First off, let me say I enjoy most of Huxley's work. The style of this book is totally different from the usual Huxley method. I've never read anything else by Christopher Isherwood. This book starts out boring, and ends boring. That's really the sum of it. The characters are flat and extremely simple. In his early work (say, pre "Brave New World"), Huxley's characters are an embodiment of one single trait. However, they are always developed well, and their thought processes are complex while remaining within this one trait. This book has the same characterization - Jacob, for example, is moronically kind and simple (think Forrest Gump). There are also the classic evil tricksters, and so on. It's not done well at all, and I left this book with a bad taste in my mouth.

Interesting how Hollywood types embrace such spiritual ideas without commiting to one chosen path. This work starts with an incredible insight into some of Jesus' words yet speaks to healing as a natural and mystical experience. I'd think the Creator would be more included in the reasoning.
Well worth reading. Many, many thanks to Sharon Stone for recognizing the beauty of this fable and giving it new life at this end of the century.

This screenplay is the collaborative effort of Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley. This work has an unpolished feel to it and may have been an unfinished work. However, the stark and unadorned quality of the work adds rather than detracts from its message.

It is a fable about a ranch hand, Jacob, who discovers that he can heal animals with his touch. The owner of the ranch is a widowed college professor with a physically handicapped adult daughter. The professor resents his daughter and wastes no effort in hiding his feelings. The daughter desperately wants freedom and independence. She asks Jacob to heal her.

The screenplay's uncomplicated message is that physical health alone does not make a person whole or happy. This work is unlike anything else by Huxley in its simplicity and ambiguous final paragraphs. It is a short work and is easily finished in one or two sittings.

I've seen excellent quality in the Silver Anniversay editions of The Keep on the Borderlands and White Plume Mountain, which makes me wonder how this one snuck under the radar. The promise behind these modules is that they are going to be retrofitted with logic, plot, rounded characters - qualities that sometimes lacked in the classic originals, but are demanded by today's players. The implied promise is that they will expand upon the original material, or take it in a fresh direction. That did not happen in this module. The first three giants modules (which I already bought from a used book store) inserted -intact - into the module. Guys, if I'd wanted the original modules, I'd have bought the original modules. I bought Silver Anniversary because I wanted more. Packing a lot more of the same around the first three modules intact, does not really expand upon my gaming experience.

Essentially, the rest of the Duchy of Geoff is packed around the 3 original giant fortresses. But this makes the module into more of a "world book" than an adventure module. There are X number of towns to liberate, each with a different kind of giant and smattering of orcs. But it's all much the same, and frankly, after the first 3 modules of giants, giants, giants, the rest of it will get tired quickly. There is a half-hearted attempt to provide a new motivation for the original giant attack on the Duchy of Geoff (a new villian) but strangely, the old villians still exist in the 3 intact main modules, with no acknowledgement of the new villian or motivation (and no interface for the players to discover it, in game). The DM notes offer a flake of bad advice on how to use the two kinds of villianous groups, explaining that they should use them to confuse the players. Without a good reason for either of them (the new villian's motivation is shaky, the original villians were just evil), the confusion is just frustrating. DM's need to do major tweaking of the plot to fix it.

Further, the giant combats get tired after a long time for players who want to play anything other than a skirmish game. If you like traps, tricks and thinking, forget about it. If you like flat out combat with lots of bad guys, here you go.

Finally, the story fails. I cannot accept, within the context of the Greyhawk world, that all the armies of Geoff were killed off by these giants, and that only a single party of adventurers will single handedly win the war. To patch it together, I've popped in a workable backstory, and I'm trying to put together an army to function as a backdrop for the characters. The players choose the general tactics of the army, and then take out key areas of the giants -commando style. It is clumsy though.

I'm going to fast forward through parts of this module, and get to White Plume Mountain as fast as possible.

Save your money and buy something else. There's not much here worth playing.

I've always been a fan of Sean Reynolds work -- especially on the Star Cairns adventure and the Scarlet Brotherhood supplement -- and he does a good job here as well.

He's hamstrung by the reprinting -- verbatium -- of the original adventure. It's the only module of the 'silver' editions that's reprinted like this, and I found that annoying. Why not spend the time to update the text to be better linked with the second (and much more useful) part of the book?

Greyhawk fans, especially those with campaigns set in the southeastern Flanaess, should definitely pick up this book for its detailing of the lost kingdom of Geoff.

For those who don't know, Geoff was overrun by giant forces during the Greyhawk Wars; the second half of this book is dedicated to kicking the brutes out of the realm.

The book details more than a dozen locations in Geoff, and plants plenty of good adventure ideas. I would have prefered to see some more information on the Grand Duke of Geoff, but hey, I can do that myself.

The biggest flaws I see in this book are the lack on integration with the original adventure, and the pathetic, somewhat inaccurate insert map. This book is crying out for a nice color wall map, even a small one, and I would gladly have shelled out a few more books to have one.

I'm running it in my campaign now, and it provides a nice distraction from the ongoing intrigues of the group's home city (and provides a good place for them to run to when their enemies and/or the authorities start looking for them)

If you're a DM who likes to add flesh to the skeleton of an adventure, then this is a great campaign supplement (and that's what it is -- a supplement, not a module). If you're looking to be spoonfed, or want to run something off-the-shelf, then its a lot less useful (esp. if you've run through the original).

Role Playing Games take all kinds of players, and all kinds of games. Some players prefer the original Against the Giants series - but these adventures were essentially hack and slash giant killing escapades. There was little to no backgournd information given because it wasn't needed - you simply teleported by conveniently left behind magic from one adventure to the next. Why the giants left the areas these teleports led to ungaurded is a far more serious plot failure than anything in the new material.

The originals are reprinted verbatim because they make good giant strongholds, and can easily be included in the overall scope of the campaign. And in this context, there is much, much greater detail about why these strongholds exist where they do, and how they interact with their surroundings.

The new material presents lightly detailed adventuring areas that offer a variety of challenges to a wide range of ability levels. There are secrets to be learned in every town and woods. Allies to be found, and enemies to be made. Unlike the original "Giants" series, there is ample opportunity for role-playing social interaction with the people, and even the monsters that inhabit the area.

The new material does go in a fresh direction, does flesh out the old material, and does offer plausible explanations as to why the Giants were successful (air support, the Greyhwak Wars depleting resources for the defenders, etc...).

Against the Giants, the Liberation of Geoff does have two downfalls. First, the writers do make you make some decisions on your own about what to include, why to include it, and how to present it to the players (eek! enforced use of the imagination!). Second, it trully is a large, almost monumental task to go about liberating every last little piece of the puzzle, and many groups may not have the stamina for it. Of course, there's absolutely NO REASON to approach the adventure that way, (give some clues a little early, and let the players get to the heart of the matter quickly)but if you do, it's an awful lot of work.

Being extremely interested in roller coasters and theme park attractions in general, yet also being terribly prone to motion sickness (yes, I know this sounds weird, and it is), I really looked forward to this book. Which, unfortunately, isn't a book at all, but a sort of slim and undersized prozine. And this is the first problem. Then we have extremely factless texts, which could only interest those who never had access to very basic information about roller coasters (like, yes they do have brakes, guys). And finally most photographs are straight out park brochures, thus very spectacular and very poorly reproduced.

Interesting only for cartoon chickens fans, as some of the cartoons introducing each chapter are actually damn funny.

The pictures available were really great. The defination of the terms used are really helpful for making a study on roller coasters

Great pictures and drawings made this an enjoyable book

OK, the way I see it, puerile kids may think this is the thinking man's module but any adults will cringe.

TSR always has figured that their audience has no link with reality as they pepper their adventures with implausible plots, insane characters, and magic that makes no sense.

Here, we are led to believe that the adventure has plenty of riddles to thwart the players. First off, the majority of the riddles are so lame they make no sense. At first I thought this module was a joke, like Castle Greyhawk but much to my dismay it was not. While I enjoy math, I don't enjoy sitting down to do algebra while I game. If it were plausible I might allow it but it is thrown in for no reason. And will the players want to wade through riddle after riddle that tests the players INT? How can you roleplay this?

The organization is shoddy which turns this contraption into a GM's nightmare.

As for realism, how did the protaganist create all of this? He sure does notseem to have the magical prowess in the final encounter. Further, his motivations are lame too. It just makes no sense. This adventure will appeal to those who don't care for any semblance of realism in their campaign.

Please TSR, if you insist on advertising adventures with riddles to try and attract gamers who want something more than average, give it a coherent theme and a real reason for existing.

Lamer than lame!

One of the better adventures to come around, Crypt of Lyzandred the Mad is a fun time for a gaming group. Sean K. Reynolds has produced all quality work so far, lets hope he keeps his pattern going.

This module certainly keeps your group hopping. There are enough encounters to play through it more than once. They are quite varied for the most part and it is easy to hop from riddle to straight out hack and slash to keep everyone in the group happy.

this guy is totally in love with himself. I understand the books supposed to be about him but the one time he steers onto the subject of Loni, all he does is belittle her. Hey Burt, we read the papers back then ya know. What about the time she saved your life when you were nothing but a druggie laying in bed all day popping percosets? Nah. We don't here any of the good things she did for him. Just the negative. Cos he's selfish. Me, Me, Me. Don't bother with this book. I know why its out of print now. It stinks!

This book started out good with all the excitement of his early career.Some of it is hard to believe though.Towards the end of the book it started dragging.I think Burt's life in the late 80's and early 90's must have been real boring or he just ran out of good stories to tell us.I was basically done with the book around the middle and had to labor to finish it.I am still a Burt Reynolds Fan cannot deny that.It now sits on the shelf next to Loni's book.That is where the real comedy comes in.If you notice Loni's book is larger and Burt wrote his after her? So I guess Burt is the small man next to her now

MY LIFE, the autobiography of actor Burt Reynolds, was published just a year or two too soon. The book came out shortly after Reynolds' public battle with former wife Loni Anderson, when people were talking more about his love life than his movies. Had Reynolds published this after his work in the film BOOGIE NIGHTS put him back on top, it would have been a more satisfying conclusion to the story.

When illness and gossip threatened an end to Burt Reynolds' acting career, he recalled the words of his former girlfriend Dinah Shore, who had assured him that sooner or later his talent would win back what he had lost. As BOOGIE NIGHTS earned Reynolds an Oscar nomination, how right the late Ms. Shore proved to be. (As I write this, 3/1/02, it would have been Dinah's 85th birthday.)

If you like movies, Burt Reynolds, or both, you can't miss with MY LIFE. The fire in the man's soul and his desire for life's finer things (including the finest women) have made for some incredible ups and downs. And when you're Burt Reynolds, you have a thousand tales of the fantasy life to tell.

Other MY LIFE reviews question the actor's willingness to take a swing at those who upset him. In Reynolds' defense, he never ran from a fight even when he knew he was outmatched. That's the difference between a coward and a man's man: the will to fight with no guarantee you will win. While Reynolds admits passing on man-handling an ex-football player who was in a group of acting students he was throwing out of a class, he also tells about the time he took on Tony "Two Ton" Galento with no hope of winning. That's a tough guy.

Read MY LIFE - or Burt'll come after you!

When I saw that this book was again in print I had a feeling of both gladness and nostalgia. I still have my original copy purchased many years ago. I agree with one other reviewer who stated that the author must have been in the military as it surely does show in this book. And if you stop to think about it, the idea of cloning as far as a science fiction topic has been around a lot longer than some realize as this work clearly shows. This work also presents some very "adult" ideas. One of it's very obvious messages is the ugliness of political divisivness combined with a statement aganst racial oppresion. If this is "only" a kid's book then I am glad that I as a kid read (and enjoyed) it and would like my kids (and now my grandkids) to read it as well. Lessons about moral courage and being true to one's convictions are sorely needed and this work presents these ideals very well.

This is a reprint of the very first Star Trek book I ever bought, and it thrills me to see it back in print. I was about 11 when I bought the book and was mezmerized by the story. It is a wonderfully worthwhile book, worth reading at any age. Let it do for you what it did for me, which was take me into space for the first time and kept me going back for more. The only thing that would've made the book better is if there had been more of them.

I consider myself to be a bit of a connoisseur of children's literature, and this little gem grabbed me by the throat. I had never read it before, since it was out of print for a long time, but as a great fan of fanfiction I wanted to check it out.

The book takes place on an ordinary day on the Enterprise, the crew afflicted with deep space-boredom, when they are sent out to investigate the Horatius star system, which houses three different worlds. One is a replica of Nazism, one has rejected all technology, and one is dominated by a dope-dealing cult.

All are dealt with tastefully, with some definite funny moments in the mix, such as our heroes facing down a tribal medicine man. A subplot weaves its way until the end, concerning Sulu's pet rat, who escapes. Eventually Bones cures the crew of their boredom using Mickey the Rat...

If you are looking for a pleasant Trek read, very reminiscent of the original series episodes, then pick this book up! You won't be disappointed--though keep in mind that it IS a kid's book.

This book had a lack of examples.
Poor presentation.
The little snippets of code it used to navigate through
the book were very dificult to grasp since there are no
example to demonstrate that they work.
I have been thru just under a dozen .net books. This is
one of the worst alongside ithe vb.net unleashed book.
It was very easy to give up reading this book since you always
wonder if the code you type is ever going to work or
is that the reason why some of the the code was not downloadable

Since this book has 3 authors, it would be interesting to know who wrote what parts. Some parts are very good, with understandable examples and clear explanations. Other parts I just scratched my head and wondered.

It's not that I didn't understand what they were doing, it's that I wondered why they were doing it. It seems they went out of their way to make parts of the code complex and confusing.

The main program developed in the book, the Product Management System, took 4 chapters. It could have been a great example of a simple program that taught the main points of database programming.

However, parts of the code was poorly designed and written, resulting in the program being overly complex and not functioning like a professional program should.

I feel that if you are teaching someone, you should show them the right way to do it. As a beginner in VB I am looking at the whole picture. Just because this book is about database programming, the authors should not ignore the quality of the rest of the language in their example code. Is it too much to ask the professional programmers who write books to write professional quality programs?

I currently don't have a better book to recommend. I've started reading another book I got from the library, but I don't have an opinion yet. To bad the library doesn't have more books on VB so I could try before I buy.

For people with some experienced on VB .Net, this book will serve as a very good introduction on the basic skills on database programming. Not only have the authors done a good job on showing how to use ADO .Net, but they have also done a very nice job of showing how to apply the skills of objected-oriented programming techinques. Base forms are developed and then inherited to develop more sophisticated windows forms.I strongly think that this book is worth reading.

"Letter to a Man in the Fire: Does God Exist and Does He Care?", by Reynolds Price, is a short work (108 pages) of nonfiction prose that attempts to deal with the issue of human suffering. In his preface, Price explains the book's origin: he had received a letter from Jim Fox, a young medical student who was fighting cancer. Fox had apparently been intrigued by Price's account of his own battle with a disabling cancer, an experience recounted in Price's book "A Whole New Life." Fox wrote to Price seeking his insight.

Price writes from the perspective of a faithful Christian of the liberal Protestant variety. Price writes of his own "revelations" of God's presence, his family's multidenominational Christian background, and other issues. He quotes and reflects on many biblical passages (both Old and New Testament) and also reflects on the lives and work of other writers: W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, John Milton, Wallace Stevens, and others. He also reflects a bit on the Bhagavad Gita, a key Hindu scripture.

Ultimately, Price has an inclusive and hopeful faith: "...I believe that God loves his creation...." His voice is earnest and his prose is beautifully written, but in the end I found the book oddly inert; I felt that I was left with no new insights into human suffering or the idea of deity. Still, a worthwhile book for both spiritual pilgrims and fans of well-written nonfiction prose.

In reading this book, I hoped to find some of what I've come to expect from a Reynolds Price book. But there isn't much here in terms of the quality of thought and subtle eloquence that I often find when reading his work. That is truly surprising when considering the topic of this book -- as well as the events of Mr. Price's recent life.

Here he is presenting a letter of consolation and condolence to a man who is suffering from cancer and the ordeal of treatment. And Mr. Price knows something of what this man is experiencing due to his own experiences with cancer.

But, despite these circumstances and all the best intentions, there is little hope or help provided in the pages of this book.

For someone who is struggling with doubts about God -- or someone who is persuaded fully one way or another about the presence or absence of a divine being -- this book gives surprisingly little food for thought. Mr. Price tells the reader that he has occasionally had a peaceful feeling of harmony -- an "un-aloneness" -- which to him indicates that there must be a God.

What help is that to someone who needs reassurance?

I do believe in a caring God...but hoped to find in these pages some ideas to share with others who doubt. Unfortunately, Mr. Price has not provided those ideas.

As one who watched his own father, a retired minister, die a horrible, lingering death this past year after 15-year battles with cancer, heart disease and diabetes, I found Mr. Price's "Letter" to be both thought-provoking and helpful in my own search for answers to the questions posed in the book's title -- more helpful than my re-readings of Ecclesiastes and Job were.

No one in this life, however faithful, can be absolutely sure that he has THE answers. All anyone can truly have is a good guess about directions in which to look for those answers. I have found Mr. Price to be a good guide partly because he has traveled farther down that solitary road than most of us and has come back with the willingness to report his findings in the clearest voice that anyone can have under such circumstances.

I cannot recommend this book to the beginning magician. The author of this book states that he assumes the reader is already familiar with the basic techniques of magic, and he backs up this threat. Therefore, the book is useless to everyone except people who are already magicians.

While there are a few chapters on other kinds of magic, this book is mostly about card tricks - and it immediately became useful to me only as a paperweight. The tricks sound interesting, I agree, but I cannot perform them, because I don't know the basic sleights that make them work.

The basic techniques that ARE described are described so poorly that I could not understand them ... and I am not a beginner at learning magic from books. Adding to the problem is the lack of illustrations and photographs, which are very helpful when learning some illusions.

There are texts on magic that start with the very basics, walk you through intermediate level illusions, and even go all the way to the most advanced, professional magic. From these kinds of texts, you can actually - with enough practice - become very versed in magic.

"The Art of Magic" by T. Nelson Downs is NOT such a text. I am sure that magicians who already know a bit about card magic would get a lot out of this book. They also probably value it for traditional reasons, since Downs was an acknowledged master magician - he even has sleight of hand coin tricks specifically named after him. But I suspect that other books on card magic that actually describe the basics of magic probably also cover most of the tricks in this book ... and do so with more thorough detail, illustrations, etc.

My area of practice is coin magic, and so - I am sorry - I cannot recommend another text on card magic. I suppose you could look at the reader reviews of other books to find a more appropriate learning manual for your skill level. HOWEVER, UNLESS YOU ARE ALREADY A MAGICIAN, I MUST TRY TO STEER YOU AWAY FROM THIS BOOK! Since I didn't already know card tricks, it was a waste of my money and time.

In today's time, words are not enough to describe a sleight. Reading this book is not very easy. I would appreciate more pictures, more details . Many pictures in the book are completly useless and should be replaced by detailed photos. Sorry, I don't like it.

I'm not sure why a beginner in magic would attempt to critize a classic of magic so thoroughly if he is just a beginner (above reviews)...while the book does not have many illustrations, its text does give enough detail to perform the sleights quite accurately. I also would like to say that if you are a beginner in magic, this books is not for you. You should already know what a top change is, bottom change, double deal, second deal, bottom deal, palm, rear palm, side slip, and so on are. If you do not know these, don't get this book.... Also, for the serious card conjurer, GET EXPERT CARD TECHNIQUE BY JEAN HUGARD AND FREDERICK BRAUE...it is THE best book on card magic written and it so thoroughly describes technique that I think a fly could do the tricks. Again, this book is a classic...I suggest you get it if you're an experienced amateur.

This book should be called "an walkthrough of a .NET application".

You cannot explain enterprise development by walking us through one application! They needed to explain why they have designed a component in a particular way, and possible alternatives for different scenarios.

The books is basically a walkthrough of an application written by the authors. I was hoping for something along the lines of a discussion of designing an implementing enterprise applications.

I think their data access mechanism is better than hard coding sql but I wouldn't use it in production. It is not a true object orientated persistence layer.

However I rate this book 2 stars because their are some things that I gained from their example app. There are always things to learn from analyzing an application.

In spite of its small size, this book is surprisingly good. It is not all you will need to develop your "next big thing", but it points you in the right direction nevertheless.
If you are about to develop your first big project (like me) and you need a relatively brief guide, this might be a book for you.
And, contrary to what the other readers said about support, I didn't have any problems downloading the codes at all. In any case, I just downloaded the codes, so the previous problems encountered by other readers must have been addressed.

I do personally like how this book has written. Yes, it does not concentrate a lot on "enterprise design" concepts, but gives you an idea how to structure your program internally to eliminate unnecessary coding, etc. And I do back up the authors idea to show all these concepts based on sample application. This is a book to help to real developers, but not to "enterprise development theoretics". Very usefull book, especially if you're going to deelop your very first "enterprise" application in C#.