Creators Books

I've looked at all the XNA books available as of May 2008, and honestly not a single one of them has been able to meet my hopes and expectations in terms of clearly explaining what's going on at a fundamental level in order to give one a solid basis to build on.

Either they spend half the book explaining C# programming (which I think is a waste of time as there are many great C# programming books and it helps to learn the language independently first), or they launch straight into 2D or 3D details without spending time to explain the fundamental organization and operation of a modern game program.

This particular book does better than average. There's a wonderful diagram in the first few pages that illustrates the update, draw, repeat cycle. For that and some other better than average introductory material I give the book 4 stars to distinguish it from the other rubbish out there.

I haven't used it enough to comment on the code quality, but browsing through the chapters the topics look much more interesting (and relatively advanced) when compared to the other books available.

So for someone with a background in programming, who would rather learn C# from another source (C# 3.0 in a Nutshell from O'Reilly is excellent), then this is at least one of the better "hint books" available.

For the most part though, none of these books does a good job of helping the beginner. I'm still looking for one that has at least a paragraph that explains that for each frame your program is responsible for drawing everything on the screen from scratch each time rather than having the video card somehow do it automatically, and then show how it works conceptually and in the context of a modern accelerated 3D video card.

Microsoft's XNA is one of the more impressive things they've ever produced, and it makes (serious) game programming about 100x more accessible than it ever has been before, but the current state of information for the beginner is rather poor and it makes getting started, in what is admittedly an amazingly complex enterprise, a lot harder than I think it needs to be.

I think that this book is a perfect introduction to the new Microsoft Platform. To Develop a game is not a simple task but this book cover all the important feature needed to build a modern 3D game in an easy way. This book is ideal for beginner game programmer. The only prerequisites is the knowledge of the C# programming language and basic concept of Microsoft .NET Framework.

This is an excellent step-by-step approach with many short chapters that are easy to read. The examples are complete and I can plug the code into my own projects with hardly any effort. I recommend this book for any beginner or for any experienced programmer who doesn't know how to program games. I've been programming for three years but I don't want to work hard when I'm learning...this book delivers.

I'm an experienced programmer, and a professional game developer, so I'm not exactly the audience that the authors were shooting for. (They claim to be shooting for "beginning to intermediate" programmers in the introduction.)

This book does serve to describe some of the concepts in XNA that I was unfamiliar with, but I found the text written poorly and the code written unprofessionally.

Even for a beginning audience, there were factual errors in the text that are at best misleading, and certainly contribute to a misunderstanding of the processes involved. For example, when discussing pixel shaders, the authors claim that the output gets sent to the graphics card one pixel at a time. This is false, as the pixel shader is running on the graphics card already, except in the exceptionally rare (and ill-documented) case of running with a reference rasterizer on the CPU.

The organization is questionable, with topics used before they're explained (chapters 13, 14, and 15 are on vectors, matrices, and cameras, which are important foundations for chapters both before and after). Within chapters, code is presented in a half-tutorial fashion, but without enough guidance to really follow along.

The diagrams are typically not helpful, including screenshots that don't do a good job of illustrating the concepts at hand. A case in point, Figure 20-1 tries to show "before and after directional lighting". Any still image is going to be hard pressed to accomplish this. More useful would be a reference to an interactive demo.

The book has a zip file that can be downloaded from the publisher's website, which is of some use, but it doesn't seem to agree with some of the references in the book, including discussion of how to use the authors' framework, which is a starting point for much of the code in the book.

This was written before the release of Game Studio 2.0, so some of the book is already out of date, including comments that there is no networking support, and a strange admonition that writing networked games "might be potentially unsafe".

Given other people's positive reviews of this book, I'll make the concession that I didn't use this book by reading it chapter by chapter. I used it as a reference and a guide.

And for that, this book is horrible. When I couldn't figure out a concept easily, I'd look to the book for an explanation and some sample code. For explanations, the book was mediocre. Not bad, just not written in any good teaching style.

As sample code, the book fails on every single level. The code is incomprehensible, with odd naming conventions, astounding overuse of variables, and massive over-complication of basic XNA tasks. (If you went to this book first to learn XNA, then please take a look at other resources and see how much simpler your code could be).

Most of all, though, the code is completely un-portable. It takes tremendous amounts of blood, sweat, and tears to port any of their code to a different program, to a more general use, or to a more object-oriented system. It's almost as though they tried to make their code work exclusively for their very specific examples, with absolutely no thought to making the code useful in any other context.

If you're looking for a casual reference to help you along while learning XNA, avoid this book at all costs. It will provide you nothing but pain. If you want to learn the concepts carefully and freshly for the first time, by reading a textbook, then this book will probably suffice. But I must reiterate, the code examples provided in this book are AWFUL. Every single thing you do in XNA is easier than they made it.




Examples of horrible code:
-In the particle effect sample, the code that made the particles appear at the correct position was in the particles' draw method. They made a constructor able to specify their origin, but instead of being intelligent, they set that to Zero and translated the image in the Draw method.
-Also, the particles only moved in 2 dimensions, when it was a single line of code to make it 3, a line of code that was already written.
-The core of most of the examples is a small grass field you can walk around on. The controls must have been made by someone with absolutely zero experience placing PC games. It's difficult to trust any so-called game programmer that isn't aware of the WASD + mouse standard (they used arrow keys and INVERTED mouse look). That issue was relatively easy to fix, however.
-Also, instead of placing the ground at Y 0, which would have made expanding on that world much easier, your camera is at 0, and the ground is -.8 or something.
-There is a method in their code that returns its parameter. It does nothing else. Call it with a parameter, and get the exact same reference back, unmodified. Why that method exists, I can't fathom.

But the worst, by far, was the general stuff. The naming conventions, and the layout of their code (or lack thereof) were all inexcusably horrific.

This wonderful book not only gives you very valid reasons for staying pure in a time when this is unheard of, it bases everything on the Bible and is an awesome interactive study in that respect as well. Here's the verse sighted at the end of the Chapter called "Consider the Cost".

Jerusalem sinned greatly,
Therefore she has become an unclean thing.
All who honored her despise her
Because they have seen her nakedness;
Even she herself groans and turns away.
Her uncleanness was in her skirts;
She did not consider her future.
Therefore she has fallen astonishingly.
(Lamentations 1:8-9)

Kay writes on this vital topic about sex, not to shock or offend, but to boldly equip you to experience God's absolute best for your life whether you are married or single - by understanding and obeying His will regarding sex. Listen in for biblical guidance to the questions you or someone you know is most likely struggling with.

I got this audiobook because I was so impressed with Kay Arthur's insight, compassion and wisdom in her segments of the DivorceCare New Edition volume on sexual purity outside of marriage. Sadly those qualities are notably missing here.

Her presentation style here is dry and boring. Her exegesis and exposition pedestrian, uninspired and uninspiring. Kay Arthur drones on and on and on using a preaching style that (thankfully) died around 1964. Especially annoying to this listener is her overuse of the term "my beloved" to refer to the listener. What worked so well for J. Vernon McGee and others simply falls flat here. Imagine your mother lecturing you with a shaking finger in your face and then backing off, smiling and saying, "My beloved!" and you've got the picture - it feels incongruous and insincere.

Blatantly missing here is that Ms. Arthurs says NOTHING about her poor sexual decisions after her divorce and where they took her. Thus an wonderful opportunity to connect with the listener with experience based empathy and, "Trust me I've been there!" wisdom is lost. Instead the listener is left with yet another one of these dry, boring, legalistic sounding, "No! No! No!" lectures on sex that we old Christians have now endured to the point of numbing brain death.

This material has been said better, more completely and more systematically elsewhere. This book adds NOTHING to the lexicon of Christian literature on sex and simply did NOT need to be written at all. This reviewer would recommend that the reader look to . . .

The Triumphant Marriage

Successful Singlehood: God's Blueprint for the Christian Family, Featuring Tony Evans, Moody Contemporary Issues, NTSC Format 1VHS, 50 Minutes, No Books

Covenant Marriage: Building Communication & Intimacy

Intended for Pleasure: Sex Technique and Sexual Fulfillment in Christian Marriage, Third Edition

Forever My Love: A Celebration of Marriage

The Act of Marriage

What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do: Sex & Intimacy (What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do)

. . . for sound exegesis and practical guidance in understanding and adhering to the Biblical view of sex and sexual practice.

Buy this book ONLY if you want a good "church lady" Bible thumping. I normally find much to like in Kay Arthur's work but this one was a disappointment!

I love this book. The christian community sometimes differs on this subject, if they want to discuss it at all. Kay's studies have a way of wiping the muck from our eyes to clearly see the Lord. This book is wonderful for anyone, married or single, teenagers (perhaps with parental guidance) to elderly. I particularly think this is a great book for sexual abuse survivors who may view the subject of sex through fracture glasses.

Kay is the primary teacher of the inductive method of studying the Bible. This book helps you discover everything that the Bible has to say about sex. You will find what honors God and what dishonors God. It shows that God has designed us to enjoy sex but that it must be enjoyed within certain guidelines that God has established.

This is great for couples preparing for marriage, and for those who have made mistakes and want to get back on track in this area of their lives.

I really enjoyed Mr. Taliaferro's incisive treatment of the author's life and unusual ideas.

A solid yet sympathetic look at Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan and other fantasy novels. The book delves into many details of Burroughs' life, and honestly tries to present the man, his views, and his works in his strengths and his weaknesses. Mostly for dedicated fans of Burroughs. Otherwise this read will probably not grab you, and you will find yourself skimming over many parts of the book. If your only exposure to Burroughs is the new Disney movie pass on this book and get the original novel, Tarzan of the Apes, instead!

I found Tarzan Forever well written, and often very entertaining and interesting, but very often just plain dead wrong - from badly and broadly misinterpreting texts, such as Lost on Venus (which Taliaferro just didn't get), to many specific mistakes.

Taliaferro regards Lost on Venus an example of Burroughs "climb[ing] on his favorite high horse, eugenics." (page 265) Specifically, Taliaferro refers to Burroughs' creation of Havatoo, a city-state in which eugenics has run amok, concluding that this nightmare city was an ERB utopia. But the depiction of Havatoo is Swiftian - gullible Carson can see only roses at first, but finds after many hair-raising adventures that the Havatoo are as spiritually dead as a race of zombies that occupy a city on the other side of the "River of Death" which separates the two cities. Utopia? Not even close!

And here's an example of a specific error: Taliaferro cites Carson's knowledge of aeronautics as the fact that persuaded the rulers of a kingdom on Venus to spare him. (page 266) But aeronautics came up much later. It was Carson's knowledge of astronomy that saved him. An unimportant detail, maybe, but Taliaferro's book is rife with such errors.

A mistake I found even more annoying - if not downright devious - was Taliaferro's claim that "on the final page" of Apache Devil, Shoz-Dijiji (the Apache Devil of the title) tells his sweetheart, Wichita Billings, "that he is white, nimbly sidestepping the unspeakable eventuality of miscegenation, a well-exercised Burroughs taboo." (page 224) This is as untrue as it is ridiculous! Shoz-Dijiji only tells Wichita he has a secret (i.e., that he is "white") to tell her later. But he never utters his secret to Wichita on the final page - or any other page of Burroughs' novel. In fact, Wichita professes her love for him despite his American Indian heritage. More to the point, as Taliaferro himself notes, Shoz-Dijiji's mother was "one quarter Cherokee." (page 216) Thus, Shoz-Dijiji, one of Burroughs' noblest heroes, not only is mistaken as to his racial heritage, he is also the product of the so-called "Burroughs taboo" against miscegenation! Here, we find a familiar Burroughs theme - individual honor and integrity are what matter, not the color of one's skin.

Those who have aired the tired old claim that Burroughs was a racist, and Taliaferro is solidly in this camp, have simply not been willing to recognize the subtleties of the Burroughs canon (yes, even adventure yarns can be morally ambiguous and complicated). Instead of reading Burroughs' works carefully, with an ear for the era in which they were written, Taliaferro and others skim the books and draw hasty, misinformed conclusions.

Whatever you may think of the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs--and I personally never thought that much of it--this is still a fascinating look at the life of the man who created one of the most famous characters in all of literary history. We see not just the life that Burroughs led, and the way his interests led him to write what he did. We also get an excellent sense of the times in which he lived and wrote. When ERB is ready to break into the pulps, we get a history of the pulps and what sort of business he was enterring. When ERB works into his tales things like racial purity and eugenics, the biographer goes into detail about the world's views on such things. When Tarzan is created, there is a wonderful discussion of the ape man concept, the feral child being raised in the wild--in reality and in literature. And the care given in describing the various Tarzan films is terrific. Taliaferro's research is excellent. The fact that Burroughs himself cared more about the cents per word payment he was getting than the actual quality of his stories does make him something of a problem child, but as far as a business man, some of his approaches to his work are interesting to say the least. For people who want to learn about the man, the character of Tarzan, the other characters ERB created (since they are not slighted despite the the fact that Tarzan is in the forefront), or the early days of pulp fiction and moviemaking, this is a great book.

I must admit that the only Edgar Rice Burrough's novel I truly enjoyed reading was "Tarzan of the Apes". One reviewer of this book called ERB a hack writer, and that is probably true, but the first Tarzan novel was definitely not a "hack novel", or else we wouldn't be reading it as a classic some 90 years later. On the contrary, "Tarzan of the Apes" is an important social commentary. The writing of Taliaferro's "Tarzan Forever" may be a little choppy for the first chapter or so, but once the author gets into it, it gets much smoother and is very readable. I didn't find Taliaferro at all apologetic for ERB's views on eugenics, or his racism either. I thought the author was very honest and upfront about this aspect of ERB's personality. I found "Tarzan Forever" a very engrossing biography and suggest it whole-heartedly.

It's amazing how this guy can rave on and on for hours without actually saying anything. Here's a scientist that never seems to have heard of the scientific method. Very disappointing! The non-sequiturs and leaps of logic are astounding.

I liked this book. Fred Alan Wolf is a exuberant speaker. I wish i would have had him as a teacher.

While Dr. Wolf has written some compelling books, this work is complete nonsense. If you are looking for anything interesting about quantum physics, do not look here. If you are looking for stream-of-consciousness nonsense psycho-babble about the "real you" then this is for you. Doesn't appear that he actually prepared anything for this recording; he just blathers on and on without any coherence. Complete nonsense and a waste of time and money. Deserves zero stars but I am forced to give one star as the minimum allowed here.

I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Quantum discuss his ideas about soul, heaven and hell, how we create our reality, and what Quantum Physics has to do with it all. I discovered Dr. Quantum from the wonderful "What the Bleep Do We Know?" movie, and ever since then I have become interested in what he has to say (as well as what the other people in the movie have to say). I find him easy to understand and actually quite entertaining. I found myself laughing out loud at times. He really kept my attention throughout the entire presentation. In fact, I have listened to this audio book about 3 times now (I've only had it about a week), and I am taking notes! I am also researching some of the people and experiments that he mentions (i.e.: Benjamin Libet and his work on neural adequacy). I am considering purchasing his other audio presentation: A User's Guide to Your Universe.
I had no prior knowledge of Quantum Physics until I watched the "What the Bleep" movie, so all this stuff is new to me. I am glad that I started my study of the mystery with Dr. Quantum as a guide.

I listen each day. I am enjoying listening and learning more about the world and myself.

Perhaps with time Ehlers writing improved but I found most of this book to be unclear - except the parts at the end about how to use the MESA cycles for trading. He has one idea, a ELI (Ehlers Leading Indicator), that sounds intriguing but darned if I can figure out how to calculate it based on his passing description of it. When he tries to explain phasors by "think of an engine" example, he only made me more confused. I really want to understand the mathematical ideas presented herein so I'll keep at it but I'm hoping I'll find a cycle writer with a style I can decipher better. Haven't read his later stuff yet though. Maybe he got alot more clear.

The broad trading public has been slow to recognize John Ehlers work to apply cycles methodologies (from the sciences) to trading markets .... which is good for those of use who have discovered Ehlers' work with MESA (Maximum Entropy Spectral Analysis).

The first edition of this book is still the clearest and most concise discussion of applying cycles theory to markets I've ever read. This new edition retains all of the content of the first edition, but updates it with a lot of new and additional information from Ehlers' recent research into cycles and his development of trading indicators and tools.

Many are familiar with the J.M. Hurst classic: "The Profit Magic of Stock Transaction Timing". Ehlers goes far beyond Hurst's pioneering work. Ehlers is an original thinker, applying new techniques and research using MESA to the market. Hurst was using a multi-million dollar mainframe in the 60's .... all of us have 10,000X more computer power sitting on our desktops than Hurst had .... Ehlers techniques can help the serious trader and investor turn all that "horsepower" loose on the market today, making it accessible to even us small traders.

Hurst was also constrained to using Fourier Analysis for cycles detection .... Ehlers' MESA overcomes the need of Fourier for long data spans to compute cyclic content.

If you're serious about the markets, this book needs to be part of your library .... along with Ehlers other book: "Rocket Science For Traders"

This book is just plain horrible. I am a trader and a cyclical investor. I am also an engineer with Engineering Mechanics background, and very familiar with the complex math explained by Ehlers. But let me tell you, for people without any background in math this book is an absolute waste of time.

The most important thing that Ehlers should have focused, he simply forgot or ignored. The book fails to show real life examples with buy-sell signals using the indicator. It goes on and on along the theoretical lines of cycle analysis and it stays at that throughout the book.

It would have been much more entertaining to explain the indicator and show real life examples. But from my experience as a researcher and writer of research articles, people from this field tend to embelish and emphasize the theoretical size while completely ignoring the pure and simple aspects.

A simple cycle analysis done with moving average detrending as explained by Pring is much easier. Also, a simple look at the charts and the drawing of a simple cycle lines is all that it takes to show you the turning points.

I was a disciple of John Ehlers' in the early 1990s when I bought
the MESA3 and Epoch analysis programs (both for DOS) and my trading abilities improved greatly. I use those two programs to this day with superlative results.

I cannot give a similarly positive review to his newer software offerings as I have not examined them personally and information provided to be by users who have indicated that their results were less than satisfactory.

Ehlers' books are, in a large sense, amplifications of the instruction manuals of these progams and set forth the basis on which to study trading according to his ideas and theories.

This book is an excellent read for both the casual and professional trader regardless of whether or not one actually uses his software. Ehlers is highly intelligent, extremely experienced, and the practical application of his theories is adequately explained herein.

This work ranks as yet another significant contribution to the arena of securities trading by the author.

Professor John W. Kercheval, III
Georgetown
Washington, DC

Really, this is barely a service to African American women who fell through the cracks. Please!

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN--cradle of civilization-- BOW when you enter her circle. O mightly spirit, direct her path and bless her every footstep for the world is beholding to her. The lesser informed among us would have you believe differently, but, research would prove my characterization of the Black Woman.

The 150 great women mentioned in this book did not include your mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, etc, but it could have if you are of African American decent. Please know that this author could only write about a limited number of women who have left an indilible impact on society. In 1619, only the" biggest and baddest" Africans survived the death-trap journies across the Atlantic Ocean in those filthy slave ships. They arrived here with their African names--no wonder some of the women were identified as unknown by name because their slavers had't forced them to adopt another European name by that time. The slavers surly were not going to call them by their rich African names. Those barbaric slavers were skilled in dismanteling one another as they only knew barbaric behavior. Culture existed only in Africa in 1619 and not in Europe or Asia- -which is the homeland of the slavers.

Bolden has done an outstanding job with this book and, if you are smart, you will surly put this book on your "must read" list.

It was a joy and pleasure to read about some of the women of a bygone era that I already knew about or learned about for the first time.

I don't like this one because it gets a few things wrong, or so my sister Monica claims, she plays the game all the time and for her birthday I got her the Septerra Core book and she was complaining because she said it didn't tell her what she wanted to know.and because of that, I give it 2 out of 5 stars...

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I love Stargate and have the DVD series up to season 8. This book doesn't really get moving until 1/2 -- 3/4 of the way through. I had to fight my way through each chapter. I kept wondering' ok where are the main characters?
It took awhile for them to be introduced. When the offworld excitement started your are reading so fast that the book is over because there wasn't that much.

Book #3 is The First Amendment. Official blurb: "From the very
beginning, the success of the Stargate project has demanded absolute secrecy. But it won't be secret for long.... A hotshot reporter has been brought into the most restricted area of the StarGate base. He's witnessed the Stargate in action, and wants answers. But he'll get more than a headline when Col. Jack O'Neill and his team decide to show him exactly how dangerous the universe can be...."

I did like the first half. The author had obviously done some research; the first chapter of the book is from Hammond's POV has he goes through his morning routine, and I found it mildly interesting. There's also - as the title suggests - a political element that felt like it could have been inspired by 'Secrets'. However, there seemed to be an overabundance of original characters -- too much of them and not enough of SG-1 in a book that's only 198 pages. And - and I'm not exactly sure how else to describe this - it didn't FEEL like Stargate.
There just wasn't that sense of familiarity. The resolution was cliched. And there was also the seemingly inevitable mistakes with Sam's rank This one wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.

The characters are and their personalities are captured good, but the story isnt the best. The Author Ashley McConnell does better in the Pilot story and the second book:The Price to Pay. The story isnt as much of a stargate story as the other few of her books, the whole big moths and the triangular head robots was kinda rediculous. I expected better imagination and better story and character line because the first 2 books were better, So i give this one a 3.

Ashley McConnell's Stargate SG-1: The First Amendment is a great book! It is about a reporter by the name of Frank Kinsey, who gets smuggled into the secret base of SG-C (Stargate Command) and has seen the Stargate, a dimensional transporter that uses wormholes, in action. Now he wants more answers about the secrecy surrounding the Stargate program and to get to the bottom of the truth by using the First Amendment of the Constitution. But instead of just getting information from SG-C (Stargate Command) about the Stargate program, he got more than what he bargained for. General George Hammond, the commander of SG-C and Colonel Jack O'Neill, a highly decorated and respected SG team leader, decide to take Kinsey on a real mission to show him what the Stargate program is all about and how dangerous the universe can be!

The beginning of this book starts out kind of slow in my opinion because they mainly talked about everyone's jobs at SG-C, but it quickly changes as you read on with lots of action throughout the book. I was used to this pattern because the same thing happens on the T.V show which I watch often. I think the middle of the book is my least favorite part because they use crude language and mainly dealt with preparations for the mission and it did not have much action. The end of the book is my favorite because it is where all the action is, like when the team fights giant moths and tubenecks (a praying mantis type of creature). The action was very intense, it kept me on the edge of my seat and I would not put the book down.

The book is also humorous because O'Neill is always making jokes. It is also a bit confusing sometimes like when someone named Major Dave Morley was telling a story about when his team was attacked and did not mentioned any details about the event. I've read two of Ashley McConnell's books, both of them are based on the same characters and T.V. series Stargate SG-1and I've enjoyed both of them tremendously. I think Ashley McConnell did a very good job on this book (The First Amendment). I recommend this book to everyone because it has a good story, it is funny, it has intense action, and it has a final conclusion without a "to be continued" at the end. If you are looking for a book with some humor, intense action and a good story line, then this book is for you!

By: Christopher Chou
5th grade - Pocopson Elementary

I find Ms. McConnell's Stargate SG-1 novels to be decent, at best. Her charactisations are incredibly weak. Little things like almost always referring to Daniel as "Jackson" really got to me. Who the heck calls him just Jackson on the show?

The Price You Pay was pretty interesting, but The First Amendment downright stunk. This novel really does have the feel of a poorly constructed fanfic. McConnell shamelessly admits in her intro that the character Cassidy is based on someone she knows in real life. Presumeably, so is his counterpart, Pace. That deal would have been forgiveable, if she hadn't devoted so much of the book to these essentially unnecessary side characters - not to mention the fact that she put more effort into developing those individuals. Not like we even care about these two. Any of y'all pick up this book to read about military folk who wonder what goes on beneath the surface of Cheyenne Mountain? Any of y'all eagerly awaiting the spin-off series 'The Adventures of Pace and Cassidy'?

Even worse is the Mary Sue element of this book, i.e. the inclusion of Randolph and Rusalka. Talk about unnecessary characters! What exactly was the point of including random workers of the SGC, who share recipes and child care advice? Oh please! Hearing those two babble on and on with water cooler talk about SG-1 absolutely grated on the nerves. We're used to strong female characters like Sam and Janet, and the author throws in gender stereotypical swill. Really, the only thing those two ever talked about was cooking, kids, and cute guys. Why exactly were these characters written into the story when they had absolutely nothing to do with the plot? Ms. McConnell admitted to writing her "Tuckerized" former co-worker Cassidy. Who is willing to bet one of these women is based on the author and another is a friend? Or perhaps both are her.

The lead-up isn't interesting. The plot is weak and predictable. Of course, Kinsey's son isn't going to end up exposing the Stargate to the public. Of course, after he's seen the Stargate, he's going to go through and see something that makes him decide it's better that the public remain in the dark. And, of course, Kinsey's son was also depicted with more depth than SG-1.

I would say this is the weakest of her four books, by far. But then again, while some of her books have better plots, characterisation is weak in all of them. I am left to wonder why Roc didn't just decide to go with a more knowledgeable author, somebody who actually seems interested in getting a feel for each member of SG-1.

Fine reading;the best biographical work on Picasso. Fair review of his multi-facetted life and personality. A portrait written with great psychological depth, flair, knowledge of the arts and fascinating insights and comments from those who knew him.
Ariana Stassinopoulos' balanced story of both his weaknesses and strengths is a ''must read''.

"Picasso" by Arianna Huffington is a very thorough book that can probably be skipped, except possibly by those with an intense interest in Picasso's personal life. For the rest of us it is sufficient to know that Picasso had no friends or family, just groupies (many of whom were family) throughout his life, and, to a person, he treated them despicably. For example, he usually had several women at a time who each worshiped him. He would play them off against each other, often openly and in public, seemingly in an attempt to provoke jealous rage, murder, depression, or suicide (he succeeded grandly at all except for murder, but his best friend took care of that one for him). He found ways to treat the male groupies with equal misery. But, soap operas should last thirty minutes at most. This book goes relentlessly on and on for 500 pages determined to prove that Picasso did not take one decent breath in his whole entire long life.At a certain point the reader begins to wonder that "thou dost protest too much." So then how did he come to be hailed as the genius of the 20th Century; as the man who showed us what our world really was or at least what it really looked like? The answer to this question is somewhat complex. The easiest part of it is that he was like a human camera. He could paint exactly what he saw as if he were a camera, and, he could paint any impression of what he saw, better than any human being alive. He was half way home on that talent alone, meaningless though it may have been. After all, if you can throw a ball better than anyone you are halfway home too. But Picasso's subject was, seemingly, important; one that intellectuals were interested in. Hence if he could capture their imaginations and somehow add their imprimatur to his painting talent the world would be at his feet, where he always felt it belonged.
Picasso hung out in Paris with many of the world's leading intellectuals. He even wrote a play called "Desire Caught By the Tail" directed by Albert Camus in which Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir acted. The play was about 10 pages long and nothing more than a series of bizarre scenes similar to what might have appeared in his painting. When Picasso commented about literature he said "it seems many writers want to be painters" apparently not knowing that the descriptions of visual objects in literature are often mere back drops for the infinitely larger conceptual themes with which language artists deal. He really didn't seem to understand that there was more in the world than pictures. His friend Sartre, a legitimate genius, set the record straight about the essential triviality of pictures in "What is Literature" when he said, "even when Picasso attempted to approach the real world with "Guernica" does anyone think he changed even a single mind with that painting"? And this was before the visual world was forever trivialized by, affordable travel, cameras, video cameras, TV, and film. We don't need a great painter anymore to create "The Last Supper" and by his choices tell us about the true nature of Jesus.
It did turn out though that the tyrannical and confused little painter did have something in common with the leading existentialist avant guard intellectuals of his day, namely, they all wanted us to see the world differently. The intellectuals because the world of physics had correctly foreshadowed today's confused world of string theory and because philosophy had foreshadowed the concomitant shift from the certain, well defined world of God to the confused existential world of man. Picasso too wanted us to see the world differently not because he was a physicist or philosopher but because 1) he was so hopelessly neurotic that he did see the world differently as any sick person does and 2) he realized he had to paint differently to develop a reputation as a different and great painter. The intellectuals were happy to use Picasso because his technically ingenious but neurotically confusing paintings did help loosen our grip on old realities. Picasso in turn was happy to use their imprimatur of change to normalize his neurosis and to falsely give philosophical meaning to his immense skill at meaningless painting. That he encouraged us toward misogyny and/or other of his gruel narcissistic indulgences did not matter; it was change, and that was what the intellectuals wanted most. The public really had no idea what was going on as Picasso's legend grew and grew to newer and newer heights of irrationality. Today, Picasso's reputation seems mostly in the hands of art owners, museums, and curators all of whom profit in Picasso's on going and growing legend. This summer's hugely successful Picasso/Matisse exhibit at MOMA , for example, drew 100s of thousands of adoring fans. Curators raved at the point, counter point genius of the two artists; everyone made money, had fun, and wished they too could free their troubled souls and enlighten the world by creating great art, but not a word was ever said about the emperor having no clothes.
Norman Mailer, who was taken seriously as the greatest living writer and thinker, is a great fan of Picasso and has written adoringly and extensively about him; so perhaps his view is worth comparing to Huffington's? He and Picasso had things in common: both were diminutive technical genius who gained public adoration and hugely deformed egos at a very early age. Mailer stabbed one of his early wives and clearly behaved a lot like Picasso, and perhaps for many of the same reasons, although he matured as he aged whereas Picasso did not. His portrait of Picasso as a young man tends to be purely forgiving. The idea that internal struggle, suffering, depression, angst, turmoil, and general soap opera leads to great, honest, revolutionary art apparently still lives in Mailer's soul. After all, what can an artist create if not the manifestation of tremendous inner turmoil and growth?
Mailer forgives Picasso for everything because it was all to produce "great art." Sadly, the idea that the traditional, formulaic, hypocritical, country club Republican mentality would be replaced by the existential soap opera playing out in the communist souls of Picasso, Mailer, and French intellectuals seems more a joke today than anything else. So in the end, Huffington is quite right about Picasso, although she doesn't address the meaning of Picasso's art at all, except in so far as she ruthlessly cuts his foundation away.

this book is totally Anti-Picasso, she hardly touches his Art her only concern is ripping him apart.

The " modernism " Picasso launched was basically the conception of the artist's oeuvre as a diary, albeit he probably, along with most qf the art establishment, would be outraged by this point of view. That was his most significant first; his development of form, merely a bi - product of his auto - biographical method. This book enables us to see clearly the connection between the man and the works, instead of the usual european way of clouding the timid author's confusion about a complex artist with politically correct aestheticism. Whether Picasso's works are all, they're hyped up to be, when considered as individual paintings, is for the individual to decide; this book is about the man Picasso, his life, and as such most refreshing.

I've read quite a bit on Picasso and I was quite aware of his abuses to his lovers and his friends. I also like Arianna Huffington. However, this book quickly degrades in what seems like a personal statement or act of retribution against Picasso. While the writing regarding his major works and career highlights is understated with light cast only on the negative aspects of each, his transgressions and shortcomings in both art and his social life are focused on far too much. The result is an unbalanced book that seems wholly predjudiced. One gets the overall feeling that Arianna was one of Picasso's spurned or mistreated lovers and is out for revenge. I prefer more evenly written objective material on historical characters rather then the polarized point of view offerred here. Overall, I would suggest something by John Richardson who I feel is better informed (via his personal relationship with Picasso) and able to cast objective light on one of mankind's great artists and characters.

good book on Superheros coming together to battle evil&Bring Unity.this Book is about Good versus Evil. it's a Good Book.

I was enormously chary when sitting down to read Alexander B. Edwards's self published novel "Creator: A Superhero Epic." Why? I generally distrust products based on comic book characters or comic book motifs. I also tend to smirk at stories supposedly based on role-playing games. Don't get me wrong; I've seen plenty of films and read several books similar to this one that did an excellent job of bringing superheroes and the like to life. Heck, when I was twelve and thirteen I collected comic books and played games like Dungeons and Dragons. And I liked doing so then. I even kept all of my comic books from two decades ago, safely packing them away in plastic and boxes for the day when I can sell them for thousands of dollars (yeah, right). But I agreed to read "Creator," and planned on doing so with an open mind. For all I knew before I started the book, Edwards's story could attain such heights of wondrousness that a major publisher would pick up an option to publish his novel. And since the author claims this book is the first in a planned set of stories, a series of movies based on the stories may well be playing at the Cineplex in four or five years. It saddens me to say that this is unlikely to happen.

"Creator," set in an alternate world, tells the story of an earth divided between normal humans and mutants. Most mutants, all of whom possess various amazing powers, must keep a low profile since the rest of the world views them with suspicion or outright hostility. The only acceptable mutants are the ones who form superhero organizations in order to battle crime. These groups work closely with the government, primarily an intelligence apparatus known as the Special Investigation Agency (SIA), to save the world whenever necessary. You've got groups like the Energy, Light, and Fire based out of New York, but "Creator" focuses in on the formation of a new group called Eternal Champions. It all starts with a few scenes set in outer space, where the queen of an alien race nearly perishes after a diplomatic mission turns disastrous. The principals involved, including a few mutants from our world, decide they must travel to earth to seek out a vessel in which they can transfer the monarch's spirit. Flash forward to, well, earth. It is here we meet a chap named Richard Octavian, a seemingly harmless doctoral candidate at a university who is in reality a powerful mutant. It turns out that Octavian is actually ninety-two years old, but he appears as a young man because he can change his shape at will.

An assassination attempt on Octavian reveals the presence of yet another mutant in hiding on campus, one Larcis G. Draven. This guy convinces Richard to form a superhero organization--along with another mutant who just happens to be mute--after the attack, not an easy thing to accomplish considering Octavian's reticence to have anything to do with government service again. You see, he worked as an operative in Vietnam and came away from the experience horribly scarred. But Larcis is insistent, so the two quickly secure government funding for their project and soon engage in their first mission. The SIA wants the Eternal Champions to fly into San Francisco in order to rescue a downed aircraft of important dignitaries. It isn't the San Francisco we know and love, however, but rather a huge penal complex ruled by a powerful mutant named Sargon. In go the Eternal Champions, a huge battle ensues, and when the group returns they have two female mutant inmates in tow. Since these two women helped thwart the dastardly Sargon's nefarious plans, a presidential pardon allows them to join the Eternal Champions as full-fledged members. Another mission soon looms on the horizon when the aforementioned aliens arrive on earth.

"Creator" sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Well, it's not for several reasons. First, the book reads like a combination of "The X-men" and "Escape From New York," which it probably is since the author says he came up with the idea in the early 1980s, a time when this comic book and film arrived on the scene. Second, the editing is horrible. Typographical errors practically drip off every page, and while I can always muster sympathy for someone caught with a few typos in their writing, "Creator" contains far too many to ignore. These errors seriously hamper the flow of the novel. Third, and closely related to my second complaint, is the number of continuity errors in the story. For instance, the book at one point claims that Octavian attended a class, but later we discover that school hasn't even started yet. Fourth, the dialogue between characters is so leaden that it will set your teeth on edge. At first, I sort of looked past this problem because writing dialogue is not an easy thing to do. I know I would have to practice long and hard to learn how to do it. But after awhile, I simply couldn't ignore the problem any longer. Exchanges resemble something an adolescent would put to paper in a creative writing class.

I'm not dumping on the book out of spite. I do think that the author could, with a lot of work, greatly improve the technical aspects in his second book. Proofreading is an absolute necessity for removing typos and continuity errors, and the dialogue might improve if the author reads it aloud to see if it flows naturally. One thing the author did do well was balancing numerous plot threads. I see no reason why subsequent installments in this story arc could not improve with significant effort. As it stands, "Creator" earns two stars.

I would describe Alexander B. Edwards' Creator: A Superhero Epic as a graphic novel without the graphics. Like his superhero characters, the author assumes an alias to protect his secret identity as a counterintelligence officer in the military, and his background in intelligence, counterespionage, and the like serves him well in the construction of a story featuring a myriad of military operations. Borne out of the milieu of superhero comics and role-playing superhero games, Creator ebbs and flows with a rhythm all its own. Transitions are sometimes abrupt, character development is somewhat limited, and events occasionally seem to pass by just a little too quickly. At the same time, though, the novel offers plenty of exciting, suspenseful moments in the form of fast-paced action scenes.

The action in Creator centers around Richard Octavian, a far from typical college student; in actuality, he is a 92-year-old mutant who became disillusioned by the nature of his assignments in the Vietnam Conflict. Basically immortal, he has the power to shape-shift and thus appear as a perfectly normal college kid. Of course, his unique qualities come to the fore when unknown assassins shoot him in the chest at point blank range. In his reaction to the surprising attempt on his life, Richard meets up with two other on-campus mutants, and the three new friends band together to form a new mutant superhero group. Other mutant superheroes exist, but the Special Investigations Agency (SIA) is more than happy to support an additional group in the fight against evil, particularly evil wrought by dishonorable mutants. Richard assumes the identity of Creator, while his two new partners become Mindseye and Night. About the time their top-secret, super-nifty, well-camouflaged headquarters is built, the Eternal Champions are called into action. A ship carrying a number of important persons, including two prominent South Americans, has crash-landed inside Complex San Francisco, a lawless penal colony dominated by a power-hungry mutant named Sargon. In this universe, a unified South America dominates the world militarily, scientifically, and technologically - if their agents are not rescued quickly, America may well be looking at a war it cannot win.

The story begins to come into its own during the daring rescue mission, but there are even more important missions and problems in the future. An alien spaceship has secretly come to Earth as part of a plan to save the galaxy (which naturally involves taking over the earth as the first step), and one of the new superhero mutant girlfriends is the key to the alien strategy. The work of the Eternal Champions, it would seem, is never done.

The writing is somewhat unpolished at times; characters have a tendency, for example, to sometimes explain acronyms or concepts parenthetically to one another - granted, this is information the reader needs to know, but at the same time it is information the characters would not need to explain to one another. I also had a hard time getting to know the characters, which in turn led me to question some of their actions - particularly in the field of interpersonal relations. Perhaps I asked too much of the story, though, as its roots in role-playing superhero games tend to shape it in terms of episodic, action-packed events following closely upon the heels of one another.

The impetus of this story goes back many years, evolving out of the childhood dreams and role-play gaming experience of the author, and this helps to explain the sudden transitions from one scene to another. There is a related issue of certain characters and themes falling by the wayside as the novel progresses. While this is problematic of the novel taken as an entity unto itself, an explanation can seemingly be found in the fact that this is the first in a series of eight novels revolving around the work of Earth's newest superhero organization. I imagine that future books in the series will flesh out these characters to a greater degree and answer some of my questions about the background and "big picture" elements of the story so far. In the meantime, the mission-based chapters of Creator certainly do provide ample fuel for the novel's adventuresome engine, making this an enjoyable, fast-paced read, and it will be interesting to see where the author takes his superhero epic in future installments of the series.

CREATOR: A SUPERHERO EPIC is that kind of book that has an audience, obviously, because without an audience for the over the top science fiction whopper tales, where would the endless stream of movies such as 'Matrix', 'Spiderman I, II', 'Catwoman', to name but a very few find the people to fill the seats of the theaters?

Perhaps this is 'escapist literature'. One would hope not. Why would we need to distort reality to such a degree as creating good guys versus mutants when tales based on life-sized people can create that same effect with elegant language, poetry, altered perception of known places - all the tools that good writing offers the reader as a path away from reality beyond the covers of the book.

So, I am not a sci-fi fan and only read this book as an obligation to explore the works of young writers active today. Sadly CREATOR depends on word warps, DNA distortions, fanciful names for characters and places and pedestrian dialogue to propel this engine. Yes, the forces of good and evil are in play as they always are in these forays, but the overall story is so hampered with the style (or lack of) of writing that finishing the book is more an act of obligation than a source of pleasure. Someone has to say these things...We are informed that the author Jaime Mera is a Military Intelligence Officer stationed in Korea who has assumed the pen name of Alexander B. Edwards and that this is the first book in a series of eight! One hopes after this start that the remainder of the series tightens up a bit on writing technique and stance as worthy literature. Grady Harp, March 05