I was very impressed with the plotline and character development. It was as good as any in the action genre that I've read. A very impressive first novel from an author who has obviously been there and done that. Make room for Craig Kelley right next to Tom Clancy on your bookshelf. Looking forward to reading Mr. Kelley's next work. Please let me know when it comes out!

The book grabbed me early on and didn't let go until the end of the weekend I read it. Fantastic yarn that weaves the complexities of environmental dangers, strong egos battles and outstanding human drama. Great character development along with New England charm made this book ideal for a total getaway weekend.

If you like Robert Ludlum novels you'll love this one. Once I started reading I couldn't put it down. Craig Kelley does an excellent job of bringing his characters to life - I could almost see the movie playing out in my mind... and this one has it all - action, drama, and conspiracy with enriching touches of humor and emotion. Every time I thought the remainder of the story was predictable, Kelley introduced another bizarre but very believable surprise. I liked it so much I bought copies for my parents and my brother. I hear that Kelley is working on another book. I'll be waiting for its release.

Ms Craig infuses magic in the dusty hard-scrabble town of Rio Hondo with her characters that fairly leap off the page. Caught up in Joy's growth from "an old spinster" to an attractive, considerate woman, the reader finds herself rooting for and applauding each of Joy's milestones, from her first daring read of a novel to the joyful abandon in climbing a tree. And Elijah learns of his own self-worth through helping Joy discover hers. If you're in the mood for magic, this is the book to read.

GAMBLER'S MAGIC is the third book in The Enchanted Land series by Ms. Craig. She has created yet another magically romantic story with characters you fall in love with. Joy and Elijah are two unlikely people totally opposite but discover they have very much in common. Both are lonely wounded souls in need of peace and happiness. They find it in Rio Hondo with each other. A story served up with romance and a wee bit of magic.

This is the last of the trilogy we (fans of Emma Craig) have been waiting for. The old wizard, Mac, is up to no good with his Cupid arrows - AGAIN! The magical man has still got his strange sense of humor too! Detra Fitch for Huntress Book Reviews

"The Gatehouse" is a cutting edge business book that addresses the issue of today - what gives meaning to our lives at work and how do we fulfill/sustain that. Strengthening cultural capital is the new paradigm of business management, and this book not only provides methodologies on how to achieve this, but insight into the human forces that actualize it. Realizing how we impact others and how we can better do so is one of life's greatest and ultimately most rewarding challenges. I applaud Craig Elkins for putting the material in the form of a novel so that we can better see ourselves as we read relative to our work position. This is a book for all managers regardless of level, MBA students and anyone aspiring to be a leader.

Craig Elkins has taken the best of life and organisational transformation thinking and moved out of the text book format into a compelling, fun, emotional and deeply connecting story. The four main characters, while so different in personality managed to capture the fears, desires and dreams that I have inside me too. This is the sort of book that a manager should consider buying for all the people in a department or company. It would create great new conversations, connections and possibilities for transformation. Thank you Craig

Whether male or female, business person or not, The Gatehouse inspires on multiple levels (philosophically, intellectually, spiritually). The four strong characters are people you'd like to know; they grapple with life's great truths (e.g. paying attention to coincidences that personalize our individual path) through years of friendship, humor and crisis. Business/work ethics, friendship, romance, and a humorous spiritual entity make this book a "gift" for anyone on my list.

GURPS Alternate Earths may be made to order for a dimension hopping campaign such as GURPS Time Travel, but I believe it also gives gamers an opportunity to see how our own world "might have been" if just one event in history was changed. And it provides opportunities to set whole adventures, and even whole campaigns in those worlds.

The six different "Earths" in this book are almost textbook examples of the now popular "What If" line of SF stories. The first world, "Dixie", gives us a good idea as to what might have happened if the South had won the American Civil War. It covers the time from secession to the time when the Confederate States of America became a superpower. The second world, "Reich 5" give us a chilling look at the world under Nazi rule and the resistance effort still under way years later. The third world "Rome Aeterna", assumes the Roman empire never fell. The fourth world, "Shikaku-Mon", assumes the ancient Japanese Empire conquered the world. The fifth world, "Ezcalli", has details for a strange Earth where the might of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans is unsurpassed. The sixth and final world is the strangest of all. "Gernsback" starts with a simple postulation: what if Nikolai Tesla's inventions worked and were used by someone with the financial genius of Morgan? Flying cars and broadcast power are common.

There are ideas for adventures, characters, and even whole campaigns for each of the worlds, including several paragraphs about even stranger worlds that diverged from these six. These "reality seeds" give creative GM's even more alternate worlds to explore.

People wishing to use books like Harry Turtledove's wonderful alternate earths books need look no further for ideas of how to recreate his books for a strange parallel world campaign. Highly recommended for GURPS GM's and recommended even to SF fans wanting to explore the ramifications of what might happen if...

It doesn't matter if you have no intention of ever role playing or if you have no idea what GURPS is about, this is a fascinating book for anyone who, like me, wants to see more of an alternate history than the point of divergence and a sporadic description of the world spread out across the course of a book.

This book holds the background information for six alternate histories, each at different points in their timelines. In each section you'll find maps, histories and descriptions for each of the major powers involved in that world along with sidebars that cover some small details of those worlds (rock & roll in the Confederate States of America? It's in there. How to tour in Gernsback? Yep). These are not stories, these are the actual histories involved.

If you're not interested in the gaming aspect, then the tables and charts referring to character types and the likes will be of minor interest, but don't let that stop you.

This is a rare time when I wish that Steve Jackson Games had a fiction line to explore each of these scenarios...

This guy must do nothing but read and write. I'm not even sure he takes time to eat. He knows more and more obscure facts about the history of our planet than anyone I've ever met.

Whatever the case, though, I'm grateful, because he's come up with some pretty terrific rpg sourcebooks. This is one of them.

This book offers six alternate Earths, each an imagined world in which something is different from the world we know. Some are set in a past in which something is different; others in a present in which something in the past went a different way.

Such settings make for great fiction--and for great adventures. It's not hard to come up with ideas for such settings, but it is nice when someone's taken the trouble to do the development work for you. A modern Confederate America, an ancient Roman campaign in the New World. Wonderful!

The book can also help you design your own alternate earths by example.

This book is definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a new and different setting for your campaign. If you're done with high fantasy, but you still want magic; if you like metropolises but long for a radically different social structer; if you have any interest in things NOT as they are, then this book's for you.

Maybe I'm a bit biased since two of the four players profiled in this book are now Mets, but I really enjoyed their stories. Siroty takes you from their childhoods through college, to the minor leagues and the majors. Every player has a different path, and not all of them have the traditional happy endings. Every page mentions a new player whose name you'll recognize - I always wondered how every baseball player seemed to know each other, even if their teams never competed. You'll love this book if you love baseball - because it really shows the players' passion for the game.

The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth by sports writer David Siroty is an involved and involving study of the lives of Craig Biggio, Mo Vaughn, and John Valentin, three renowned baseball players, each of whom earned MVP honors, Gold Gloves, and more, -- as well as the life of Marteese Robinson, a friend and college teammate of the three men who was left behind from the professional baseball world. Robinson would eventually find a way to join his friends; just not a way that any of them expected. The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth is an engaging tale, featuring an aside with a quotable quote from the men it spotlights on almost every page, as well as an inset section of black-and-white photographs. The Hit Men And The Kid Who Batted Ninth is a very fine read -- especially for baseball fans.

David Siroty writes a factually accurrate account of the Hit Men from Seton Hall. As a former Pirate player, I spent some time with these guys and they were all good guys and had one distinguishing trait in common; they all had the burning desire to play the great game of baseball. Excellent job by Siroty telling a great story about the greatest game on the face of the earth.
Brought back good memories. Wish I was there!
Can't wait to bring my son to Mike Sheppard's Basball Camp...keep the hustle.
PS: Marteese Robinson was one of the nicest guys in our high school, SHP.

Craig Keener is a very good scholar. His use of source material (primary and secondary) is very judicious and sound. I have always wanted a book that tried as much as possible to avoid giving interpretation, but instead focused on background customs and "everyday" perspectives of the peoples of the first century. This book does just this. However, one cannot entirely avoid interpretation in a volume like this. Still, Keener's work will help you get more out of your Bible study and it will help you avoid esoteric explanations of the Scriptures. This book is especially good for those who are weary of commentaries. Thanks again to Keener for the work put into this book.

Finally, here's all the stuff I always wanted, but could never get in the notes of a study Bible. Keener's book is 831 pages of double-columned passage-by-passage commentary, readable but never "dumbed down." "Background" refers not only to history, but to society, culture, and everyday life, and the book is both interesting and illuminating.

IVP is an overtly Christian publisher, which might make some readers, those who want objective scholarship, wary. It need not. The vast majority of this commentary is concerned with documented fact. Not all, of course. Some events are matters of controversy among historians -- for example, Herod's "slaughter of the innocents," which is mentioned by no other document than the Gospel of Matthew, and which many scholars think never happened. But, on checking the relatively "liberal" HarperCollins Study Bible, I find this isn't mentioned there either, which indicates that the verdict is still out, and that Keener has acceptable reason for taking Matthew's word on the subject. If the objectivity question bothers you, you could use Keener's book in conjunction with an ecumenical study Bible, such as HarperCollins or New Oxford Annotated. But this volume seems, to me, to be that rare book that both faith-based Bible readers, and objective scholars could love.

My biggest complaint is that, while the binding and paper are high quality, the paper is heavy & the binding stiff. It will not open flat for easy back-and-forth referral between it and the Bible text you're using.

Other than that, it's a wonderful piece of work on all counts.

This book does an awesome job of digging and ferreting out the important cultural nuances of the New Testament. It sheds light on even the more notoriously difficult passages. This book will save the busy pastor time and money. And it rewards close reading.

I went on a 4 day trip to Chicago and found the information in the book to be fairly reliable and covered most areas of interest. The strong points were reviews of hotels (I booked before reading this guide) and it correctly advised that the Allegro is a good hotel. Also good were overviews of the main neighbourhoods near the loop. Things I wanted to know while I was there and couldn't find in the guide were details of shops that sold electronic goods and locations of internet cafes. The book had some strange errors including a colour picture page labelled as Wrigley park which in fact is Comiskey Park.

This is the best travel guide I have ever read. It tells you the ins outs and inbetweens of every place you planned on, and never thought of, seeing in a major city. It gives great details on well known and hidden restaurants, the prices, the cuisine, and how good the taste is. I highly recommend any Frommer's guide. I bought the San Fransisco edition and found it so great I bought the Chicago edition for when I am at home. Frommer guides are a must have for a city you live in or near, and a city you are visiting.

The author of Frommer's Chicago 2001, Craig Keller, has been a journalist in Chicago for more than a decade. As such, he is very familiar with the area, and he is an excellent writer, which makes the book easy to read.

This 321-page guide has an excellent index and table of contents. It is filled with photos and is well laid out with color-coded margins to help you thumb to the different sections. These include: (1) The Best of Chicago: the best among Chicago's hotels, restaurants and entertainment experiences. (2) Planning your trip to Chicago: suggestions on when to go to Chicago, an annual calendar of Chicago events, tips for travelers with special needs, means of getting to Chicago, and information on O'Hare Airport. (3) Advice for Foreign Visitors: information for non-U.S. citizens with a summing-up section called Fast Facts. (4) Orientation to Chicago: information on the Chicago River, ethnic neighborhoods, and public transportation. (5) Where to Stay: types of accommodations in all the major segments of town. (6) Where to Dine: restaurants listed by area of town, type of food, and cost. (7) Exploring Chicago: the sights in Chicago that tourists like to see. (8) Shopping: all the most famous shopping sites. (9) Chicago after Dark: bars, clubs and musical shows of Chicago. (10) Appendix: information on Chicago history and politics.

I highly recommend this thorough, readable, glossily attractive guide. It is easy to use, and full of every kind of information a visitor, new or returning, could want on Chicago.

This is a great story of hockey success in a city better known for its music industry than its stick handling. Craig Leipold tells an inspirational story of how he put the Nashville Predators organisation together from scratch in a very short time period.

The book, in my opinion, is let down in the way that the material is presented. There seems to be no logic in the way the story is told, both on a macro and micro level. On the larger scale the story seems to vaguely follow a kind of chronology, but there are regular jumps both backward and forward in time. On a smaller scale, I also found the paragraphs hard to follow, as they too would randomly criss-cross the chronological flow of the text.

In addition to the above criticism, I found the writing to be very dry, and without direction. Many chapters had no clear focus, and others had no climax when it was clear there should have been. One example of that was in a chapter where (if memory serves me correctly) the authors were setting the scene for a big game against Dallas, and the tension was clearly building towards game time where we were going to see if the Preds could defeat the Stars. As the tension was rising, the authors flippantly give away the final score line -in parenthesises no less- making one wonder where the chapter was really going in the first place.

These criticisms aside, the book is still a good read, and is engaging enough that in the end I felt an emotional attachment to the Predators, and I know that I'll think of them differently next time I watch them play (on TV of course!), and in some way consider myself a fan.

Making hockey successful in the middle of the bible belt was no easy task, and this is a remarkable story of management excellence. Predators owner Craig Leipold and renowned management author Richard W. Oliver combine to tell an unforgettable story. It is a must for fans of good management as well as hockey.

For anybody thinking about getting into sports management or becoming a professional athlete, this is a must read! It provides an insightful view of what is expected of professional athletes and how to successfully manage a pro organization. Being a successful athlete in this day and age goes well beyond just raw talent. Highly recommend this book for high school and college athletes.

I think Gary Thorne said it best: "Remember years ago when they thought the Astrodome was the wave of the future. People thought the Astros would play there forever...What a dump!"

The Astrodome is a marvel. It became outdated for baseball due to seating expansion for football which removed the famous scoreboard. The other factors included lack of home runs because the ball didn't carry inside and the modern retractable roof giving a stadium the option for outdoor events. As a building, it is the finest in sports I've ever seen and the first to use luxury boxes. Anyone calling the edifice a dump needs a dose of reality. The fact that "The Dome" is hardly used now is sad and the thought of knocking it down would be an American tragedy. After the Roman Colosseum, the Astrodome is the most famous sports theater that has ever graced the planet.

Craig A. Doherty does a masterful job at examining the life and legacy of the Houston Astrodome. This book truly defines the Astrodome's place in architectural and sports history. Despite the larger and more modern domed facilities, the Astrodome clearly remains the best. Details on its construction and structural components are clearly explained in a truly understandable fashion. Included is a glossary of Astrodome related terms. This is a great book for adults and kids. It is definitley a book to enjoy over and over again.

This book was recommended by another client on a recent safari trip to Tanzania. Her description of the author's unsentimental descriptions of the challenges involved in collecting and transporting various 'samples' intrigued me. I really enjoyed the book--particularly the sections on lions in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. The blurb on the back cover which comments that the book may be the best antidote to 'Out of Africa' hit the nail on the head.
I thoroughly enjoyed Packer's descriptions of time spent in the field, observing and tracking lions. He also does a good job contrasting his everyday life in Minnesota with life in the Serengeti and Gombe Parks.
If you're interested in a 'real' picture of a researcher's life in the field, lions or baboons, or descriptions of the Serengeti, you won't be disappointed.

"Into Africa" is a detailed and interesting account of wildlife research in two national parks in Eastern Africa (lions in Serengeti and chimpanzees in Gombe). Packer writes what most readers would expect to see in such a book (i.e., about animal behavior and scientific theories that try to explain it), but he also tells us about the day-to-day life of a wildlife biologist working in Africa (budgeting, traveling, provisioning, working with local and international staff, and avoiding both animal and human danger).

Wow! This well-written book covers, in narrative style, with humor, a recent 52-day field research expedition by the author to the Tanzanian Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater to study lions, and to Gombe (of Goodall fame) to study chimps and baboons. In frequent flashbacks he reviews his past field expeditions and what they discovered -- new theories about why lions, chimps and baboons form the type of social structures they do. He also covers the struggles and hopes of the wildlife parks, and the difficulty of trying to reconcile the needs, wants, and contributions of: the researchers, the people living in the area, the government, the tourists, the poachers, and the foreign hunters -- all on the limited funds available.
He throws in a lot of information on the species he studies, and builds this information into a theory about how all species -- perhaps even man -- are motivated to either cooperate or compete with each other. Packer also includes his commentaries and anecdotes about his fellow researchers, camp employees, local residents, local and national government officials, and the history of the area.
Packer does an especially thorough job of analyzing how the species' survival is affected by men, disease, inbreeding, other species, and their own species' behavior patterns.
The liner notes include recommendations of this book from the renowned George Schaller and Cynthia Moss. The reviews here by Booklist and Kirkus are accurate.
That said, I do have some minor quibbles with the book. There is no index, and the table of contents is only chronological according to the "diary" format of the book. If the reader wants to review the material -- however excellent -- on lion infanticide or chimpanzee wars, the reader has to leaf through the entire book to find it.
Likewise, there is no list of suggested further reading or sources, and no glossary. While Packer does define the Swahili terms he uses, he does so ONCE, in text. When one reads that "Tony Sinclair is the real mzee" on page 244, one has to remember the definition from page 52 [mzee is literally "old man" -- a term of honor and respect].
Packard also seems to dwell on the negative and random man-on-man violence -- for instance, a lengthy report on the 1975 kidnapping of four researchers from Gombe by Zairian rebels, camp thieves, and assaults on tourists. Grouping these incidents occurring over 20 years in one narrative makes them seem more pervasive than they are.
This is an EXCELLENT book for anyone interested in African wildlife or animal behavior in general.