Movies Books

This book is about Hogans ego and how it has affected everyone in his life.
In the book Hogan takes credit for

-The birth of Man
-How he made WCW,ECW,and the WWF successful
-Making Water turn to wine
-And much much more!!

Hulk hogan is a child molester and a bonofied Racist!
Hulk stats in his Book
"when Nick (his son) was a bad boy I would bend him over and stick the 24 inch pythons in him brother!"


Hulk also takes credit for the creation of the earth and everything on it

Hulk Hogan, the modern icon of pro wrestling, admits right away the supposed "sport" is rigged, the outcomes of matches predetermined. For that he should be commended. Otherwise, this book isn't that great, it's Hulk Hogan's autobiography telling people he wanted to see how much money they could make off this. Hogan was making like a million dollars a show and when WCW peaked it was a hundred million dollar a year industry. Vince Russo ruined wrestling for good, making Hogan job to people like Billy Kidman, which ended up in Vince McMahon buying WCW for a mere 3 million dollars. His only halfway believable angle with was Zeus in 1989. Brutus Beefcake was blown way out of proportion; he doesn't even mention the near fatal face accident and current blindness. It's marketed at families with no sense of humor. He comes clean on his steroids abuse, which we've all known for years. Hulk Hogan strikes me as someone who took his real life persona too seriously, as a redneck body builder. He admits finally although he's really part French, he is otherwise of descent from a third world country- the blonde Irishman wasn't believable. They should've made Roddy Piper the main guy, inflation wouldn't be so high. Commend Hogan for picking up the ball that was dropped by: Bob Backland, Ultimate Warrior, Lex Luger, Sting, The Giant, Batista...

I could go into long detail on his "rationalization" of controversial fixes Hogan was caught up in like steroids, Vince and holding back younger wrestlers through his backstage politics.
However, this one important timepiece Hogan makes pretty much no mention of whatsoever was Starcade 1997 and Sting. He never once admits to having too big of an ego to cleanly lose to Sting/Steve Borden at all in this book. Skirting a well known wrestling feud where his ego was put ahead of "what was best for business" in WCW at the time with Sting automatically negates this book as a TRUE AND HONEST AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Despite the two Star Rating that I gave to this book, This book did have it's good points. I liked how Hogan told the story of how he was a fat little kid who would eventually become the person that put Wrestling on the map. According to Hogan, he was a fat kid. Also his rise through the Wrestling ranks, and how he had to pay his dues before he became the Hulk Hogan we all know today. He seriously thought about giving up Wrestling altogether. Thank god he didnt, otherwise we wouldnt of had such Wrestling Master Pieces like Starcade 1997.


I'm a huge fan of Hulk Hogan, but this book left a lot to be desired.
I know others touched on this, but he says the word "brother" an awful lot, it was like he was cutting a 400 page promo.

I have two main critcisms with this book. The first one is, this isnt a biography really, its more like Hogan trying to protect his massive ego.
Like how he said Warrior wasnt worthy of being the new champion and he was right, He also defended his plan to Win the belt at Wrestlemania 9, 10 seconds after Bret Hart already lost to Yokozuna. Bret Hart couldnt beat Yokozuna in a 15 minute match, but Hogan beat Yoko in like 10 seconds. I dont know how you can defend that but Hogan managed to do it.


My other criticism of this book is, he touched on things nobody cared about. Like his role in Rocky 3, he wrote a lot about that. *yawn*
or his matches with Dennis Rodman as his tag team partner, against Karl Malone and DDP *yawn*

I wanted to hear more about his last years in the WWF/E the creation of NWO and his take on it. And more about the bad blood between him and Savage. But all that is skipped over. All the interesting points in his career are glossed over real quick, or barely mentioned at all.

If you're a fan of Hogan, I reccomend reading it, but if you're not a fan of his Massive Titanic sized Ego, dont read it.

HULK HOGAN ABOY BORN IN VENICE BEACH CALIFORNIA HE STARTED PLAYING BASEBALL IN FLORIDA THEN AFTER A FEW YEARS LATERS HE MET MUTSADA AND BECAME A REALLY GREAT WRESTLER AND HE BECAME THE FIRST THREE TIME CHAMPION THIS BOOK REALLY ENSPIRED ME TO GO FOR MY GOALS AND NEVER QUIT.

'Blood and Fog' would really work had Jack the Ripper been conceived as a more run-of-the-mill demon and without the drama of world-ending hell-on-earth. The backstory involving the Irish deities is difficult to follow and told in a rather dry and confusing fashion, and Holder gets the history wrong on Jack (who operated from 1888 to 1891).

The story of Elizabeth, the Slayer aided by Spike, was the main reason I bought the book, and Holder gives us a nice illumination of her. However, both the climax in 1888 and the climax in present-day Sunnydale arrive all too soon. Less time spent on the superfluous Tuatha and Fomhoire stories and more on the characters we care about would have helped.

Finally, there are some inexcusable editorial lapses - incomplete sentences and sentences that get tangled in their clauses and end up making no sense. This would be allowable in the thoughts or speech of the Scooby Gang, but the errors appear in 3rd person expositional sections.

Minor spoiler warning!
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Willow's final actions simply do not work in the Buffy universe - the choice she makes just wouldn't be made. However, in light of her choice, the ending makes sense, and Holder should have dispensed with Spike's musings on the subject. I really disliked the majick-as-addiction plot in the show, so my opinion of the book may be somewhat coloured by the use of this plot.

This one is pretty full on. Quite a bit more of the horror feel about this. Jack the Ripper is actually a Sidhe half-breed, son of a Tuatha de Danan and a Fohmoire. Jack himself is crazy, and wants to be a god. Spike has run into him before, and seen a Slayer die, when Jack was involved. There are more flashbacks here to the 'bad' vampire quartet roaming around London.

All sorts of crazy stuff happens in a battle at the end where Buffy goes all blind monk warrior.

A few good quips, too :-

..."it was a tall, thin man, bluish white, with blond hair and blue yes.
"Look. It's Elric," Buffy quipped, then looked at Tara's puzzled expression and said, "Xander loved those books in high school."

and

"...row upon row of Tuathan warriors yodeled high and shrill, a cross between Xena and something scary, fierece, and deadly--okay, like Xena--..."

The story was interesting, escapist fiction. It was a treat to read a book with Spike as a main force. Less depressing than Spark and Burn. I couldn't put it down. I should have put 5 stars. For some reason, when I edit my reviews the stars change.

Well the book was interesting and I liked how they used Jack the Ripper. I think that making the old slayer a coward was the most interesting part of it. I think that it wasn't Elizabeth's fault that she was a coward and that she was smart for being scared. Most slayers are afraid but they just don't show it.

I confess. I only read the excerpts. Well, not all of it, my stomach wasn't up to it. I can't speak to plot (although I have dark suspicions), but the writing style is so bad that I would be ashamed of it if I had written it, and I'm not a published author.

I know I sound like a literary snob, but honestly, I'm not. I mostly read science fiction, a genre not exactly known for its great literary merit (though I think people do undersell that aspect of it). The book -- make that the excerpts, suffer from three serious flaws.

The first is the sheer quantity of "saidisms." Saidisms (prounounced said-is-emss) are modifying the word said. "she said, grumpily" or "he said, honestly" or "she said, wearily." Saidisms have two problems. In the first place, they make the prose clunky. In something like Buffy, the prose should be snappy, quick and funny. You can't get that effect if every sentence contains a saidism, it slows down the dialolg. The other problem is that is insults the reader -- or demonstrates a lack of skill on the part of the writer. In almost every case, the reader should know how the speaker is speaking. If a character is grumpy, it's really not necessary to say, "she said, grumpily." There are rare cases where saidisms are useful, but just look at the sheer number of them in the Sunnydale section.

As long as we're dialog, allow me to mention the second issue which is just wrong. The writer does not have the characters voices. We know and love these characters, and one of the characteristics we know and treasure is their unique "voice," the way in which they speak. In a Buffy episode, you could read a script without attributions, and be able to pick out which characters speak which lines. One of the extras on the DVDs has an author talking about this issue of unique voices. She had a line that she'd written for Willow, which she rewrote to give to Xander because she thought that Xander didn't have enough to do. When Joss saw he script. he pointed to that line and asked her if that line hadn't originally been for Willow. They put it back in Willow's lines.

The third problem is manifests is tthat the author has no gift for exposition. Exposition is explaining the back story, explaining the things that the characters already know but that the audience doesn't. Exposition is really hard. One of BtVS exceptional strengths, in fact, is the grace and economy with which they work exposition into episodes. Without ever feeling like you've been lectured, whole worlds have been laid out for you, credible and interesting, and you never get bored. That whole Whitechapel beginning is a vast lump of exposition that is indigestible. There's no story for what seems like forever. Buffy episodes don't start slow, they start with action and move fast. Large expositional lumps are exactly contrary to the style of BtVS. Even if it weren't, large expositional lumps are still a bad idea. They encourage the reader to put down the book. How many times do you really want Lonodon fog to be described? How necessary is it to describe the poverty of Whitechapel? At minimum, exposition should move the story forward, not cause it to break suddenly to clue you into something.

in the end, I want to justify reviewing a book based on excerpts. The flaws I saw in the excerpts are so identifiable, and so basic, that it makes me want to stay a mile away. At best, this is extremely amateur prose. The plot might be very good, but the effort of reading that prose makes even the most brilliant plot uninteresting.

Someone is offering a copy of the paperback version of this book for $300 + dollars? Um, you can buy it on the authors website in hardcover for less than $30. If anyone is stupid enough to pay that much money for a paperback book, please reply to this review; I have some magic beans I'll gladly sell you for $10k, shipping and handling included.

This book is ideal for anyone wanting an alternative take on the Amityville story.
Not exactly sure how much of this is true. Mr Osuna has been labelled a liar by Butch Defeo and his wife Tracey for the way he has portrayed the story of his family. Still a good book though and definitley gives you something to think about.

Wow, what a read!I have always been interested in the DeFeo case.I was really looking forward to Mr. Osuna's book.When I recieved, I started reading it right away. I couldn't put it down.I laughed, cried and got angry while reading about the DeFeo's. It's so sad that money and power can lead to mental and physical abuse.I thought of Allison: Shy, sweet, who only needed to be told she was cared for. Jon Matthew and Mark: Full of energy, always on the go. Scared of what tomorrow would hold by the anger from an abusive father.I think of Dawn and her mother. I still think. Why put up with it? Why? Mrs. DEFeo, what really happened?Mr. Osuna interviewed relatives, friends and the police to get the true story of the real Amityville horror.I feel he was fair and respectful to the DeFeo's.The story will always be of interest for many years to come.Thank you Mr. Osuna for telling the "true" story.Those poor, innocent children had no one to defend them..you came to their rescue.

Because this book is utter tripe. The lack of any substantiated facts, and atrocious grammar and writing made me glad I borrowed instead of buying it. It is seriously that bad. A co-worker recently informed me that the author used to be friends with George Lutz and completely believed in the Lutzes' version of the haunting; and only after a falling out with him did the author get on this hokey Defeo bandwagon. Futhermore, I read the reviews on here right after this book was published, and there were FAR more negative reviews than there are now. So, perhaps the real ghost/murder story here is how the author made them vanish/die???

Many reviews will just glow with how Ric Osuna presents such a great new angle on the case. What he presents is something even harder to swallow than demons. The spelling and grammar mistakes are inexcusable and should be enough to discredit him without me having to go any further. It shows his unbelievable lack of intelligence.

But putting that aside, his lack of intelligence is even better illustrated by his complete lack of logic. His claims are backed up by no evidence and heavily rely on assumptions. He expects the reader to trust him and for that to be enough.

But most of all, this man has no idea what demonic spirits are capable of or what a demonic attack is like. He should have researched that a little before he tried to discredit the story of one. For anyone who wants to better understand this, read "The Demonologist" by Gerald Brittle. That will give you a better idea of why all of this "evidence" against the case is irrelevant.

Expect nothing but the best from writer Kenneth Johnson. He has entertained Sci-Fi fans with his work in television including the original Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, Alien Nation and V. His latest creation, "V: The Second Generation" takes the reader on an incredible journey 20 years after our green Visitor "friends" first came to Earth.
Readers are reunited with many characters from the original V, both Resistance and Visitor... Talk about a blast from the past. We are also introduced to several new heroes. One of the greatest talents Kenneth has brought to this work of fiction like others he has done is the past, is his ability to convey raw, unfiltered humanity at its very best and it very worst, a product of the fascist state the characters were living.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to everyone. I am also hopeful this story will make reappearance on the "Big Screen" sometime in the future.

It read like a television show. It gave enough detail without getting bogged down. Plenty of nods to the old show, without being weighed down by trying to tie up every single detail. It was a fun read and well worth it. If you are a serious fan of the show, you might not like it, but otherwise I say why not. I enjoyed the heck out of it. I hope that it will be made into a show.

Let me preface by saying that I am a huge fan of the original V series and often wondered about the SOS signal sent at the end of the original mini-series. I think I was ten or so when V first aired, and let me tell you, I had better and more original ideas for who or what might respond to the distress call back then.

The writer, Kenneth Johnson apparently decided to watch a few really bad Star Trek episodes and liberally rehash tired concepts that just do not work.

This book seems intent on borrowing from every worn out idea from unoriginal science fiction and truly is memorable as being kind of like those old Pocket Star Trek novels that used to come out once a month, sometimes good, often bad, but never very original.

Not only does the "creator" of V (now how can one create space-nazis really as they have been a staple of science fiction baddies since hell before the nazis) ignore (wisely) the V the TV series storyline, but he ignores V the Final Battle and all that worked to bring closure to the story.

I do not want to ruin the story such as it is for anyone who has not read this waste of paper, but let me assure you there are no surprises and you have heard it all before. Julie is less of a scientist and more of a politician. Donovan is a broken shell of man who needs some intergalactic love just to be about useless.

Many of the characters from both the original and V the Final Battle series make appearances and you can only identify them from their familiar as everything that made the actors bring life into the characters is missing.

Missing too is the Starchild storyline which may have been hokey, but at least kept it interesting. Gone too, is any subterfuge on the part of the Visitors either as half of the world's water is gone. Ok, not trying to be a pain here, but even with the super motherships, it would take generations of them sucking up water every second for us to see the vast wastelands of missing water Johnson writes about. Even suspension of disbelief has its limits.

There is a whole half-breed storyline that is just offensive and disgusting for bad special effects sake. Almost 30 years after V, it is good to know that good old fashoned racial sterotypes are around too as Elias apparently has not evolved a single iota since 1984.

I started playing a little game when I read anything with Elias. Its fun kids, play along. The amazing comic genius Dave Chappelle in one of his episodes does a great Lil John impression who basically only says "WHAT?!? YEAH!!! OK!!!!" in various orders. Everytime I read a bad Elias sterotype straight out of the Atari generation, I just raised my glass and let Chappelle's Lil John come right on out.

Honestly, this was the most fun I had reading the book.

I so wanted to like this book and was more than annoyed at the multiple publisher delays (perhaps they wanted to delay this load of waste with their name on it as long as they could?). I really wanted to see a new direction and a new vision. At least the book is oversized, so if I need to start a campfire soon...

All I saw in this horrible storyline was the quest for more money. Evem the worst Sci-Fi Channel Original movie is better than this garbage.

If by some sad mistake this book is turned into a failure of a movie, the only saving grace is that it will bring back Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and will be a do not miss Svenghouli (Chicago crowd knows what this is!) it came from Berwyn adventure.

Save your money. The V novels from the 80's are more enjoyable and the original AC Cripsin novel (also check out the same-time story called V: East Coast Crisis) is fantastic.

I have loved the creations of Kenneth Johnson and appreciate the many hours of great TV he has given us over the years. This is Johnson's worst work and will do no other than make you question if he really is the man behind so many great sci fi ideas.

I'm a big fan of V. Have been since the beginning. I watched all incarnations, and I thought they got progressively worse the less Kenneth Johnson was involved. Of course as a kid, with not so distinguishing tastes, I didn't know the difference and loved every cheesy moment of V:The Final Battle, and V: The Series, but as I got older and re-watched these on the DVDs I own, I could see why Kenny would want to write his own post-original-mini-series future for V.

First off V:The final Battle was 90% great and 10% the wrong tone, and cheese factor. My guess is that they were living off of Kenny's fumes since he was involved initially with the script writing and story. I, like many here, loved the character of Ham Tyler, and would like to have seen him have a part in this story, but I can see why Kenny would have left out anything from the versions he was not involved with.

I wrote Mr. Johnson and asked why he left out Elias and Robin Maxwell, and he said he had to make some painful cuts to tell the story he wanted to tell. It's his creation, and while many of us feel a fondness for and an almost ownership over it, it's his story to tell. I would have loved a page or two telling what happened to them, but the omission of their fates did not ruin this book for me. My guess is that (with Robin) he had an awful lot of stuff to reverse that happened in the V: Post Kenny world, so he decided to just leave her out so as to not confuse readers. She was an enormous part of the V:TFB plot, and to a lesser degree she was important to the series (at least initially).

I love KJ's ability to tell a story. I agree with some of the other comments that it did not read like a novel, but the level of respect I have for Kenneth, and his masterful abilities on the small screen made up for the fact that it was written a bit more like a script than a novel would be.

I felt like he recaptured much the excitement and suspense that was present in V:TOS, and it was a joy to see some of our favorite characters live to fight another day. At the same time the pacing was a bit off. Sometimes it moved too slow for my liking, and other times it felt like it was happening all too fast. I believe these issues would be solved if/when the movie becomes a tele-film.

Overall I'd give this book an 8.5 out of 10. It is definitely worth reading if you are a V fan, even though there are some things you'll miss from the original. If you can't deal with the story not continuing from the moment where Kyle Bates stowed away in the leader's shuttle craft, this book is not for you. I personally don't have a problem with ignoring everything pase V:TOS, and wish Kenny had been involved with every other V project, which would have likely given the whole saga a longer life.

When the original "V" aired on television back in 1983, I was a precocious second-grader obsessed with Star Wars, G.I. Joe and McDonalds Happy Meals. Life seemed so much simpler then. No economic worries, no job-related stress, and members of the opposite sex were carriers of cooties. I still remember when I first sat down in front of the television to watch "V" on NBC. It was a school night, but my parents allowed me to stay up past my bedtime to see the Resistance fend off the nefarious Diana and her jack-booted minions. Having to tap into my blossoming imagination, I pretended my toy Millennium Falcon was a Visitor Mothership, and several of my Hot Wheels were drafted to play the part of alien shuttle craft. I was hooked.

"V" was the hot topic of conversation at school that week. Several of my fellow second-graders and I acted out our most memorable scenes from Kenneth Johnson's classic, transforming our elementary school playground into a landing bay of a Visitor Mothership. The monkey bars became human storage pods, and the crest of the slide became central control. We taped plastic sandwich bags on our faces, which made excellent false skin that could be peeled away to reveal the horrific visages that dwelled underneath. From an adult perspective, the plastic sandwich bags were simply torn away from our faces. But through our childhood eyes, the false faces revealed hideous reptilian monsters with forked tongues and razor-sharp canines. I especially loved that "string cheese" look of plastic sandwich bags ripping apart, which emulated the shredding of false Visitor skins.

As the years progressed, my love of "V" evolved and matured. Upon watching the original miniseries on DVD recently, I realized Kenneth Johnson's magnum opus isn't about aliens, spaceships and laser gun fights. It's an illustration of power. The alien visitors are analogous to any totalitarian regime that subjugates the populace with oppression. It's interesting to see how different people react to it. Some want to cover their own backs and willingly kiss up to the oppressors at the expense of others while some choose to fight it. It really made me ponder what would I do in such a situation.

Today, under the global threat of terrorism and increased domestic violence, more and more of our civil liberties are being stripped away by Congress. People of Arab descent our being spied upon and watched with critical eyes. Several people of the Islamic faith are being held against their will in prisons while being subject to psychological and physical torture like water boarding. What would happen if another terrorist attack spurs the government to tighten its grip ever harder? What if the federal government announces all people of Middle Eastern descent would be relocated to internment camps for the sake of our security? How would you react to such news? Would you inform on your neighbors if you knew they harbored an Arab in their household for a cash reward? That's what "V" is about.

Having read "V: the Second Generation," I can now finally rest easily knowing that Kenneth Johnson concluded his saga his way. While "V: The Final Battle" and the series were entertaining, neither represented Mr. Johnson's original vision and political analogies.

Those fans who feel disappointed that this novel eschews the events that transpired after the original "V" needn't worry. Both the series and "The Final Battle" aren't going anywhere. They'll always be there on DVD for generations to come. Watch them to your heart's content and ignore Johnson's novel. But those fans who want to see how Johnson had intended to conclude his gripping saga filled with political intrigue and social and political allegory will find a sense of closure in this novel. Another common criticism of this book stems from the unlikely gullibility of the human population. How would society still be oblivious to the Visitors' plans? But the fact is, people are naive and gullible. Look at the rising cost in fuel prices. Just five years ago, we paid about $1.80 at the pump. Now it's almost three times that. Oil moguls tell us that high demand and low quantities are driving up costs, yet energy companies are raking in record profits. No one seems to question this. The Bush administration has led this country to economic ruin, worldwide bedlam, an unwinable war in Iraq and the collapse of the housing market, yet there are many people who still support him. Why, he was even re-elected.

Yes, people are gullible, and Johnson illustrates this perfectly in his universe.

My only problem with the book stemmed from its format. It reads very much like a screenplay, and many of the scenes were choppy and truncated. Johnson's prose shifts from point-of-view to point-of-view without any episodic breaks. The narrative never really dwells too much into the consciousness of any of the characters. We visualize the action but never really get into the character's heads because the novel shows more than it tells. It would have been nice to see some stronger character development, especially in some of the newer characters whom we know little about.

Overall, I'm so relieved that I can close this chapter in my life. While this novel might not make it to the television screen, it was nice to see Mr. Johnson give his "V" universe the enthralling conclusion it deserves.

I have not found a single review in this book that I could passionately disagree with. There are some controversial decisions in here (Donnie Darko and Memento have a formidible cult fan-base, but recieve reviews that are not terribly flattering); but if you really did want to see these films, why would you be listening to someone else's opinions? Basically, if you are going to review this book, compare it to the other review books on offer-Leonard Maltin's is much more comprehensive and helpful than any I know of, especially Halliwell's Film Guide, which I recommend never looking at, if you can help it.

I must protest that in Maltin's 2004 movie and video book, Maltin calls the Gary Cooper character a "mercenary" in the movie "For Whom the Bells Tolls". How could anyone make such a dumb mistake?

I sometimes cycle through this guide for a laugh. Maltin is a horrible film critic and a total historian - basically meaning that any film predating 1960 MUST be given 4/4 (unless it's really mediocre which, according to him, is rare). However he didn't hesitate to give BATMAN AND ROBIN 2.5/4 and TAXI DRIVER 2/4.

He also gave THE BLADE MASTER, one of the worst films ever created, 0.5/4, yet he's given some truly decent films "turkeys."

I'd rather read a video guide by Ebert because unlike Maltin, Ebert doesn't judge different films of different genres of various years against each other. He's pretty fair. Maltin is not.

This is my own personal guide to research and seek out films that I've never seen and to collect those that are available. I have used Maltin's guide for years and years. For me, it's the only one I like and the one I turn to time and again. There are omissions of some hard-to-find films but also new listings of hard-to-find films every year. I don't always agree with the reviews but for the most part I am completely satisfied. I buy the large version every year and look forward to thumbing through it's pages. It's the most comprehensive guide I have found that I am happy with. It would be impossible to say how many films I have tracked down over the years with this guide. It sits by my computer like a Bible. I know everyone has their own personal preference for what guides they like to use, but I'm a Maltin fan and always will be. For me, he's the best. I only wish the guide was in hardback because I would collect them.

Leonard Maltin, unfortunately, is apparently held in high esteem by the DVD makers. His inane commentaries have shown up on everything from Disney's Donald Duck DVD's to the Little Rascals DVD's to the Marx Brothers' DVD's. Unfortunately, he is the type of guy that is an apologist for any cultural references resulting from a certain era in cinema. The kind of guy that has to be PC about everything.

On the same side of the coin, as shown in his video guides...he praises some of the inane tripe currently coming out of Hollywood, while bashing some of the classics of earlier years....probably because they aren't PC enough.

His book is filled with comments that show his real lack of perspective on history. And not only is he not a good historian, he needs some help with alphabetizing the movies, as well. What a pain trying to locate a movie using his system ["often" comes after "of a", but before "of the"].

He picks and chooses the actors he lists in his index...and some strange choices there are.

And, additionally....while he lists what is available on DVD...he DOESN'T indicate screen ratios, OAR's, pan & scans, etc, making the indicator rather useless for the TRUE movie fan.

My recommendation....stick with Martin/Porter or Moviehound. While you may not always agree with them, their comments aren't near as insipid and PC, and you'll be able to actually find a movie without having to interpret a hole new way of alphabetizing.

While the author generally has a good hold of the voices of the characters, and some of the dialogue made me smile, this novel is not one of the best. The problem comes in the plot. It's quite dull. The developement is mostly logical, but threat is not always intriguing. The plot made me want to give up on the book, but the dialogue made me want to continue reading. I expect this author could do much better with a different topic.

I just finished Obsidian Fate today in a waiting room after weeks of merely reading a chapter a night, hoping that the plot would get interesting, or the author would find a way to fit each of the actual characters into this situation, or that the next page wouldn't be an endless discourse on ancient Aztec ritual, lifestyle, bathroom habits, etc. Overall, I was hoping that this book wouldn't turn out to be as disappointing as a previous reviewer claimed. But, all in all, it was. The characters were NOT themselves and they were several typos (it's sad if the author couldn't even decide how to spell Angelus, often confusing it with [Los]Angeles).

Some of the dialogue did come to close to making me smile, but it was spaced so far apart by all these introspective moments when the author decided it was important to know the redundant feelings of several minor characters who all end up dead anyway. It just felt like filler material, like the author was getting paid per word, or something. But that doesn't apply to action scenes, which were short and very difficult to follow. Gallaher spends so much time describing thoughts and clothing but she completely glosses over scenery and structure. I couldn't picture the huge temple fight scene at all at the end because the author doesn't take a second to say where the heck anything is! It was really frustrating and happened repeatedly throughout the novel.

In conclusion, it was a flop as a story, but it did succeed in putting me to sleep each night. I'm donating this to my local library - I recommend any fool interested in reading it look there before a bookstore.

I do not envy the writers who try to jump into the Buffy phenomenon. It must be amazingly difficult to write an engaging, exciting novel when you are unable to change characters or situations in any major way. Add to this the fact that you must mimic someone else's characterizations rather than being free to create your own, and the task becomes even more daunting.

However, I have to believe that it can be done better than this.

The characters feel very forced. I have read fanfiction that had a better grasp of the characters' speech patterns and behavior. For example, Cordelia was just a bit too biting, Xander a bit too useless, and Giles' feelings for Jenny a bit too overblown. We only see Giles mourn for Jenny once on the show and though I believe that he did it more off camera, I cannot believe that he was thinking about her with the degree of purple prose that Ms. Gallagher uses.

The other problem is the actual events of the story. I have read on other reviews that the author is accurate in her use of this mythology. If so, it would be refreshingly rare and I applaud this. However, I had trouble believing the rest of the story. I understand the desire to make a story which is bigger than just another episode of the series, but this is not the way to do that. The events of the finale would have had lasting repercussions on the town of Sunnydale that would have affected the later episodes of the series. You simply cannot do this when you are writing within an established and ongoing world.

In general, I would be happier with this series of novels if the authors would stop trying to create bigger monsters and explosions, and start getting deeper into the characters. In my mind the characters, their relationships, and their emotions is what the show is really all about. The demons are just the backdrop.

Diana Gallagher is the best writer of the Buffy books (everyone's overrated opinion of Holder and Golden notwithstanding), and this is the best of her titles. I was ready to give up on the series altogether, until I read this one.

Most of the Buffy authors simply hew to the T.V. formula, making their entries nothing more than an episode that wasn't filmed. Such an approach is certainly acceptable, but it's much more interesting when the author can develop the characters in a more mature light, as Gallagher does.

The only criticism I have of this book is that its apocalpytic ending is a slight bit over the top, but it's quite satisfying for all of that. Buffy is up against Tezcatlipoca, the "Smoking Mirror" of Aztec mythology, who seduces the weak and the jealous into assisting his plans for recreating the world in his own image. Gallagher presents an extremely well-drawn loser character prefiguring the T.V. series' Jonathan, who manages to be both evil and genuinely pathetic.

Recommended for fans, and as a starter book to interest the newbies.

Not one of the better Buffy books. Fans of the show will find it enjoyable, as the author employs many of the personality quirks that we have come to recognize in our favorite characters (Giles preference of Jelly doughnuts, for instance). The plot itself however is somewhat lacking, and at times unbelievable even for this genre.

There have been stretches of time in which I was almost oblivious to movies and recently I decided to repair my cultural lacunas. I signed up with Netflix, moved a recliner to the living room and stocked up on Diet Coke. Now, what to list on my queue? Most of those movie books have such abbreviated descriptions... If I'm going to wile away a couple hours, I need to be convinced it's time well spent. I spotted the updated and revised (through 2002) best 1000 movies according to the Times, and noticing the inclusion of a couple obscure favorites, bought the book. The movies are in alphabetical order with the personnel listed first and the date of the review at the end of the narrative. Twenty-nine critics lend their views about films going back to 1931. Hollywood productions dominate, though there is a good smattering of independents and foreign works.

The reviews stand as they were written on opening night, without further comment- a very New York Times thing to do. Many of the reviews hold up as well as their subjects- "Casablanca", "On the Waterfront" and "Star Wars" were appreciated from the get go. However, many glossy Oscar winners are excluded: "Dances with Wolves", "Titanic" and "American Beauty" are absent. "As Good as It Gets" is not good enough, but "About Schmidt" is about as good a review as Nicholson can get- it's included. Is there a Merchant-Ivory film that was somehow overlooked? Highly unlikely.

In the back of this compendium, the Times lists its 10 Best for each year. Quite a few of these movies do not have their review among the currently favored 1000, though their fall is not explained. Of course, the most striking contradiction is to find a movie that was condemned as irretrievable trash on release, only to have wormed its way up from the flotsam. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is such a movie. R.A.'s review from 1968 will crack you up.

I'm sure everybody will have a few favorites that didn't make the cut. How could a movie as hilarious as "A Fish Called Wanda" not be included? Kasdan's poignant "Grand Canyon" was somehow overlooked. Yet, a few great but obscure productions are recognized. The marvelous documentary "Brother's Keeper" is included.

In the preface, A.O. Scott comments on the vagaries of cinematic appreciation. Most of us are more influenced by trends and buzz than we realize. And, if you are overdosed on a particular genre, the best of its kind may pass without notice. Still, I wish a current summation about the great classic movies had been included, even if it meant the Times had changed its mind. In conclusion, I'm still using my Guide, though if it persuades me to rent a movie, I'm not apt to admit it.

A notoriously contentious activity, this book is sure to start a few arguments. Picking 1,000 movies to label "best ever made" is not easy and will create some surprise at omissions and inclusions. For instance, the inclusion of "Face/Off" - which initiated my Nicholas Cage veto - and the omission of Princess Bride, is indefensible. It is a parochial list also with Hollywood movies reigning supreme. However, I love the use of contemporary reviews for each movie. Reading Frank S. Nugent's response to opening night at The Wizard of Oz in 1939 is magical and gives the movie fan a nostalgic experience. You may guffaw at some of the preposterous choices and wish for a more current update (1999 version) but you will enjoy these critical reviews of your favourite movies.

You've got to hand it to the New York Times film critics. For one thing, they have the absolute best NAMES of anyone in the cine/crit biz. Can you ask for better monikers than Vincent Canby, Bosley Crowther, Hilton Kramer or(my favorite) Mordaunt Hall? More recent critics like Janet Maslin, Stephen Holden or A.O. Scott (not included here, he's so new) may not have such professorial sounding handles, but they more than make up for said lack in their actual writing, which in all their cases generally reflects a critical sensibility which is both casual and scholarly. They likely benefit from the increased seriousness with which the artform itself has been taken over the past century and from simply having a sense of film history that their critical forebears could not have possessed. (They know that the movies are NOT some passing fancy that in time may go.) And stylistically, they tend to be leaner, meaner and much less flowery than,say, the aforementioned Mr. Hall.

But times do change, and critical writing styles along with them. What makes this book so fascinating is that its editors have seen fit to re-print the original reviews, unedited and unannotated (although editor Peter M. Nichols notes in his preface, that almost every film's "cast box" has been expanded and terminology, in some instances, changed). If the reader, takes in Mr. Nichol's preface and/or Janet Maslin's introduction, he or she won't be surprised to learn that many of the actual reviews included in this volume are indifferent or downright negative. Browsers casually thumbing through this reference work on the "thousand best movies," however, are likely to be a bit more puzzled to find one negative review after another.

It happened to me, I opened the alphabetically arranged volume to the "D's" and immediately found a fairly negative critique of DIVA and a fairly lukewarm one of DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES. That's when I opted to read the introductory remarks, but even then it wasn't quite clear just how these 1,000 best were picked or just who did the picking.

Yes, aside from the actual reviews, there are Top Ten Lists for the years 1931-1998 (the volume itself was published in '99 and is thus about due for an update), but these don't necessarily correspond to the selections either. For instance, the 1967 John Boorman film POINT BLANK gets a so-so review from Mr. Crowther, and is not included in the list of the year's best (suggesting that his colleagues were similarly unmoved by the film). So who decided, in the interim, that it really IS a gem (rough and uncut though it may be)? Editor Nichols? Janet Maslin? General critical consensus (which seems doubtful in this case).

Nichols explains in the preface that we can expect such turnabouts "for films that have risen in common estimation..." since their initial reviews were published. That's certainly true in the cases of BONNIE AND CLYDE, CHINATOWN and GRAND ILLUSION (to cite his own examples), but again I ask you, how to account for the inclusion of POINT BLANK?? Or--to go from a Lee Marvin vehicle to a Lee Remick starrer--why is even a good, solid drama like the above mentioned DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES included? That film is something of a sentimental favorite of mine, since I was 13 when I first saw it and felt very grown up indeed to be able to "understand" this obviously adult drama. But objectively speaking, can one really include this relatively modest revision of a TV drama on a list of the all-time greats of CINEMATIC history.

Well, not to worry. In the last analysis, one man's canon is another man's fodder, so it's probably best to not fret too much what's included or not included on this or any "best of" volume. What you get, if you're lucky, are some good tips on things you might otherwise have missed. Taken in that spirit, the NYT guide joins many others in aiding movie lovers of all stripes to make some intelligent selections. In this case, you just have to keep in mind that the significant factor is not the actual review but the fact that someone somewhere along the line ultimately saw fit to include the movie in this esteemed reference guide of record.

As far as the actual 1,000 best films ever made. You could argue about that until the cows come home...from the movies.

I won't say this is an indispensible book. Swap one film reference book for another and you're likely to learn about films and directors you otherwise wouldn't. The operative word there was likely. I've had Ebert books, Pauline Kael books, VideoHound's books, Entertainment Weekly references, etc. They are all good, but the critics works especially.
As opposed to getting a shortened synopsis and rating system, you can get a critical eye, with contextual perspective and a detailed analysis. The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made offers that. And not from one voice but from over a dozen NYT critics over the decades.
I don't abide by those who call this dated. It was published when it was, and though there may be updated editions, this is still a fantastic book to have. After all the majority of films made were in the 20th century, and the influence those films and filmmakers have resonates now. Including the archived reviews, which feature the NYT tradition of refering to people as Mr., Mrs., Ms. etc., each films leading castmembers, their characters, the lead production credits and film lengths are given. Plus a year-by-year list of the paper's Top 10 films, and an index of the films featured categorized by genre and country of origin.
Oddly enough though is that there are reviews in this that are negative and sometimes scathing. Perhaps this is because the films were appreciated by other Times critics, enough to place them on the Top 10, or the films themselves have proven better than initially thought. Neither Bonnie & Clyde or Chinatown made the Top 10 list.
But this is a trifle, and enforces the critical need that films, as art & commerce require.
If you are a devoted film lover as I am, this book is a terrific member of any collection.

This book is quite dated. It was published in 1999, and unless you want to focus on movies from 1931 to 1998, this is a poor choice.

There is no good reason why this book has not be updated, such as "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" which has been revised, adding 17 newer movies, and deleting 17 of the prior 1001 movies. (I wouldn't have minded them simply adding the 17 movies, without deleting any older movies.)

Another good choice is Peter Travers' new "1000 Best Movies on DVD."

This review refers to the Oxford World's Classics edition, edited by WS Lewis, with a 26-page introduction and eight pages of endnotes by EJ Clery. There is a select bibliography and a chronology of the author, Horace Walpole. Importantly, the book includes both the first and second editions' title-pages and prefaces.

The first edition, "The Castle of Otranto: A Story, translated by William Marshal", was published in December 1764 (but marked 1765 on the title-page). It's preface tried - and succeeded for awhile - to give the impression that the tale had been "found in the library of an ancient catholic family in the north of England" and had been "printed at Naples ... in the year 1529. ... The style is the purest Italian."

The style was instead the purest Walpole and he quickly confessed; so that in the rapidly-issued second edition of 1765 (the book was an immediate hit), the revised preface became, as EJ Clery makes clear, "a manifesto for a new type of writing", and the title-page was amended to "The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story".

The inclusion of the adjective into the story's title is fundamental to the book's reputation as being the well-spring of much (all?) that followed in subsequent western literature that effected to underscore its credentials with a Gothic - or Gothick - motif. One could argue that that includes 90% of western literature (as much Thomas Pynchon as Stephen King), but this is going too far; for as Walpole himself makes plain in his second preface, his work was an attempt to marry imagination with nature, fantasy with reality, and that he had progenitors in the essay: "That great master of nature, Shakespeare, was the model I copied."

The story itself - a tale of lordly tyranny, supernatural horror, and family feuding that would have interested Shakespeare himself in its dramatic possibilities - is told over five chapters, barely one hundred pages in total, and so can be read in a few hours. As the excellent introduction relates, Walpole himself thought the story a piece of whimsy, and did not attempt to savagely repudiate the criticisms raised about both the style of writing and about the narrative itself. He was aware of the novella's power, however, in creating a new species of romance.

The work today is as much read for its historic relevance than for its terror and sublime effects, but both of these aspects recommend it.

This book, like Pamela for feminist literary history, is important due to the fact that it was the first gothic novel ever written. The voice is a good one for the story, deep, reverant, dramatic; the writing is of excellent breed as well. With that said, however, so much has been ripped-off from this novel, and into novels that we've already read, that the story itself comes off as a bit cliche, not to mention ridiculous. Although the hyperbole of the novel is based off sybolic intentions, the best that one can say about this piece is that it lit a torch for future great novels--not that it's so much a great novel on its own two feet. Worty of reading if you care about the history of novels in general, but if you're looking for a great gothic novel this shouldn't be a first choice.

When Horace Walpole published THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO in 1794, his reading public was unprepared for what was to them a floodtide of unrestrained emotion. It had only been recently that the concept of "sensibility" in writing had been in vogue. In novels of this type (later popularized by Austen) the protagonist, usually a well-born female, would be subject to a non-stop series of emotional excesses like fainting, weeping, and otherwise losing all restraint. And lying behind this relatively recent vogue of sensibility lay a much longer tradition of its polar opposite: the damming of all feeling in favor of a carefully controlled harmony between man and nature. With THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO, this harmony cracked into innumerable pieces that manifested themselves into what was soon to become staples of the genre: unexplained supernatural phenomenon, dark and dank castles that hinted at the equally dark and dank recesses of the human psyche, and a series of images that exploded into a cacophony of sound and sight.

The story is slight both in plot and theme. The evil Manfred, the usurping ruler of Otranto, plans to marry his weakened son solely to ward off a prophecy that suggests that unless he has male heirs, he will be deposed. Just before the nuptuals between his son and Manfred's choice for him, Isabella, a colossal helmet comes crashing down, crusahing his son to pieces. This tragedy does not deter Manfred as he then plans to marry the lovely Isabella himself. Isabella, aided by the peasant Theodore, helps Isabella escape. Theodore is captured, but the ghost of the previous owner of Otranto, Alonso appears and incredibly blasts his own castle to pieces, leaving Isabella to marry Theodore. Even for a nonsense story, the plot does not hold water. Further, the writing style is inexplicably formal, with all events, both mundane and preternatural, narrated in a pseudo-classic manner that fits in well enough in the Augustan mode but seems ill-suited to this new genre of emotional excess. Still, THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO is significant in that for those who care to learn the where and the how of the horror genre, then Walpole's innovative surge of novelistic emotion is a good place to begin.

I read this book back in May, 2005, as part of my Gothic Lit. class. It's not a book I'd read again strictly for pleasure, but there is a strange quality to it that beckons me to read it again.

While a fairly absurd and not-very-frightening book (at least to modern readers), this book is worth reading as it seems to contain every element that is a staple of gothic fiction -- and why not? It's the first, after all.

After the class and a little thought, I lean toward considering the following elements to be the staples of "true" gothic stories:

1. Numinous (frightening and awe-inspiring) supernatural elements (one could say that should be drawn loosely from real-world beliefs, but I won't make that stipulation myself)

2. Excessive violence (not necessarily blood/guts/gore, but something that leaves you thinking "that wasn't called for")

3. Sexual perversion (not necessarily anything explicit, just hints at something "not right" -- this element makes things both more exciting and more menacing)

4. Madness

5. Helpless hero (necessarily useless, but overwhelmed, unable to accomplish everything and/or take an active approach to the problem)

6. Social injustice (a challenge to "life as usual")

6. Religion gone wrong (a bleaker, maybe questioning look at religion and religious beliefs)

The surprising thing is that it does this while remaining a fairly tame book. It's excessive violence is performed off-camera, as does the majority of its supernatural elements. Manfred's desire to leave his wife on the basis that their marriage is actually incestuous in order to marry his late son's fiance was sufficiently disturbing to me but far even from X-rated. Manfred is flighty and prone to a kind of mania. The hero is vastly overwhelmed, stays on the defense, and is unable to save the one thing most important to him. At the heart of the novel are pointed social and religious questions/commentary.

One of the things that has fascinated me with this book is the retellings it has inspired in The Old English Baron and The Castles of Athlin & Dunbayne. Both of those are significantly less gothic than Otranto (especially Castles, which is not gothic at all), but are better retellings of the core romance between the hero and his love.

All in all, I'd recommend this work to anyone interested in gothic literature. I'd also recommend The Old English Baron and The Castles of Athlin & Dunbayne (especially the latter) as better retellings of the romance in the book.

The Castle of Otranto isn't the best novel you'll ever read, since its characters are more like "types" than living human beings. That said, it's a breezy example of an early novel, before the Victorians got hold of the form and made the books longer and more "respectable." This is one of the books that Jane Austen's gothic-novel-obsessed character Catherine Morland (in Northanger Abbey) would have read to scare herself out of her wits. For that reason alone it's worth reading--to understand what types of books Jane Austen herself was reacting to when she wrote her books.

Also, it's worth reading simply because the story begins with a character being killed by a giant helmet. What a great, fun, gloriously trashy way to begin a book!

Horace Walpole, incidentally, was the son of the prominent 18th century politician Robert Walpole, who is satirized in John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" and in a number of works written by Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. Perhaps fortunately, however, the father had passed away before his son wrote this book.

I must admit, that for some reason I have always been a Wesley Crusher hater. Wil Wheaton is fine, but I hate Wesley. I never liked the character. OK. I'm OK now, just had to get that off my chest.

So when I realized that this is another frickin' Wesley-the-genius-screwup-comes-to-the rescue story I turned green and was very quiet for a long time. I'm OK now, again.

Anyway, it turned out that A Time To Be Born is a pretty good story - concluded in A Time To Die. Picard is locked away in a psych ward due to a political move by the Federation and Riker is commanding the Enterprise.

The major plot lines involve the situation in a `haunted' space graveyard that lands Picard under the control of a counselor who seems to be a control freak. (One plot device common to the Star Trek universe is that everyone in Star Fleet not on the Enterprise is either a power hungry maniac or a total idiot.) Riker commands the Enterprise.

The second plotline is of Wesley's initiation into the Travelers, a group of beings who, through mental powers can move through time and space at will. Crusher notices the plight of Picard and the Enterprise and at the risk of losing his place with the Travelers, decides to help out. Somehow he and Riker and the crew must clear Picard's name and solve the riddle of the spaceship graveyard.

The story moves along pretty well and Wesley is fairly tolerable - maybe he is growing up. Maybe I am mellowing.

You'll need to read A Time To Die for the conclusion.

This book is a pretty good start to a great series of ST TNG books. The plot is interesting enough to make you want to read the entire series, and made a great Summer read for me. Personally, I would have lead the series off with either David Mack or Christopher Bennett, but John Vornholt does a pretty good job of taking you into the Star Trek Realm and keeping the reader entertained and wanting more.

In 2007, I would suggest ordering the entire series, or at least the next three books at a time if you like this series. It seems the books are getting somewhat rare, and it takes a month to get the middle of this series. If you want to read one after the other, I would suggest biting the bullet here and ordering at least the first seven (Be Born, Die, Sew, Harvest, Love, Hate, Kill)books so that you can read one right after the other. I had to wait for the middle books (that I could only find on Amazon) for about a month, and I was really watching my mailbox after reading the first three. Great series of books for the ST TNG fan.

Let me start by saying John Vornholt is one of my favorite authors. I've read several of the Trek books he's written, and he's definitely one of the better Trek authors.

A few people said there were boring parts in the book, and that's true, but you have to remember the "A Time to..." series spans 9 books, so you can't have everything happen all in the first book. I don't think I've ever read a book that didn't have at least some boring parts to it (save maybe the Babylon 5 Technomage trilogy, and some of the Harry Potter books).

In all, I'd say this was a good beginning to this series and sets up what could be a great storyline.

I'm sorry, but this book is, simply put, not good. The writing level is extremely elementary and the dialogue is robotic and completely unrealistic. The plot line contained potential that was never explored and the entire time the story spends in Rashanar is a garbled mess of ridiculous occurrences. I rarely give books less than three stars but I was very disappointed with A Time to be Born. The only reason why I spent time finishing it was because I had paid for it and continued to hope that it would get better. It didn't. I have been a Star Trek fanatic since I was 5 and this ranks as my least favorite Star Trek book I have read.

The first in the "A Time To..." series, "Be Born" recounts events that took place between the TNG movies "Insurrection" and "Nemesis." It starts out pretty good; the Enterprise has been dispatched to one of the battle sites from the Dominion War to help keep looters away and recover bodies, only to find something dangerous lurking inside. So, we start off with a good premise, but John Vornholt's writing just doesn't stand up to other Trek authors such as David Mack or Keith R.A. DeCandido. And that was my major problem with the book: the writing. After seven seasons and four movies, you get a certain feel for how the TNG crew acts and talks, and I thought that Vornholt could have done a much better job nailing that. That aside, it is enjoyable to be back with the Next Generation crew, and it's nice to have the blanks between the ninth and tenth films filled in. If you plan on reading other books in the "A Time To..." series, I would read this one as well. That way you're not lost when references are made in later books.

The Federation is locked into a brutal interstellar war with the Dominion, a group let by the Founders, a society of shape shifters. The Dominion is extremely well ordered with the founders at the peak, then the Vorta who fill the role of field commanders followed by the genetically engineered Jem Hadar soldiers. The sole purpose of the Jem Hadar is to fight and die for the founders. That is what they have been bred to do and that is all that they can possibly do. Control over the Jem Hadar is maintained by their dependence on Ketracel White, a combination narcotic and nutrient. At this time, the Cardassians are allied with the Dominion, and their combined power is more than the Federation can handle.
The Federation is in full retreat from the might of the Dominion/Cardassian forces. Although they were able to mine the wormhole so that no new Dominion forces can come through, the Federation was forced to abandon Deep Space Nine, destroying it as much as possible before leaving. At the urging of Cisco, the Bajorans signed a treaty to remain neutral in the conflict, an action that many Bajorans find difficult to accept.
Cisco leads his team in several actions against the Dominion, successfully destroying a major White processing station. However, they are damaged in their retreat and crash land on a planet, their ship sinking in an ocean. A Jem Hadar ship that was pursuing them also crashes on the planet and the two forces fight it out on the ground. The Federation party emerges victorious and is eventually rescued. The story closes with Cisco and his crew back in the fight and preparing to launch additional raids against the Dominion.
This novelization stays very close to the action of the TV series. That is both a positive and a negative. On the positive side, the struggle between the Federation and the Dominion is explained in great detail as the Federation forces continue to retreat. The negative side is that there are too many characters that are involved to keep a novel on track. Cisco's son Jake stays on Deep Space Nine as well as Quark, Odo and Kira. The action moves back and forth between the actions of Cisco and his crew and what is going on at Deep Space Nine. This bouncing back and forth can more easily be done in a visual medium where you have had time to flesh out the characters but is very difficult in print. If you have not seen these episodes of the television series, then you will it very difficult to follow. In my opinion, some of what occurred in the series should have been dropped from the novelization.

This is not Diane Carey's worst effort, not by a long shot. Still, as is frequently the case in her writing, there are places where her word choice is, to put it charitably, questionable. It's never as bad here as it is in, say, "The Search", or some of her other earlier works, but it is still noticeable that she's trying too hard to be "clever and creative", and generally succeeding only in being distractingly odd. The story itself, being mostly an adaptation of several episodes of the "Deep Space Nine" television show from the time period of the "Dominion War" of the book's title, is good, and the changes that Ms. Carey has made are as often improvements as not, and generally don't seem to detract anything from what we saw onscreen. But as of the writing of this book, at least, she had yet to learn that being a "wordsmith" (which seems to be what she wants to think of herself as) does NOT involve playing such games with the language as to distract attention from the story she's telling.

Everyone say the book is always better then the movie. Diane Carey's novelization of these Deep Space Nine episodes holds to the same standards. We get to see into the minds of the characters and understand the choices they made on screen. We get to see specific outcomes of events never fully disclosed during the series.

There were a few new characters introduced but the development of the regular cast was great. Captain Sisko's development and the insight into his choices I felt were completely in character. General Martok showed new depth into his character but having read the two part series by J. Hertzler, am not sure of some of this character's actions.

Overall, a wonderful read and I enjoyed pushing through it quickly. As a four part series, I was hoping for some interaction and cross over with the first book. From what I have read so far, I see two, two-book series, rather then an interconnected four part I was hoping for.

This review is for the Dominion War (DW) 4 book set. I hoped that the people in charge of star trek could have written a series of books that gave us some of the grand sweep of the war in our galaxy that earth could have lost. THIS WAS NOT THAT SERIES. A better Title would have been SNIPPETS FROM THE DOMINION WAR (a lttle french military inuendo there) as we learn very little about the Dominion War.

Star fleet takes their greatest leader Picard (is kirk dead again?) and puts him in charge of a commando operation that has little chance of success in a tiny back water to a great war. We see virtually nothing of that war, only that the federation getting slaughtered. At least Picard knows to use two teams, instead on relying on only one team.

Of course it is not the publishers fault that I assumed they would fill in new information about the DW story with fuller richer detail. That would have been to much work. What was i expecting from a non-Shantner book.

SPOILER!!. At least they don't kill a popular character, which is why i gave 2 stars instead of 1.

I knew the plant from the beginning. Cone on. How many of you were shocked to learn who the saboteur was. A slow piece of junk defeats 3 enemies? Enterprise shows up right on time WAY behind the lines of the most guarded thing the dominion has?

This series would have better placed a Junior Star War series, featuring Picards, Rikers Troys geordis and datas children.

Books 1 and 3 should really be part 1 of the Dominion War, and books 2 and 4, part 2 (or vice-versa) since there is no overlap between the two whatsoever. So it is ok to start reading book 2 having not read book 1. I believe had I not just watched DS9 on DVD that I would have enjoyed book 2 and 4 more than I did. The episodes were among my favorite, but reading it, much of which is taken word for word from the show, hardly offered new exciting twists. I agree you get a lot deeper insight into characters, especially Sisko and Martok's plan to do something about the War. At times I questioned whether Carey was right about some of the inner thoughts of Sisko and whether the producers of DS9 had the same views, or if Carey just invented them. Either way, it works. It's also good to see more of what happens when the Defiant goes off on a mission, esp. when Dax is in command. It was also good to see Charlie Reynolds and his crew. For that, I give this book 4 stars rather than 3, and also because I believe if one hasn't seen these episodes, that the books will be quite enjoyable. Seeing O'Brien on a suicide mission was quite funny, although the Tex character seemed very odd and out-of-place. Personally I prefered TNG books (1&3) more.