Paster Jackson's book, "Good News From On High," is a testimony of a life greatly affected by God and all of his glory. This collection of messages will inspire, uplift, and encourage a weary soul to hold on and move forward.

The world is in need of spiritual motivation and "Good News From On High" accomplishes the mission through the power of God and the desire of a faithful saint. I highly recommend this book to be used as a daily devotional.

I'm a "Good Soldier" myself and found the last chapter of this book to be quite the inspiration. Mr. Jackson has a way of taking the familiar, often overlooked, mundane details of everyday life and making you see them in a new and very refreshing way. The book presents his rare talent of being able to put a spiritual emphasis on anything. It was actually entertaining to read this book. But you can't read it like you read any other book. You gotta read it standing up, pacing the floor, yes....even out loud. The manner in which a book is written dictates the manner in which it should be read. This book requires a passionate, involved reading. I must recommend you buy this book, read it, enjoy it, apply it, and learn from it. That's this "Good Soldier's" SITREP...You can take it or leave it. R. Hawkins - OUT.

Out of his inner-most being the Author, Pastor Eric D. Jackson,Sr.,has presented these practical messages with simplicity. They offer guidelines for building one's faith, and provide hope in every avenue of the Christian's life.
Good News From On High is a valuable companion for those who dare to trust God on this journey.

Ms. Zelma F.Carr, Director of Christian Education
The Greater Piney Grove Baptist Church
Atlanta, Georgia

This is what comes of not reading a series "in order." I recently read Jackson's fine "A Man With an Ax." An important part of the story was reminiscences on long-dead Detective Grootka, the toughest, meanest rogue cop in living memory of the Detroit police force. I was so taken with Grootka; I was delighted to find the author had devoted a book to him.

Young detective "Fang" Mulheisen, over-loaded with cases, seeks some help from now-retired Grootka because the victim, "Books" Meldrim, was well known to the old man. Grootka insists the present murder is tied to an old dead case that happened some twenty years ago. Mulheisen is under fierce pressure to abandon inquiries into the old case and take care of his present workload. Grootka dusts off his blue suit and red tie (that has not been unknotted for 20 years), straps on his .45 and goes to work. Rogue, unorthodox, and brutal, Grootka prowls the mean streets again.

The book is fast-paced, complex, and beautifully plotted. There is poignancy in Grootka's stubborn unwillingness to give any quarter to his advancing age. Not a wasted word! "Grootka" is available used at a reasonable price. So do add this one to your collection of Fang Mulheisen stories. Recommended.

Grootka is a marvelous yarn -- a well-told tale twisting and turning through the dark streets of Detroit as well through the murky soul of the title character. Dark and brooding, it tells the story of a retired Detroit cop whose accomplishments during his tenure on the force have given him near mythic standing. Imagine, if you can, Luca Brasi packing a badge.

Detective Sgt. "Fang" Mulheisen takes a backseat througout much of this novel, his powerful intellect grinding away at the clues Grootka feeds him while Mul slugs away at the apparently unrelated murders of a Grootka acquaintance plus a wealthy elderly socialite. All this while balancing the career-threatening antics of Grootka against his own personal code.

The novel opens with Grootka finding a body while riding with the abandoned car ("Ay Ban") man for old times sake. Grootka recognizes the body, and identifies it as "Books" Meldrim, a former snitch, with whom he shares a decades old dark secret. During the investigation of the body in the trunk, Grootka tells Mul of a sensational murder from the 1950s, and how Books joined him in "solving" it in a typically violent Grootka fashion.

Jackson blends local history and the sights and sounds of Detroit into this cunningly effective procedural. Grootka is a lost soul seeking to save himself, and in his attempt at salvation, threatens Mul's career, and life.

It's a tough, fast-paced novel peopled with interesting characters and leavened with a smattering of local history and gentle social commentary. Like all Jackson books, you put *Grootka* down satisfied, and perhaps feeling a little smarter, thinking you have learned something about people and history while absorbed in its pages.

This twin cities' detective runs across a crotchety old mentor (Sterling Hayden) who solved the murder of a child from the 70's, or did he?. The plotting is first rate. The prose are poetry and the humor is at times much funnier than Elmore Leonard. This is a fantastic fourth addition to a classic series.

GURPS Aliens is, as it says on the cover, "A collection of non-human races for Science Fiction roleplaying".

There are only 28 different races here, but each has full statistics for GURPS roleplaying campaigns. These statistics give enough information for GM's to give life to totally alien races, some of which the players are bound to have never seen or met before.

From the rather friendly and pig-like "An-Phar", and the benevolent super-powerful "Auroras", to the energy draining "Gloworms", and very versatile "Xenomorphs", GURPS Aliens gives two or three pages for each alien race, each page packed with info like their psychology, their ecology, their culture, their politics, and some ideas for adventure seeds with each race.

The book also has a short section at the beginning that has some small details on Alien campaigns, and creating alien races that are not in the book. This section allows GM's to create new alien races that no one has ever met before. There are even suggestions for creating races that will not overpower your campaign.

GM's unfamiliar with GURPS will find it easy to convert the stats for the alien races to other systems. Conversion to "D20", for instance is almost on a one-to-one basis. GM's running GURPS: Space or other GURPS based campaigns may find the races in this book to be a good addition to their adventures.

A great addition to a GURPS library, a fantastic addition to a GURPS "Traveller" campaign, and a good addition to any SF gamemaster's references. Although out-of-print and sadly in need of modernization and updating, I'd still recommend this book to all spacefaring GM's.

I am a role-playing enthusiast, and play all sorts of game systems. Of the many RPG accessories and books I have seen, GURPS Aliens ranks in the top three of hundreds.

The alien races described are mostly NEW, yet at the same time fresh and original. A lot of thought went into creating original races that will fit in well to a wide variety of science fiction adventures.

In addition to a number of interesting PC races there are also quite a few races well-suited as opponents or NPCs. My personal favorite is the race of intelligent chlorine-breathing radioactive octopi that are taking over the galaxy, one business at a time, in a series of leveraged hostile buyouts.

Another race, the Verms, bear a striking resemblence to the acid-blooded Aliens of Sigourney Weaver fame. Even here, though, the Verms are different enough that they are interesting.

I give this book my highest rating.

Bruce Stephenson

This book contains all that you need to create ANYTHING you want in GURPS, be it flesh-eating, fire-breathing avacadoes, or happy little squirrels. This book was one of the better purchases I have made recently, and the best ever for GURPS.

I purchased this book for my husband who is in prison for the 3rd time in 4 years. my husband is really glad that i found the book for him. he says it has given him a lot of insight on how he will approach his upcoming release in a better more prepared way.

My son was helped in many ways by this book. He has been out 2 years and doing well. I don't think he thought it could be done until he read this book. I appreciate Mr. jackson sharing his life and encouraging others to do well.

This book, written by Michael B. Jackson is straight up and straightforward. He tells it like it is, and I would recommend this book to anyone who is in prison, just got out, even just going in, and even to those loved ones of a prisoner or parolee.
I have been in prison myself, and my fiance is in prison. We have now both read and discussed it, and it is a very useful tool for help when a person decides he or she wants to change his or her life and not be jailin' for the rest of it.
Marsha

In Inlaws, Outlaws Dr. Jackson reminds us of our first and foremost responsibility, that of family. Dr. Jackson gives us a candid view of his own life experience shared with his wife and children. This is a practical guide for different stages within the marriage phase. Covering topics from your finances, family goals, communication, sexual relationship to rearing children. This books gives a good foundation for singles about to enter marriage and to the newlyweds who are trying to get their marriage on the right course.

This book deals with real issues and concerns in family relationships in a practical, yet spiritually encouraging way. The personal stories really make an impact and provide a real-life application for the principles discussed.

This book is one of the most practical books on family I have read. It faces the hard topics of confrontation, marriage, parenting, and sexuality with a true self-help style. This is a great reference tool for any family.

I picked up this book believing it was a novel about a young London boy sent to live in Devon to avoid getting killed in the Blitz. However, this is only the first of three separate storylines, which are direly lacking in cohesion but form a charming and poignant ensemble. The first part of the book follows Bobby, who is yanked from his London family with little warning, stuck on a train with no explanation, and winds up in a small town in the care of an unprepared spinster. What follows is a kind of warm fish out of water tale as the city boy struggles to adjust to country life. Central to this is becoming friends with the villages "five boys", a rowdy pack of boys his age who spur each other to various mischief and tomfoolery.

The second part of the book kind of wanders away from Bobby's tale and broadens out into little stories about some of the adult villagers and one of the five boys. A catalyst for this is the arrival of the large American Army preparing for D-Day. This means the forced relocation of those living in a large area right next to the village, which is an interesting and unknown story in its own right. But basically, the wacky antics of the kids gives way to the wacky antics of the adults. These include stories about an undercover operation to recover a pig from American territory, the effects of a dance to which the GIs are invited, and a detailed episode of how a ratatcher exterminates a field full of rats after the GIs are gone.

In the final third of the book, Bobby has returned to London and the five boys are enthralled by a different newcomer, a mysterious man who keeps bees and is impervious to village prying. The beekeeper completely captivates the boys and his enigmatic nature keeps one guessing as to what's really going on. Despite hints here and there, the ending comes as a bit of a shock, and can be read as emblematic of the end of innocence in England.

It's a good book, charming and well written, with plenty of evocative descriptions and smells, and good stories. However, one wonders why it's constructed (and marketed) as a novel, when it's really a series of linked short stories. Without a central figure, mood, or theme, the book doesn't quite hold together in the way one expects a novel to. That aside, it's quite enjoyable, and makes a good companion to Michael Frayn's novel Spies, which is about two London boys during the war.

"Five Boys", is the second novel from author Mick Jackson. I don't know what the proper term for his work would be for it is not structured like a typical novel, for at times it reads like separate short stories. All of the events in the book involve the same general area once London is left, but after an initial period of time, the book changes from a singular continuing tale embracing some characters, to almost forgetting others, and focusing in depth on very few.

A young man is evacuated from London with a group of children for their safety from the bombs of the German Luftwaffe. The problem is that in addition to the normal trauma of being separated from family and friends, he meets a quintet of young boys near his new home that makes the idea of staying in London and chancing the bombs an alternative worth considering. These five little brutes all born within two weeks of each other also share the same capacity for havoc and cruelty that came with the brief time they all entered the world. The progression of their abuse is fairly typical, and then it stops, and with it the traditional narrative sequence stops as well.

The author then shares a series of vignettes about a variety of people in and around the village and the effects of having a large pre D-Day contingent of Americans take over a portion of their community for invasion training. This causes a variety of inconveniences which in turn provide for a good deal of comedy. A source of food is behind the checkpoints the Americans have set up and it is decided that it must be retrieved. The cast of characters brought together, and the coffin, a baby carriage, and the effects of the animal eating far too many apples that have become hard cider, make for an interesting chase.

These various episodes continue until the arrival of a man known as the beekeeper. His arrival coincides with the book returning to a more traditional progression, and an end that is startling at the very least.

"The Underground Man", was the first novel by this author, and I will probably go back and read it once again. If I remember correctly that book was eccentric because of the character and his actions, while this book is a bit eccentric in its structure. This writer is enjoyable, he is not just another author treading familiar ground, he goes to new places, and takes new paths to reach them

At the start of Mike Jackson's bitter-sweet novel, "Five Boys", we follow schoolboy, Bobby, as he is sent away from his home in war-time London into the supposed safety of the depths of rural Devon. Principal amongst our (and Bobby's) new acquaintances are the Five Boys, an irrepressible group of youngsters whose wild escapades impinge upon much of the life of the village in which the young evacuee finds himself billeted. Much of the first part of the book follows Bobby's trials and ordeals in coping with being away from family and friends and amongst strangers (with even stranger ways) whilst also charting his gradual acceptance and eventual madcap initiation into the company of the Five Boys.

Then, as American GI's - in training for the forthcoming D-Day invasion of Normandy - begin flooding into the rural idyll of Devon, the book's emphasis shifts away from the outrageous activities of the boys and gradually comes to encompass the equally outrageous goings-on of the wider village community. These are presented in a series of only partially (it seems) connected vignettes, mostly hilarious although often poignant - this is war-time, after all - too.

Mick Jackson's writing style - never less than refreshingly vibrant - coupled with his eye for detail, a wicked sense of humour and an imagination that at times quite beggars belief, all serve to conjure up an entirely enthralling tale of English eccentricities. Indeed, not since A. G. Macdonell's "England, Their England" has there been such a sparkling exposition of the true nature of the unbridled English spirit, as was once so often exemplified within small, and especially rural, communities (but is now, alas, almost all but gone).

From the very outset, the reader is drawn in by the very finest of prose, swept off one's feet and carried along by the flow of events in much the same way as is young Bobby. Towards the end of the book, though, the reader begins to get an uncomfortable feeling that the flow might not be as tranquil as its surface suggests. And as the book proceeds towards its concluding pages, with the chapters becoming ever shorter, one can feel a distinctly ominous undertow beginning to develop, as even the very words themselves begin to cascade over each other, tumbling ever more rapidly and inexorably towards an increasingly threatening ending.

While the book is not without its faults - some aspects of the latter parts of the tale feel just a tad out of kilter with its time-setting, for instance - these are more than compensated for by its entirely loveable quirkiness. I suspect it will only be a matter of time before this story is made into a movie - properly handled it would make a very good one - but please don't wait for that to happen before reaping its many rewards firsthand. This has to be one of the best literary offerings of the year. Read it and weep - mostly with laughter!

This is a good book and he sermons read well. But while this is not bad on paper, this might be better as an audio book or on CD. Havign heard Rev. Franklin's sermons on the radio as a child (including some of the ones included in this book), I could testify that you would be better off hearing this.

In this collection of sermons and a narrative of a life, delivered to Jeff Todd Titon by the Reverend Franklin himself, the language and performance ability of a gifted preacher are presented carefully and revealingly. We learn how Franklin interpreted his conversion to the ministry, what it means to give a good sermon, and how Franklin's life history affected his religous work. The sermons themselves are presented with effective ethnopoetics which reveal the rhythms and pacing of Franklin's sermons. Yet, the texts of the sermons fail to reveal how the congregation responded to Franklin's sermons, and that audience response is integral to understanding the way Franklin spoke and paced and performed his sermons. I would also be interested in some analysis of the sermons, though I like that their presentation is in fact privileged, and absent of the editor's voice. Overall, an important and affective work that should be read by anyone who's interested in African American sermonic discourse, music, or religous traditions.

To begin with some background on Rev. Franklin: he was born in that hotbed of Afro-American culture, the Mississippi Delta; was a prodigy like his daughter Aretha, in that he was called to preach at fifteen; and was one of the ministers who backed Dr. King whenever the civil rights movement needed funds. Rev. Franklin became nationally known in the black community for the beauty, the literacy, the poetry of his song sermons. Besides his church work, he became a recording artist and toured with Aretha. His song sermons are divided into a prose development of his theme, which are studded with home truths about human nature and find deep and original insights in even the most well-worked veins of Biblical interpretation, and then break into the "whooping" of black preachers, which is rendered in the book as poetry. Finally he often turns to outright song. It is hard to exaggerate the important of Rev. Franklin as an artist. His is a God of kindness, power and patience; his is a vision that sees hardship as the teacher of wisdom, and his poetry are parables which lift each piece into a realm of exaltation. Several of the sermons recorded in the mid-1950's are uncanny predictions of the upcoming civil rights movment, when Afro-Americans took matters into their own hands and faced their oppressors by appealing to their better natures.

And if I say this book soars with the music of Mozart, do not say I exaggerate; and if I say this book is as wise as the wisdom of Solomon, do not say I am foolish; and if I say this book touches with the beauty of the Good Samaritian, do not say I chase dreams; for we are better than we think we are.

It's the nature of RPG publishing to generate more books for the games published. If all you need is 1 book and every potential customer has that book, you're out of business.

The drawback to this is new material tends to duplicate and even contradict older material unless the game maker keeps a tight reign over it.

GURPS generally has had such supervision but even so you have rules in one book that are useful in another but not found there.

In ten years of existence, a good list of new rules, character skills, advantages and disadvantages have cropped up. GURPS line Editor Sean Punch took ahold of this and compiled the newer rules into one book, making it far easier for players and game masters to generate characters.

Reconciling some contradictory material took some effort but not too much and Punch does invite his readers to note similar advantages, such as Universal digestion and Cast Iron stomach.

The first lets you eat anything non-poisonous, the second makes you resistant to an upset stomach and fights off poisons.

Overall a must for any serious GURPS player.

Steve Jackson Games have managed to do for GURPS 3rd edition what the D&D Rules Cyclopedia did for D&D. A literally breath taking book that expands and supplements the GURPS 3rd edition Basic Set beyond it's comparatively humble origins. Almost a decade of GURP character generation material and advice have been lovingly compiled. I recommend this book. Guy Robinson

This book has all, or at least the vast majority of the things you need for character creation all under one cover. It has all the disadvantages, all the advantages, and a good number of skills.

If you are one of those people who buys GURPS books to read for entertainment, you might not want to bother, but this book is very helpful (almost a must have)if you are actually playing the game.

GURPS Illuminati presents the GM with a lot of great ideas for getting an Illuminated campaign started, including background information of various conspiratorial organizations, suggestions for scenarios, and sample characters. The writing is exceptionally playful, in a vague, paranoia way. For example, chapters cover things like "Why does Mr. Beamish wear tin foil in his hat?" The illustrations are very well done. You'll need the GURPS basic set (as it's referenced many times). Another, equally fun addition is GURPS Illuminati University (IOU).

This book's a fun read and "chock full of" Illuminati information, but the art is taken directly off the INWO cards, and few guidelines are given to GMs who are not already experienced in subterfuge. Long-running non-fantasy campaigns that could use a "something lurking in the background" could benefit from this book.

I have always been a fan of conspiracy theory and gaming. There is no better book available for bringing the darkness of the conspiracy into the world of RPG's. Whether you believe or not, this book contains the best. Even the cover gives you a "glimmering" of what's inside. If you want to play "X-Files" style campaigns, this book has my very highest recommendations. If you want to bring a little "light" into this type of campaign, try GURPS IOU.

Ever since the demise of the Game Design Work Shop. I have been looking for a conversion for my Victorian roleplaying. This book fills the gap. I, being an old fart roleplayer, have little time to do conversions. The original rules for 1889 where very simplistic. I wanted more meat. GURPS gives me that extra detail that I crave. The history and color supplied is very good, but of little use to me. The characters and tables were what I needed. Very well written, and to the point. many of these suppliments tend to lean to generalities, but this one focuses on the salient points.

I've been dying for this book for months, and let me tell you... it lives up to the expectations. It doesn't matter if you want to play a Jules Verne-esque Romantic Fiction romp or a James Blaylock Steam meets Spells dark comedy, this book will help it come true.

Essentially, this book makes the assumption that Victorian-era culture, morality, and society would not change much had the technological marvels been possible, and I tend to agree. The setting gives players and GMs a terrific overview of a mis-understood culture that is chock-a-block with gaming possibilities.

As an example, my playing group is using this book to re-create the Battle of Rourke's Drift... but the Prussian government has secretly armed the Zulus with advanced weaponry, in order to win an ally in the region. Is it plausible? Probably not. But is it fun? HECK, YEAH!

Never mind those "more-anarchist-than-thou" cyberpunks or "more-gothic-than-thou" Vampire gamers. Pick up GURPS Steampunk. Pick it up NOW. Trust me.

I highly recommend this book, even if you don't find the genre compelling. I may never run a victorian game, but I read the book from cover to cover. The writing is excellent and really captured my imagination. Stoddard evokes a marvelous setting, chock full of gaming potential.