I loved the Battletech Series while it was going... but this finally was anti-climactic at best. It did tie up most of the main political storylines... and most of the characters seemed true to their previous writings, of which ones were included anyway. Several key players were left out of the finally... or written as ghosts mentioned in passing but no real place in the book.
Even worse than that... The author began a new storeyline in the last few pages of this book... the last of the series. Yes, I know Wiz Kids picked up the contract to keep the same writers working on the new storyline... but it's several genrations later... there's no room for this ghostly storyline to grow.
In short, it felt like a hurry-up ending... following an old outline, without any real depth. About the only new development was the expansion of Peter and Isis as characters rather than shadows. I was happy to read it... and anyone else following the story will want to read it, but overal I felt cheated.

Having followed the Battletech storyline for over a decade, I must say that I'm sad to see the current plots end. However, Mechwarrior: Dark Age should brighten my spirits. This novel ends the FedCom civil war well. It appears that there was a word limit placed on this book, so alot of action takes place in a very short time. Regardless, Victor and his cadre of close friends must press on towards toppling Katherine. The main action mostly takes place on Tharkad and New Avalon, but all of the major storylines are brought to a conclusion. Some endings are rather abrupt, but adequate. Readers will see what happens to Agents Curaitis and Francesca as they try to find direct evidence of Katherine's involvent in Melissa Steiner's assasination, whether or not Ryan Steiner's, Melissa Steiner's, and Omi Kurita's assasin can pull off yet another escape, and, of course, who wins the FedCom civil war. The stage has been set for the new Mechwarrior series. Hopefully, we will see some of the characters from this generation pop up in the new series, maybe the children of our favorite main characters? Kudos to Randall Bills, Loren Coleman, Thomas Gressman, Chris Hartford, and Blaine Pardoe for finishing up the story in style.

As with other mechwarrior fans, the ending was swift. There seemed to be some story line missing as Katherines realm ended very quickly. The Thorin, were are you??? A two book ending would have filled in the missing finshing plots and angles and charcter self interests. The book in itself was good. Thanks to all the writers of the series, they did great. I became a book reader again due to the thrilling action packed pages of the Battletech universe. :-)

I am addicted to the story of Victor Davion and the FedCom civil war. Unfortunately the only stuff that's going around is not very good. Coleman once again proves that he is afraid of characterization, while hiding behind endless droning battles. Perhaps if he stopped before each battle scene and asked himself "Does this battle serve any purpose whatsoever to this story?" and then did not write the battle after the inevitable answer of "no-this might have been a readable book.
I am very interested in finding out how the civil war ends, but I sincerely doubt I can stand another one of Coleman's putrid stories.

Overall a good book but I am becoming frustrated with the slow pace of the storyline and the lack of supporting characters. The Battletech universe had such a wide variety of interesting characters that are not being used at all in this civil war storyline. Kai Allard-Liao, Wolf's Dragoons, the Kell Hounds, Phelan Kell, all the clans and many others seem to have no role in this civil war. The Clans must have some interest in the war, Phalen Kell was such a large part of the Clan wars and now he is just sitting around and Kai is going to sit by and wait to see what happens??? My frustration is more with the story line and less with the writing, which is very good and has a nice mix of battle and politics.

P.S. The foreword of the book made it seem like the Battletech line was being sold to a new company b/c FASA was closing. It also seem to say that novels were going to end b/c of this sale. I would certainly hope that the novels are not ending and that someone continues to write more in this series.

Well, since I have been reading/playing battletech for years now, I imagine I have some seniority on the matter. This book, while still the same civil war does much to keep it from tiring. In this novel specifically, we loose a charecter, see a charecter at their worst, and see an old charecter come back from the grave, such as it were. If you are not already an avid fan/reader of the Battletech series, this may not be a spectacular place to start, but as long as you have read one or two books in the series and know the politics and such in general, this is a spectacular book. It brings the current story closer to a close (which any good reader knows won't stay closed), and opens up new possibilites with the election of a "fair" Star Leauge ruler and the addition of two new member states to the leauge. Nobody does them like Coleman.

Although this book was a fun and entertaining read, the stories were just too brief and not very spooky. The book does deal with some interesting stories, such as the Phantom Drummer of Shiloh and the Phantom Horseman of Little Round Top. There are also a number of stories dealing with premonitions, most notibly that which Lincoln had shortly before his assassination. Would have enjoyed a much deeper analysis of these stories, including more reference to contemporary accounts. Still, it's not a bad book and if you are interested in getting a copy, there are many out there on eBay and the like.

Where would we be without a great ghost story? For anyone who loves the Civil War and a good ghost story, I can't think of a better book to sit down and read. From various battlefields to war ravaged towns stories over the years have come to fold and placed in this unique book. There are individual stories that allow you skip, go back or jump from chapter to chapter. The stories about haunts in Gettysburg and Vicksburg were exciting to read. I found this book entertaining to read and was intrigued by the stories!

Let me say first of all that I recommend this book very highly. It's a great book for a variety of reasons. It falls short on two glaring counts, so I didn't give it a 5 star rating. Don't let that dissuade you from buying it.

There are certain people who will like this book and some who won't. It wasn't really a "scary" book with spooky ghost stories. It's more of a curiousity book. The stories are fascinating to say the least. I enjoyed them all. They left me hungry for more which is where the book fell short, sort of. More on that later.

Compared to other books on Civil War ghosts, I like this one better because it has more meat in it. I saw some stories in here that I have seen written elsewhere, but I found this book to be more thorough and contain more information about the stories.

The only thing I really didn't like about the book is that it has no source documentation. I mean none. No bibliography, not even footnotes. For instance Chapter 4 is about John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. I found his dream to be very interesting. The only problem is, the author doesn't give a source for the dream. He paraphrases it very well, but at the end, I'm left starving for more information about this fascinating dream. No footnotes, no bibliography, no sources cited. As a history buff, I'm always seeking more information. There's no trail. Well, after diligent search, I found the original dream in an old book. I can thank the author for at least introducing me to the story. A footnote or bibliography would have saved a lot of time. Additionally, the book title claims "authentic accounts." The problem is that with no source documentation, it is hard to determine what is authentic and what is not. Regardless, the stories were fascinating, and I had a hard time putting the book down. When I did, I wanted to seek more information on the stories, but alas, no sources cited.

I'm giving this book four stars because I liked it. I subtracted one star for no bibliography and no footnotes. A bibliography alone broken down by chapter would have been sufficient to raise it to five stars. However, in fairness to the author, he probably didn't write the book for scholars. He wrote the book for regular people who don't bother with footnotes and bibliographies. I think at least some credit for sources other than the Acknowledgments on page ix would have been good. The appendices in the back regarding Civil War Ghost Tours and Haunted Hotels were helpful. Overall, I did like this book, and I'm glad I bought it.

The complete book of chronomancers

For a long time I followed the role of time travel in Ad&d products. Of course it plays a major role in the Dragonlance setting and in other worlds have seen chronomancers sporadicly, but in my own campaign I found out that it was difficult to introduce time travel because once your players start to see time travel as a way of correcting their errors, your game balance goes right out the window. Weis and Hickman can fool around with their own world and even got to destroy the old Krynn, but my players won't accept that their favorite inn doesn't exist any more or that the Rashiman rule Thay now. The complete book of chronomancers gives you great options for campaign angles and for the price there really are some useful ideas in the book but my problem wasn't solved. I know that is something a DM has to solve with creativity but I was hoping for some support from the rulebooks. The best thing about the book is that the spells are so abstract that it gives you the oppurtunity to really mess with your players heads and make their brain muscle hurt. When confronted with the same NPC's but from different timezones it's bound to become chaos. The discription of the demi plane of time is usefull, because it restores the balance between the headache brain adventure and the adventure hack and slack problems. All in all I'm glad I bought this book in stead of just an other novel because if not for the players, it makes the game more interesting for the DM because suddenly you have a book filled with angels your players never expect. If you don't use those angles to often your players won't abuse this new development and enjoy it as well.

Here's one of the most sought-after AD&D supplements ever created - this one gives you unparalleled new horizons for adventure, because it adds the most powerful element of magic ever devised - time travel! Unfortunately, this character class was considered to be so over-powered and disruptive that the supplement will never be reprinted. Which is a shame, because this amazing book will give you thousands of new adventures, and is the perfect way to expand a campaign. The 96-page book includes: chronomancer experience, kits, subclasses, the nature of time in AD&D, timestreams, paradoxes, changing history, proficiencies, the Protectors, chronomancer spells, rules for desigining worlds of science fantasy, and more. Spectacular stuff! If you have the ability to curb a powerful character with balancing flaws, making a more rounded and interesting individual, a full-fledged Chronomancer will open up infinite realms of adventure possibilities.

This book is structured more or less as the other AD&D Handbooks, but is divided into a Players and a DM section. It includes the Chronomancer class, some sub-classes and kits, spells, new equipment and new proficiencies; and everything is OK upto this point. Then comes an explanation on the Demiplane of Time, an abstract concept with quite a few inconsistencies and gaps which will have you rereading quite a few times. Overall, the book holds potential to expand your campaign in exciting new ways, it kept me awake many hours only considering the possibilities... if I get my DM to allow it, for it also has the potential to easily disrupt and/or unbalance a campaign.

The author of this book obviously had some great knowledge of battletech history and has written this book in a style that references past events very well. However the biggest let-down of this book is the writing style of the battle sequences. Loren might say something like The missile hit his mech on the side carving off nearly 3 tons of armor, and then later she looked at the damage report and it showed that she only had 2 tons of armor left on the head of her mech. Or in the post-battle scenes... Still she had managed to salvage a couple of small lasers and several tons of armor It feels as if it is describing a battletech boardgame tournament where mech tonnage and armor levels matter more than a good description. it's hard to explain but if you read this book you will know what I mean.

While on the surface the novel seems to be about Avanti's Angels, a (sometimes) down-on-it's-luck mercenary unit, the true focus of the story brings a number of major powers, both of the Inner Sphere and of the Periphery, into a head-on collision on a remote planet in the Periphery, leaving the Angels squarely in the middle.

It takes more than PFM (Pure F...ing Magic) to get them out... and not necessarily in one piece, either...

Double Blind is a book that should be read by any true BattleTech fan, every Game Master looking for a new hook, and especially all of you Word of Blake and Periphery nuts out there.

I picked this book up after reading Loren's other Battletech book - Binding Force (No. 32). Double-Blind is an enjoyable read. Good characters, a well-paced storyline and homage to the history of the Battletech universe help make this book a great read. This novel falls slightly short of Binding Force, but remains a worthy addition to the collection. Several aspects of this book are exceptional, and I'm looking forward to more novels from Mr. Coleman.

I've been reading battletech for almost 6 years. I've read all of them but the weird ones that didn't pertain to anything. But there were the rest, the ones by Stackpole, Keith, and Pardoe.The adventures that got me through high school. That kept me up very late at night, madly flipping page after page. And those stackpole books, those were my favorites. The other writers were good, but none could ever grab my attention like his. It seemed as though the plot of the entire series moved with his books. The only relevent stories were told by him. Having him gone is a serious blow to the series. As I read Patriots and Tyrants, I found the characters that I had become so familiar with, Victor, Omi, Focht, and even the insidious Katherine Steiner to be shallow and without the usual depth. If Stackpole really was pushed out of the series because of word limitations, then ROC needs new management, becuase battletech is turning into the Mechwarrior series. Mike, if you're reading this, you will be missed. I'm thankful for all those hours of escape you gave me from geometry class, boring lunch hours, and countless times when I was babysitting my sister. You're the reason battletech got as far as it did, and it'll never be the same...

As for the book itself. Patriots and Tyrants was ok. It had some action and plot development. If you're a long time fan of the series, then you should pick it up.

Compared to the previous books that have made up the main story behind BattleTech this book is lightweight. For example, the Stackpole classic "Bred for War" it literally twice the size. This is mostly the fault of ROC in their stupid word count limitations that drove Stackpole away from writing BTech fiction in the first place. Suffice to say I finished this book in no more than two or three hours.

That aside, Loren Coleman has done a good job picking up from where Stackpole left off. The characters pick up well from previous novels. The plot moves forward, albeit not with the same depth as might have been desired. Also the battle scenes are good, if somewhat brief. I just feel that I've been left hanging with the story only half done. I very much enjoy BTech fiction and this book was good, I would have just liked something deeper. I'm sure that Loren Coleman has the ability to do more, it's just that he's being artifically limited.

So while not a bad read, there's just not enough depth to give it a better review.

The saga that was started back in the early 90's continues. Loren's book is a worthy contribution to the Battletech novels. He has seamlessly woven his book from where Michael Stackpole left off with his outline for "Tide of Tyrants" which was never to be. Even with the number of words restricted by the publisher could not diminish the significance of this new installment. Many of the characters that Battletech fans have loved are there... along with the usual twists and turns and surprises.
The story unfolds with the continued building of civil unrest and discontent throughout the former Federated Commonwealth. Katrina (Katherine) is still causing problems and is increasing being more ruthless in her displays of power. Victor, the new Precentor Martial of Com Star has been monitoring the increasingly alarming situation and looking for the necessary evidence to prove that Katrina was behind their mother's assasination.
The book is worthy successor to the Battletech traditions and will prove to be an easy read and a great way to be clued-in on the latest happening in the "Inner Sphere".
Get It and Read It!

Terry Coleman's biography of Nelson, while well written and entertaining, suffers greatly from the author's lack of research into his subject. So much has been written about Nelson and so much material is available to the true researcher, that it's a shame that Mr. Coleman didn't take advantage of it. It seems that much of his research came from reading other authors' not-well-researched books on Nelson and disregarded scholarly papers on the subject. The result is the continuation of many of the Neslonian myths. For example, Coleman portrays Nelson as a strict disciplinarian, whereas research into discipline records of the Royal Navy clearly demonstrates that Nelson was no more prone to discipline his men than the average captain of his day. In fact Nelson himself wrote of the need to treat men well, give them good living and working conditions and take care of their health. Coleman's treatment of the Battle of St. Vincent again underlines his lack of basic research and he continues the myth of Nelson's supposed disobedience to orders by wearing out of the line on his own accord. Very elementary research into the involved ships'logbooks (easily obtainable through the Public Record Office)clearly shows that Admiral Jervis ordered the fleet to tack at 12:50 p.m. and the log of Nelson's ship acknowledges receipt of that signal and the subsequent tack at 1:00 pm. The opportunity to explode a long-standing myth was missed. As pointed out by another reviewer, Coleman erroneously describes the San Josef as an 80-gun ship. While Coleman offers some interesting insight into the goings-on in Naples, many serious readers of naval history must take it with a grain of salt, given the author's elementary errors of fact elsewhere in the book

I don't think reviewers and critics are being entirely fair to Mr Coleman. This book is carefully researched, sound, and well written. So what's the problem?

I think Nelson's more ardent fans hate the fact that Coleman has done to the admiral what historian Alan Schom did to Napoleon: de-mythologise him. Present him as a human, not a demi-god.

Now, I confess that Nelson's among my own favorite heroes from history. And I simply loved Joel Hayward's "For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and his way of War", which may well be the best book on Nelson's combat and leadership abilities and techniques written in several decades.

So you would think, then, that I would be offended by Coleman's potrayal of Nelson. But I'm not. You see, humans aren't entirely good. Except maybe for Christ, Bhudda, Muhammad, Mother Theresa, etc. We are both good and bad. Nelson, even in Coleman's book, was mostly good, and only sometimes vain, silly, brutal, wicked, etc.

Is it unfair to say that. Of course not. And Coleman certainly does not present Nelson as a monster like Stalin.

I encourage readers to read this book, AND those by Carola Oman, Colin White, Tom Pocock and Joel Hayward. These are the best Nelson books, and will give all-round fair treatments of a flawed by nonetheless great Englishman.

Coleman has written a highly negative biography of Nelson that stresses Nelson's faults while ignoring his accomplishments. Coleman believes that Nelson was engaged in war crimes at Naples since he decieved the rebels with a truce and than slaughtered them. Also Nelson bluffed his way to victory at Coopenhagen by overstating his strength to the Danish king in order to achieve a truce. Finally Coleman is critical of the way that Nelson treated his first wife with his affair with Emma Hamilton. Even though this is a highly negative biography of Nelson it is highly readable.

As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who worked in Tanzania for 2 years, I was a little disappointed. The book was not what I expected. The explicit portions I felt were unneeded and overshadowed the descriptions of the Tanzania people and their culture. There were some brief descriptions of parts of the Tanzania culture but overall I didn't think the book did it justice. Also, because I was Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I knew that some of the possessions that the character had in the book, were never given to Peace Corps Volunteers! (i.e., the nice flashlight he had). It was a lot more difficult than he made out. I realize that was not the focal point of the story but I felt that it could have been done better. I wonder if he had talked to any volunteers that worked in Tanzania. I had a hard time getting into the book and didn't like the bouncing back and forth from the past to the present. Also, I felt there should have been some explanation of how he came to join the Peace Corps. I thought the flashbacks would eventually lead up to that, but it never came. I'm glad other people found it enjoyable, but looking through my eyes as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I was disappointed.

Having just returned from a brief stay in Tanzania on a volunteer vacation project, I was very anxious to read this book. I think it is excellent for a first book. The story is compelling, the plot and action keep at a pretty good pace, and the characters are colorful and interesting. The author's descriptions of the land and people are straightforward, even gritty, and with the use of Kiswahili phrases throughout, he gives it a very authenthic feel. He certainly does not glamorize Peace Corps work. Jordan's character is an odd mix of altruism (no one in his right mind would sign up for two years to work in a rural Third world country village on a lark) and selfish immaturity. The flashbacks to his failed relationship with his girlfriend in the US (of which I wish there had been less)indicate the latter. His efforts to save and raise a baby Eagle and make life better for a young Tanzanian girl are well intended but again, his motives are far from pure, especially when it comes to the girl. He makes some pretty foolhardy decisions towards the end of the book in his effort to get the girl out of harm's way which make for pretty compelling and dramatic adventures. The ending is pretty gruesome - I could have done without it, but there it was! I kept wondering how much of this book was autobiographical by the author, as he lived and worked in the Usumbara Mountains and started the Tanzania Wildlife Fund referred to in the last chapter. All in all, if you like Africa, different cultures and adventure, I think would you would enjoy this book. I will look forward to another book by Carter Coleman.

The Volunteer is a great book about one man's adventure & terror in modern Africa. In an attempt to try and change his ways & right some of the wrongs in his life, Jordan shelves his law degree and career to spend two years in Tarzania teaching the people fishing. He falls for a beautiful African teenager who is betrothed to the Sultan Kimweri. After learning of a customary sexual "circumsision" she's to go through, Jordan makes it his personal mission to send her away to school in Kenya. Jordan had formed a wary, thin friendship with the sultan, but his good natured interference puts his life in danger. The book has wonderful flashbacks of Jordan's life in Tennessee with the woman he betrayed, as well as a great drug run through Zanzibar. Readers won't learn much about the ins and outs of the Peace Corps program, and there's no real explanation as to how Jordan applied, qualified or wound up in it. The horrific ending is not for the skrimish . Hopefully, this will be marketed well.

There is a definite need for a book like this. However, some more careful pre-publishing review would have helped. For example, the permeability of free space is given wrong, consistently, by a factor of 10^20. The formulas for Coulomb's law, and the Biot-Savart law, have the wrong exponent of "r" in the denominator. The formula for inductance of a solenoid implies a dependence of inductance on current, although if the student has the patient to track down the definition of symbols the answer is correct, if expressed in a curious way. All in all, there is a great need for a book like this, but a reference work has to be as far as possible 100% trustworthy and reliable. A second, corrected, version of this book would be invaluable.

From High School to college I Found this book very useful as a quick reference guide for any subject, you can find any formula or any constant that you need while doing a homework, youll find it quickly and you wont lose time consulting any other book.

As other revieweres said it has some erros, but theyre minimal, and the book covers a wide selecetion of engineering topics.
Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and mathematics.

I give it four stars only for the minimal erros, but consider it a good and handy book for any quick reference, specially if you know concepts and only need to look for exact info.

Although there are some errors, this is the best general reference source I have encountered. Considering its breath of information, its accesibility, and its cost, this is an excellent reference for high schools and high school and college students. The organization of the book invites people to look up a specific piece of information. The book includes sections on constants, units, biology, chemistry, geology, physics and mathematics. The book includes obscure as well as often used information. This would be an excellent book to give to a person who would need or be interested in some of the tools of science.

First of all, anyone purchasing the Role Master Standard Rules should make this a concurrent purchase, or at least the next purchase. The standard rule book has almost no information on the stastistics and use of weapons in game. It has no critical tables either. All that is in this book. That makes it the quentissential book to accompany the Rolemaster standard rules.
I was looking for this book to be the Rolemaster equivent of the old AD&D Player's Option: Combat and Tactics book. It is not. It is a book full of tables. If you thought the standard rule book had tables in it, nearly every page of this book is a table. This book details something like 29 weapons commonly found in typical fantasy middle ages role playing adventures. There is no colorful weapon descriptions etc., just raw stats for the Rolemaster game.
For each weapon, you get this: the weapon name, how long it is, how much it weighs, how likely it is to "fumble" the weapon in combat, how likely the weapon is to break in combat, how durable the weapon is, the range of the weapon (if it is a missle weapon) and a small picture of the weapon. Then an attack table filling an entire page follows. Yes, each weapon has it own seperate and different attack table. These tables cross reference a percentile role (modified by skill, and all the other common situation modifiers) and the "armour type" of the foe. This gives you a combat result ranging from no damage, to "hits" worth of damage, to hits of damage and a critical damage of various degrees of severity.
The combat works under the theory that heavily armoured foes are easier to deal "concussion points" of damage to, because they are slower, but that it is unlikely that they will suffer great critical damage. Lightly armoured foes are the opposite. They are fast enough to dodge many attacks, but when contact is made, chances are it will be with some form of critical damage. Interesting, different.
On the opposite page is the one or two critcal damage tables the weapon uses. They can get moderately graphic as far as describing the injuries inflicted upon the unfortunant victim. If that is for good or ill, everybody will have to decide for themselves.
The print is small, but it is down right tiny when two critical tables are squeezed onto one page. In these situations, seriously, use a magnifying glass to keep from going too hard on the eyes.
From there, a table of more exotic weapons is listed, their stats and the basic table to use to resolve their damage. Tables for martial arts manuevers are given, fumble tables to roll on when a player botches an attack roll for each category of weapon (1-Handed Edged, 2-Handed, Pole-arm, etc), attack tables for animals, and a few more pages on expanding the combat system, but not near enough in my opinion.
If you want to play Rolemaster, buy the book. You need it. Here is what to do with it. Take it to the nearest copy shop and copy all the weapon tables with their coresponding critical tables photocopied. Copy the common weapons several times (ie. the weapons the PCs are most likely to use). Put them all in the clear sheet protectors, attack tables on one side, and crit table in the other. Put them in a 3 ring binder in alphabetical order with clearly maked tabs sticking out. This way a GM does not have to flip through the book and slow down game play. Every player should get a copy of the attack and crit table for the weapon he/she uses to keep with his/her character sheet. That way there is no flipping for the PCs. That way the book is only referened for the weird stuff and the game flows more.
Bottom line, buy the book. Just don't expect more than basic but necessary rules information, in Rolemaster's standard format of tables, tables, tables.
As always, the best in gaming experiences to all!!

I mean, rolemaster is good, but you really need to simplify some stuff. I recommend the arms law to handle critical damage in dark ages settings, if you like doing it. If you have other system, better get used to its limitations, rolemaster is for few, really few.

It's essential to play Rolemaster, for it contains details and tables for the combat sequance. If you wish to play Rolemaster it is a must buy.