Mr. Richie is a reasonably good writer. Certain of his books are successful in explaining the nuances of areas of science to laymen, as with "Ring Of Fire", for example. Unfortunately, the presently reviewed work is not one of them. Instead it is a disappointing text marked by serious errors in either research, proofreading, or both.

As an example, Ritchie categorically states that the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Nastapoka Arc of southeastern Hudson Bay are "astroblemes", a specific term for an impact structure coined by Dr. Robert S. Dietz, a prominent pioneer in the field of the study of impact strucures. (Interestingly, the book never mentions Dr. Dietz.) See page 146.

What Ritchie does NOT tell you is that Dr. Dietz has examined the
Natapooka Arc carefully and that he has found NO evidence ofa meteoritic origin. Neither feature is mentioned on any of the current listings of astroblemes. Ritchie then backtracks and says, well, heck, I guess they haven't decided for sure on these things, in effect. You can't have it both ways. Ritchie first makes a declarative statement, then disavows it; this is not good writing.

An even more egregious blunder is simple spelling. The Vredefort impact structure in the Republic of South Africa is spelled in that manner; not "Vredevoort" or "Fredefort", as per page 147 of this book. I have been reading reports on this amazing fature for 30 years, and Richie's offered spellings are not found in any literature of any kind that I have reviewed.

However, some might say these are proofreading problems. Consider, however, that at page 141, in talking about a near miss by an asteroid over the Western Uniteed States in 1972, Ritchie categorically states the event took place at night. This is just plain wrong, and easily ascertained. In fact a daytime film shows the object proceeding north at a high rate of speed over Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The video has been widely shown on many television presentations and the time is stated as boing about 1:00 p.m. The weath is sunny, with occasional clouds. NO excuse here at all for missing this.

There are a lot more such errors, but I am limited to 1,000 words, so these will have to suffice. But I am telling you that the book is rife with so many other such errors that it is worse than valueless as a serious work. Don't waste your time buying or reading this hodge-podge of misinformation.

From the title I was expecting a more technical book than what I received. Was looking more for designs and engineering rather than general information this book gives.

I gave this book one star only becasue there was no 0 star rating, this is the worst math book I have ever used. It is poorly written, there are lots of mistakes( which to this date 05/29/03, that have not been correted on the authors' web page). This book was poorly organized, over priced, and had a weak book binding (my copy began to fall apart!!).
Please do not buy this book, unless you like to waste your money on useless material.

This book will leave you wanting. Wanting to stay on the grid! ... It lacks a lot but most of all it lacks Pictures, Illustrations, something to help visualize how to do what the author is talking about. Pick up any "how to" mannuel. What is it filled with? Pictures, Illustrations. This book has 3 maybe 4. Besides that, it is poorly written.

The book is also, shall we say , "lacking in value". If you get my meaning. I have never done a review before but from the review guidelines, I assume amazon will not allow me to be any more blunt than that. Of course if you have money to burn you could use it for your wood store to fire your boiler to produce steam in your own personal turbine. Now there's a idea. Someone should write a book about it.