Camped in a cabin beside Black Hollow the brothers become involved in a mystery surrounding the strange happenings within the hollow. I give the setting for this book an A+. Imagine - inside your four walls - knowing that danger lurks outside. The setting is brilliant and the knowledge that "something evil is lurking" makes for a suspenseful read. Reminds me of a setting for a horror film. I would have named this "The Witch of Black Hollow" or "The Secret of Black Hollow". Either would be better than the Screeching Owl title, but in any event this seems to be a favorite on most people's lists and I am no different. The Hardy's travel about the local town located in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and occasionaly dare to venture down in the spooky hollow. This was the best volume in the series among the higher volumes in my opinion. Great interior artwork (The early 1960's interior artwork reached it's zenith) and a well written suspenseful action packed mystery rank this volume among the series elite. RATED A-

Frank, Joe and their pal, Chet, are in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountain country to visit a family friend who lives next to spooky "Black Hollow". When he turns up missing, it's up to the Boys to find him and solve the mysterious goings-on in Black Hollow.

The action in this book is almost non-stop and this story ranks among the best of the later tales.

A "must read" for all Hardy Boys fans.

Frank, Joe and Chet travel to Black Hollow in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to help a friend of their father. However, when they arrive, he is nowhere to be found and they are told an almost unbelievable story of a two hundred year-old witch that emerges from the hollow at night to steal dogs and terrorize the people of the village with her screaming. Frank, Joe and Chet try to solve the mystery of the witch, the disappearance of their friend and what connection, if any, a deaf, mute boy has to the strange happenings in the hollow. This book is excellent, it is one of the best books of the entire series and is easily the best book of the hardcovers from 39-58. The action starts in the first chapter and it never lets up. This book is probably the best written and most descriptive of the later volumes. This is a great book and should not be missed by any Hardy Boys fan.

First of all, please ignore the review below that proclaims this book to be "Pagan Lite". This reviewer has cut-and-pasted that review, verbatim, under all of the books in the Sabbat Series. Given that I've read several of them which don't fit the "Lite" description, I am surmising that the reviewer read maybe one of the books and made a generalization about all of them. Bear in mind that they are written by different authors, with varying degrees of knowledge and writing skills.

Anna Franklin and Paul Mason do a great job here with the fragmentary material they have to work with. Lammas/Lughnasad is possibly the most obscure of the Wiccan holidays, both because little survives about it and because the sometimes uncomfortable theme of sacrifice is present in it. The authors piece together what information remains to us about the deity for whom Lughnasad is named--Irish Lugh, Welsh Llew--and about the ways they were honored. Since this isn't a huge body of information, they supplement it with material about other sacrificial gods whose rites occurred around this time of year, such as Odin, Adonis, and Dionysos. They add in some of Robert Graves's evocative speculations about sacrificial kings, and together all this stuff will give you a good starting point for your Lammas rituals.

There are also recipes, incenses, spells, dyes, etc. Additionally, there is a large section on warrior magic, since Lugh was a warrior and Lughnasad is often considered a time to honor these fierce energies. This section almost could have been another book, dealing with things such as totem animals.

The book concludes with several rituals for the season, each with a different cultural slant (Druidic, Norse, general Wiccan, etc.) The rituals are relatively simple as written, which I like, since it means I can use them as a framework and flesh them out with my own writing and ideas.

Overall, a valuable book about an obscure holiday.

*--A chant I made up.

When discussing the sabbats, most pagan and wiccan books reserve only a few paragraphs to the various cellebrations, and most specific titles devote most of their time to Yule or Samhain/Hallowe'en. Lammas often gets a paragraph or two at best, and no real descriptive text giving you even a starting point on cellebrating the sabbat. Having taken a timid step toward the Sabbat series of books by Llewellyn with "Yule," and "Hallowe'en," I snapped up a copy of "Lammas" in time for my celebration in August, and read it cover to cover.

Much like Morrison's worldly take in "Yule," Franklin and Mason have penned a book that is a blend of various pagan and celtic folklore and world harvest celebrations. From Lugh to fashioning corn maidens, to specific Lughnasa magics, and rounding it all up with a cookbook perfect for any first harvest spread, the book was quite full of ways to craft a more serious Lammas cellebration, and had just the right mix of inspiration and lore to make it more than a glorified arts and crafts book for your New Age shelf. I cannot say enough about the folklore aspect of this book: there is so much here that helps bring a real focus to your Lammas cellebration.

Definitely more useful and in depth than Ravenwolf's "Hallowe'en" (the weakest of the series so far), "Lammas" will find a welcome home in the hands of beginner and more experienced pagans and wiccans alike.

'Nathan

It is true that the Llewellyn series of books on the pagan Sabbats is a mixed bag with some of the eight books being light-weight, some being useful and some, as in this case, being excellent in every way. Each of the books should be judged on an individual basis. This title has a thorough introduction and much history and lore on the subject of the pagan holiday or Sabbat called Lammas or Lughnasadh. The writing is engaging and well-researched and very informative. It discusses among others the customs of well dressing, Telltown marriages, handfastings, and Highland games. It provides good detail on the myth of the Celtic god Lugh from whom one name for this holiday is derived. It discusses similar harvest festivals and practices from other cultures around the world. It provides a well-rounded view of this holiday and does not depict it only as a harvest festival but includes the lesser-known aspects of competition, gaming, warrior activities, divination and the lore of the Ash tree. Even a well-read and experienced pagan is likely to find new and interesting insights in this book. It contains a good section on Lammas traditional foods that include Boxty Scones that I can personally attest to as being delicious. The craft section of this book has many seasonal crafts that are fun and easy, including the familiar and traditonal craft of making corn dollies. There are recipes for making incense and herbal dyes. The chapter on Warrior magic is filled with evocative and colorful crafts as well. Several simple but meaningful rituals are also included, adaptable for personal Sabbat celebrations.
The book is thorough and though not a beginner's book, certainly helpful and easily understood. It makes keeping this Sabbat a deeper experience and I think it will be much appreciated by the serious pagan. It is an interesting look at lesser-known cultural customs even for the non-pagan and can aid significantly in one's appreciation of the subtle turning of the wheel of the year.

This review concerns the original 1930 edition. Frank and Joe are arrested following the theft of valuable mail bags from the airport and must track down the real thieves in order to clear their names. While there is nothing spectacular about this book to make it stand out from the rest, it is by no means a bad book. The mystery is interesting and there is a decent amount of action. One thing that I did like about this book was that the criminals were featured prominently thoughout the book, unlike in some other volumes where Frank and Joe don't come across the criminals until the last few pages. Many readers will find it odd that the Hardys and their friends graduate from high school in this book (especially since in #10, they are back in high school), apparently, with the beginning of the Great Depression, the author must have been unsure as to whether or not the series would continue. This is an above average book any Hardy Boys fan would enjoy reading.

The Hardy Boys The Great Plane Mystery
Franklin W. Dixon
Reviewed by S. Teran
Period 5

In the beginning of this book, the Hardy boys and their father were trying to get to their house in Bayport after they accidentally took a wrong turn. As they were going through a field, they heard a low pitched droning. They decided to ignore it. A few seconds later, out of no where, a plane came flying at them. They tried to dodge it but the wheel of the plane hit the roof of the car. The car flipped and everyone was knocked out cold. After about 10 minutes or so, they woke up unhurt but their car was almost totaled. Since the Hardys were used to the unexpected, they just went on. The next day, the Hardys flew a helicopter back to the area where they got hit by the plane. They found a shack that would normally be hidden to the naked eye in the forest. Just as they found it, a weird voice came over the radio speakers. It eerily said, "You can not escape the dead person, you know who this is, this is Clint Hill." The next day the Hardys got jobs at Stanwide, a computer/plane/helicopter industry, where Clint Hill last worked. Their jobs were to deliver notes and packages to other parts of the plant. After work and with permission, the Hardys took a helicopter out to the same location. Just as they were about to land, a tornado came towards the helicopter. The winds were too strong and forced them to crash land. No one was hurt but the helicopter was damaged beyond repair. The boys looked for clues until they saw a camouflage tarp covering a cave. Behind it, they found Clint Hill's plane. The Hardys flew to an island off the shores of a lake in Montana. There they found barrels of aviation fuel. They also found a shack like the one at Bayport. At the shack, they saw two people, Anchor and Barney. They were pilots for Stanwell. These two men were up to no good. Before they knew it, the Hardys were captured and thrown into a shack. Once the trap door opened, sleeping gas filed the room which knocked out the Hardy boys. Anchor called all the other pilots who were involved in the smuggling to come to this Island. The pilot, who flew the Hardy boys to this island, got worried and went looking for them. He found the shack and he also fell into the trap door. He was only stunned by the gas. He was able to get the boys out and call for help. He called Mr. Allen, the president of Stanwell, to come to the island. Upon arriving, Mr. Allen was shocked to see platinum and Clint Hill's crashed plane. This plane had crashed off the Cuban shores about 10 years ago. Meanwhile, the police were chasing Anchor, Peterson, and Rodax. The police eventually caught them and interrogated them for 3 days. They told the police of their hide out, the platinum and of the rest of the people who were involved in the smuggling. Mr. Allen had congratulated the Hardys on their findings and was told that someone wanted to talk to them back at Stanwell. They walked into the office and saw Clint Hill. He told the Hardys that 10 years ago, Peterson, who was the command pilot, left him stranded after the plane crashed. He was stranded in Cuba all this time. He explained that the eerie message over the radio wasn't him. It was just Peterson trying to scare people.
I liked this book so much is because it is a Mystery book. I really like Mystery books because the authors always keep you on the edge of your seat. For example, when the mysterious voice came over the radio, it said, "You can not escape the person you have killed." That part crept me out so much. I also liked this book because once I started to reading it, I couldn't stop. Before I knew about Mystery books, I never wanted to have anything to do with reading a book. The only time I would read a book is when one of my teachers would make us read or if they were instructional books on how to play Nintendo games. Franklin W. Dixon, the author of these Hardy boys mysteries, always seems to write amazing storylines.
There really was nothing that I didn't like about this book. If anything, it was just too short of a book.
My favorite part of this book is right in the beginning. It all started when the Hardys were taking a short cut through the plains when they heard a low pitch sound off in the distance. They decided to ignore it and continue as usual. The low pitched sound kept on getting louder as if it was getting closer, but of course, they still ignored it. Finally, Mr. Hardy got scared and turned off his headlights only to find another pair of lights going overhead. Something hit the top of the car to make it flip. Then the headlights mysteriously vanished.

This review concerns the revised 1965 edition. Mr. Hardy asks Frank and Joe to help him on a case concerning the theft of platinum containing electronic parts from company called Stanwide. Frank and Joe go undercover at the company to find out who is behind the thefts and soon find a number of suspects. They also find another mystery about the ghost of Clint Hill, Stanwide's chief pilot, who died in a plane crash at sea, who has been harassing one of the company's employees. This was a rather interesting book; I thought that it had one of the better plots of the books in the series. The book had plenty of action and the Hardys came into contact with the criminals quite often. I liked the part where the Hardys went undercover at Stanwide; unfortunately, it was much too short. I was a little disappointed with the ending. I found it to be rather quick and I thought that the Hardys were able to find the criminals too easily. Also, the "surprise" at the end of the book wasn't much of a surprise. Mostly; however, I enjoyed the book and I think that any Hardy Boys fan would like it.

The most extraordinary thing about this book is that you'll see clearly that Franklin did not get where he is because of who his father (Billy Graham) is. You will be intrigued by how his life took the twists and turns it did. His journey will fascinate you. His landing will assure you. There is only one reason possible that he ended up where he has. A great read. A great gift.

This was a wonderful book by Franklin Graham. Once I started, I was hooked on it. He is a great author, and I learned alot. I loved reading the stories of people he had helped. Every chapter was interesting. Franklin Graham captures your attention and makes you want to read more. This was the best book I have ever read! Because of some graphic scenes it describes, I would suggest it be for older children. Enjoy Reading!

This is a very powerful book. Franklin Graham is the son of Dr. Billy Graham and Ruth Bell Graham. This is his story of "Growing Up Graham," and all of his struggles. He pulls no punches about his life and times. To all of you out there who've lead a rebel life as I once did, you'll love this book. In short, it's a story of growing up in and around Christianity. As he ran from Jesus, he eventually ran right to Jesus and did get saved. He also tells of his life in the ministry after his conversion. So, to anyone who feels called into the ministry, this book will be a great resource for you as well.

If you know of someone who hasn't gotten saved and is fighting it, or if you know of someone that was once a renegade and eventually got saved, this book would be an excellent gift.

Thank you Franklin Graham for being so honets and sharing your story and of your public display of your Christian faith. Keep up the good work!

Shiner has either been or known a struggling musician, I'm sure, because he has captured what it's really like for someone who's trying to get their music in front of audiences. Vivid descriptions of life on the road, conflicts and personality clashes within any group of people who are together too much, power struggles between the Living Legend and the New Blood. Definitely worth checking out if you are a music fan and want a peek behind the scenes!

I enjoyed this book very much. I'm not a musician myself, but I always dreamed of being one. This book provided me with the opportunity to live Laurie Moss' life! There were also loads of references that I smugly enjoyed "getting" - if you love rock and roll, and are in your thirties - this is for you. Being a woman, I of course wanted more relationship stuff, but maybe in your sequel, Mr. Shiner? Please, I love Skip - and I want to know all about him!!!

Well, Lewis Shiner has done it again. A superb, underrated writer who
first made his name writing great cyberpunk science fiction, Shiner
has written a thoughtful, revealing look at a young
singer-songwriter's struggle to make a name for herself in the music
business. It is a poignant, mesmering tale about a would be Ani
DiFranco. His crisp prose is literally music to my ears - sweet and
clear - his words eloquently reveal his rock and roll musicians as
living people, not as one-dimensional cartoons. Along with his
previous novel "Glimpses", Shiner has written some of the
best fiction pertaining to rock and roll. Before you read a novel
written by any other author on rock and roll, please take a look at
Shiner's work first.

This is an interesting book about the life of a salvage tug on the stormy North Atlantic. It is told from a sailor's point of view which makes for good story telling but may not be as factually acurate as possible. Mowat admits as much.

This is a book that you can stop reading after completing the first half. There are only so many variations on the story of a ship in trouble, bad weather sets in, and the more-than-sea worthy tug heroically comes to the rescue. The book initially holds your attention but becomes highly repetitive by the later chapters.

One thing I did very much appreciate about the book was Mowat's unvarnished explanations of how salvage companies earn their money. It's not an entirely glamorous business and Mowat does a good job of pointing out how one's pecuniary interests leads to decision making. Obviously, salvage tugs don't operate out of the goodness of their heart.

This book is the best non-fiction book on one salvage company's tugs and men and the many jobs they took on to try and save ships in distress. They are heading out to sea at great peril to thier own lives to try and save a ship and it's crew. The book is riveting, a real page turner. If you like sea stories you cannot put this book down until the end. Farley Mowat has a gift for writing this book that makes you feel like you are on board the salvage tugs going thru these desperate hours with the crew. I love ships and sea stories and this is my absolute favorite.

If you enjoy the Jack Aubrey novels as much as I do, you'll doubless be taken by this more modern sea story.

Mowat is a contemporary writer of fiction and non-fiction about Canada and the north, covering natural science, Eskimos, archeology and autobiography.

He also writes authoritatively about the sea. This book has salt on every page. It is the story of the conversion of a rusty British WWI seagoing tug into the "Foundation Franklin," a seagoing salvage vessel, working out of Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. There was a real Franklin salvage company on which this very realistic novel is based.

Those who have sailed on weather patrol or to Greenland, or to other stormy seas, will relish the salt spray and dangerous hawser-passing and towing. You will experience the bitter along with the triumphs as the crew is frustrated by losing the tow or arriving too late at the job, thus throwing the expense of the attempt into the foam.

A splendid book!

Incidentally, one of Mowat's autobiographical books, "The Dog Who Wouldn't Be," is about the funniest book I have ever read. ISBN 0-553-27928-9.

As an adoptee fortunate enough to find her birthparents (and therefore being familiar with all aspects of the triad), I found Lynn C. Franklin's book excellent. I have read many books about adoption, this one outshines them all. It was not overly clinical or statistical and was written with compassion, heart and objectivity. Adoption is such a complex topic, this is not an accomplishment to be taken lightly. Ms. Franklin's candid personal reflections of the search for her son stirred emotions deep within this reader and in my opinion brings greater understanding to everyone who has been touched by adoption or is interested in the subject. She gives voice to birthparents, adoptees and adoptive parents and their struggles with depth and kindness and backs it up with facts and experience. I am grateful to her for her efforts.

A must read for any member of the adoption triad- or anyone who's life has been touched by adoption.

This book explores the issues of adoption and reunion from all sides of the adoption triangle; and Ms. Franklin does it fairly and eloquently.

As an adoptee, "May the Circle Be Unbroken" was eye-opening to me. It validated many of the feelings I've had about adoption & lent perspective that I'd never before considered.

Lynn Franklin touches on all sides of the triad in this book. It really gave me some insight into my true feelings on being adopted. My adoptive mother, and birth mother have all read it and loved it.

This book was pretty disappointing. Not really an enjoyable read. Doesn't seem to be any reason to believe any of the things he says. It all comes across as a bunch of opinions with his own thrown in there as well. Also has the annoying habit of saying "Next we're going to talk about X". You get to the next section and he says, "Now we're going to talk about X". I've read "The Cambridge Quintet" which was a very enjoyable discussion of the philosophy of AI. Also Godel, Escher, Bach is an excellent read for philosophy. I was hoping to get a concise overview of current practices and the reasoning behind them. It didn't happen.

As is explained by other reviewers, this book is well-written, humorous and thought-provoking. It introduces you (at least, if you're like me, not (yet?) an AI professional) to a vastness of fascinating ideas. So far, it's a great book. Therefore I would like to sum the disadvantages:

* In the last chapters, Franklin loses contact with the ground. Not that he gets too speculative, but that you feel that you haven't really gripped some foundational issues enough to understand, and discriminate between, the more advanced ideas in the latter part of the book. I suspect this is inevitable, that you need some hands-on experience prior to appreciate what's the fuzz about these ideas. This criticism goes only for the last chapters.

* The philosophy chapter is uninspired.

* When I had finished the book, i wanted some advice on how to go on exeperimenting with the ideas and techniques introduced in the book myself. There was none.

But, propably, there is no better book.

I was originally searching for a book to fuel my thirst for Visual Basic computer-programming, thinking that this book would give clues to how an artificial mind could be implemented by someone like me. And on that basis I should have given this book 3 stars, but I have realised that the sphere of AI is monumentally vast!

When I first began to read, I thought it was quite hard going, but I became accustomed to the author's formal but chatty narrative. I found the chapter about Animal Intelligence riveting and truly eye-opening.

If you have even a passing interest in either psychology or ambitious computer programming, then you cannot live without this book. To everyone else: you cannot live without this book!

In a word: Inspirational

This book was immensely entertaining. It's a retelling of Homer's classic epic "The Iliad", through the eyes of Achilles' slave/concubine, Briseis. The story is the same enduring tale that has become a classic over the years. However, it sometimes reads like a cheesy romance novel. In my opinion, there were too many sex scenes that were really not related to the plot. I like a good sex scene as much as anyone, but it's a bit too much in this book, which is the reason it only gets three stars from me.

If you are interested in this book, I would recommend that you instead check out Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Firebrand", which is a similar novel in that it's a retelling of the Iliad through the eyes of a minor character - Kassandra (Cassandra), Hector's sister - only the writing is much better.

I agree with other reviewers who say there is too much irrelevant sex in _Daughter or Troy_. That said, on to the good stuff.

You might remember this book's heroine, Briseis, from the Iliad--Achilles's concubine, stolen away by King Agamemnon. But in _Daughter of Troy_, Briseis is so much more than a bimbo... She's an outspoken, brave, sardonic, intelligent princess, gifted with powers of prophecy. These powers break her heart, though, because knowing the future does not necessarily mean you can change it...

We read about Briseis's childhood at the court of the small kingdom of Lyrnessos, her adolescence in which she discovered sex and learned about the ruling of a kingdom, and her young adulthood as a prize of the invading Greeks. I truly liked Briseis and enjoyed spending time reading about her; kudos to the author for writing a compelling, strong female character without loading her down in modern-day political correctness.

I also liked the dark look at the ancient deities. It is always refreshing to read historical novels where the ancient pagans aren't practicing modern Wicca. The gods are scary in this book, appropriate given that they were thought to require constant sacrifice and to interfere often in the lives of mortals.

Gripes: I wanted to know more about Briseis's life after Achilles's death. Franklin shows her as an old woman, but she only tells her story up until about age seventeen, when the war ends. It is truly sad to imagine that nothing much of interest happened to her after that, especially with so many years ahead of her. Perhaps I can hold out hope for a sequel. Second, people believed Cassandra too often! LOL!

This is a retelling of the epic "The Illiad" from Homer about the Trojan War. In this book the author chooses a passage from the original story about a girl/queen who suffers from the loss of her brothers and husband and falls under the protection of Achilles and Patroclus his longtime friend.

The book is very well written and the author has been able to bring to life a part of history that has always been hard to imagine. The scenes, as well as customs in everyday life are extremely life-like as well as her characters. The detail on the war is also very alive and easy to follow.

All in all, a very good book, easy to read and very instructional.

I thought this book was Ok, but I didn't find it as compelling as Newton's Cannon. I actually skimmed the last 50 pages or so, as I found them to be very tedious. They just stretched credibility a bit too much for me, and the characters were a bit too surreal and poorly drawn. I do enjoy Adrienne and Crecy; they are both strong women and their relationship is interesting. The rest of the characters lost me, and the plot was too thin.

I'm not saying not to buy this book, just that it wasn't as good as Newton's Cannon, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have already purchased the third book in this series.

Unlike the first volume (Newton's Cannon), A Calculus of Angels takes a while to get going. The fascination of the alternative science is hobbled by too much fantasy too fast: as one other reviewer points out, it has suddenly become flat-out magic.

Still, Keyes draws quite a portrait of the devestation of Europe following a direct hit from a comet, and the characters remain vivid. In the case of young Ben Franklin, he is if anything more compelling now that he is well into adolescence and is discovering acquaintaince with pride, foolishness, and limitations to his own powers.

And, about midway through the book, once people stop wandering about aimlessly and chattering inconsequentially and the narrative threads begin to show some direction, the book really hits a stride.

Other reviewers have already summarized the basic outline of the plot, but as all these forces (Peter the Great, Adrienne, Ben Franklin, Newton, Charles XII, Blackbeard, Cotton Mather, and our Choctaw friend Red Shoes) converge on Venice the reader can scarcely imagine what cataclysm is next.

And cataclysm comes, nicely inviting the reader onward into the series.

One of the most imaginative stories I've read in years, combining 18th century history & its well-known characters with magic. This is actually the 2nd book in a series (Newton's Cannon being the first), & continues the story of Ben Franklin & Issac Newton after the destruction of England by an astroid. "Calculus" brings Cotton Mather, Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard the Pirate) & a Choctaw named Red Shoes together on a quest to find out what happened to England. Ships sent previously have never returned & none have arrived from England in 2 years. Meanwhile, Ben Franklin & Issac Newton are in Prague working on such things as magic shoes & trying to avoid the various armies that are battling each other in the absence of an English power. The remaining core characters in this fascinating story, the former mistress of Louis XIV & her former French guard, escape from one villain & into the hands of another (Peter the Great). All of these characters come together, through various twists & turns & interesting revelations, in the end. Of course, the ending will lead to another book, but find out for yourself. It's a great read, but you might want to start with "Newton's Cannon" first.