Talon and Fang is, without a doubt in my mind, the best novel that the author has written in the entire series.

It's what would be called a Flashpoint. To any new readers to the series, it'll be very confusing if they pick up the older novels after reading this one.

Mark has written a novel that is very emotional, tragic, but touching and out and out uproariously funny in several sections.

It begins almost thirty years into the future. The entire face of the Outlands has been changed, much to the efforts of the Cerberus exiles.

Sam has taken total control of the continent, and a good part of the world as well. The nine baronies were destroyed completely in a five year war that took place after Cobalt managed to rebuild his power base and launched an all out assault against Cerberus.

Kane, Grant, Lakesh and Bry are the only ones who managed to survive the wars. Both Kane and Grant were instrumental in the victory over the nine barons, but the cost to both men was insurmountable.

Grant lost Shizuak, and Kane lost his wife, Brigid, when they rescued him from the hands of a cult, The Nirodha, based in India. That single even left more of a scar on Kane than any of the wounds that he had suffered over the many years he spent as a Magistrate, and then an exile fighting the Barons.

He has spent over twenty years researching a means to travel back in time to fix what had happened, so that he wouldn't have to suffer as he has. Even Grant, his partner, and his best friend, turned his back on Kane, thinking that he has become totally fused out because of what happened.

Kane however, has a plan. Sindri disappeared, and was never heard from again, but Kane realized what the little man did. He managed to trap himself in Zero time, using the operation Chronos facilities on Thunder Isle, just before the reactor reached critical mass. He is critical to bring about Kane's plan to life.

As always, Kane has a number of obstacles to overcome. First and foremost is Tanvirah, the daughter of Lakesh and Erica van Sloan. She is now the Scorpio Prime of the Nirodha cult, like her mother before her. She is under Sam's orders to try and win Kane over, with any means at her disposal. Grant even tries to stop him, and the fight that ensues is one of the more entertaining scenes in the novel.

But, despite as crazy as he appears, Kane's whole scheme might actually work, and after bringing Sindri back from the Zero time he had been trapped in. Together, he and Sindri use the remaining TAV to travel to the City of High River, formerly known as Cobaltville.

Surpassing even more trials and tribulations, they reach the city only to be captured and whisked off to China where they would face Sam, the Imperator.

Here, Kane confronts the hybrid and discovers exactly who and what he is, and during the confrontation, he learns the Imperators great plans. His own plan to send Sindri back in time actually succeeds, but at the cost of his life.

Once again, this is the best novel that the author has written to date, and I am very eager to read the conclusion.

How does Mark Ellis do it? Just when I think I've read the best that he has to offer, he blows me out of the water with another masterpiece. As I read these OL novels, I am completely immersed in the story and the plot.

Talon and Fang is one of those which kept me turning the pages until the late hours.. Great character development, typical Outlanders humor, and of course the mystery and suspense that only Mark Ellis can weave.

This novel represents a major event in the mythology of Outlanders. Most series novels of this type put you right back where you started from, without altering the fabric of the characters or the format. Talon and Fang takes an extra step and goes beyond this limitation.

This book has action, adventure, life-threatening situations, romance, and mystery. More than your usual action/adventure beat the bad guys plot, this book brings familiar characters a little closer to real life. If you liked the intertwining threads of the other novels in this series you'll love Talon and Fang.

It's when you come across books like Talon & Fang that you know your money spent on a series is well-spent!! I loved this book! I think it is quite possibly the best in the whole series.

Outstanding guide for NCOs. I bought this book when I was assigned to USAREC and have used it ever since.

I found the Three Meter-Zone to be simply one of the best books on leadership that I have ever read. And there have been many such books that I have read. This book clearly rates as one of the top two or three books that I could recommend on this topic.

Although I have a military background (USMC, late 60s - early 70s), I spent my career in law enforcement. I retired a couple of years ago after almost 29 years, to include time as a "first line supervisor and commander in Patrol Operations and police tactical operations (SWAT).

I found it to be very refreshing that this book was oriented "primarily" towards the first-line supervisor level. Although the principles and concepts outlined in the book were clearly applicable toward supervisory and management positions above that first line level, the thrust of its direction was somewhat unique in the direct approach towards first line supervision.

Additionally, the use of "war stories" to demonstrate specific examples of conceptual thoughts of principle allowed the reader a glimpse of practical applications of the various principles.

It was quite strange that while this book was an easy read - easy to follow, well written, and by no means conceptually "hazy" - I found it hard to finish! And that was only because I found myself reading a section, putting the book down and mulling over what I just read (and sometimes mulling it over off-and-on for hours), going back and re-reading it, etc. before going on to the next section. As a result, it took me quite a bit longer to finish the book that I had first imagined!

This book rates an "A+" for no other reason that the author's identification of one of the key problems facing supervision AND management today: "The Three Ps" (I won't ruin the surprise for future readers by identifying them).

In fact, in my opinion, in today's area of supervision and management - as I know from first hand observation in the law enforcement field and otherwise see both in the corporate world and in the military - the "Three Ps" are THE biggest problems of leadership today. Until the cultural climate adjustments occur that effect the necessary changes in this area, I see no hope for true positive outcomes within those troubled organizations.

This is an outstanding book that tells an uninformed reader exactly how NCO's should motivate, direct, and give purpose for a Three Meter Experience ! FM 22-100 guides soldiers in the Army leadership process through the eyes of Senior Officer Leadership. The Three Meter Zone gives it to you by a Noncommissioned Officer, for Noncommissioned Officers who like to get close and personal. We are in an Army that has sold its soul to corporate America and are being taught to "manage" soldiers instead of leading them. Its good to see a book supporting direct, in your face leadership !! I've conducted a Bold site adjustment on my leadership style and am confident that my shot group is now in the Three Meter Zone!

This book is great if you have ever thought about a career in the Highway Patrol. Just realize though it was written back in the 1980's and things have changed alot in the orgainization as a whole, but the people are still as crazy and dangerous as ever. The Stories are real and you can't put this book down.

This is an excellent guide to discovering who stands behind the badges of the highway patrol. I have a new found appreciation for the men and women who risk their lives every day. Even when they have to do so in an environment of decreasing respect and increasing firepower. I strongly reccomend this book.

A great read, hard to put down once you start

As the largest growing ethnic group in the United States, Latinos/Hispanics have made inroads in many fields due to their strength, organization, and family values. Although differences among Latinos are as common as differences in other groups distinguished by a common language root (e.g., Slavs, Arabs, Romance languages speakers, etc.) the common struggle of all nationalities that are found in this classification is the same: success.

Edited by one of the greatest activists and advocates for Latinos all around the world, actor Edward James Olmos, "Americanos: Latino Life in the United States" is a collection of beautiful photographs and stories of Latinos throughout the United States. From Mexican-Americans in California to Puerto Ricans in New York City, Olmos and a team of other editors have produced a book that perfectly and respectfully captures the beauty and realities of Latinos all around. Available in hardbound and paperback editions, "Americanos: Latino Life in the United States" is a must have for Latino/Hispanic Studies students/enthuasists or for anyone who tuly appreciates cultural photography. The book, which was accompanied by a U.S. museum tour of photographs featured in the book, is truly a milestone for a community that has risen from a long sleep and awakened to become the most dynamic and promising group in the Americas.

If I can use two words to describe this book, I would use "moving" and "beautiful." It's a must have book in your library, especially if you're Latino.

Esto es un libro hecho muy bien con el editation gráfico muy bueno hecho por Manuel Monterrey. Recomend I él.

This is a very well done book with very good graphical editation done by Manuel Monterrey. I recomend it.

Edward James Olmos has done alot of WOnderful things in his career. and this Project is one of them.it's very Important to Show the World The Beauty of the Latino World.every culture deserves the right to be seen and heard at full Zenith.everybody wants a better Future and to Be Respected.This Book is very much like the book i have of African-AMericans in America the Many different shades of us and the many visions.it's important to Know the World around You.

There was one another 50's icon who rivals Marilyn in popularity today--Bettie Page. True, she didn't make any A-movies, but like Marilyn, embodied that woman who drew a fine line between good girl/bad girl and crossed the lines as easily as one drank Coca-Cola. Unlike Marilyn, Bettie survived, but like Marilyn, her legend lives on for one simple reason: she dropped out of sight in 1957 following the fall of Irvin and Paula Klaw by the Kefauver Committee on indecency and pornography and refused to have herself be photographed as she is now. Thus, she is remembered as she was back then. And as her life has become simpler, she values her privacy. She says so as much in the hand-written foreword, at the same time surprised and honoured that so many people are interested in her.Karen Essex and James L. Swanson book is a great place to start for those curious about Bettie Page. Basically, it's a biography accompanied by lots and lots of colour and b&w photos, many of them topless. There are two of them which has her completely nude. She also posed for countless magazine covers and photographers. Art Amsie's photos are the best of the lot here. Bunny Yeager is touched on briefly, but that woman has a book on herself so... Looking at the early Bettie, before she became a pin-up from 1947, is also quite a revelation. She is still beautiful, but in an ordinary way, like a typical girl growing up in 1940's America.There is clearly a dualism going on here. There's the pretty wholesome girl in the bathing suit or maybe not, and then there's the darker leatherbound fetish girl, be she receiver or giver. That latter half led to her downfall. The point also was that she enjoyed her work, mainly the lighter beach stuff. You can see it in those twinkling eyes and smile of hers.The last section of the book features models who have been influenced by her, be they in clothes or just looking like her. Of the lookalikes, Eva Herzigova, Debi Mazar, and Janice Dickinson have got it down to the bangs, (it's the bangs that did it for Bettie, after all), long black hair, and prominent eyebrows.Apart from being one of fantasy artist Olivia's favourite subjects, Bettie's images appear on album covers by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and the David Lee Roth Band. Her three videos, Teaserama, where she acts opposite stripper legend Tempest Storm, Varietease, and Strip-O-Rama have come out. She'll live on, no doubt about it.Anyone interested in Bettie Page-start with this book. You won't be disappointed.

This is the ultimate book on Bettie Page. This book is for every true Bettie fan. Even contains an introduction from Bettie herself.

If you really want to follow the history of legend, this is the ultimate book on Betty Mae Page!

So said one of her photographers. What a marvelous book. If you're like me, and have been a Bettie fan for years, you've been waiting for this book. For years one could find stuff on her only in comic shops and the like, dealing in old memorabilia from the Fifties, or in various "alternative" shops that sold her image on T shirts. As a teen that's where I learned about her, thanks to "The Rocketeer," the comic "The Bettie Pages," and psychobilly trash-punk band the Cramps, who for a short time had a bass player the spittin' image of our fair maiden. Now that we've finally opened our eyes, we can buy several books on her, this being by far the best. It is the ne plus ultra of Bettiebooks, of pin-up books in general. What a trend-setter; a humble, troubled, open and honest woman who was not exploited, who has not turned herself into a PC victim--she's idolized by smart, hip young women who see in her freedom, sexuality, playfullness, life itself. This book had better be reprinted--it's an absolute crime to be unavailable. Get this book by any means necessary!

Besides the furious establishment media counterattack, Oliver Stone's JFK lead to the release of long surpressed documents and evidence and the re-flowering of research and publishing concerning JFK's assassination. Probe was the best journal to come out of the post-JFK enlightenment. It is now, sadly, defunct but Feral House has published an anthology of Probe's best articles, some revised and expanded, along with some new work. The Assassinations is edited, as was Probe, by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease. James DiEugenio is the author of Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case, and he also provides a commentary track on a recent DVD reissue of Stone's JFK. The anthology covers the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and Malcolm X with over half of the 677 page paperback volume dedicated to JFK.

Some of The Assassinations highlights:

John Armstrong's research into the "Two Oswalds." If you've been a student of the Kennedy assassination for 37 years, your mind is seldom blown. Enter John Armstrong. Armstrong's argues and offers proof of two Oswalds walking among us since childhood.

Lisa Pease on the CIA's Prince of Darkness, James Jesus Angleton.

James DiEugenio and Bill Davy on the Garrison investigation. Some researchers avert their eyes when Garrison's name is mentioned. No such embarrassment here. Clay Shaw's perjury and his CIA connections are revealed in detail.

John Newman on Oswald and the CIA.

Dr. Gary Aguilar's brilliant analysis of the magic bullet. Aguilar is your best guide through the briar patch of medical evidence. No tangles or scratches, guaranteed.

An essential section on the media's complicity in the cover-up, with an emphasis on the Garrison investigation.

The clear and highly readable writing in this anthology is based on meticulous research into the recent disclosures of long suppressed documents and other evidence. Although the fresh material is shocking it is also, in a sense, liberating. You see behind the lies, the propaganda, the disinformation. You don't have to be a longtime student of the bloody politics of the sixties to appreciate the many riches in this volume. The Assassinations is an essential addition to the literature on our secret history. [This review is adapted from my longer review in The Anderson Valley Advertiser (May 21, 2003)]

"The Assassinations" is one of the very few books which present a comprehensive and well-organized look at the *big* picture. It is a volume which deserves the attention, not just of people who are convinced that the assassinations of the Kennedys, King and Malcom X were not the work of "lone nuts", but of everyone who is genuinely interested in the recent history of the United States. Whether you are convinced, skeptical or simply curious, this is the book to read if you want to find out the facts, not the latest spin from the mass media.

If you want to read the most current knowledge about the truth of the political assassinations of the 1960's this is the book to read. The Assassinations is a collection of the best articles to appear in a little know publication called Probe magazine from 1994 to 2000. These articles were written by serious citizen researchers who invested the time and money doing the work our major news media failed to do--that is to sift through the many new declassified documents about the assassinations that have become available during the past decade. With an introduction by Judge Joe Brown of TV fame the book is filled with in depth articles that you won't read anywhere else.
Examples of offerings include Professor Donald Gibson discussing how de-classified telephone transcripts from the early Johnson Presidency in the days after Nov. 22, 1963 show us how the Warren Commission was created, and for what purpose. John Armstrong has spent years of his life devoted to the study of Lee Harvey Oswald. Here Armstrong shows us that there was much more to the Oswald story than we were ever told.
Radiologist David Mantik has spent many more hours studying the JFK autopsy x-rays than did any offical government investigating body. Mantik has submitted the x-rays to sophisitcated tests unavailable during the 1960's and 70's and has proven that the x-rays now in the National Archives are forgeries.
Lisa Pese fleshes out the details of the RFK murder that have never been published before. James Douglass explains how a 1999 civil trial in Memphis proved beyond any doubt that our very government executed a man whose birthday it honors with a national holiday. And much, much more.
Perhaps the most enlightening and disturbing part of the book is the section titled, "The Failure of the Fourth Estate." Here the reader will learn why the news media never informed you about any of this information. You will learn of the all too cozy relationship that exists between our mainstream news media and the U.S. government intelligence agencies. You will learn specific names of well known journalists who got their stories cleared with intelligence agencies before writing, and who acted as government informants and "propaganda assets."
The book closes with a thoughtful afterword by one of the editors, James DiEugenio, who places the assassinations in their political context and explains how they impacted our lives and changed the course of our collective history.
This book is not for those who practice the superficial, shallow, "my country right or wrong", flag-waving type of patriotism so in vogue these days. This book is for true patriots who care about their country and aren't afraid to look straight into it's ugly, evil side. This book is for those who want to learn from the past and want to understand when and how the United States began to go from being a much loved beacon of democracy to becoming a loathed and feared nation. This book is for patriots who want to help ensure that we once again return to having a government " of the people, by the people and for the people."

I've been re-reading P.D. James this summer, more or less in sequence, a project that I highly recommend. "An Unsuitable Job for a Woman" is number five, and the first of two to feature a protaganist other than Adam Dalgleish. Instead, we're introduced to private detective Cordilia Grey, a plucky and determined young heroine, in her first solo case. The story is impecably plotted, told with a sure hand, not without its humor, psychologically credible -- a pleasure to read.

There are certain themes (e.g., the inability to love) and preoccupations (e.g., an interest in architecture) that recur throughout the P.D. James series, as is apparent when you read a bunch of them over a short period of time. Though her later novels are longer and more elaborate, I also admire the more straightforward, meticulously crafted early works. Rereading the series is a great summer project!

This is a reprint of a novel copyrighted in 1977. It predates Sue Grafton's novels about P.I. Kinsey Millhone, and introduces London P.I. Cordelia Gray, a young woman with a family background even more unusual than Kinsey's. Having grown up in foster homes and a Catholic boarding school, at the age of 16 she began traveling through Europe with her father's band of left-wing revolutionaries. Finally settling in London, a job with a temp agency took her to the office of P.I. Bernie Pryde. She is now 22, and had become an associate of Pryde, inheriting the business on his death.

This is Cordelia's first independent case. She has been hired to investigate the apparent suicide of a prominent scientist's only son. The case takes some unexpected twists and turns, and she finds herself in danger before the case winds down to a conclusion. At the end, she meets Chief Inspector Dalgliesh, the main character of other novels by the author.

The monetary amounts mentioned (i.e., five pounds a day plus expenses) may seem strange to U.S. readers, even taking into account the 1972 time frame, but one must keep in mind that things were cheaper than they are today and that pay standards in the U.K. have always been less than in the U.S. - one reason for immigration (the old World War II complaint about U.S. servicemen was "overpaid, oversexed, and over here")

The sequel to this novel is "The Skull Beneath the Skin." Sue Grafton's fans should enjoy these novels.

~ - ~
P.D. James at her best! Fans of Inspector Dalgliesh, and those new to P.D. James will both enjoy this. Dalgliesh appears very briefly on the fringes of the story. The heroine is a likeable, determined, very human young woman, who isn't going to be swayed by the popular opinion that being a detective is "an unsuitable job for a woman".
~ -~
Cordelia Gray has just inherited full ownership of a detective agency on the brink of bankruptcy. Their main assets now are a gun and Cordelia's determination. She gets caught up in the investigation of a young man's suicide, and won't let go despite danger to herself.
~ - ~
The solution to the mystery was quite a surprise. (Being such a mystery fan, many books are now transparent) As always-, James has a clever, unexpected solution, and a dramatically satisfying ending.
If you've heard of P.D.James - this is a great mystery to jump into! James fans- Don't miss it!

I really enjoyed this book it captured the feelings of the entire country and I think it expresses what the government and the armed forces really feel about this situation. I had trouble putting the book down, i read it to the wee hours of the morning and glad i did. I recomend this highly. i hope this book recieves the recognition it deserves. A satisifed and appreaciative reader. I hope their are more books to follow

I really enjoyed the easy flow of the writer but yet intense enough to hold your interest and now everything in the book is coming out in the news . I don't know if the writer had a crystal ball or what but it is remarkable how he predicted the situations before they occured. Intense and at the same time intriguing . I couldn't put it down.I am looking for other books by same writer.loved it.

It was an intense book to read a real page turner, I had trouble putting it down I wish we had more Major Slade books.He got right to the problem and went out and recruited the right people for the job and got it done. I was cheering him on all the way.

James McPherson is not only the preeminent Historian of the US Civil War, but one of the greatest historians working today. He offers razor sharp analysis of complicated issues, with fair consideration of all points of view. Best of all, McPherson does all that in clear, concise and at times poetic language, that is remarkably easy to read.

'Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution' enjoys all the benefits of McPherson's considerable scholarship. Its problems are almost exclusively editorial.

This thin volume (152 pages of text; 20 more pages for notes, bibliography and an index) contains seven essays about the two themes in the title - The US Civil war seen as the second American Revolution, and Abraham Lincoln's role in it.

The first essay argues convincingly that the Civil War did radically change the Unites States. From a Slaveholding Republic, it became a free one. Politically, the center of gravity moved from the South to the north. Economically, the Industrial revolution, earlier contained in New England, spread out and defeated the plantation economy. In the South, the prevailing order was weakened, although not surmounted, and the situation of Blacks improved considerably, although equality was still very far. The theme McPherson is most interested in, however, is the change from a philosophy of negative liberty - freedom from government oppression - to one of positive liberty - the right for protection - guaranteed by the Federal government.

The second essay discusses Lincoln's role as the leader of the revolution. Lincoln, McPherson argues, was a pragmatic revolutionary. The revolution, which he brought on America, was caused by Lincoln's accurate assessment of necessities, not by a strong ideological tie to the revolution. Lincoln was no Lenin - he held sternly to the one principle of democracy, and the second American Revolution happened as a by-product of defending this principle.

In the third essay, 'Lincoln and Liberty', McPherson discusses how Lincoln's struggle for positive liberty was seen as despotic by those holding the principles of negative liberty. The Republicans wanted to restrict and ultimately destroy the rights of Southerners to hold slaves - and to enforce these restrictions by government action, if that was what it took.

Lincoln's role as supreme military commander is a neglected issue in Civil War historiography, claims McPherson, and he sets out to remedy that in the following essay. Lincoln's most important contribution, he concludes, was his unyielding hold on the doctrine of Unconditional Surrender. This issue also returns in Essay number 6, which compares Lincoln to Northerners who were not nearly as clear about the goal of fighting as he was.

Lincoln's rhetoric and the use of metaphors is the subject of the fifth essay. In an interesting comparison with Jefferson Davis, McPherson concludes that Lincoln's usage of metaphors in writing and speaking made him a superb communicator, which Davis wasn't. Thus, McPherson agrees with David Potter that had Lincoln been the leader of the South in the war, the confederacy might have maintained its independence.

One weakness of the collection is the lack of coherence in topics. The illuminating comparison between Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln in this essay, for example, is sadly missing from other chapters. Take War Leadership -Lincoln's grasp of the northern grand strategy made him replace popular generals who nonetheless could not follow his concept of total war. Jeff Davis on the other hand, despite his superior military background (as a war hero and a West-Point graduate), never articulated war aims as Lincoln did, and the Confederate war policy was constructed de facto by the decision of its irregularly brilliant generals. Lincoln would have made much better use of Robert E. Lee than Davis did.

The absence of such themes concurring through the book weakens the narrative, and it remains more an anthology than a focused monograph. Another such problem is the repetition between the essays. The final essay repeats almost all of the discussion about Isaiah Berlin's concepts of positive and negative liberty, before launching into the new theme. That theme, the turning away from positive liberty back to negative liberty during reconstruction, is fascinating. During reconstruction, Republicans had to constantly use the military in order to enforce equality for blacks on the unwilling Southrons. The disillusionment from Reconstruction and the resurrected fear from governmental tyranny left the racist policies of the South for another century, when Martin Luther King finished that job that Abraham Lincoln has began.

Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution is a collection of seven related essays by James M. McPherson. Each essay shows us a perspective from which the Civil War can be seen as a "revolution." They are all provocative and intense -- two things that are rare in history. From the first page to the last you'll be saying to yourself "I never thought of it that way before ..." A must for anyone even remotely interested in the Civil War.

This is an acute uncovering of the concealed revolution in the Civil War era with its great transformation, as the released energy 'under a war footing' accelerated the real evolutionary emergence of the freedom declared but never fulfilled in the age of the Founding Fathers.
One of the ironies is that the reification of concepts of revolution can result in confusion,while, here, change happened without the label. It is also true that the last step foundered, and the counterrevolution began and hardened, in the tragic era of reconstruction, leaving still another revolution with an ambiguously sour note.

UNDO THE DEED is a bold and unique first novel. Even more importantly, it is a true resource for sufferers of domestic abuse of all ages. Although the storyline is rooted in many hallmarks of science fiction, I believe it is more properly appreciated when approached as a contemporary fantasy. Not to imply that the story is in any way wispy or easy, as it is anything but that. AMJ deals unflinchingly with the abusive episodes, and in the resulting emotional turmoil that all the characters feel. I would also particularly recommend this book for young readers - the teen and young adult, whom I think would find a particularly empathetic connection to the lead characters and the teenage centered storyline, and would be most likely to derive and apply the important messages this book has to offer.

A fantastic story line that many people can,
unfortunately, relate to. All of the details well
placed and in the proper sequence. A hard thing to
do properly. Looking forward to his next offering.

To the general public, science fiction is about science: stories not so much about people as about gadgets. But Adam-Michael James knows that good SF uses its suite of very special literary tools to explore what it means to be human in ways other forms of storytelling simply can't. His novel Undo the Deed is a classic example of this, using time travel not to illuminate logical paradoxes, but rather to let an abused woman meet her abusive father when he was a child. The result is gutsy and heartwrenching, and, as with all good SF, it wonderfully illuminates the human condition.