This has been the best book that I have ever read. In fact I have bought copies for all my relatives for Christmas this year. It is the type of book that you can't put down until the end. The author is truly talented and brings the story to life. I can't wait for her next book to be ready. Keep up the great work!

I found myself glued to the novel right away. What a fantastic plot! The characters really come alive and grip you throughout the advanture. Prepare yourself to forget everything else but immersing yourself in the small New England town of Sawyer's Crossing. It was truely a really good read!

What a wonderful novel! I couldn't put it down till I had read it from cover to cover. I suggest you start reading it on the weekend. That way you won't coming to work looking like something the cat drag in! It was great that Kelly was someone that I could relate to. Finally a woman that has a brain and wasn't afraid to use it! Can't wait to read her next novel, Sugar Creek Inn!!

While on a counter-terrorist mission, Navy Seal Brody Hawke receives a letter from Giancarlo Hawke, who purports to be Brody's father. The letter says that he, Gian,is in danger and begs his son to come home and "trust no one". Also included in the letter is picture of a man who looks exactly like Brody except for the scar over the eyebrow and is supposed to be Brody's twin brother, Elliott. Brody is stunned by the letter as before his mother died, she told him that his father had died in an automobile accident and never mentioned any living relatives

Brody takes off for the Napa Valley where Hawke's Landing Vineyards is located and rents a room at the Silver Moon Bed and Breakfast, owned and operated by Lou Edwards whose daughter Victoria Anderson, a graphic artist, is engaged to Elliott Hawke. Brody meets Tori and sparks immediately fly. He is informed that his father, Gian, is dead and fowl play is intimated and that the funeral is the next day.

In the meantime, the family lawyer has read the will wherein Gian leaves 10% of the vineyards to his wine master and best friend Aldo Abruzzo, and 10% to Gian's twin sister, Gina Barzini and other than small bequests to servants, the reminder of the vineyards is left to Elliott and his twin brother, Brody. Everyone is shocked especially Elliott who had no idea he had a twin brother and had been told by his father that his mother had died in an automobile accident.

The brothers meet and each is suspicious of the other;however, Brody offers his share of the vineyards, no strings attached. Elliott is still quite wary and is not certain he can believe his newly discovered brother.

Prior to Gian's death Tori had decided that she did not love Elliott and planned to return his ring even before she met Brody and is dangerously attracted to him. The return of his ring did not please Elliott.

Elliott lends his Porsche to Brody and a near fatal accident when trouble develops with the steering mechanism and the car is totaled. Who was the target? Was it Brody or Elliott?

Rachel Rittvo, a distant cousin, works for Elliott and unbeknownest to him is in love with him and resents Tori. To complicate matters Rachel has been having an affair with Alex Abruzzo who manages another vineyard and has hopes of owning his own.

Enter the Corelli brothers who want to buy Hawke's Landing Vineyard, Keith Puth, a millionaire who also wants to buy a vineyard, Maria, who cared for Elliott as a child, The Rittvoes who will inherit the vineyard if anything happens to Elliott and Brody.

Tori and Brody set out to solve Gian's mysterious death and they uncover a trail of lies and betrayals which had been hidden in the past.

You will suspect everyone and no one. This is a really good romance suspense book. Enjoy.

Another good book from Meryl Sawyer. It takes place in the wine coutry of Northern California. If you've never had the pleasure of visiting this part of the state then this book will take you there. The descriptions of the wineries are right on target as well as the tourists and the locals who inhabit the area. Brody Hawke is sent a letter by his father along with a picture of a brother he never knew existed. The last sentence of the letter tells him, Trust No One. Tori Anderson is the woman who can't let go of her past, and is engaged to a man she knows she can't marry. One kiss from Brody and her world is spinning. The web spins as soon as Brody arrives in town. His father has died and someone would just as soon get him out of the picture too. The entire family is involved in this story from Brody's twin brother to Tori's dog. Brody has some insecurities when it comes to women and this comes across as rather refreshing without being wimpy

Okay, twins separated at birth. I'd read this before but I trusted that Meryl Sawyer who did such a wonderful twist on anmesia in UNFORGETTABLE would deliver another unusual book and she did. This is Brody from THUNDER ISLAND'S story. He's a Navy SEAL and everything about him--except his looks--is different than his brother, Elliott. The twists and riveting characters and the setting in California's wine country were great. I did not want this book to end. Again, as Meryl always does, there was a great animal. Piny, Tori's labrador retriever is a very special dog. If you want romance and suspense, Meryl is the best. Now I'm waiting for Elliott's story.

This is an excellent book and hard to put down and since is it rather short (in my opinion) you can read it on some day when you have nothing to do. A young man's uncle dies leaving him only a belt when the young man had expected to inherit millions. The belt is no ordinary belt...

This is a wonderful book! If you were one of the people who thought that Back to the Future Part II was OK, but didn't have enough paradoxes, then this book is for you! I'm a big time travel nut, and have read a lot of time travel fiction, and this one takes the cake. Everything you thought was cool and neat about time travel is in this book.

In 1975 (the year events begin in this book), I borrowed a copy of TMWFH from my brother (I was 15 that year). The book left such an impression on me; it got me started on a life-long fascination with time-travel -- the paradoxes, the ability to manipulate the present through events in the past, etc. The fact that 26 years later, I was motivated to order a used copy off Amazon says a lot for the staying power of the story. Wonderful re-read after all these years, the story still holds up extremely well.

This is a book about the human aspect of time travel -- perception of self, free will, loneliness, wanting, hopelessness, etc. Not a particularly uplifting read but it will make you think. Isn't that what a good book should do?

Far Seer is the first volume of what became a trilogy of novels that takes place in a world inhabited by saurian beings. This stage is set with the idea of drawing some paralell lines with relevant personnages of our history, but also developing fully independent trains of action. Thus, Far-Seer deals with a character akin to Galileo. In the next two volumes Sawyer will mirror the lives of Darwin and Freud.

Rarely enough, the whole trilogy was been out of print for a while, a fact which is unfortunate. Indeed, I can consider Far-Seer one of my favorite books by Robert Sawyer. Although short, this is a well crafted story with engaging prose and characters. Sawyer manages to create credible and attractive landscapes and consistent cultural traits. Even after considering the fact that the author is mirroring the story of Galileo the imagined situations are good enough to maintain the attention. Although being fully independent, Far-Seer still leaves a thread that is to be followed in the next two installments: Fossil Hunter and Foreigner.
Rating: 3.5

So long as priests are granted the monopoly of declaring what is moral and what is not, the war of science and religion will never cease. Robert Sawyer here shows how that conflict not only crosses cultural lines, but species ones, as well. Merging the lives of Earth's Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton into one dinosauroid individual, he recapitulates three centuries of striving to understand Nature's secrets. Each worked in fear of the church's displeasure, addressing the absolute monopoly with various levels of success. Sawyer presents Afsan as one determined to reveal truth at whatever cost. Afsan uses the first telescope to examine the heavens, challenging the established tradition of the role of priests and their dogmas. The discoveries are too important to allow the priests to quell them. Afsan knows the future of his race is at stake.

Although Sawyer must compress many people and events into one modestly heroic character, it doesn't detract from the quality of this book. Making dinosaurs into near humans takes a special skill, but Sawyer manages it with little falsity. He exhibits a vivid imagination, but doesn't let it run away with his presentation. While the portrait of a race still using claws for emotional expression and hunting while building a civilization of stone, metal and ships may give the purist pause, Sawyer's story-telling abilities overcomes these doubts. The book remains an entertaining and clever interpretation. For the fullest enjoyment, of course, the next two volumes become mandatory reading.

This is quite simply one of my all-time favorite books. A parable of the conflict between science and religion, Sawyer managed to create a world of such startling believabilty (and familiarity) that there is no need for the suspension-of-belief that most SF/Fantasy novels require a reader to make. You simply step into this world of sentient dinosaurs as naturally as you step out of your door each morning. Within the pages of this book I found myself reliving many of the struggles I have gone through as I sought to understand the world around me. The process of discovery that leads Afsan to conclude that much of what he was taught about the world is wrong (even dangerously so) unfolds over the course of a rip-roaring, high adventure tale. How many other books take you on a thrilling Sauropod hunt and then a few pages later force you to ponder gripping questions of existence, faith and ultimate meaning? The first and easily the best of the "Quintaglio Trilogy," no one interested in dinosaurs, evolution, philosophy and religion should miss this. Do what it takes to get it!At the risk of overstatment I have to conclude by saying that "Far-Seer" is in my opinion one of the finest dino-themed adventures EVER! May it be back in print soon!

Mario Castigiani is a internationally accredited Psychic. He is called into action to help find a murderer.

Beafort Tyler, the police chief of Floraville, Georgia calls upon Mario to help him prove that an old black man named Roy Washington (who was a local celebrity from the civil rights days) was murdered and not a suicide as the coroner thinks. Roy was found hanging in his kitchen. Does Roy's death have any thing to do with the hanging of Chief Tyler's predecessor, Chief Rutherford Kendall? He was also found hanging, but police officers usually use their weapons.

AN UNCERTAIN CURRENCY is exquisitely written, with really entertaining and amiable characters, and a plot that will hold you enraptured all the way to theclimatic ending.

AN UNCERTAIN CURRENCY has everything that an immense book should have, homicide, mystery, affection, eroticism, psychological tension, and racial discrimination all rolled into a nice tight mix.

This is an interesting novel about Mario Catigliani, a traveling Italian psychic who performs and uses his ability for money. He is recruited by the police chief in a small Southern town to help solve a suicide that the chief thinks is murder. I have to pause here and say that this novel is not interesting because it's an intriguing mystery, but because of the details of Mario's life. I've always been fascinated by the way a good author can completely invent a person out of thin air. How do they make up a real person (Mario does seem so real) who has thoughts, dreams, fear, selfishness, love, all the things that make people real? In any case, like I said, I was not curious about whodunnit, and for this to be a good mystery, I should have been. The mystery was almost an aside in this book, just something for the characters to be doing so they weren't just sitting around. The real story is the story of Mario's life. And that's what made this book good.  

When Mario was 12 the Sight (la Lucia) first came to him at an archaeological dig near his home in Perugia, Italy & his childhood was changed, even his path in life.

Now, he is an Internationally Acclaimed Psychic & an aging, lonely Seer in a frayed silk suit, washed up in a sleepy Southern town where he is about to perform for the locals. The night he arrives one of the town's best beloved & larger-than-life characters is found dangling from a rope in his home, his Bible open at the page on which could be construed his suicide note.

Floraville's young police chief, borne of the warring farmlands & mill owners, an ex-mill worker himself, has nothing to lose & everything to gain when he hires on Mario to assist in solving what he knows & can't yet prove, to be a murder.

I thoroughly enjoyed the insights la Lucia offers Mario, like some puckish imp whispering in his ear all the silent comments unwary people think while their mouths utter utterly different words! & then Mario curses la Lucia & away she goes & he's left depending on his own wits.

An Uncertain Currency is a rare feast of memories, depravity, humor & redemption. Great gift material for those who love a thoughtful mystery with a twist! For my full review & eInterview with Clyde Lynwood Sawyer, do check out: [my website].

I imensly enjoyed the first installment of this trilogy and looked forward to getting a copy of "Humans",
It does not disapoint. Anyone with a facination about Anthropology will not be let down by this rip roaring adventure acorss the dimentional divide.
HOWEVER, there does appear to be a running theme throughout the book that White Men are the sole cause of all of societys ills.
All major male characters are white women and men of colour, I enjoyed this refreshing twist on things however the non stop negative references toward european based culture and caucasian males are just a little bit ridiculous and over the top and in my mind political correctness run amuck.. otherwise a fab read...!

All writers of trilogies are aware of the prevalence of "middle volume" syndrome, but Sawyer seems mostly to have escaped its effects. Ponter Boddit, Neanderthal physicist in a world parallel to our own, returns to the world ruled by Homo sapiens in this sequel to Hominids, this time in a more organized manner and as one of his culture's envoys. He re-establishes his tentative relationship with psychologically damaged geneticist Mary Vaughan and Sawyer explores all the possibilities of interspecies romance -- though Mary often comes off as surprisingly naive for so well-educated a person. The Neanderthals generally turn out to have made better choices than we did (Sawyer's opinions are undoubtedly much of the reason he wrote the story in the first place), though their reproductive pattern lacks some of our own high points. The one comparison that irritates me, actually, is that Canada generally is shown to be culturally and socially superior to the U.S., . . . though I admit isn't a difficult argument to make. And I think Sawyer may be a bit naive himself in expecting the two national governments in North America to allow visiting Neanderthals so much liberty of movement -- especially given our present Administration. However, that's his style in most of his novels. It's a good, highly readable yarn, though, with a nice bit of poetic irony at the end, and I look forward to the conclusion.

Robert J Sawyer has written over 10 novels now and each one has taken me in a new direction, but unkikle most modern SF, the directions Sawyer's books take take are not, necessarily, external. Although Sawyer's novels fall firmly into the speculative/science fiction category, it is the thought-provoking philosophical situations that keep drawing me back.

His newest book, Humans, is no different. Following up the first volume of the parallax trilogy (Hominids), Humans tells the story of an alternate earth - one on which neanderthals became the dominant species, not humans. In this world, though geography is the same as present-day earth, the direction that scientific development has taken is much different from that of humans. In Hominids, through an accident of quantum physics, a portal opens up between our earth and the parallel earth of the neanderthals. A neanderthal physicist (Ponter Bodditt) slips through the portal and experiences what our version of earth is like. This begins what will eventually become a large-scale pursuance of cross-dimensional exchange.

Humans tells the continuing story of Ponter and his relations with a human geneticist on our earth. Using Ponter's "Stranger in a Strange Land" style arrival on earth, Sawyer manages to brilliantly call into question elements of our society that we may take for granted. using the unique perspective of an educated outsider, Sawyer makes the reader think about the worth of agriculture, nationalism and privacy among other things. But where others have failed, Sawyer's philosophical musings succeed in their ability to not bog down the action in Humans.

Fast-paced, thought-provoking and very well-written, Robert Sawyer has given us another great piece of speculation. I can't wait for the final book in the trilogy.

I'm a fan of Meryl Sawyer. This particular book however, is not really her best work. The beautiful girl with amnesia falling for her "wary of a realationship because I've been burned" rescuer is certainly not a new theme in the romance department. Even so, the real reason I am ambivilent about the book is that it seems too long winded. Sawyer fans will probably want to read it anyway but if you are not one of her faithful readers, don't bother.

I love Meryl Sawyer!! I read this book in one day. I couldn't wait to finish it!! Greg and Lucky were such a great couple, and the romance and suspense were just the right mix. This is one you don't want to pass up!!

This is by far, the best romance I have read in quite some time. Some of the more famous romantic suspense authors publish a new book every year and they begin to sound the same. This book made me go back to the book store and look through the shelves for other well written themes. Her next book, the Hideaway was extremely disappointing. I am hopeful that Meryl Sawyer will write another great book that is at the very least equal to "Unforgettable".

This is an excellent book that I would recommend for everyone interested in putting a store on the web. However it is NOT a book that explains the actual site design aspect of making your own store. I assumed this would show how to make a store from the site designer's stand point, and this is book only covers what the store owner needs to to do get started.... It is a great book if you want to setup a store for your business, but if you are looking for a book to actually tell you how to add and setup the code or software that runs the e-commerce part of the web site, this is the wrong book.

The second edition of Creating Stores On The Web by Ben Swayer, et.al is even more valuable: it provides many basics on online selling options, from using Amazon zshops and Yahoo Store to setting up an individual site. An invaluable 'must', this answers questions ranging from accepting international payments and tracking shipping costs to accepting credit cards online.

If you are interested in finding information on the wide range of knowlege required to be a successful web store owner, this book is a great place to start.

This book is co-authored by a man who started a fledgling web-based business in 1993. Through his experience and successes you get all the tools you need to make informed decisions on your web design. You can go to his website and see that all the ideas he outlines for you in the book are in practice on his website.

I am a computer technician who is researching starting my own web based business to sell custom framed wedding invitations. I have read many books and articles in my research. I found this book and one other to be an incredible asset (101 Ways to Promote your Web Site). Both these books are written in "lay-mans" terms that any beginner would be able to understand.

A must have for anyone who wants to know where to start with creating their own web-based business.

This is an excellent book if you have no experience with Dreamweaver. Takes you through everything step by step, and that is both a strength and a weakness. If you already know HTML and perhaps have worked with a package like FrontPage, alot of this book will be too basic and you will just skim. Then, when you want the real nitty gritty inside tips, you may have to go to a diffent source. This is a great manual, especially if you did a web purchase of Dreamweaver and didn't get a manual, but it doesn't go much beyond that.

Other reviewers seem to think this book is fabulous, too, but only for beginners. Yet within the first two chapters, I found two tips that will save me far more than the purchase price. As a designer of online training courses, I became a fan of Dreamweaver years ago, when Macromedia added Coursebuilder, which makes it easy to add tests to your website. So I was among the first to upgrade to version 4.0. While there is much to love in the upgrade, one frustration was the handy little button on the Object panel that inserted Break tags -- HTML coding that skips you to the next line without leaving a blank line in between. I remember wasting an hour under deadline looking for it, finally settling for the keyboard shortcut. But there in McFarland's book, not only do I find out where it is hidden, but I learn about other goodies I had never spotted before. Yes, indeed, I want more about SSI -- but that's why I hope McFarland write's a follow-up. And, yes, there are things like the DW FTP function that are awful -- but that's Macromedia's fault, not the author's. If all the other books in the Missing Manual series are as good as this, I will need to add a new bookshelf.

I have never been tempted to take the time to write one of these online reviews until I read this book. It's been so helpful to me in my work and has saved me so many hours of unnecessary labor that I thought I ought to tell people about it.

I've got lots of these kinds of books - from the dummy books to the huge bibles - but Dreamweaver:The Missing Manual is leagues better than any of them!

By the first few pages, I knew that this book would be fabulous, and it is. I like it because it is written for an intelligent reader, yet it uses non-techy language. Plus, there are lots of humorous references, which makes reading it fun.

Importantly, it doesn't assume technical knowledge on the part of the reader. It explains the whys along with the hows. This is of utmost value to me - I find the "whys" missing in many books. Often, a tutorial will say, "Do this. Then do this. Then do this." Well, any monkey can follow 1,2,3 instructions, but if you don't know WHY you're doing something, you won't be able to apply it to something else later on. I am constantly frustrated by that. I wanted more than a beginner's book, but I wanted the complex stuff explained in simple language. This book does that.

I started to bookmark the pages where I learned something valuable and realized I was marking the whole damned book - that's the type of book this is.

Robert J Sawyer is known for his non-genre SF writing. This is a guy who steers clear of spaceships and death rays and, instead, gives the reader pause for thought.

In Hominids, Sawyer proposes (using quantam physics) that the universe split during the Great Leap Forward and two realities were created. One world is present-day Earth. In the other, neanderthals lives on while humans died out. In Hominids, through an accident in a physics lab, the two universes come into contact with one other and an evolved neanderthal ends up on our Earth.

Sawyer has created an interesting construct based on sound scientific and historical principles. His characters are strong and believable and, most importantly, help to further the scientific supposition rather than get in the way. the book read squickly and contains all of what a good novel should: conflict, suspense and strong character development.

Hominids is a stand-out in the new crop of SF, and Sawyer has shown, once again, that he puts the Speculative in SF.

This author won the Nebula Award for good reason if Hominids is an example of his work. I devoured the book, sympathized and empathized with the characters, and eagerly anticipate beginning Volume II. Be prepared to make an emotional connection you did not expect. This work of science fiction is beguiling, and the story teller masterful.

Ponter Boddit is a physicist still grieving over the loss of his wife. Humorous and gentle hearted, he now shares a home with his long time friend and colleague, Adikor Huld. Adikor is the computer genius who brings Ponter's quantum physics theories to life. Both men are Neanderthals, living in a world where humans as we know them went extinct before recorded time. When their latest experiment unexpectedly succeeds, Ponter is transported into a parallel world - modern day Canada - where he is first rescued, then nurtured by curious strangers.

Louise Benoit works far below earth's surface in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory complex. When a Neanderthal in modern dress materializes out of nowhere into a tank of heavy water, she and her colleagues rescue him from drowning first and ask questions later. She and the company doctor, Reuben Montego, rush the strange specimen to the hospital and then begin to evaluate their situation. X-rays prove that they do, indeed, have a fully developed Neanderthal man on their hands. They call in one of the world's most honored paleoanthropologists in the field of Neanderthal research, Dr. Mary Vaughan. When DNA sampling proves that Ponter is genetically Neanderthal, Louise, Reuben and Mary band together to protect him and learn more about his world. Meanwhile, in his parallel universe, Adikor is up on murder charges because of Ponter's sudden disappearance.

It all seems so incredible, but from page one this author makes it work beautifully. The bewildered Ponter learns to like and respect his Homo Sapiens counterparts. They in turn appreciate and admire his intelligence and personality. Before long, the differences between Neanderthal and modern human fade, replaced by friendship and a growing fondness between Ponter and Mary, made more poignant by her history with males.

The contrast between Ponter's world and ours was indelibly detailed in Hominids. Ours is noisy and messy, with vehicles roaring and factories belching foul smoke. His is quiet and peaceful by design, where wooly mammoths graze quietly outside his bedroom window and violence is rare. Ponter's sorrow on learning that most of the familiar animals in his world have been hunted to extinction in ours was heart breaking.

In short, yes, Mr. Sawyer drew me into this science fiction fantasy and the lives of his characters. Technically precise background information aside, it was the humans in this story who kept me reading. I'm hoping Humans, Volume II, will pick up where Hominids left off. This book is highly recommended reading for adolescents and adults.

Almost every science fiction reader has experience with alternate world stories -- plots in which things happened differently than in our own history because of some event, usually trivial, that went another way. Sawyer postulates a truly far-reaching point-of-divergence -- the rise to intelligence of Homo neanderthalensis instead of Homo sapiens. What's more, he makes a pretty good case for the physics behind his parallel worlds. It all starts in a deep nickel mine in northern Ontario which in our world is a neutrino observation lab and in the alternate Neanderthal world is a quantum computer lab. Ponter Boddit, physicist in that other world, falls through into our own world quite by accident, and the story is off and running. Because not only does Ponter have to figure out this world (and we have to accept what he is), his co-worker and house-mate, Adikor Huld, finds himself accused of murdering Ponter, who has mysteriously disappeared from their world. Sawyer is very good at thinking of all the problems and questions a reader is likely to raise and answering them satisfactorily -- in terms of the story, that is, though most of his speculations, even, seem like reasonably good science. He describes an internally consistent Neanderthal world, in which the Agricultural Revolution never took place and so the world's population is far smaller and more dispersed, which also means disease is much less prevalent. Because males and females live separate lives most of the time, nearly all individuals have both a man-mate and a woman-mate, one for affection and companionship, the other also for procreation. Menstruation occurs for all females at once, always on the same schedule, and children are born in planned generations, once every ten years. And, as one would expect, the Neanderthal world is more advanced in some ways than ours, and vice versa -- which also gives the author the opportunity to let us look at our own world through the eyes of an intelligent and sophisticated but mostly alien being. In fact, I expect there to be a backlash against this book by the Religious Right, because Ponter has some forthright things to say about the nature and effect of religion in our world -- an unnecessary psychological tension his world has been spared. As always, Sawyer also develops fully realized characters, with some cogent comments on the nature of intelligence, love, violence, and interpersonal relationships. Happily, this is only the first volume of a trilogy, and I'll be looking forward eagerly to the next volume.