM, and threading is outstanding. This is a book for those who want to delve more deeply into the relationships between VCLs and the WinAPI.

I purchased this book with a view to learning more about OLE and COM which is covered very comprehensively. But I found that once I started reading the other chapters I could not put the book down. Some people have commented that this book is a poor teaching aid. This is not what this book sets out to do. QUE's guide puts this book at Accomplished to Expert level. If you are an experienced, professional programmer who needs an excellent reference book, buy this. You will not regret it.

The industry has long since passed Perry by. I found this book simplistic in its approach, mired in problems that most software development houses solved long ago, and dependent on overblown methods no longer appropriate in the internet age. As for the question of how to influence, Weinberg is a far better guide. As a test manager, I would recommend almost any other book on testing to members of my staff.

Testing has often been the misbegotten portion of the software development process. Frequently neglected until the semi-chaotic end of the production cycle, the testing phase has traditionally been shortened to accommodate a fixed release date. The relationships between the developer and test groups are to some extent adversarial, but in so many cases it often breaks down into open hostility. Among developers, it is often considered demeaning to have to soil ones hands by actually testing the code. With such a sullied background, it is no wonder that production code is generally riddled with bugs.
As the authors of this book point out, all of the above are dangerous conditions. With the expansion of code reuse and RAD tools, the development of the initial iteration is going to be done at a faster pace than before. Since the number of pathways through the code is operationally infinite, the only way relatively bug-free code will be developed is by allocating more resources to testing and making the choice and tracking of test cases a more scientific endeavor. The most significant point of the ten made in this book is that the testing process should be considered on an equal basis with that of development so that both groups communicate as equals. Without that, all the fancy, efficient tools in the world are reduced to the level of mere toys.
This is a book that can and should be read by developers, managers and yes, even testers, as all will benefit from the simple words of wisdom.

This is an excellent review of the biggest recurring problems of the software testing world. As I read the descriptions of each of the 10 challenges, I was astonished at how many of the pitfalls I fall into on a regular basis. Perry & Rice don't just lay out what the challenges are - they also discuss how to meet each one. Each item on the list has its own chapter with sections on the impact on testing, solutions to the challenge, impediments to implementing the solutions, and helpful guidelines to creating a plan of action. This is without a doubt an excellent book for those of us in the trenches of software testing each day. (One bit of advice, though - if you're looking for a book on "how to do software testing", look elsewhere. Perry and Rice have other good books on the subject, but this one is really intended to help you step back from your daily testing work and see where you could improve on your approach to it.)

Although it could have been a great yarn, the main character Michael Walker is abosultely unbelievable. How can a person who has been trained by the Army as a sniper, ergo for so-called black ops, be so uneffective and stupid!

See storyline above.

This is a well written novel that kept me at the edge of my seat. Well rounded with thrills and emotions. When you have cults, mixed with terrorism, during the apocalypse of the new millenium, what more can you expect than pure excitement. Robert Rice delivers. Keep up the good work Robert!

Highly recommended for thrills and adventures.

A rental car without a good credit card? Not likely.

The Agent of Judgement is one of the best thrillers -- if not THE best thriller -- I've ever read. I have read it twice now and was just as gripped the second time I read it as the first. Mr. Rice has done an excellent job of weaving the web in such a way as to keep the reader on the edge of his/her seat! Read it, you'll love it. From A GREAT FAN

If you are looking for generic information that would pertain to any breed, this book serves the purpose. There is basic information presented pertaining to the Brittany but I found little substance. If you are familiar with breed books from Barrons you understand what I mean. The Brittany is a unique, fiesty little dog and I was looking for a book that would delve into the temperment, development and point me in the right direction as far as training needs for my special companion. The information provided in this book does not concentrate on the Brittany and except for the pictures and brief chapters touching on the breed as a dual purpose companion/upland game hunter you can basically find the exact information on any breed in a Barrons book. I have trained Collies and Golden Retrievers and being a first time Brittany owner was hoping for a lot more information. You can go to the akc.org page and get the breed standard information for free. The book touches on hunting and retrieving but again, more in depth information can be found on most of the reputable breeder sites online. If you are looking to really get inside the breed, save your money, this book is nothing more than basic health care information that would pertain to any dog. A "complete owner's manual" it is not. I don't need to buy a book to tell me that my dog needs fresh water every day. The brief section on training says nothing about the "soft" temperment of this dog and the need for gentle positive reward methods and the risk of raising a timid fearful dog with problems that may be hard for the inexperienced owner to correct. If you are looking for a book with basic care instructions such as nail clipping, grooming, basic daily care and information on various potential health problems such as parasitic infection, explanations of the common diseases that we vaccinate our pups to be protected from, you will find the information in this book.
Bottom line- if you are new to dog ownership you may find the information useful and valuable. If you are an experienced dog owner, pass on this one.

This book is OK, but contains a few errors. The first review is also wrong, tri-color is not common or acceptable in American Brittanys. That is a feature of a French Brittany, and the bloodlines are distinct. One thing the book fails to underscore sufficiently is how "hyper" a brittany is: if you have never been around a pointing dog, please take some time to do so before getting a brittany so it doesn't wind up being orphaned. They are sweet, biddable dogs, but need to run alot every day. This is particularly true of a well-bred britt, since it will come from lines that maintain field traits. Good luck.

When I put a down payment on a Brittany pup, I purchased this book in order to gain knowledge about the breed. My Brittany is now 3 years old and I continue to look at this book as a reference.

If you are looking for an adventure story from a simpler time; something suitable for an early adolescent to read or just to bring back a more naïve time from your own youth, Burroughs is definitely prime material. This story is no exception, it follows the tried and true formula for ERB adventure - introduction, boy saves girl, boy loses girl, boy fights to regain girl, ..., boy gets girls and lives happily ever after.

The story centers on Doctor Maxon, a scientist who has discovered the secret of creating human life, albeit imperfectly, until he succeeds beyond his fondest aspirations with number thirteen. Throw in the requisite evil guys, the scientist's beautiful daughter and you have the makings of the story.

However, like many of Burroughs' stories there is an underlying message, sometimes it isn't buried very deep or a message of much import in out time, but it is usually there. This book explores questions that have been covered by other authors from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein to Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Does created human life have a soul? Should man be messing in the art of creating life? You may not find the answers here, but you at least find the questions. P-)

This book is good escapist entertainment. This novel stands alone (it is not part of a series). To some extent I agree with a previous review that the ending could have been better ... it's a bit sudden and flat. That does not detract from the book as a whole being an excellent read. The plot line is implausible, but the action is fast and the moral dilemmas are intriguing. I first read this book as a teen-ager, then re-read it in my forties. It was still fun, even though I knew what was coming.

The work is written in the pictorial style of Burroughs.
Each sentence contains a vivid and generally horrific
vision which reinforces the story as it marches on.
In this case, the main character is a scientist who delights
in creating human life and seeks perfection in the 13th
creation. This is a good work for students in mid-high school.
By that time, they are mature enough to place the book in
its proper context. Burroughs has an almost perfect command
of the English language. Few words are wasted. Every word
moves the reader onto the next until the full picture
becomes evident somewhere later in the story. I like
Burroughs because his writings have a solid grammatical
structure and advanced vocabulary. This is needed for
today's students because they struggle to articulate even
the most basic concepts. Burroughs is not entirely
politically correct; however, his works are a treasure chest
of our language and what used to be called
"The King's English" .

I haven't read much in the genre of contemporary romance, but this book will not speed me toward becoming a fan of the genre. The plot is fairly complex and well-drawn, but the characters are purely schizophrenic, changing moods without reason or warning, swinging from cozily romantic to blazingly hostile and back, often in a single paragraph. And aren't the characters in these books allowed to have a single weakness? The male lead is a lawyer, a potter, a professional wrestler, looks after his 6 siblings and cancer-stricken mama and, oh yeah, we're constantly reminded, he's gorgeous and built. The female is a gallery owner, a country-western singer, a silent contributor to the local homeless shelter, and--yep--gorgeous and built. As to the narrative, if your idea of snappy repartee is lines like, "You're a gifted genius!" (this at the apex of a love scene, mind you) or "He had a hot poker in his pants," well then, put down the Shelley and Shakespeare; Patricia Rice is your gal.

I would give it five stars except that I reserve such kudos for absolute masterpieces, those being (in my opinion) few and rare and not, at least so far, mainstream novels. There is very little not to like in this novel. The main characters may be unrealistically wonderful, but they are plausible and certainly people I enjoyed spending reading time with. I admire the author's skill in managing to keep the tension alive between the protagonists yet avoiding the common pitfalls of having one or the other stupidly blind, mean or arrogant. The plot, while a bit convoluted especially towards the end, was nicely suspenseful. Fresh from reading several highly-praised romances without being particularly impressed, I am much surprised that this book did not garner better customer reviews. All in all, a most satisfactory read - I will most certainly read other titles by this author.

I love Patricia Rice and have all of her books. This convoluted tale of innocent ex-con Adrian Quinn and Faith Hope Nichols, the hard done by widow of his late partner Tony, is just not quite up to her usual standards. Faith is too saintly, for one. Everybody is somehow too neatly connected for another. The hero works his way through law school and then settles down to make pots of money also has made the time to make serious pots? ( even though potting is a family tradition ). Faith somehow ( how? ) has the knowlege, although she was a child bride, to open and make a success out of what sounds like a serious gallery. Still a good read, but just not up to her usual stellar standards.

In the previous novel "The Beast of Tarzan," Jane and her infant son Jack were kidnapped by Tarzan's enemy Nikolas Rokoff and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. Of course, Tarzan tracks down his wife and son and finally dispatches Rokoff. However, in this fourth Tarzan novel, "The Son of Tarzan," Edgar Rice Burroughs provides an adventure whose key point is: like father, like son. Paulvitch had survived the vengeance of Tarzan and now wants to even the score by luring young Jack Clayton away from London. However, his plan is foiled when Jack escapes with the help of Akut, the great ape. The pair flee to the same African jungle where Tarzan was raised a generation before. It there that young Jack Clayton establishes his own reputation as Korak the Killer. Not only does he find Korak find his own place in the jungle and amidst the great apes, he also rescues Meriem, a beautiful young woman, from a band of Arab raiders. Meriem turns out to be the daughter of Armand Jacot, a Foreign Legion Captain who is also the Prince de Cadrenet, and therefore a fitting mate for the son of Lord Greystoke.

On the one hand, "The Son of Tarzan" is a ERB adventure yarn that closely parallels many of the key elements of the original "Tarzan of the Apes." In that sense this is a fairly predictable story (almost from the moment we hear about "My Dear" we know who she will turn out to be in the end), but given all the speculation about what the Tarzan novels were saying about human society and evolution, it is interesting to note that we have the same relationship between "The Son of Tarzan" and the original "Tarzan of the Apes" that you find between Jack London's "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild." In each we have the creature of the wild become civilized and then reverse the process in the second. Of course, London's novels have received a lot more consideration along these lines in terms of Darwinism and the whole nature versus nuture debate (effectively canceling the question out by taking it both ways in his two novels), but it is interesting to see Burroughs do essentially the same thing with his own two novels.

In the previous novel "The Beast of Tarzan," Jane and her infant son Jack were kidnapped by Tarzan's enemy Nikolas Rokoff and his henchman Alexis Paulvitch. Of course, Tarzan tracks down his wife and son and finally dispatches Rokoff. However, in this fourth Tarzan novel, "The Son of Tarzan," Edgar Rice Burroughs provides an adventure whose key point is: like father, like son. Paulvitch had survived the vengeance of Tarzan and now wants to even the score by luring young Jack Clayton away from London. However, his plan is foiled when Jack escapes with the help of Akut, the great ape. The pair flee to the same African jungle where Tarzan was raised a generation before. It there that young Jack Clayton establishes his own reputation as Korak the Killer. Not only does he find Korak find his own place in the jungle and amidst the great apes, he also rescues Meriem, a beautiful young woman, from a band of Arab raiders. Meriem turns out to be the daughter of Armand Jacot, a Foreign Legion Captain who is also the Prince de Cadrenet, and therefore a fitting mate for the son of Lord Greystoke.

On the one hand, "The Son of Tarzan" is a ERB adventure yarn that closely parallels many of the key elements of the original "Tarzan of the Apes." In that sense this is a fairly predictable story (almost from the moment we hear about "My Dear" we know who she will turn out to be in the end), but given all the speculation about what the Tarzan novels were saying about human society and evolution, it is interesting to note that we have the same relationship between "The Son of Tarzan" and the original "Tarzan of the Apes" that you find between Jack London's "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild." In each we have the creature of the wild become civilized and then reverse the process in the second. Of course, London's novels have received a lot more consideration along these lines in terms of Darwinism and the whole nature versus nuture debate (effectively canceling the question out by taking it both ways in his two novels), but it is interesting to see Burroughs do essentially the same thing with his own two novels.

This one has an interestingly diverse plot that introduces to the public the character of Korak the Killer, son of Tarzan. Gotta read it!

Don't take the star rating wrong - this is as good as any of the other books in this series, but this edition (Quiet Vision Publishing - paperback, printed in 2000) is the cheapest printing of a book I've ever seen. Only about 20 pages into it, pages started falling out of the back. The type is huge and goes all the way to the edge of the page so your thumbs are constantly in the way while you're trying to read, and there are typographical errors like using two hyphens instead of em dashes. I know they make an electronic version of this book. As part of my job I convert a lot of print-intended content to digital publishing formats, and that's what usually happens to em dashes during that process, so I almost wonder if they just printed out their digital version and bound it. It looks like it was printed on a laser printer (especially the terrible cover illustration which looks like it was drawn by a 12-year old), and the fonts look like they're just PC-standard 'Times'. There are also several footnotes, which in the original edition that I read years ago were placed at the bottom of the page they were referenced from. In this edition they're in the back of the book.

"Thuvia, Maid of Mars" is the 4th of 11 John Carter novels from the pen of Edgar Rice Burroughs. It first appeared in April 1916, as a three-part serial in the magazine "All Story Weekly." This is the first Carter novel that does not feature John Carter himself as the central character; he only makes a brief cameo appearance early on. Instead, the action mantle is taken up by Carthoris, Carter's son, but fortunately, Carter Junior turns out to be just as good a swashbuckler as the old man. In this installment, Princess Thuvia of Ptarth has been kidnapped by the spineless Prince Astok of Dusar, which abduction almost causes a world war on Barsoom (Mars). Young Carthoris, in his quest to free his beloved princess, runs across deserted cities, a forgotten kingdom, banths (10-legged Barsoomian lions), ethereal warriors, mucho swordplay, giant white apes, and on and on. As is usual for these books, the amount of action that Burroughs packs into a small compass is quite surprising. Whereas previous Carter books seem to read more like fantasy/fairy tales than science fiction, this installment veers even more to the fantastic, mainly in the use of those phantom warriors just mentioned. These bowmen are called up from the minds of the remaining members of the lost city of Lothar, and have no "real" concrete existence. However, their arrows can still kill. In this book we also get, for the first time, a nice, detailed look at life in Helium; what the people do, how they live and the like. We also receive a biological explanation of how Carthoris, who was 10 years old but a seeming adult in the previous books, got to be that way. The worldwide peace that apparently prevails at the end of book 3, "The Warlord of Mars," is shown in this volume to be not as widespread as was inferred, which makes for some nice tense situations. So this is a good, fast-moving, detailed entry in the series.
There are some minor problems of inconsistency and fuzzy writing, however, although not as prevalent as in previous entries. For example, in one scene, Carthoris is said to be fighting a force of a dozen Dusarians; three of these are killed, and so three are left. Huh? Carthoris seems to know exactly where to find water in the dead city of Aaanthor, despite the fact that he has never been there before. Wha? Vas Kor, one of Carthoris' chief enemies, fails to recognize him merely because Carthoris is dirty, tired and covered with blood; this is just a bit hard to swallow. Perhaps worst of all, the book ends extremely abruptly, just as all of Barsoom is about to be plunged into that world war. We never learn the fate of several of the main villains, nor do we see the end of hostilities as the realization of the true facts becomes known. This is a short book, and would not have suffered by the addition of such scenes to make it more satisfying. Still, this is a fun entry in the John Carter series, one that all lovers of fast-moving fantasy should enjoy.

More similar in its simplicity to a Princess of Mars than Gods/Warlord. John Carter's son engages in search for abducted Thuvia, while he remains the prime suspect in her abduction. Usual strange meetings and stranger neighborhoods, but this story is a little less frenentic than Gods/Warlord, and both Carthoris and Thuvia are solid characters.