I'm not much of a SciFi fan (this book was givin to me as a gift). So, I was very surprised at how good it was. Dietz's characters were appealing, which is hard to accomplish in such a short book (I'm used to 500 page or more books). I think the fast paced action is what really caught my attention though.

I recommend this book to any SciFi/Fantasy reader.

In Marching Home, Kevin Coyne offers a touchingly intimate and unsparing look at the lives of six small-town WWII vets. The men are presented as complete human beings, with strengths and weaknesses intact. The author avoids the cloying sentimentality and overreaching generalizations that characterize many recent works about the "greatest generation", allowing the reader to form his or her own opinions and attachments to the central characters. The affection we feel for these men and their town grows naturally as we share their struggles and triumphs. The six men are drawn with such tender honesty that we will know them as we know our own fathers, grandfathers, and uncles - many of whom we will understand more fully after reading this extraordinary book.

Molly Pitcher lived around the time of the Revolutionary War and she wanted to do the things the boys and men in her family did. She was smart but she couldn't go to school because she was a girl. She was brave and did things to help her family. She gave water to the soldiers and they called her Molly Pitcher because they wanted her to bring them the pitcher of water. When she was an adult she foughtbesude her husband in the war and took over firing the canon when he couldn't. She won an award from General George Washington and was made an honorary soldier. This book gives good examples of what life was like when people had to pay taxes to England and it shows how the war started.

When I was younger, I enjoyed read the books in the Childhood of Great Americans Series, and this was one of my favorites. It tells about Molly Pitcher's (no, that is not her real name)childhood and continues to briefly describe her life when she grew up. This book portrays history to young children in an interesting, as well as informative, way. If you like this book, then you will definently like the book Abigail Adams, of this same series.

Pretty good source book that provides a lot of backstory to some of the most legendary freeholds in all of Concordia. It has descriptions of the freehold itself, it's history and the people that frequent. Seelie, Unseelie, noble and commoner are all included, making this a valuable resource for adding a little beef to a chronicle.

I'm a big fan of Heinlein in general -- both pre- and post- "Stranger in a Strange Land". I've read nearly all of his novels, and enjoyed them all -- except for this one. I had a problem with how unlikeable the "hero" was and how unrealistic his interactions with the other characters were. Usually I like character motivation and behavior to flow with the plot more realistically, even in fantastic situations like science fiction novels. That didn't really happen for me with this book, though. The "hero" seemed to be there more as a mouthpiece for a political philosophy, and that kind of soapboxing by an author often overshadows the story itself. It certainly did in this case for me. I wouldn't recommend this as your first Heinlein novel.

I picked this book up in the store because it looked interesting... then didn't put it down again until I'd read the whole thing three times. Heinlein became one of my favorite science fiction authors as a result. A futuristic "What is the world coming to?" type novel that can be likened to "1984", "The Handmaid's Tale" or "Brave New World", Heinlein puts his own spin on things, and it's decidedly more human than some of the afore-mentioned books (although I love them all dearly). Intelligent and sometimes downright astounding, the character relationships are much more clearly drawn and developed than in your standard run-of-the-mill pulp sci-fi that gets pumped out by the publishing machine. If you read one Heinlein, this should be it, although I am not knocking "Stranger In A Strange Land". While I have not found any of RAH's other works to live up to the standard he set for me with this one, I would still highly recommend trying any of his works.

Is this science-fiction's most contraversial novel? I'm not sure if I could call it that, there's plenty here to raise eyebrows but I can probably think of three or four SF books that exacted the "contraversial" feeling from me more than this book. It's typical Heinlein and if you just left it at that, longtime Heinlein fans would probably know exactly what I was talking about. For those not so blessed, let me explain then. Heinlein generally takes an idea that's a little on the edgy side (here blacks taking over the world after the whites wipe themselves out) and runs with it, having his characters functioning as little more than mouthpieces arguing his points over and over. If you're into it, you'll forget the lack of extensive plotting and delve into the idea . . . if not then you've got a hard road in front of you. Farnham and his family take cover in a fallout shelter to avoid a nuclear war . . . the resulting war somehow propels them two thousand years into the future where the Chosen race (guess who?) has taken over and all light skinned folks are used as slaves (among other things, but you'll discover that when you read the book) . . . Farnham gets dropped into this and being the practical self made man that he is, adapts himself while thinking of ways to get out, while Joseph, a young black man who worked for him, sees little problem is taking advantage of the situation, while remaining essentially decent (sort of a "shoe is on the other foot thing" but Heinlein wisely stays away from too much of that line of thinking). They are about the most well rounded characters, though Farnham is a typical Heinlein protagonist, always thinking, uses his wits, an unshakeable core of his own morality, stuff like that. Joseph is much the same way. The women fall into two catagories, either simpering useless wimps (Grace) or mindnumbingly devoted sex kittens, smart and loyal. Right. Some of the stuff shown here will definitely make you wonder how much he believed in and how much was pure shock value (and it wouldn't be a Heinlein book without a discussion on sex, this time revolving around incest, but I'll let you discover that one for yourself) but overall it's a swift tale that contains a bunch of ideas that are worth thinking over, mostly how slavery is bad no matter who does it, among other things. Gear yourself up for it before you read it, because he's not going to make it easy, keep your head above water and you'll make it through, it is a strong novel and not one of his absolute best but maybe strong enough to make the second tier of greats.