No one writes a better battle scene than R.A. Salvatore, which is where this adaptation of a screenplay to a short-lived TV series shines. Tarzan moves and fights with all comers with almost preternatural grace. As Salvatore fans have come to love with the Drizzt novels, Tarzan continually engages in a savage ballet at least every thirty pages. Unfortunately, that's about all the free reign Salvatore has in this book. He seemed limited by the fact Tarzan must win with all his helpless, and continually in-the-way, friends completely intact, and this steals a large amount of the suspense. In Salvatore's own worlds, he is free to take the characters where they take him. Here Tarzan and his friends need to get from preordained point A to B knowing that only a finite number of written pages are keeping them from the inevitable ending. If you've read the Drizzt novels, the Corona tales, the Cleric Quintet and Salvatore's various but scattered trilogies, this book is more of the swashbuckling style but without the characterization. If this is your first Salvatore book though, it may hold your attention, but you're missing out.

What made me dislike the book so is the fact that Theodora is portrayed as a weak character. This milktoast of a woman never stands up to the man with whom she is in love with. Like the entire novel she lacks the flair and passion necessary to make a successful romance story. As far as the "hero" being a badboy he was anything but that. To me he was a spoiled boy accustomed to getting everything he wanted. Wayward Angel was my first novel by Patricia Rice and unfortunately reading it did not turn into a pleasurable experience. Now whenever I am standing in the Romance section of any bookstore I make it a point not to look at any of Patricia Rice's novels.

This was my first Patricia Rice novel, and it was enjoyable to a point. The characters were well-developed but I thought that they got lost as the story went along, perhaps that was the point. Dora was a strong character, and I quite liked her. She was timid & usually no one knows she exists, but when she believes in something or is challenged .. she manages to rally her strength & courage. I did not like Pace all that much but I have to presume that he was basically a good person considering the circumstances of his upbringing. He also had immense guilt for treating Dora the way he did and knowing he wasn't good enough for her. It's an enjoyable read, but it's not a keeper. I doubt I'd read it again.

I have read a few other books by Ms Rice and have enjoyed them much more. Maybe this one was just a little to dark for me. I never really got to the point where I cared much for any of the characters. But I will certainly try Ms Rice again!

This book was not worth the money. The pages looked and felt like they were xeroxed, very thin and flimsy. Most of the recipes had ingredients that most with Crohn's or Colitis could never eat! There were a lot of meals that included dairy and too many spices. It seemed to me that these people had limited knowledge of IBD's before they put together this cookbook. If you want IBD friendly recipes, use normal recipes and substitute the necessary ingredients, don't buy this book!

it's really small and of poor quality. The recipes are very basic. How many times do they have to write how to make BREAD? (with one ingredient different in the recipes?)

Well you could use this if you have never cooked , it has some basic recipes, but for colitis...gna.

I was a bit disappointed with the presentation of this book. I liked the spiral-bound design, but the pages are printed on paper similar to xerox stock. They could've laminated the pages or at least used card stock. I am afraid that the book will be ruined after a few uses. The recipes are ok, however, I would've liked to see more dairy-free recipes. Many of the recipes use soy milk or soy cheese as a substitute which you could do with any recipe. I didn't need a special book to tell me that.

I first began reading Luanne Rice in 1988 when I came across her book Crazy in Love at the library. From that time to a few weeks ago I enjoyed all of this author's books. Then I read Summer Light, a Rice book published in 2001 and found myself thinking this might be the first Luanne Rice book I didn't enjoy that much. But that was nothing compared to how I felt about Stone Heart, one of Rice's earliest books. Somehow I couldn't believe the same author who wrote favorites of mine like Blue Moon, Home Fires and Safe Harbor wrote this book. And before anybody says it was the subject matter of marital and child abuse which I didn't enjoy, I would counter by saying that while enjoy might not be the right word, I did appreciate books like White Oleander by Janet Fitch, Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen and Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Alison.

Over the years I have found similar themes in most of Rice's books which include the love of parents for children, the love of siblings for each a other, a past or present tragedy which affect's a family or main character's life and the uniting of a couple who had their own share of disappointments. And while these elements are also present in Stone Heart, unfortunately the characters and their situation as awful as it is just wasn't as moving as those found in Firefly Beach or Home Fires. Somehow the characters never grew on me and I couldn't wait to reach the final page and be done with this book. In addition I thought this was truly a most depressing book, which left me thinking that life probably continues to be very difficult and problematic for these people. I read to think, learn, feel and be entertained. This book just didn't do anything for me and now I'm sorry I read this title. Bottom line is skip this book and read anyone of Rice's other books and see why I have enjoyed her as much as I have in the past.

This story is not a warm fuzzy one. It isn't easy to read about abuse of any kind however I think this is a very moving story about what happens when life goes down that street. I almost didn't read this book after reading the previous reviews but I am so glad I did. I wouldn't recommend this story to everyone but it is very real and paints a picture of what complicates the lives of this family. I felt the characters were honest and that it didn't really have a happy, tie up the package with a pink ribbon, ending.

I know most of the reviews here aren't so positive, but I found this book a good read. It is the first Luanne Rice book I have read, and it won't be the last. I thought the story was a sad, but realistic one. It was filled with surprises, twists & turns.
I enjoyed the characters, but at times, didn't understand where they were coming from. However, I believe that in a good read, you get more than the predictable story & characters you can relate to. There should be characters who you CAN'T relate to. But at that instance, you learn about people & human nature.
And at the end of the story, it should make you stop & think about a situation or attitude that before you didn't know or consider. I recommend this book.

This is Ms. Rice's first novel written in 1985. Meet Una Caven, by day a successful soap opera actress, by night, 80's woman ordinaire. This story introduces us to the Caven clan, primarily the story of 3 sisters. Una, evidently pronounced Oooh-nah, not You-nah, is the oldest of the 3 sisters, and the single one, who is searching for Mr. Right. Always inseparable, the sisters relationships change when the younger ones take on spouses, much to Una's dismay and frustration. Her quest for the right soul-mate takes the reader through witty, but mundane dialogue. I found myself skimming through a lot of it. Una's sexual escapades are described rather crudely, blunt and surprising, after reading some of Ms. Rice's most recent novels. Obviously, Luanne Rice has much improved since this first novel of hers. Her recent novels have much more substance, and the love/sexual sequences are now written with emotional impact that enrapture and captivate the reader, unlike this first attempt. I read this one out of curiosity, checking it out at the library, since I recently started reading her most recent novels and love them. If you have not read her before, don't start with this one - try "Follow the Stars Home," "Home Fires" or any of her newer ones... she is a great writer, one of my favorites.

Good book... Focuses on realtionships and the dynamics of sisters.

First off: Great books! I had read these books as a teenager, and loved them. My son is at the age where he is interested in fantasy and sci-fi. We had read ERB's A Princess of Mars, and he loved it. So I was pursuing other ERB series. Many are out of print or hard to find. I ordered this compilation, as well as Pellucidar. When I got them, I was truly dissappointed. They're printed in this new "Books on Demand" format by InstaBook. It seems to be basically a bound xerox. (paper's better, but you get the idea) The indent's in each paragraph are about an inch, with small text, which makes it really annoying to read. With no interior illustration, and a cover that seems to have nothing to do with the novel.

I certainly recommend a lot of ERB's series for high fantasy: The Pellucidar books, The John Carter of Mars books, The Venus books and others. But if you want my advice find a different edition, or find it used somewhere. It's getting to the point where the quality of the publishing is actually an issue. You would never see a book like this in a regular book store. I wish the publisher info was listed as well, because I wouldn't buy anything by InstaBook again.

I've just finished rereading this novel within the last hour. Again, I'm not disappointed.

The story involves a young adventurer named David Innes who decides to accompany an elderly professor on a test drive of an "iron mole." This drilling machine is intended to penetrate the earth in search of minerals. However, something goes wrong. The controls break, and the iron mole plummets straight down for hundreds of miles, to break through into an "inner earth."

This world is inhabited by dinosaurs, primitive tribes, and a race of evil bat-like creatures called Mayars. David must rescue a stunningly beautiful young woman, who's completely stolen his heart. But more, he must somehow end the dominance and exploitation the Mayars exert over the primitive humans in this world.

At the time this book was written, before 1920, there were serious treatises being written about the possibility that our earth was hollow, with an inner world to be discovered. Burroughs apparently just capitalized on this now out-of-date scientific notion.

The Mayars are terrifying, the girls are fantastic, and there's a nonstop series of action scenes. The friendships David makes with various prehistoric warriors are well drawn. For an episodic adventure novel, the characters are made real enough that the reader really CARES what happens to them.

This is the first of the Pellucidar novels. There were at least six, I believe. Pellucidar is what Burroughs called the inner world within the heart of the earth.

The language is clean-- the book could be recommended to young people with no concerns at all. In fact, teens -- or the young at heart -- are the prime audience for these fine adventure books.

I have taken many math courses and as a result have read many math texts-from Abelian group theory to nonlinear functional analysis. I am convinced that this book is absolutely the worst math book ever written. The author is simply incapable of expressing the material. He believes that "theoretical and abstract" are synonymous with "making things it difficult to understand." For instance, in chapter 11 when he is trying to teach nonparametric estimation methods, he rambles on for whole page on how the data should be ranked. It's elementary stuff that could be expressed in 4 sentences. Also, he provides the tables (not very good ones) for the t distribution; yet, there is not ONE comment on how the tables are to be used. Most students use outside sources to learn the material. Furthermore, the author doesn't provide the intuition behind most of the concepts. Statistics in inherently an applied subject and without grasping the intuition behind why you do what do you, the student merely memorizes formulas.

As a graduate student in statistics, I learned to hate this textbook. The text is filled with plenty of formulas, but lacks plain English explanations and illustrations. Many of the subjects, such as the treatment of functions of jointly distributed random variables (Z = X + Y, Z = X/Y, etc.) in Chapter 3, are completely inadequate. I needed more diagrams so that I could wrap my mind around these concepts and understand them at an intuitive, geometric level. I also failed to understand the importance of Sufficiency and the Cramer-Rao Lower Bound in Chapter 8. These subjects seemed to lack any real-world applications and are just math games as far as I'm concerned.

Avoid this book like the plague if you're a beginner in statistics. It'll turn you off to the subject!

This book is so far the best mathematical statistics and data analysis textbook I've ever read for an undergraduate intermediate level statistics course. The topics are well chosen and the book is well written. The previous bad reviews of the book at Amazon.com are from people with absolutely no knowledge of statistics and trying to find some short-cut to "prepare for a exam" or whatever. So if you are a serious reader and with intermediate level statistics understanding, go for the book. It is not only good to be used a textbook, but also excellent for reference purpose.

i cannot believe this book comes from the same writer who's done interview with the vampire! when i saw this book in the bookshop and read the back,i though, oh! this sounds like a wonderful book! and the more i turn the pages the greater my disappointment.i liked the idea of the book but as a whole, it was just no good. i just got the feeling, if only she wrote it better...

I've enjoyed some of Anne Rice's previous books while I found others too confusing and ill-plotted with too many extraneous characters thrown in just to keep the story boiling. While Violin is as dark and lush as her previous work (the prose itself is gorgeous), I think it's probably Rice's worst. It begins hauntingly enough: the heroine cannot force herself to stop sleeping with her dead husband's rotting corpse, lest she lose the memory of him altogether. From this intriguing beginning, the waters grow ever muddier. The plot begins to meander and the characters' motivations become less and less clear. It finally became a chore just to turn the pages. What promised to be a dark, lush mood piece evolved into nothing more than a jumbled stream-of-consciousness with a very unsatisfying ending. Of course, the similarities between the main character and Rice, herself, cannot be overlooked. Anne Rice is usually too "dark" for my taste, but she IS an immensely talented writer when she sticks to her plot thread. If Stephen King is the Master of Horror (and he is), and Mary Higgins Clark the Master of Suspense, then Anne Rice has certainly earned the title Master of Darkness. Please, Ms. Rice, sit down and plot a new vampire tale, then let your imagination go to work. I'm sure you'll find yourself back on top of the bestseller list again!

"Violin", by Anne Rice is a book that draws on the emotions of the reader. Rice's style, while being somewhat dark in nature is very intriguing. The reader is pulled into a world in which ones' deepest fears and most twisted desires are brought to life.

The beginning of the story sets the intense mood of "Violin". In just the first few pages, the author lets readers in on enough of the mystery so it is impossible to put the book down. The development of the eerie setting, in present day New Orleans, adds to the overall interest as Rice weaves her story. The use of detail and her descriptive wording form a lasting impression for readers.

Rice enthusiasts are kept interested by all the circumstances surrounding the plot in "Violin". The main character, Trianna, after loosing her second husband to AIDS, is drawn into a pit of dark depression. Already emotionally numb and irrational, Trianna, encounters the most beautiful, soul wrenching music she has ever heard. Although she travels downward even further into depression, she realizes along the way her only means of survival is in the music played by the talented hands of a ghostly spirit.

Through the character's intensity, the horrible drama played out in "Violin" takes readers on an emotional ride which is terrifying, yet holds exactly what one is looking for in a Rice work. Other characters are introduced and are well developed throughout the book, but the focus remains on Trianna. "Violin" is truly about her and the depth of her emotional journey. Some past history allows the reader to know the various personalities of the characters presented.

Many readers may find the meandering of the time line to be tiring and difficult to follow, as Rice does tend to move back and forth in time rather rapidly. One moment the reader will be in the present of the story, only to be immediately thrown back into a memory, or thrust forward into the characters perception of the future.

As far as the general idea of meeting an agonized, but tormenting spirit who is pitiful leading someone into a world such as was created in "Violin", and it being a plausible reality is up to the reader. Perception has much to do with how the average reader would rate such a work and Rice is a master in creating worlds that seem real. Personally I enjoyed the mystery and fantasy of "Violin".

Rice exhibits her talent for creating characters with great depth and dimension in "Violin". She has the fantastic ability to make them seem real, as if the reader could just walk into the room and be part of that reality and know these people. If the reader has not experienced anything in life as emotional, they can be sympathetic. For other readers though, there is a deeper sense almost of empathy. The emotions and issues she deals with in "Violin" were, for me, very real and easy to relate too.

Anne Rice is one of my favorite authors. There are several different reasons, but I feel the most outstanding reason is she puts meaning and reality into her stories. Whether real, or imagined, the characters come to life. There are darker qualities to her works, but even in that, there is a sense of heart. "Violin" is an amazing journey for readers, if they have the courage to choose to begin. I feel it can also teach us something about ourselves as human beings. "Violin", I feel is for readers who are not afraid of life inside or out of themselves.

Boring is all I can say. The characters didn't even seem real. Read Home Fires by this author. It is wonderful. Can't believe this got published.

The characters are very poorly developed in this story. I have read Luanne Rice before and feel very cheated that this book was just a bore.

A story of love,betrayal, friendships and marital realtionships

Although this book gave a fair view of characteristic of Japanese in general, this book degraded Japanese women by depicting them almost like old stereotypic view of Japanese women being geisha. I was infuriated since I am Japanese and I can't believe that the author is Japanese as well (and also female)!! Skip the part about description of Japanese women near the beginning of the book. The description is totally incorrect and I have never heard of anyone who paints her chest to make it look attractive for men.

Thsi book was disappointing. I've read others in the Xenophobes series, and they were informative and humorous, though not particularly practical as travel guides. However, the Japan guide was neither. Having already read Culture Shock: Japan, I was very disappointed in this book. It has less information -- and less humor -- than Culture Shock. In fact, the Xenophobes guide had exactly 2 facts not mentioned in Culture Shock. Whether you are interested in travelling to Japan, or just looking for multicultural humor, I do not recommend this particular Xenophobes Guide.

I've been living in japan for about two years now, and while you can learn more by going through several longer, more extensive books, for a single guide that offers an irreverant explanation of a very difficult country to understand, the Xenophobes Guide to the Japanese is solid. Like the reviewer above, I read the Culture Shock guide to japan, and while I found it interesting too and learned more about culture shock, altogether for a short, funny book I don't consider it as informative or comprehensive.
If you want to read more of these kinds of books on japan, check out Hokkaido Highway Blues, by Will Ferguson, an former english teacher that hitchiked across the country during his stay. People that have already lived out here a while always find it a lot funnier than people that havent yet, but for what its worth it gives a really accurate depiction of what its like to be a westerner living out here.