Obviously enough, there is just no possibility that in a single year there will be enough groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy written to fill a book the size of Nebula Awards 30. In fact, some of the pieces in this collection are downright tepid (at least in my opinion, but yours may differ). Included within are:

Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mike Resnick: an alien archeologist gets seven glimpses into the nature of mankind (now extinct), on a progressively more radioactive Earth. May drag around the edges. 4 stars.

Inspiration by Ben Bova: a visitor from the future attempts to give young Einstein the impetus to voice his beliefs on physics (and thus, oddly enough, save the future Earth from being a radioactive dump) by giving him a copy of Well's The Time Machine. Not quite interesting. 3 stars.

Virtual Love by Maureen F. McHugh: two online virtuosos, off-line nobodies, are mesmerized by each other's mastery with false visages. Nice imagery. 4 stars.

None So Blind by Joe Halderman: "Why aren't blind people geniuses?" A child genius falls in love with a blind musician and creates a greater intelligence. 3 stars.

Fortyday by Damon Knight: in an alternate Roman Empire humans grow biologically older until they are forty, and then age in reverse. 4 stars.

In Memoriam: Robert Bloch by Frank M. Robinson: an overview of Robert Bloch's life (Bloch died in 1994).

The Martian Child by David Gerrold: Not quite science fiction. A sci-fi writer father suspects that his adopted child is a Martian. Very endearing. 4 stars.

Rhysling Award Winners - poetry by W. Gregory Stweart and Robert Frazier, Jeff Vandermeer, and Bruce Boston: since I never enjoyed Science fiction poetry, I will not evaluate this part.

Understanding Enthropy by Barry N. Malzberg: It doesn't have a plot. 2 stars.

I Know What You're Thinking by Kate Wilhelm: A telepathic Woman can't blot out the chatter in her mind and starts taking pictures of contemplating criminals as a hobby. It drags. 3 stars.

A defense of Social Contracts by Martha Soukup: In a society where strife is minimized by one's marital permit - monogamous, polygamous, or free not to marry, a woman seeks to illegally bind a "nonmonogamous" man to herself with false marital documents. This is the ultimate in writing about sex with absolutely no emotion whatsoever. 3 stars.

From a Park Bench to the Great Beyond: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of 1994 by Kathi Maio: an overview of exactly what the title says. Non-fiction.

The Matter of Segri by Ursula LeGuin: Yet another story in the Ekumen series - a planet, where men are basically breeder drones and women are the only part of the organized society per se, is slowly nudged towards the "standards". Lots and lots of the f-word. Come on, she could have used a synomim! 4 stars.

An Excerpt from Moving Mars by Gregory Benford: since this is only an excerpt, I cannot grade it.

If you like essays, deeply personal works, & poetry this is what you should stick with. Otherwise the 2 yrs best are better. "The Martian Child" was a great story that didn't really need to be science fiction & I honestly don't think it was, it wasn't fantasy either. Basically it's about the science fiction community & becoming a father. In some respects I think the SFFWA chose stories that are perhaps more interesting to sf authors then readers. Many of these stories are basically about the authors themselves or the sf community at large. Consequently ,I think, some of these stories were almost too personal & "inside" for average readers. "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge" was a good Stapledonian story, "Defense of the Social Contracts" was a genuine sociocultural speculation, & I liked Bova's. There were other good ones too & I liked seeing the Rhysling winners. The essays were also intriguing & provocative. It was actually a great anthology, but I think I'll keep up with the year's best more faithfully then the Nebula anthologies.

Don't misunderstand this is a good collection. Some of these stories were a little too personal, but they were good. My problem's that the 2 years best anthologies A. Choose stories that cover the same ground (sometimes the exact stories that get Nebula nominations) & ,in some instances, cover it better & B. Cover more ground & have a better variety. Neither of the year's best have poetry so it does have that advantage. The essays are also an advantage, except I think Dozois does a good job in his summation. The essays do show a variety of opinions though. I didn't like griffith's because she seemed to say lesbian sf is the best sf about women. I think there are many great women sf authors who don't write lesbian or even feminist stories. The winners are ,of course among the best, but the McHugh, Bova, & the Wilhelm I also enjoyed. I've noticed that Wilhelm is somewhat unusual in science fiction in that I think her work deal with the concerns of middle aged women to a large extent. I liked her story even though I'm a 21 yr. old man, but it'd probably make more sense to the group I mentioned. I think Haldeman's won the hugo. In shot stick with the 2 yr's best unless you want essays or poetry.

If you are not afraid of color and painting this book is for you.
This book is more about the author with quotes from famous artists and designers. There are how-to's but they are pretty basic, just like the book.

Okay, so I am one of the color converted-'white wall phobic' folks. I find a colorful environment so much more pleasing to return home to every day. This book is nice because it gives you ways to introduce color into your home without painting the walls shocking pink, although that's always an option, too. The quality of the photographs is nice, as well; I have seen some design books with photos that look like they were made on a photocopy machine! If you are thinking about having some fun with your home, this book is a great place to start for ideas!
Why not 5 stars? Well, I would have liked it if the book was even longer.

This book has inspired me like no other has in a long time!
As a trained textile designer who went into surface/stationery and product design I have loved Susan's style and color sense for quite awhile but never thought to see her philosophy in print as well as her magnificent work as shown in these stunning photographs .
Reading her story and how she relates to color confirms what I have always thought when it comes to design...brighter is better, and sure makes you feel good!Reading how she started out to where she is today should be inspiring to many an artist as well as others.
Every page of this book is eye candy, and her words are inspiring for the novice artist and craft person as well as professionals. I recommend it to designers, students of design, and all.
Thank you Susan for the inspiration, and for following your bliss!Buy this people, truly the world would be a better place if we were all surrounded by such beauty.

I really enjoyed "Venus of Dreams," about the beginnings of human settlement of Venus, and I immediately ordered the sequel, "Venus of Shadows." I gave up on it after about 200 of its 600+ pages. It takes a long time for the story to get off the ground, both literally and figuratively. Much of the early part of the book is review of the previous book. There's little new science or technology (at least as far as I got), just some details about the domes on Venus. And I found the main characters flat and uninteresting. Malik is strikingly handsome; Risa is good at mediating conflicts; they both have trouble with intimacy; and I didn't care. Bummer.

Read "Venus of Dreams." Skip "Venus of Shadows."

Venus of Shadows is the second book of the Venus Series. This book goes further than just science-fiction and transforming Venus into a habitable world. It deals with many situations and obstacles that ordinary people deal with each day, proving that wherever mankind goes, his age-old problems will always follow him. The story is extremely well written, highly interesting and will captivate the reader. I've been waiting a long time for the next novel to be published and I'm very excited that it will be out soon!

I re-read this book about the colonization of Venus, the high hopes and hard trials of the colonists, and the obstacles laid on their pathsnot only by Nature but by human evil as well, in one night after having read it the first time long ago. It has stayed with me. It is even better than the first one in the series. It's so believable in its depiction of the wonder and tragedy of the settling of a difficult world and the founding of a new society that's almost scaring. Its characters are believable human beings with no black villains or pure-white heroes, their life and their society feel so significant that I lost track of the fact that they were fictional people living on a fictionalized world. I am eagerly waiting for Ms. Sargent to write the sequel.

Unfortunately thats about it. A better title would be Caterpillar Bulldozers (and a few others). There is no mention of Euclid, Dresser, Allis Chalmers etc. Nevertheless, a worthwhile book.

This book is a great one for enthsuiasts of big, ol' earth moving machines. The photos make the book one you want to keep out for your friends

The life of Henry Martyn has inspired Christian missions for centuries, and deservedly so. The actual text though, is a bit on the dry side. Much of the book goes into detailed accounts of his sea voyage from England to India, an overland trip from India to Peria and his last homeward trek from Persia to Istambul. But aside from these lenghtly travelogues, the book does give an honest glimpse into Martyn's soul, his passion for the conversion of the heathen, and his spiritual struggles.
Most interesting are the letters he exchanged with his love, Lydia, who eventually rejects his marriage proposal (very sad), and his encounter with Perisan Islamic Sufism. On the whole, the text is pretty laborous to read through. My own recommendation is to read David Brainerd's journal (a much more interesting read of a missionary to the North American native Indians), who partly inspires Martyn to be a missionary himself.

For those interested in the history of Christian missions and missionary biography, few works will compare to Sargent's biography of the 19th-century British missionary, Henry Martyn. Martyn was a missionary to both India and Persia at the beginning of the 19th-century and was responsible for highly valuable translations of the Bible into Hindi and the New Testament into Persian. But Martyn is most remembered for the legacy of his journal. Dying in his early 30's, he left behind a journal that plumbed the depths of his spiritual experiences and which, alongside Brainerd' journals, was one of the greatest inspirational forces to 19th-century missions.

Sargent was a friend of Martyn and liberally splices the journal into an ongoing account of Martyn's life. This book is a reprint of the original biography which went through numerous printings in the last century, but which has been out of print for many decades. While necessarily marked by somewhat antiquated religious vocabulary, the biography manages to breathe life into a figure only dimly remembered by 20th-century Christians.

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in the work of Eakins, Sargent and James. The book primarily discusses their portraiture in light of art historical trends so it is helpful for the reader to have some knowledge of the artists' work before she begins reading. David Lubin is an excellent art historian and he provides the reader with interesting, engaging material. I especially liked his discussion of Thomas Eakins. Highly recommended.

I work as a bartender, and have found great use for The Bartender's Deck. I keep it on the bar, to let customers look through; kind of like a menu. The mixes in this book are classic and timeless. A great addition to any bar or book collection.

Down-to-earth, easy-to-follow.

The same gifts, but different paths chosen: You might say this is the premise of *Cloned Lives,* in a nutshell. When a gifted and multi-talented scientist is chosen to be the first human to be cloned, to become the "father" to a small group of artificially-birthed newborns who will grow up being physically and genetically identical to himself, the story quickly shows the resulting furor over this controversial act, with this scientist, Paul Swenson, and his "kids" at its focus. Essentially the story focuses on the lives of the children as they grow up, and the different paths and lives they take -- in a way showing us just what, in a parallel universe maybe, the path Paul Swenson himself might have taken if he'd explored his other natural talents and interests and become not a famous astrophysicist, but a novelist, or a biologist, or an artist, or even a conventional family man. In this way, Paul Swenson's "kids" (which in fact they really are, just more directly) show us just what one person may be capable if they have enough lifetime and energy in which to explore all their interests and inborn talents to their fullest. In a series of chapters that each focus exclusively on one of the young but maturing clones, whether it's Edward, James, Michael, Kira or Albert, we get to see their flaws and talents, how they each have reacted to the circumstances of their birth in different ways, not always good ways either. Pamela Sargent has written an engaging, thought-provoking but mature-level novel, with interesting, vibrant characters who seem as real as you or me. I recommend this novel for anyone who might like to get a sense of what growing up as a clone under the world spotlight might be like, as well as for the interesting turns our characters' lives take. Also, finally, for the curious way that our characters' personalities all, in a way, seem to reflect different aspects of their parent-projenitor, Paul Swenson. Other science-fiction novels have touched on the subject of cloned people and shown how it affected them, of course, but probably not to the very high degree here -- which is probably another reason to seriously consider adding *Cloned Lives* to your bookshelf. (Another novel I recall that did so is Juanita Coulson's sci-fi novel *Legacy of Earth*, which I recommend highly too, it's a great, galaxy-spanning adventure). Final comments: *Cloned Lives* is a very timely novel these days of course (if you've been following the news lately, that is), with all the recent controversy over animal cloning and now proposed human cloning that is getting a lot of ethical scrutiny by the world's politicians, even though this novel first appeared in its first complete paperback form back in 1976 -- the story of *Cloned Lives* is as relevant today as it was then. It touches on both the downside and major questionable aspect of the cloning process (the fact that the technology isn't perfect, that the process means possible loss of one or more embryos if something goes wrong -- in the story's case, they use a special mechanical womb here), but also the good side too, the fact that for childness couples, this is a way to have a child that is in every way descended from the chosen family member -- just not both, obviously (unless the female half of a couple serves as a surrogate birth-mother for the clone, maybe). Another benefit of the technique is shown at the end of the novel (I hope this isn't a spoiler...) when we meet the young clone of another child, a girl, who was tragically killed in an accident some years before, a few months after the death of the child's mother too -- such a cloning process allows the continuation of one's family even after such tragic loss, so that the product of your love with a lost wife or lover can be restored in a way that lets the family continue on and the surviving parent can get to see the fulfillment of the promise that the child-clone's sister-projenitor might have shown and experienced had she in fact lived. So there are definite pros and cons to human cloning, of course. And in fact, the novel itself is cognizant that human cloning should be a limited, case-by-case option most of the time, by which it explains that cloning should be rarely allowed "except in the case of certain exceptional people or in unusual circumstances," which the situation I've just described regarding the child certainly qualifies. Whether you agree with this or not, the novel itself is definitely worth the read in any case as quality fiction and as a good relationship story.

Firstly, I would like to say thanks to the authors, I am an experimentalist who was lack of the theoretical training, I read the book by self-studying. The style of this book inherit the book ¡§Laser physics¡¨ (by Sargent, Scully, Lamb), which is also my favorite. Especially, in the new editing, Meystre update new topics in the field of modern quantum optics (such as cavity QED) which I think also very good for self-study. However, the new typesetting of the book makes me somehow uncomfortable since the spacing of the lines is too compact. I would appreciate the editing/typesetting of the second editing.