Creators Books

How do the owners of a construction and house-painting business become famous motion picture writers, producers, and directors?

This book skims the surface of the Cinderella lives and passion of the reclusive Wachowski brothers, the creators of one of the most popular movie series in the world: The Matrix.

Born to a Polish-American family in Chicago, Andy and Larry Wachowski both graduated from Whitney Young High, a public magnet school known for its performing arts and science. Andy was admitted to Emerson College in Boston and Larry attended Bard in upstate New York. After only two years, both dropped out to start a construction business back home in Chicago.

When Roger Corman wrote the book, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, he had no idea that he would be the inspiration for one of Hollywood's most influential forces. After reading Corman, the brothers wrote the script that got them noticed. A B-horror film which was never produced called Carnivore.

After Carnivore, the duo wrote a movie that would become a cult classic and a hit with critics called Bound. It was a story centered around two women who steal money from organized crime. At this point, Joel Silver, the producer of the Matrix trilogy, started to think that the script handed to him earlier by the Wachowskis had the potential to be successful.

I liked the book. It is a clearly written, but maybe not so balanced account of two revolutionary people. There is a lot left out regarding the unpleasant aspects of the Wachowski saga, like the lawsuits for plagarism brought on by Comic book writer Grant Morrison and Sophia Stewart author of The Third Eye. If the claims are true it explains the quality differences between the first movie and the sequels.

My 11 year old daughter has dyslexia, just like Katie. This is the first book we've found that paints a vivid and moving picture of what it is like for a girl to struggle with severe reading and spelling difficulties (there are many books about boys!) Katie's story resounds with humanity and a deep understanding of the challenges kids with LD face in school and at home. Yet it is not depressing! We learn what strategies Katie uses to deal with her difficulties. We see the loving support she has from her family and the inspiration of good teachers who pay her the extra attention she so needs to succeed.

Janover tells the story with an attention to detail that enables the reader to "see" everything as if it were right in front of you. I read the book to my daughter and she loved every word--Katie's tale rang so true to my own daughter's story and to her dreams and hopes. And I learned from her reactions to the story what she was going through. Clearly the author knows her material. I recommend this book strongly to any young girl or parent who wants a good read and a great story about the struggles and gifts of dyslexia!

10 April 2008 - This is a fantastic book for the beginners-level apologist. The experts that Strobel interviewed to provide excellent cases for "Intelligent Design" based on data from their respective fields of study. It is said we cannot discus facts in schools because they lead toward a religious viewpoint.

The book was well researched and written. There will always be an antagonism between the two world views of creationism and naturalism. I feel the two paradigms should have been explored more fully.

First off, I'll start by saying that I am a Christian and believe that God created everything in the universe - and of course the universe itself. That said, I didn't know how to support my beliefs with those that believe otherwise. This book showed me how.

It goes much deeper into the sciece than a case for faith. Some of the material is difficult, but that is to be expected as Lee dleves deep into mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Another reason it is difficult is that Lee has to break down arguements from those that don't believe in a creator to their most basic levels. At a high -level the arguements sound very cerebral, but in the end they don't hold water, and many of them don't make logical sense at all. Just because a guy has a doctorate doesn't mean he can't be blinded by his own beliefs.

I don't take anything Lee says at face value either. Use this book as a reference. Check his facts and stats and see if you side with him, the opposition, or maybe you'll land somewhere in between.

Personally, this solidified my faith in a creator

Data is subject to interpretation. While it may be scientifically gathered it is theologically interpreted based on one's personal worldview. Lee Strobel does a masterful job reporting how many scientists are reaching the conclusion that there must have been a conscious being who created all things that we now observe.

Some scientists DO try to cover up the truth. Read for yourself the facts that multi-disciplinary scientists want to get out to the public. Many interviews with scientists from every field. Here is the truth that educational institutions don't want you to know.

About time someone like Dr. Ross came along and told it the way it is. More of the same please. What more can I say? Just buy it, read it and enjoy it.

Excellent easy to read scientific discussion refuting the atheists' view of origins and our universe. Finally!

My only complaint is that it's a wee bit technical for the lay reader...but fabulous none-the-less... this is the 4th Hugh Ross book i own and even though i don't understand all the nuances of redshift velocities and special relativity, I thoroughly enjoy his apologetics.

Anyone interested in God and discovering truth should check out Dr. Ross' organization at www.reasons.org

I read a lot of positive reviews here on Amazon, but found Ross to be a weak thinker.

I knew I was in trouble when, on the second page, Ross presented a false dichotomy: that we face a choice between materialism and a transcendental omnipotent creator. Then he compounded his reasoning errors by asserting that human value, AND morality, can only exist if there is an omnipotent creator. There are thousands of secular moral thinkers, and it is easier to ascribe value to our actions if they can have appreciable consequences in the universe -- which is impossible in a universe with an omnipotent being.

He very correctly points out soon thereafter that any message from a divine source such as he postulates the Bible is would be error-free, self-consistent, and absolutely clear (not requiring any sophistry to interpret). He then uses nothing but sophistry in the remainder of the book to try to interpret the Bible as correct.

He claims that the creation story in Genesis is completely correct in its astrophysics and geophysics and biologic sequence of events leading first to life then humans. He does not present the justification for this claim, which is simply false. Genesis 1:1 asserts simultaneous creation of earth and heavens, and light does not appear until Genesis 1:3. the Big Bang has a lot of light (photons) from the start, but neither matter (earth) nor space (heavens).

Within 2 pages of his "no sophistry" assertion, he discusses the assertion of the Bible (in Genesis, Job, Psalms, and Proverbs) that life and stars have both existed since the earliest times of creation. Since neither were possible for considerable time after the BB, this is another obvious falsification. But instead he asserts it is a CONFIRMED assertion, and that it is really a claim that the LAWS which lead to life and stars existed from the earliest time. I laughed out loud at the extreme straw-clutching sophistry this "no sophistry" writer was engaged in.

He also, in a personal aside, says he was an atheist, then spent 18 months trying to falsify the Bible and failed, in the end becoming convinced. Since I ran into an obvious falsification on page 1 (noted above), I have to conclude that Ross was motivated by his false dichotomies to WANT to believe..

The primary evidences that Ross wrote this book to discuss were those of the Big Bang, and the probability of life. Ross is an Old Earth Creationist. He believes God created the universe in a Big Bang, then life 10 billion years later, then individually created each of the billions upon billions of species revealed in the fossil record, sequentially. I will start with his discussion of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang theory has a few simple core principles:
{ The universe had an origin in time
{ At a very small point
{ Which was very hot
{ Space stretched, making the universe larger
{ And cooler
{ Eventually stars formed
{ Then much later, the Sun, and Earth
{ Stretching of space is continuing

Ross claims the Bible asserts and describes the Big Bang. It does not contain the above in any passage anywhere in the Bible, so it does not satisfy his earlier ¡§absolute clarity¡¨ requirement for divine origination, but Ross makes the claim anyway. Basically, all he is able to find are statements that the universe had an origin in time, that God "stretched out the heavens", and some verb tense implications that God is still "stretching" the heavens. I will only grant the first of these points. All the stretching passages are best interpreted as using a "tent-over-ground" metaphoric cosmology for the sky and earth, with God stretching out the dome of the sky above the ground as a herdsman stretches out his tent over its frame. Ross also claims that the Bible asserts the cooling aspect of the BB, in a passage describing the universe in a state of "frustration and futility" or "bondage to corruption," by claiming this asserts the law of entropy, and entropy requires cooling as the universe expands. The mental gymnastics this "no sophistry" writer goes through here are exhausting to watch.

Ross then presents several chapters on the details of the Big Bang, and its confirmatory evidence. These are excellent chapters, clearly written, and explaining the evidence for the Big Bang in terms that non-scientists can understand. The are marred slightly by the paranoia that creeps in, where he repeatedly asserts that all competing hypotheses have been motivated by atheists trying to refute the Bible. This is the best lay-level discussion I have ever seen of the justification behind the Big Bang model, and it may be worthwhile for interested parties to get the book just for this discussion.

There are several interesting chapters which follow. He presents the Fine Tuning argument, claiming the universe was fine-tuned for life. Since half of the Fine Tuning points have to do with the time necessary for evolution to proceed, and he thinks evolution is impossible, his Fine Tuning argument is self-contradictory. What he asserts is the universe is uniquely tuned to support life, but life STILL required divine intervention to exist. So he is actually asserting universe is NOT Fine Tuned for life, but only half-tuned. He also mentions that the mass of neutrinos and other non-interacting particles is 5x that of ordinary matter in the universe, but does not discuss how that shows fine tuning to support life (hint, it shows a universe far off of perfect tuning).

Then there follows an interesting discussion of the probability of a life-supporting planet existing. He has many peculiar assumptions in the discussion, such as that the size and rotation rate must be just like Earth¡¦s, that the star must be basically just like the Sun, and that the galactic location must be stable long enough for life to gradually appear (using evolutionary timescale, even though contradictorily he also assert special creation, so no long time-scale is necessary). He concludes that the odds of a life-supporting planet existing anywhere in the universe are vanishingly small, so God must have intervened to form the Milky Way galaxy, and then later in the location of the Sun, AND in the formation of the Earth. I found this discussion absolutely unconvincing. He provided almost no justification for his nearly 100 assumptions about planetary conditions for life. It also further undercuts his claim above that the universe is Fine Tuned for life, since he is here asserting that there is no way this fine-tuned universe could support life naturally ¡V making it not even a half-tuned universe.

He finally discusses the evidence he thinks exists against evolution. He is at least a good enough scientist to accept the old age of the Earth, and the billions of successive species in the fossil record, so he rejects most of the bogus arguments of Creationists. What he does accept are the rationalizations of the Intelligent Design movement. He assumes that Information is a measurable quantity, and the 2nd law of Thermodynamics applies to it like it does to Entropy. Neither of these assumptions are accepted scientific principles. They are at least coherent hypotheses, and represent some of the best of what the ID movement has produced. But asserting that these unsubstantiated hypotheses are true, and using them to argue against evolution, is very unscientific. This is to use a theoretical argument to argue against evidence, which inverts the process of scientific reasoning. He also shows calculations of the low probability of new macro-molecules forming. Since we see macromolecules evolving all the time (yearly, in the case of new influenza strains), his calculations are falsified by test. His asserted model of special creation with the goal of humanity at its peak is also patently absurd given the fossil record ¡V why would a Creator God diddle around with only successive strains of single-celled life for 2 billion years, then suddenly develop an inordinate fondness for Tribolites at the Cambrian Explosion, keep replacing species with only subtly different ones for 2 more billion years, before finally getting around to making humanity, if humanity was the purpose from the start? Since he asserts design, and by implication the intent of a designer, is obvious in the Universe, then the answer to these questions SHOULD be obvious by his own reasoning. And why would all these species show the adaptive local optima structures, and have a matching evolutionary trace in their DNA, if they were all independently specially created by miracles? Basically, all of these details of our history are DIFFERENT from what special creation would predict, but MATCH what evolution would predict. His critical faculties were never applied to the hypothesis he is presenting.

Ross provided me with some intellectual exercise, in dismantling his arguments, but overall I was extremely disappointed.

"If the Earth were one half of one percent closer to the sun, water on Earth would boil off. If the Earth were one half of one percent farther from the sun, all the water would freeze." - Hugh Ross

The distance varies by over 3% in a given year, yet waters don't boil or freeze. The distance between Earth and Sun is near 92 million miles. The change in distance due to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is around 3 million miles.

Hugh Ross isn't about science, he is about propaganda and his beliefs. Don't be fooled.

It is so amusing to see how Dr. Ross has managed to tweek the insecurities of both fundamentalist Christians and materialists. Particularly funny are the comments of the reviewer who tried to catch the good doctor in a contradiction when he contends that God has limited satan's power to tempt humanity. "How can anyone withstand the temptation of a supernatural being?" Duuuhhh - because God gives supernatural help, Einstein. If we sin, it is because we choose to give in to temptation. We exercise our free will. The point is, we can't just say "the Devil did it."

Following close behind in amusement value are the folks who can't accept that the earth is more than 10 thousand years old. Face facts, people; there is evidence of continuous, gradual erosion all around us. And no, one gigantic global flood us not a sufficient explanation. The orderly nature of the sediment layers alone disqualifies this explanation. All in all, I highly recommend Dr. Ross' books for those strong enough to face the truth.

The evidences Dr. Ross provides are very convincing and thought provoking.

I have a book of Ross' by the same title, but the cover is different (remake?) but most of my problems with his theology come from his advocation of the "big bang theory" which has numerous scientific problems (quantized redshifts to name one) and serious theological implications. If the big bang were true, then there were animals before man. Animals that lived and died. The Bible says that man's sin is the reason why we die and suffer. If death was around before sin ("For the wages of sin is death") then what good would Jesus' death on the cross have been?

I just had to comment on "a reader's" review. I know the review was from quite awhile ago, however I feel an issue contained therein should be addressed. From their review: "If the Genesis accounts of Creation, the Fall, the origin of nations, the Flood and the Tower of Babel - the first 11 chapters - are not historical, although they are written as historical narrative and understood by Jesus to be so, what other unfashionable parts of the Bible do you discard? The biblical account of creation in Genesis seems very specific with six days of creative activity, each having an evening and a morning. According to the evolutionary sequence, the biblical order of creation is all wrong. "

#1 Understood by Jesus to be so? I do not recall a time when Jesus said those stories in a bible were historical facts, and an accurate portrait of the actual occurances. When did he tell you this perchance?

#2 The "biblical order of creation" huh? Which order might that be? I'm sitting here with my King James version in front of me. Let's see, God made the birds, fish, beast of the Earth and everything that creeps upon the earth. Right after that he made man. Hold the phone! A few passages later we have man being formed of the dust on the ground. AFTER man is created birds and beasts are formed so that he should not be alone. So which came 1st, the chicken or the egg? What exactly is the "biblical order of creation"?

How VAIN would it be to say that when man wrote the bible (yes man wrote it, even though it may be "inspired" by God, it was not written by God's hand was it?) that he got it 100% right? No incorrect wording, no misunderstood concepts, never poorly expressed. Wow, so we as men wrote, the bible PERFECT? Why hasn't heaven decended to Earth yet then? Our work here is done! Oh right I forgot, since it was being inspired by God there was no way there could be an error. That is because people are 100% true to God as rule. After all, look at the men who actually WALKED with Jesus. Heaven knows they never did anything wrong, and were completely loyal to him right? I mean really... they were actually WALKING with God, not just taking dictation, and they were far from perfect. So what iota of sense does it make that people writing the bible wrote is perfectly.

Oh and by the way... if you have ever read the bible cover to cover it would be unchristian of you to believe that it is 100% accurate because there are plenty of passages in it that not only paint God in a poor light but also even say God sins. So go ahead and believe your bible of man depicting a flawed God are correct. But me? I think God is better than that.

I was stunned by reading the other reviews of this book. It appears that the purported reviewers don't even pretend to actually review the thing; they are merely using the pages as springboards to launch off on their own hobby horse, be it Flood theology, end times theology, atheism, or whatever. I see virtually no correlation between the reviews posted here, and the actual content of the book. Those that do actually refer to chapters of the book seem not to have actually _READ_ it, but only scanned it to find something to justify posting their own flawed theology.

There oughtta be a law against posting reviews as a way of having one's say. These reviews can affect the sales of a book. But I guess the reviewers either never thought of that, or don't care. Some Christian attitude.

Well, I _HAVE_ read the book. It was my first discovery of Dr. Ross, and I thought it was wonderful. For those who actually care about its contents, let's get something very straight: Dr. Ross is an _ASTRONOMER_, not a theologian. His book is not about apologetics, no matter what you may have read to the contrary. He has one purpose, which he very clearly states: To point out that there is no need for a war between science and religion, much less a war between different factions within Christianity. As Dr. Ross carefully points out, there have been _NO_ -- that's no, as in zero -- scientific discoveries in recent years that are not consistent with the Bible's depiction of Creation. Quite the contrary, all modern discoveries -- the Big Bang being one obvious example -- point to a creation much like that described so perfectly in Genesis.

Therefore, says Ross, let's bury the hatchet. Let's stop fighting amongst ourselves, let's stop the bickering between scientists and believers, let's stop the bickering between Young Earth Creationists and Old Earth Creationists, let's stop the bickering between Evolutionists and Creationists, and for a change, let's just look at the evidence of God's nature, left for us both in His Word, and in His Creation.

A novel idea, wouldn't you say? A pity no one posting here was paying attention, or bothered to read and comprehend Ross's message. They would, it would seem, much prefer to bicker.

Acceptance of old-earth ideas, including the Big Bang, progressive creation, theistic evolution, the framework hypothesis, etc., necessarily implies downgrading the Flood of Noah's day from worldwide in scope to merely one of local extent. For example, the author, Dr. Hugh Ross (an aggressive advocate of billions of years for the earth's age) vigorously denies the global flood. He calls it "universal," covering all that Noah could see, but not the entire earth. This insistence does not come from sound Biblical exegesis, but from the incompatibility of a global flood with old-earth thinking, which he accepts. The evidence for great ages is thought to be found in the rock and fossil records of the earth's crust. These are interpreted by the principle of uniformitarianism, that "the present is the key to the past." Since geologic processes happen slowly today, they argue, the extensive rock and fossil records must have taken great lengths of time to form.

However, a flood of the proportions described in Genesis would have resulted in vast amounts of erosion and redepositing of sediments, fossilization of plants and animals, volcanism, and redistribution of radioisotopes. If one denies the global flood as a historic event, he might use the Grand Canyon/Colorado River system to "prove" great ages, when, in reality, the Canyon demonstrates flooding processes with rates, scales, and intensities eclipsing anything observed today. Thus the misunderstood evidence of old ages, is actually strong evidence for the Flood. In reality, the global flood and recent creation doctrines are synonymous concepts, forcing Dr. Ross and others to twist Scripture, making it say something it clearly does not. To document that the Bible specifically teaches the global flood should be sufficient to convince a true believer in the authority of the Bible.

Mr. Ross rightly claims that the word "all" can sometimes be used in a limited sense (e.g., Genesis 41:57); thus the terms used in the flood account might be similarly limited. But proper Biblical exegesis involves discerning the meaning of words in their immediate context. A passage cannot be interpreted by vaguely possible meanings. An honest look at the flood account uncovers an abundance of terms and phrases, each of which is best understood in a global sense. Taken together as forming the context for each other, the case is overwhelming. The global extent of the Flood is referred to more than 30 times in Genesis 6-9 alone!

It would seem that the Author of Genesis could hardly have been more explicit. Conversely, if the omniscient Author had intended to describe a local flood, He obscured the facts. If words can communicate truth, if God can express Himself clearly, then the Flood was global.

It would seem that only a rank downgrading of Scripture, and/or an unhealthy desire for the approval of unsaved men could lead one to question this doctrine. I would call on my Christian brothers, who choose to hold on to the idea of a local flood and its corollary concept, the old earth, either to return to a God-honoring trust in Scripture, or else to cease using the term "Bible-believing" to describe their position.

I recommend clicking the "publications" link on ICR's (Institute for Creation Research) website, and browsing the highly informative (and voluminous) "Impact", "Back to Genesis" and "Dr. John's Q&A" sections.

I also recommend reading "The Young Earth" by John Morris, Ph.D. Geologist (available from Amazon).

Ross continues to get hammered for his local flood theory, but fact is, it's not his idea. The local flood idea was around long before Hugh Ross. Furthermore, it is not even the central theme of this book. This book does a good job of proving the existence of a god. Unfortunately is falls short of being an effective apologetic for the Christian God. This is not a result of Ross' writing, but rather his approach. Recent cosomological discoveries are certainly proving the existence of a creator, as Hawking now understands. But even Hume understood a creator in the universe. That didn't make him a Christan. This is a good book for Christians to bolster their faith and study an old earth perspective, but it probably isn't the best apologetic for the unbeliever.

Dr. Ross does a fantastic job presenting the latest scientific discoveries and their implications.

I browsed through several chapters of the book, it bascially states by probability argument that the chance we exist today by random variation is really slim without an intelligent designer. However, the author in his first chapters set out to prove that the designer is not just a god, but the god of the Bible, and the god of the Christian faith, and the Bible is as flawless as any physical laws we know now. In the later chapters, he fails to address the accuracy of the Bible by providing concrete experiemtal evidence or refute most of the inacurrate claims in the Bible.

This is a very powerful book, I highly recommend it to everyone especially atheist or people who have very little faith in their God. This book is not only informative but also very interesting and readers will surely enjoy this book. Anyone can read this book even layperson because the author has made it sure that everyone can understand what is written in this book. I suggest you buy this book, you will not regret it.

A collection of short stories by three authors, the first by Larry Niven, creator of the series, is very short, written early in his Known Space chronicles. Although this story is not a great example, Niven has a special knack for SciFi, if you have not yet read him. In a genre of fiction over-crowed with tripe, Niven's writing has a sly wit and a subtle edge, evoking a strange but very plausible future for mankind among the stars.
The second and longest story by Poul Anderson is somewhat tedious. Poul's emphasis on putting the "Science" back in Science Fiction is impressive but a bit heavy-handed in this context. The third novelette is great fun and the best of the three. The author Dean Ing writes enough like Niven that you hardly notice the difference, but I do have a couple quibbles. One is that he sort of plagiarizes Niven's "Ringworld". I will give you a brief synopsis, trying not to be a spoiler:
Locklear, a human scientist is captured by Kzanti, the cat-like aliens who walk on two feet towering eight foot tall. He figures out a clever way to get himself dropped off on an unknown planet. It turns out to be terra-formed with patches of small scale models of actual homeworlds in Known Space, Earth and the Kzinhome among them (a rip-off of Ringworld). So Locklear becomes a Robinson Crusoe type castaway. Eventually he stumbles across a number of creatures in stasis; one who he releases, with some trepidation, being a Kzin female. To his surprise she is not a mindless breeder. She speaks an arcane dialect of Kzin and in fact she is a Kzin rebel feminist from an era 40, 000 years earlier before Kzin breed their females to be non-sentient. I quibble with the 40.000 years, because could we speak English to 40,000 year old human? Anyway, those sexist Kzin warriors are in for a big surprise! The most interesting and strangest part of the story is the sexual tension between male and female of different species.

Some of the stories were kind of weak, but then this odd crashlander guy
shows up. Finding out what happens to Beowulf Shaeffer post the Crashlander
book made the book completly worthwhile. If you're not a Beowulf Shaeffer fan, you might not enjoy it as much.

This has one of the great Poul Anderson's last stories in it, which wopuld alone be a sufficient reason to buy it, plus one by Niven himself. The others are by tried-and-tested favourite Man-Kzin authors Paul Chafe and Hal Colebatch. Between them they add up to a fine portrait of the complex human-Kzin interaction after the Kzinti have to try to come to terms with the fact that they can lose wars.

In Anderson's Pele, they must acknowledge human superiority in space-craft. But can they? Like most of Anderson's stories, has a strong science as well as human element.

In Hal Colebatch's "His Sergeant's Honour", the collection's strongest story, a battered old Kzin sergeant holds the last Kzin fort on Wunderland, a planet long occupied by the Kzinti but now re-conquered by humans, charged with guarding, among others, a human collaborator and a Royal kitten - Vaemar-Riit, last son of the great Chuut-Riit, who is destined to play a big part in "Music-Box" in Man-Kzin 10, "The Wunder War," and, I hope, in adventures to come. He is too good a charater to waste.

In the meantime, old Raargh-Sergeant must choose between death and dishonour. Or Has it become dishonourable to choose death in this strange new time of Monkey victories?

Windows of the Soul, also set in post-occupation Alpha Centauri, is a rather dark detective story in the Raymond Chandler Tradition. Best not say too much for fear of revealing the plot.

Larry Niven's "Fly-by-Night" is a follow-on from Hal Colebatch's "Telepath's Dance" in Man-Kzin VIII - what happened ot the dewscendents of the first rogue telepath when he turned against the Patriarchy and threw in his lot with Selina Guthlac and the humans of the "Angel's Pencil"?

All these stories are taut, pacy and well-written. The Kzinti, or somne of them. show they are more than just dumb killing-machines and are capable of thoughtfulness.

If you like Sci-Fi and you like Space, then You've GOT to read Larry Niven's Man Kzin books. He's gotten together with scientists and over 20 writers and created a so-fi world unlike any that's ever been created.

His sci-fi world will continue perpetuating itself long after he's gone because many young writers have bought into his sci-fi version of space as well as MANY older well established ones.

I have reviewed this book previously but am having a second bite because I am annoyed by the conduct of the previous reviewer. He claims, apparently trying to dam the dialogue, there is a phrase: "As you known, Raargh Sergeant, we Wunderkzin ..." No such phrase occurs in the book. A human says to a Kzin born on Wunderland "We sometimes call you Wunderkzin ..." I suggest that if the reviewer wishes to pick holes in the style of a particular story he quote the actual words he complains of and not something he has invented. I believe this is related to a thing called ethics, you know, like honesty and truthfulness.

And all thes stories in the book are teriffic! Scream and Leap!

My question is whether the author has ever seen the show? It sounds like she may have seen the movie since she says Daniel is blond, but other than having the names right, I'm not sure we're even talking about the same people. If you manage to make it through the holes and uneven development, then you'll probably be disappointed by the ending. Very rushed and unsatisfying. If I hadn't given one of the new authors a chance, I wouldn't have ever picked up another novelization.

The book started off good and grabs you into the story, but then it ends up disappointing. The biggest issue I had with this book was the ending. It was too rushed. The pace of the book was good until 2/3rds of the way in - then it just rushed to finish the story. It was like the author was under an episode time limit and had to squeeze in the necessary criteria for an episode and follow it's time schedule. It left too many things unanswered.

I also didn't agree with some of the things the author did with the characters - having Daniel and Samantha inbibe in drinks just is out of character for Samantha. It's too easy to get carried away with the saracasm for O'Neill and the fact that Daniel walked away from Sha're is not believable in the least.

i didnt enjoy this book, the general idea was good and tepical but there are big holes in the book that make you wonder. they did not chich if there is a dhd on the planet, they did not have radio comunications, they could not dial home but home suppose to call to know what was wrong, they made damege on that planet & and the locals may be punished by the gouald for their actions and all they did is to tell a kid to contact the nox enen the nox closed thier gate after their first engagment with sg1

Well I think the author has done a good job with the characters and the first few chapters, hooking the reader easily, the end of the book is wanting. First, the ending seems rushed, second she shifts the story away from the planet M'Kwethet and their homage to the Goa'uld to the fact that M'Kwethet's Stargate had no DHD and SG-1 has to find a way to get home. Like in 'The Morpheus Factor', a book set later in the series which I red first, the natives are left with their problems which may have been made even worse by SG-1's visit.

Although it is obvious that this was written and set very early on in the series, which makes some of the details given seem slightly... off somehow, it is a very enjoyable book that I would recommend to anyone. I liked it better than the other two Ashley McConnell Stargate SG-1 books I have read. The story was interesting and although nothing truly surprising happened, it had enough twists to keep it quite engaging.

The characters were well handled. An admitted Jack O'Neill fan, I rather enjoyed all the little refrences and illusions to his past and of course his deftly portrayed wit. Daniel was well done as well, although he seemed a wee bit over-fixiated on Sha're to the exclusion of all else, but again, this is early SG-1, so that makes sense in a way. Otherwise his character was spot-on. Teal'c was also deftly handled which isn't easy to do as his character can oft be a writer's nightmare. :o) I will admit I'm not entirely sure that Sam Carter's character was portrayed to her full potential, but it was not greatly disrupting from the rest of the book.

All in all, I definitely recommend it as the best of Ashley McConnell's books.

I am a huge fan, but his book was extremely inconsistant. Hathor was found in the Mayan pyramid in Mexico in Season 1 Episode #13. The Abydos people never left their planet to go to Earth to learn from anyone. Kawalsky died in Season 1 Episode #1. They never fought on Ballas and all the planet names were PX with numbers after them. Daniel's wife never divorced him she was taken by the Gould before Hathor charmed him. They never ran into a supeior cat species. I own all 7 Seasons on DVD and watched all of them and all of season 8 on the Sci-Fi channel. I haven't read the earlier books, but if they are anything like this one I'll be extremely disappointed. Samatha Carter and Teal'C came into the SGC in Season 1 Episode #1. If I spoiled anything for someone I am sorry, but this is just my opnion that I HAD to express. The books need to be written with the facts those of us that are fans already know and used to grow new facts based on what we already know.

If I am curt, I apologize!

I LOVE STARGATE SG-! I REALLY LOVE STARGATE-the movie, and the five books that spring forth from it.

For those that only want to read the further adventures of SG-1, there are books on the subject (with PRETTY pictures of the "whole SG-1 team" for the faint of mind that will not or cannot read the damn book cover!!!).

However, these books are a continuation of the Movie STARGATE. The characters places, names and faces are different. Even the relationship between Dr. Jackson and Col. O'Neil is "FRIENDLY", but nowhere near as bonded as the one between the same characters on STARGATE SG-1 (the TV show has the movie beat in that department in my loud mouth opinion). As a matter of fact, they almost never seam to talk to each other in these books (sad, but true).

The best thing that I admired about these books is that it is a more realist version of how the government "may" act while dealing with people on the other side of a star gate. By that I
mainly mean the abuse of the people of Abydonians in the second book in this series.

The last book in Bill McCay's Stargate series, called Resistance, shows us how tough trying to colonize a planet can be. The alien cats are back and they are back in numbers. Armed with golden power suits, superior firepower and a predator's skills they pour through the Stargate like a flood of fanged death.
But the humans are not as easy to take down as the furry aliens might think. Humans have powerful tanks, deadly gunships and indirect artillery fire which cause the invaders lots of problems. The humans fight like insane soldiers, running one second and fighting like cornered rats the next for no reason.
Why do the invaders want the planet so much? Can the defenders last long enough for help from Earth to reach them or are they doomed? Will Daniel Jackson get back together with his wife? Will Colonel Jack O'Neil have enough men and supplies to hold the planet? Will we ever meet an alien who says hi first BEFORE attacking us?

I agree with some of the folks that say the book series ended in a very anti-climatic way. I, too, am disappointed that it was the final book, more could have been offered. However, the worst part of all of this is that people, as in some of the folks posting here, cannot seem to understand that this book series was started in 1995. That's 1995, as in before the TV series that whitewashed the characters so they would become more TV friendly. PLEASE read the back before making a judgement call such as..."it doesn't follow the series at all..." For all intents and purposes this series far exceeds the TV series as it allows your imagination to fill in the gaps, not relying at all on your television. I am trying not to rant but please read the SG-1 book series if you want candy, read McCay's series if you want substance.

Just an FYI, these books are based on Stargate the movie and not Stargate SG-1 the TV series, which is much better than the movie. SG-1 expands on the different worlds that could be dialed up on the Stargate which could- and does lead to all kinds of adventures, making the TV series much more interesting especially with the excellent choice for of a cast.
This is the final book out of 5 in the series. The problem that I have is that the whole book series is very drawn out with various sub plots that could have been shortened and probably bring the series to 3 books instead of 5. I also find this series somewhat more bland then the SG-1 series because of the lack of the other characters. All in all it was still interesting reading and I am glad I did.