Robert Duncan Books

The Great Scot by Duncan A. Bruce is a fun read and helps see the story of Robert the Bruce as if you were there. Duncan Bruce tells the tale of Robert the Bruce through the eyes of the fictional David Crawford. David happens to be in Dumfries on the day Bruce murders the Red Comyn. He becomes page to Robert the Bruce and from there on is swept up on the Bruce's trail to the Throne of Scotland, battling England and the 3 Edwards, getting recognition from the Pope and ultimately trying to keep Scotland free. David just happens to be in all the right places to give a first hand account of what happened in the historical events critical to the Bruces success, from the battle at Methven, the Spider's Cave, Bannockburn, the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath and the death of Robert himself.
The book is definitely a hero worship tale about Robert, but it is suppose to be the long lost tale of David Crawford so that is believable to a point. A few times though it seemed very cliché but this tries to include all the legends. Robert the Bruce was a great man and did an amazing thing for Scotland, but he was still a man and had his faults of the times. This book hints at them but glorifies his strengths for sure.
I enjoyed The Great Scot and would recommend it to anyone who reads and loves Scottish history and the Wars of Independence, not for the historical value but as entertainment to live the legends rather then learn the history.

Just finished this book on a long plane ride from Europe. I agree with all the critical assessments above. Not greatly written, did not reveal a lot of insight about the Bruce, etc. But I could not put it down. I was interested in "Page Crawford's" story and his outside view of what happened with the Bruce and historical events.
I mostly would have preferred to start the story sooner. In my historical readings and such, I already know most of the events from 1306 on. I am still looking for a good novel on what happened before - what created Robert the Bruce and his quest.
All and all a good read, not a masterpiece, but if you are interested in Scottish history or more directly, Robert the Bruce, you will enjoy and it is a quick read.

Duncan Bruce's "The Great Scot" gets five stars for its selection of a protagonist -- Robert the Bruce. While historical fiction is generally dominated by novels surrounding the largest figures in history (Julius Caesar, Hannibal of Carthage, Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, etc.), some of the greatest joys in the genre can be found in stories about lesser-known-but-worthy figures. Robert the Bruce is such a character. Inheriting a noble struggle for freedom against tyranny from the immortal William Wallace (of "Braveheart" fame), Robert the Bruce succeeded where his forebears failed, and he did so in grand style.

But "The Great Scot" does not carry the day. The narrator of the piece is a young man (David) who, as a lad, becomes the Bruce's page. Inexplicably, the Bruce places a huge amount of trust in the boy, who rises to become one of the Bruce's most indispensable men -- although this rise is explained more by the boy's mere presence and devout loyalty than through any great accomplishment on David's part. So far, so-so. But the style of the narration is flat, methodical, and without much insight. In general, the story is a series of "And then this happened . . ." followed by, "the Bruce said this," and "we were all swayed by the Bruce," and "she smiled at the Bruce." It gets tedious -- even the famous battle of Bannockburn, where the Scots wiped out a much larger English force, is told with little more than a rote recitation of events. David is also not around for many of the key events in the novel, which are told to him by folks who are as incapable of spinning a yarn as our narrator.

When comparing this novel to other recent works of historical fiction -- see, for example, David Anthony Durham's "Pride of Carthage," or Bernard Cornwell's "The Last Kingdom" -- "The Great Scot" becomes more of a tedious slog to the finish rather than an enjoyable trek through a bygone era.

There is little to learn about the Bruce, as well, other than he's a good swordsman, a champion with the ladies, prone to the occasional illness, and a firm believer in freedom. None of these traits are surprising, and the Bruce appears to be much more of a cardboard cut-out of a hero than a true man of greatness (he does not compare favorably to Durham's Hannibal, for example, or with Sharon Kay Penman's Henry Curtmantle, or with the Julius Caesar of Conn Iggulden's "Gates of Rome" series -- or any character written by Colleen McCullouch).

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh with this review, but I had high hopes for "The Great Scot." And these were not met. For fans of historical fiction set in the British Isles, there are many other more worthy selections.

FINALLY a novel about Robert Bruce, one of the most, if not THE most, influential figures in Scottish history.
Fascinated by the life of Robert Bruce since my Scottish grandfather related the the legend of "Robert the Bruce and the Spider" to me as a child, I have been waiting for someone to tell this story. It was worth the wait! If you are a fan of adventure and heroism combined with a bit of intrigue and treachery, this book is for you.
Beginning with Bruce's murder of the "Red" Comyn, a bitter rival for the Scottish throne, the tale only gets better. Narrated by Davie Crawford, a long time aid and confidant, the reader learns of Bruce's early defeats, his decision to wage guerilla warfare against the superior English forces which began to turn the tide, and culminates with his ultimate victory over the English at Bannockburn.
With the immediate threat eradicated, "Guid King Robert" still has to face the danger of more invasions while trying to unite Scotland under his rule. Before his death in 1329 he lives to see peace between England and Scotland, final recognition of Scotland as an independent nation, and Papal recognition of his title as "King of Scots".
I really enjoyed this book.

If you let the first 5 chapters influence you - you won't finish this book. They were bad. After that the story finally picked up and the characters becames interesting enough to finish. I think that this is a first look at Robert the Bruce --and agree with the other reviewer that the man has been unjustly over-shadowed by William Wallace thanks to the movie Braveheart. However, that probably happened because there wasn't a story exciting enough about Robert the Bruce to turn it into a movie...this one isn't either.

What's good about it - the character holds an interesting place in history. There are battle references, there is court intrigue, there are murders and kidnappings and mysterious illnesses and all of the things that keep the story interesting so you plod on. It is a fast read and a simple read.

What didn't I like? Robert suffers from a strange malady that appears from time to time and threatens his life. However, the author discusses it almost as though it were unimportant. You never do find out what it might have been. Also - he paints Edward Bruce as much more of a military tactician and the battles are less than vividly portrayed. He also makes it very clear that Robert the Bruce was a womanizer who had mistresses slug out all over Scotland and was more than ready to use them for food, money and protection ...along with other things...when and ONLY when it was convenient to him. He supposedly loved only one woman in his life....yeah right. If anything this makes him less than valiant and noble in my opinion and the book would have been better with fewer women falling into his bed at every turn -- history certainly remembers him for deeds far more interesting.

Lastly, the author obviously has a good grasp on languages. However, he uses it sporadically and his timing is bad. The characters can go on for pages with all of their conversations recounted in English for the reader. Then suddenly when a very important speech is made the author writes it in some phonetic form of Scots and it stops ALL of the momentum he has built to that moment. You slow down and try to figure out what the speech even was and then suddenly everyone is speaking English again and the story goes on. However, the author does this not only in Scots, but French and Latin as well. There is no rhyme or reason as to which lines of which conversations must suddenly appear in another language - but I think it was a bad attempt to show off his linguistic skills and that it was NOT an enhancement for the story.

I understand it is his first work of fiction. It's not terrible but it's certainly not a 5 star book. I won't keep my copy - it's in the library donation box now. I also wouldn't recommend it to anyone. If you like the subject matter - give it a whirl but wait for the paperback price. If you don't - this probably won't make you want to read more about Robert Bruce. It's been suggested I try works by Nigel Tranter instead and that's what I intend to do.

While the cover for this book says 'Updated' and is labeled 12th edition, it appears to be a 2002 printing of a 1990 copyrighted texted. It describes the use of GPS briefly and refers to 'when it works, it is okay'. Obviously the comment predates the bombing raids on Bagdad. The description of harbors is little changed from a 1978 printing but having visited some of these harbors in 2004, I found the names, phone numbers and parts of the onshore facilities' descriptions totally out of date. I returned mine...hope you find a more up-to-date reference.

a must have for the serious cruiser, a joy just to read as well.

Maptech is a better quick reference guide and more useful for navigation

A wonderful and entertaining resource book. It is filled not only with reference information for the cruising sailor, but geography, advice, local history and accounts of sailing (mis)adventures.

Well worth reading for anyone who loves the Northeast coastline - whether or not they have ever entered an unfamiliar harbor, short of food and fuel, just ahead of a storm.

Mosen Millan is a wonderful novel about a young man's tragic circumstances during the Spanish Civil War. Thought-provoking and very well written, it plainly and clearly discloses the horrors of this conflict in Europe's history. Not a beach novel, however! Be prepared to break out your Spanish dictionary when attempting to read this novel!

As Denise Levertov is one of my most favorite poets; and as her work was of major importance during her lifetime, the political in it being no small reason for that; and because the question at the core -- "Do poetry and politics mix?" -- is perennial, central, and ultimately unanswerable to the conclusive satisfaction of either side of the debate, this is an important book. ("The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov," by the same editors, to which this can serve as introduction, is an epic intimacy, wholly unselfconscious, and for that reason a treasure of insights not only into the individual letter writers but also into their shared and separate aesthetics.)

The essays themselves are something of a mixed bag, in my view, as is often the case with collections of essays. In several instances, as example, a writer of an essay is so self-involved, and so enraptured with name-dropping and self-rpomotion, that during the reading of such one forgets it is intended to be not about the writer, but about Duncan and Levertov.

Over all, as well, it suffers the usual problem that afflicts literary criticism: Often in the reading it one shrugs and asks, "Who cares?" then returns to reading (in this instance) Levertov's poetry. Yet no harm done, for the occasional biographical information (there is a biography of Levertov in the works), and if one can keep one's patience with that which -- literary criticism -- is by-and-large beside the point.

I enjoyed most of it; and will keep it with my Levertov. But at this point I'd rather the forthcoming biography.

This was the first book by Iris Johansen that I have read. I bought it due to the enthusiastic reviews on the back cover or on the first pages in the book.
I do not know how her other books are, because this book was as bad as they rarely come.
One-dimensional characters, repetitive thoughts/actions (just in case somebody had not got it the first or second time), illogical actions (visitor from Scotland Yard shows up at the private home, not at the police station, and our heroes do not even bother to ask for identification, ......)
I could not develop any sympathies for the protagonists, and frankly, I do not care if they get murdered or not.

I have no idea if the other books by this author are better, but I do not intend to find out.
One is more than enough.
Annoying, irritating, boring.
Sorry!

I was very satisfied with the purchase of this book. The book was in good condition, the price very reasonable, and I received it in just a matter of days.

Thank you.

My mom let me use her hybrid for awhile and she had the audio book for "Blind Alley" The radio was boring so I decided to listen to it.

I see from the other reviews this is the 5th book in a series involving the forensic sculptor Eve Duncan, Atlanta Police Detective Joe Quinn, and their adopted daughter Jane MacGuire.

Enter the crazed serial killer named Aldo who is bent on killing any woman that remotely looks like somebody named Cira who later turns out to have been a 2000 year old actor/concubine noted for her beauty. His obsession makes him carve off their faces in order to destroy the face from the world. In his travels he notices Jayne who appears to be the living image of Cira. His quest is almost over! He found her at last.

Overall, the plot was ok. I could follow along and I could imagine the settings. Others complain about it but I am coming from not having read the previous books. One thing I will mention is the characters don't fall back on the other books so you don't feel you missed anything.

I liked the character Mark Trevor as he came across as a good Anti-Hero. Yet, I was interested in knowing more about him and his sidekick Bartlet.

I will admit I expected a trite situation where a borrowed skeleton from ancient times used to lure Aldo would turn out to be Cira. All through the book the question is asked did she survive? Eve as part of the trap does a reconstruction with the promise of doing the real reconstruction. after dealing with Also. When she finishes the final work, you are simply left with her exclaiming "my god" and that was it. I suspect that was the intention but the author changed her mind and dropped it.

The ending was ok. But it left me unsatiated. I expected more and it stopped.

Bernadette Dunne does the reading and in the beginning she annoyed me with her attempts to give accents to the characters. Not to mention that Jayne and Eve seemed to whine a great deal. However, I was able to tune it out as the story picked up.

I will probably check out her early works and will look for more if Trevor comes back.

There's a psycho killer on the loose who is targeting women who look like a cop's 17-year old adopted daughter. Adding to the emotional complexity is that the cop's wife lost a young daughter, presumed murdered, several years ago. The wife is a talented sculptor who altered her career to provide forensic reconstructions of murder victims. She has a talent that goes beyond technical skill. She's able to commune with the victim's spirit in some way and provide eerily accurate portrayals.

The couple knows their daughter is in grave danger. The young woman is intelligent and independent. This combination of traits helps save her life, but also endangers it.

A string of victims along the way leads to the inevitable showdown involving the cop, the killer, and the daughter.

I enjoyed that this book was exciting, took unexpected twists, and yet the author didn't have to gross me out with excruciating detail of every brutal and sadistic murder. Blind Alley is one of a series featuring the forensic sculptor, but I didn't feel held back by not having read any of the others. The character of the teenage daughter was engaging and apparently there are future books about her.

This is a great crime novel for the idle hours - take it on a trip with you.

I did not like this one as well as the rest in the series. It just did not seem to flow as well.

I looked at the book and found it interesting. When I inserted the CD, I realized it was totally user-unfriendly, it was like go figure how we created this $#%*!!! Some of the files don't work at all !!! This CD has been created not to help a user, but to render him confused. I have been using flash for about 5 years and have owned some other books with much better CDs. This is the worst one. What a waste !

Shouldn't call this book a "Flash MX 2004 Magic" because the most of the code (I'd say 85%) in there are just AS1 (not mention that some of their codes are sloppy) They don't even deal with any special feature comes with MX 2004 at all, like create V2 component. I can say most of the project in there can be done with Flash MX (except the chapter about JSFL project, but for that, you can find a better tutorial online than reading that chapter)

I did not read this book at all, bought it new, glanced thru it within an hour and never touch it again. If you are just a little more than a beginer then this book is right for you. If you are an AS coder, or been playing with Flash since version 5 or MX then forget about this one. If you live in Virginia, contact me, I let you borrow this book for a couple ...years.

I loved this book, still working through some of it but every tutorial I have been through so far have enjoyed and fully understood, very well done, there are many flash books on the market, I own a fair few, but this one has been most beneficial, laid out nicley, easy to understand and you can't complain about the price, great tips and great design, especially liked the introductory lesson by Rob Hoekman, if you want to learn something new and take a step towards the next level make sure you buy this book.

I've been using Flash for years, but I can always get great information from Flash Magic. Where else do you get to see how to build projects created by some of the best developers in the business?

There are 12 projects in this book - all built by experienced developers that use Flash constantly to do amazing things. This book highlights a lot of the new features in Flash MX 2004 and offers people that have mastered the basics a way to step up their skill level. I started reading this series of books with Flash 5 Magic, and it's never failed me. I always learn something new and end up with a cool project.

Read a hundred books if you want, just make sure this is one of them.

The strength of this book is the 12 projects. They are imaginative and use many of the new features of Flash MX 2004. The projects have good graphics and text and video; and the screen shots are works of art. If what you want are ideas this is a perfect book. If you actually want to build these projects yourself, the authors have left a lot out. In particular, there is not a lot of rationale as to why you are doing certain things. That is, unless you know a lot of Flash, the instructions, while easy to follow if you just type the code, will seem bewildering. There needs to be more explanation, of what is behind the code constructs, not just the code itself.
A number of the "final" versions of the project did not work well.

I found this book to be a bit scattered. I constantly found myself flipping to other parts of the book for reference, which was a bit annoying. I found that I didn't finish the book for those reasons.

Don't kill any trees by bothering to buy this book. In fact, don't waste any brain cells by trying to read it either. When I bought this book I was looking for some sensible ways to reduce my impact on the environment as I was finishing my basement. I had already read about easy energy saving measures like better insulation and fluorescent lighting and was looking for a little more in depth knowledge. I certainly didn't get it here. The author advocates wood burning stoves and construction, without taking into consideration the durability and recyclability of other materials and the destruction to forests caused by clearcutting. He does not seem to understand that environmental problems have different solutions in England than they do in California. Worse yet, on several occasions he is just plain wrong. On page 104, while describing photovoltaic cells, he says that "the negative electrons are activated." I was forced to assume that the author was a total flake and that the Union of Concerned Scientists had failed to read this book when they recommended it in their otherwise excellent book, "The consumer's guide to effective environmental choices." Though there is some good information in this book, if you can filter it out from the useless junk, you don't need to read it, and if you can't, get a better book and skip the misinformation in this one.

Jane Smiths review seemed a bit biased. I will agree that this book has different illustrated different approaches in england than in CA. But then again CA at times seems to think they are a different country than the entire US. It seems she didn't review the book for what it was rather than her own personal agenda.

This book can be used to get a basic overview of what it means to take a sustainable approach. THe Author limited its scope to dealing with remedies for existing houses and didn't not focus on new development. Its target audience seemed to be the average Joe.

The author does not get to specific on remedies but at least touches on all of the major issues providing an outline for further research or a guide to know what to look out for.

I would recomend this book to anyone with no backround or understanding of sustainable building looking for an good introduction.

"China Dawn" is a novel that can't decide what story it wants to tell. The author beings with a story set in the present day, then explains the background from before World War 2 where it began, only to have a very predictable ending in the present.

The author spent about 300 pages with details that were extraordinarily unnecessary. He introduced several characters that have nothing to do with the outcome of the final story and left me scratching my head.

The final complaint about this novel I have is the author should avoid using Japanese phrases. He used so many phrases incorrectly that it was almost laughable. It's clear he's learned about 10 words in Japanese, it would just have been nice if he used them correctly.

I give it two stars for its depiction of pre-World War II Shanghai, but beyond that, the author tortured me with about 250-300 pages of detail that, however interesting, were irrelevant.

This book has not arrived yet - The Book Depository promised to send a replacement copy if by March 27 (one week after the expected date of delivery) the book did not arrive, and in spite of my having written to them there has been no response from them.
Please do look into the matter.
The same holds true for the other book (Antonioni) also ordered from The Book Depository -neither book has arrived to date!

Old book, with notable historical value.
It serves how study of how were performed the transmission structures projects and tests.