Following his earlier book "The New Resource Wars", Al Gedicks eloquently presents numerous negative case studies regarding exploitative mining. In this book, I was hoping there would be more direct social science analysis as well. However, there is simply more descriptive and investigative material about pernicious cases of exploitation. Instead, it would have been useful to also consider some cases of corporate resposibility, or cases where Native communities have in fact chosen to go forward with mining and have had positive experiences -- indeed cases of mines such as the Raglan project in Quebec, The Red Dog Mine in Alaska, Argyle in Australia, mining in Botswana and Ghana or oil in Brunei might also have provided an interesting comparison. Nevertheless, the book certainly has some good expository material on some of the "bad boy" companies. It is important to consider that there might also be some better players in the mix -- which the activist perspective in this book does not want to even acknowledge.

I got both books as a gift when a relative met the author and he suggested that they would make a good birthday present for me (some objective referral).

Both books are horrible, but this one is by far the worst.

I might just cut the spine and cover off this book and glue it to a different one. This way if my relative stops over she sees the title on my bookshelf and think it's not in the dumpster where it belongs.

This book is not badly written - I wouldn't say it's well written by any means but it's not bad. The thing that really galls one about the book are the characters - and unfortunately they're not fictitious. I hit rock bottom with the cast when I read about one "dreamer" who when presented with an opportunity to contribute a technological innovation to oceanographic research responded with the gushing realization that he could "make millions." Not that he might contribute something to humanity - but he might "make millions." It's a little hard to picture people primarily driven by a desire for money as "dreamers." Maybe the book should have been subtitled "The Digital Greedbags who are Hyping VR to Death."

If the point of the book is to lampoon the crass nature of the people in Seattle working on VR, it succeeds admirably. Somehow, however, I don't think that was intended to be the point. Read it only if you have a strong stomach for brainless greed, hype, and outright BS.

I worked at one of the companies mentioned in the book and worked with or knew several of the characters personally. A co-worker actually turned me onto the book after she recognized my old company's name mentioned. I borrowed it and proceeded to catch up with what happened to these folks for the few years after Worldesign shut down.

While the few facts I can personally relate to are accurate, they do focus a great deal on emotion and bitterness and seem to take one person's accounts as gospel without balance from others. It does state many of the hidden trials of startups.

The writing style is weak. I found the plot disjoint and with too much coverage in some areas, and mostly too little development/depth in others. If I were to have read the book without personal knowledge of the people mentioned, I would have screamed for more character development.

I agree with the other reviewer that this is something you borrow from the library. It was a quick read.

I admit to being extremely surprised by the basic premise ofRaymond Moody's new book, which is that near-death experiences and"paranormal" phenomena in general do not prove the existence of life after death, spirits, etc. His logic is sound; I just didn't expect him, at this late stage in the game, to pull back from what 100% of his readers have always believed was his viewpoint. Moody uses a satiric, bubbly tone, similar to the way philosopher Mary Daly writes: word play, puns, alliteration and rhymes; and his aim, like Daly's, is to skewer mainstream thought and convention like meat on a spit and then roast it over the coals of his acrid wit and insight. Moody also knows a lot about mythology, history, sociology and of course psychology, and ties these fields into the discussion in a very interesting inter-discliplinary fashion. His premise is that as a species we are permanently fascinated with the paranormal because it entertains us, because it's fun, and that this is reason enough to continue studying it, despite the fact that we can't prove its claims one way or the other. I give Moody credit for having the courage to express ideas which many of his fans will find offensive and shocking. My complaint is that the writing style is dense, full of asides and overblown with academic syntax. I had trouble following him at times (and I'm no dummy). And despite his claims to the contrary, his discussion of such notables as Dannion Brinkley and Betty Eadie does come off sounding as though he thinks they're fakes, which is going to be hard for many serious students of the paranormal to swallow. I appreciated Moody's assessment of the three main players in the paranormal game, which never resolves itself and never goes forward: the paranormalists themselves, striving for credibility; the professional skeptics whose religion is not objective investigation but "Scientism"; and what he calls the funda-Christians, who see Satan in every fun and pleasant thing the world has to offer, paranormal experiences included. If you're expecting another of Moody's treatises on NDE phenomena, skip this one. But if you're willing to put aside your assumptions and beliefs and consider a totally new way of thinking about the paranormal, this book is worth the effort.

Raymond Moody thinks that the study of the paranormal, and even the Near Death Experience has some entertainment value. He says that parapsychology can't begin to study the paranormal because it is "literal nonsense". He does not agree that we should allow our minds to fall into the scientism camp, but regardless, we must feel free to be entertained.

This book isn't funny.

Dean Radin's "The Conscious Universe" is an interesting counter-point to this book.

Describing himself as a "playful paranormalist," Dr. Raymond Moody sets forth "a new philosophy of near-death experiences, apparitions, and the paranormal" in The Last Laugh, his latest book. Dr. Moody is an internationally recognized expert on near death experiences. He has written seven previous books, and presents lectures, as well as appearing on national television.

Dr. Moody believes that meaningful discussion of paranormal phenomena has been obscured by three groups of people: the parapsychologists, who rely on science to provide proof; the skeptics, who believe paranormal experiences are either delusions or fraud; and the fundamentalists, who hold that all things paranormal are the work of the devil. Dr. Moody says that near-death experiences aren't death experiences, and therefore none of us know what really happens after death.

He says that "what I am suggesting throughout this whole book is that, if we are to discover any real truths about the paranormal, about near-death experiences, and about life after death, we will only do so if we stop taking everything so seriously." He expands that by saying we take what knowledge we have literally, and that "taking things literally [impedes] learning." He says that rather than study paranormal experiences "from a place of literalness," he begins "from a place of childlike willingness to explore everything playfully, but with intention to look closely and with respect at what my explorations revealed."

One of his discoveries is the "empathic near death experience," where the experience is shared by the dying person with someone who is not dying. Dr. Moody's research also reveals that the paranormal has entertainment value for humans. He says that he has "become increasingly aware of how entertainment, humor, play, and the paranormal are, in a curious way, intimately enmeshed." We enjoy trying to solve the puzzle and paradoxes presented by paranormal phenomena.

Dr. Moody says "The Last Laugh seeks to pry open the dam holding back the stream of information about. . .near-death experiences." Readers will find their beliefs about the paranormal, whatever those beliefs may be, challenged by his comments. They'll also find themselves intrigued and entertained.

Please, please, please if you are a true Moody Blues fan don't bother buying the book. There is nothing NEW in this book that can't be fond on the internet or the Moody Blues Web site or "Higher & Higher". The pictures of the band are nice.

I anticipated this book to be terrific but was extremely disappointed. It is filled with poor photographs submitted by fans and there is absolutely nothing written in the chapters that is new or exciting. I am still hoping that the publishers of Higher & Higher will be doing their own retrospective book of the Moodies career.

I have to admit, there is great artwork in this book, but the stories are not quite what I'd expect to find in a published work. I'd recommend reading the fanzine Higher and Higher or wait for the official book to come out. The book was a disappointment to me. Better fan books have been published in limited edition formats and those, in my opinion, are worth more than this one.

Mystery "Elvis" recordings, mystery "Elvis" sightings, the kind of stuff which permeated the author's first book on the subject "Is Elvis Alive", is continued here - and so is the constant reference to her [inexplicably pulled] novel "Orion" about a superstars' plan to hoax his own death, but Elvis' actual role as Agent at Large for the DEA is examined and she convinces the reader that Elvis Presley was not some flake who liked to collect badges, a portrait painted by some from his past who seem to have a huge axe to grind these days. The details of Presley's unusual will are also presented and cause one to wonder if all the facts of Elvis' passing were originally revealed.
Brewer-Giorgio's third work on the subject, "Elvis Is Alive - And He's Coming Back" (The Anonymous Press) is much better.

i used it for firewood because i was cold and i couldnt afford wood because my mom is in jail.

The book began quite promising and I was quite absorbed with it, despite the millions of cliches. I enjoyed wholly until the last hundred pages when the Fates turned their tide and made the last 20 years of their lives hell. Such a horrible thing to happen to such wonderful characters. Thinking about The Secret Garden made me so depressed for days after reading it.

The book was quite good until the very end. While I found some of the things cliche, I enjoyed it until the very end when it became wholly depressing. I find it hard to believe that such horrible things would happen to the three and after reading the book, I was quite sad for days.

I basically liked it. Some people have said that th Mary, Colin and Dickon characters in this book have nothing in common with their characters in "The Secret Garden." In response to that, I must say that at the age of twenty-one, I'm entirely different from the person I was at the age of ten. People change as they grow up. I can completely see the children in The Secret Garden becoming the adults portrayed in Return.
For instance, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that Dickon would develop PTSD from his involvement in the War. I actually think that the Dickons of the world would be much more emotionally damaged by war than the Marys and the Colins of the world (hypothetically speaking of course). Dickon had lived in a world where he's always been happy, healthy and loved. Prior to the war, he had never known the world to be anything other than a friendly place. The atrocities of war would have been an immense shock for him. Mary and Colin, on the other hand, had endured horrendous childhoods, and had experienced how cruel and ugly the world could be. Dickon had no sense of the darker side of life, and then it was thrown in his face in one of the most traumatic ways imaginable. Of course he'd develop PTSD. I could completely see how the circumstances of their lives and the times, led Mary, Dickon and Colin's lives to turn out the way they did.
I did find the Mary/ Colin marriage thing a bit unsettling, but I try to remember that it was a different time, and there might have been different attitudes about that sort of thing back then. We need to be cautious about applying present standards to other periods in history.
I did have a few issues with the book, which is why I removed one star. I thought the abyssmal introductory chapter was unnecessary - and extremely convoluted to boot. It was almost as if, by making it clear that tragedies have occured and taken the lives of two of the members of the beloved trio before the end of the book, Moody was deliberately trying to set a depressing mood from the start, leading the reader to spend the entire book anxiously "waiting for the other shoe to drop." I could have done without all that anxiety.
I also could have done without so much sexual intrigue going on between the three of them. I can see why people were put off by that - that whole aspect was really overdone.
Also, while I feel that it was necessary for the chracters to endure some pain and misfortune, and unrealistic for it to be any other way, the sanctity of the garden itself as a symbol of life and health should have been preserved. The tragic scene that occurred in the garden a couple of chapters from the end was in bad taste. That scene could have happened somewhere else.
For the most part, I liked the book. I saw it as a book about these three friends who had discovered "magic" in the secret garden as children struggling to preserve that magic and friendship through all sorts of adverse circumstances as adults. In spite of everything, as long as they lived, that first magical Spring in the secret garden never left them. While this book, unlike its predecessor, is definitely not for children, it's a great book for adults who have learned to accept that all roses have their thorns.

Maybe Rick Moody had enough material for an essay--a short one--about self-disgust. But he pads and pads like a desperate undergrad seeking approval for his screw-ups. This is the memoir of a boy-man who needs to get a life.

I hesitate to write anything negative after reading the editorial claim for "one of the most admired writers of his generation" who has written a "searing, brilliantly acclaimed memoir", but alas... . I was interested in reading the book based on its premise and an interview with the author I heard over NPR. Unfortunately, after I slogged through one-third of it, I paged through the rest trying to find something to restore my initial enthusiasm, but without success. His memories, insights, experiences, and writing seemed no more interesting than my own or those of any blogger on the face of the planet. If there is a lesson, it is probably that depressed people are depressingly uninteresting.

a creative approach to vertex operator algebras, yes, but above all haruo tsukada's argument is elementary and at times tediously underthought. It is inexcusable, having presumably thought about string path integral realization thoroughly, that he should attempt to integrate this technique with vertex operator algebras -- an obvious 'no no' in the mathematical world as Haruo by now has most certainly discovered (and most likely much to his chagrin). Being well versed in string path integral realization myself, i scoff at Mr. Tsukada's work. But a second star for good effort.

Vector Operator Algerba and string path integrals simply do not mix. When you take into consideration of rings, fields, lattices, everything becomes a nightmarish problem of topography that no one can solve. Inviting strings into it is like linear transformation without lines. Two stars for creative title.

This book was once available for pre-order when it was still in the developmental stages. Since that time, it has been officially canceled. "Across the Threshold" was going to be the Moody Blues's version of the Beatles's Anthology, a coffee table book full of color and black and white photos, written by Mark Murley, one of the main writers of the essential U.S. Moody Blues fanzine "Higher and Higher." So, don't fret about this being "out of print" or "unavailable" and don't go searching used book stores for it because it was NEVER PRODUCED!! Check out the paperback called "The Moody Blues Companion" instead, though it is a far cry from a slick coffee table retrospective.