A. Merritt Books

I really liked this book and I've also read her second one. I can't find out if there is a 3rd book - is there one?
I wish I could do what Megwin does in the book but I wouldn't like some of the things that happen to her. Try this one and then read Green Mantle - the second book. Changeling is also by this author.
Tam.

If you like fantasy, then try this one.
It's about a girl called Megwin, whose special powers gain her entry to the Talarin, the feared College of the Mantles. The story is set in a place called the Five Kingdoms and it's all about how Megwin copes with her powers, her relationships with two kings and her friendship with a fox.
There's battles, magic, humour and just a little romance.
Among her powers, she can talk to living things and I liked the bit with the snail. Using her powers she heals a land torn by war.
Try it.

Only half-remembered today (and almost impossible to see except for a few titles until, at last, they were released on DVD in the "Walt Disney Treasures" series), the Silly Symphonies shorts were at the forefront of Disney's art in the 1930s, the place where his best animators experimented and pushed the field until, finally, he was ready to expand the Silly Symphonies' lavish, dark fairy-tale universe into feature films like Snow White and Pinocchio. As the authors, who wrote the equally groundbreaking Walt in Wonderland about Disney's pre-Mickey career, point out, the series' importance in the 1930s was far more widely recognized, as it won the Oscar for best animated short every single year during the decade-- sometimes with only other Silly Symphonies for competition.

This groundbreaking history sets out the importance of the Silly Symphonies as a laboratory of Disney's art. Usually this is seen in terms of technical achievement-- from the revolutionary marriage of animation and music in the charmingly crude Skeleton Dance, to the introduction of Technicolor in Flowers and Trees, to the sleek use of the multiplane camera for 3-D effects in The Old Mill. But the authors also make the case that it was crucial in the development of Disney's almost preternatural understanding of child psychology; long before Bambi struck toddlers with all the force of King Lear, shorts such as The Flying Mouse and The Ugly Duckling had already mined that territory.

A lengthy essay on the history and importance of the series is followed by an amazing film-by-film history which serves as a perfect companion for adults watching the series today; and the text is liberally illustrated with stills, posters, production drawings and more. This is likely stand for all time as the definitive work on one of the most important, yet neglected, series of films in cinema-- not just animation-- history.

For those of us who have appreciated the great merits of Disney's series of Silly Symphony cartoons, this book is ALMOST a dream come true. For reference purposes, it is hard to imagine that anyone could surpass the astonishing quantity of information provided for each animated short, including detailed production credits (broken down to the specific artists who worked on each scene), release dates, story synopses, and almost anything one could want to know about each of these Disney gems. While some of the more obscure information, such as the identities of concept/inspirational artists and background painters, is not always provided, it is obvious that this book contains as much detail as is contained in the Disney studio files. The book is particular important for anyone who collects Disney animation art from the 1930s, since it is the first comprehensive source that can be used in identifying the various artists who were responsible for some of the best artwork ever produced by the studio.

But....Anyone who is expecting an entertaining book with many nice pictures from the Silly Symphony cartoons will probably be disappointed. While some images from each cartoon are included, the choice of illustrations for inclusion in this otherwise exemplary book is markedly uninspired. For the most part the illustrations are scans from the actual cartoon footage, but in a single instance (More Kittens), original story drawings are used instead. And in one instance (The Moth and the Flame, a cartoon which itself is a brillant example of Disney animation from the very artistic peak of the studio), the single illustration consists of some later image, loosely based on the original artwork of the film, but more closely resembling those watered-down images seen on postage stamps from Caribbean nations. Some of the choices for images, which were presumably intended to be at least somewhat representational of each cartoon as a whole, are also rather puzzling. How many viewers of The Cookie Carnival would choose a scene of the Old-Fashioned Cookies as a high point of the cartoon, either in terms of the narrative, the characters, or the art? But this book was clearly not intended for the coffee table, and illustrations were obviously of secondary concern to the authors.

The introductory essay is interesting, but it reads a bit too much like a college essay. While it is understandable that the authors were looking for some theme by which to tie together 75 disparate animated shorts, one has to wonder whether Walt Disney or any of his staff really considered the psychology of childhood insecurities to any significant degree, or rather, if most of the elements of nightmares and terror were inherent in the source materials. One thing is certain, the Silly Symphonies would have been as bland as most shorts in the Mickey Mouse series absent such elements of evil/insecurity/misunderstanding by one's peers/cannibalism (I'm not kidding, read the essay), or other plot elements. Still, how many viewers of Babes in the Woods have ever considered (or, I should say, SHOULD consider, even now) the abscence of parental figures and of a wholesome home environment for the Hansel and Gretel characters? It is too bad that so many critics of popular media feel compelled to justify the very existence of certain genres on some basis, whether as illustrations of current views in child psychology or otherwise. But the strengths of almost every one of the cartoons in the Silly Symphony series, especially in terms of artistic quality, are so apparent that anyone who goes to the trouble of finding the cartoons (aided by the detailed information in this book as to where they appear on tape and disc) will appreciate most of what Walt Disney and his artists surely intended for them to see.

One final comment that will be of little concern to most . . . but it should be pointed out that the authors credit all of the artwork for the series of Good Housekeeping pages based on Disney shorts, including many of the Silly Symphonies, solely to Tom Wood. While Wood was certainly the major artistic force behind the beautiful watercolor illustrations, two other artists were certainly involved: Hank Porter, who drew all of the illustrations for the Farmyard Symphony page (plus many other pages as well), and Manuel Gonzales, who was almost certainly responsible for drawing a number of pages, including the ones based on Don Donald and The Practical Pig. It is a shame that Gonzales' contributions to Disney publicity art have now been ignored in both of the only two books that deal with Disney Good Housekeeping art to any signficant degree.

Having set that record straight, and despite the foregoing nit picking, I sincerely believe that this book makes a valuable contribution to the history of the Walt Disney studio and should be part of the library of all persons with a serious interest in Disney films and art.

Craig W. Englund

This is a detailed and fair review of what happened in Laos during the Vietnam War and the effect of National policy on separate people

This is a documentary about unsung heros who paid a deal price working for the Americans from the 40s and on. They were being hired to stop communism working with the French in the 40-50s. As the tide of North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam turned, Vang Pao, a former French colonial officier was put in charge of covert operations working for CIA in the little known secret war in Laos. The book went into details on how much sacrifice the Hmong people made to please Americans.
They gave up just about everything to wage an American war and learned their American sponsors who abandoned them after 1975. Similar to CIA's involvement in Cuba the Hmong fighters who were abandoned had to flee their country. This time they had to accept either slughter or content with refugee camp life in Thailand. The author, Jane Hamilton-Merritt, produced horror pictures and sketches of the effect of chemical-biological toxins on the people and the atrocities committed by the communists. Through some unorganized chapters Jane lost her enthusium and called it quits up to 1992. This may be the weakest part of the fine documentary.

As more and more Hmong immigrants are leaving the refugee camps and re-settled in many parts of the world, we need to understand their heritage and believes. Unlike the Indo-chinese refugees coming into the US who are mostly city dwellers, the Hmong have for 4,000 years able to attain a certain degree of identity/freedom. This is in a way like the Native Americans who do not wish to be fully assimilated. We need to respect and help the Hmong people by not imposing the same attitude as we have done on other immigrants. We also need to understand the cultural and habits of those who fought so hard for the Americans. Unlike other enthnic cultures, this is a hard to find book on the war history of Hmong people in Laos.

this book has some truth...but woopti doo... anyone can research...but until you were actually there...you'll never know.
If you are Hmong and you read hamiltons book and you beleive all that is said, you need help....HA just kidding... but you do need to go to a HMONG SOURCE, someone that was there, fighting in the war, and leading the Hmong people to freedom, to find out what really happened, not rely on someone who wants to make a buck off our culture. Please do not think i'm trying to sound better than anyone, all i'm saying is that the world deserves to know the truth about the Hmongs and how MAJORLY significant we were to the "war". We have been sworn in as an ethnic group recently, but now we also need to map the Hmong into American History for all to learn about. This is not about Hmong pride, this is about education...Again, this book has some truth... but...stay tuned and the truth will soon be out.

THE BOOK "TRAGIC MOUNTAINS" GIVES ME AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE HISTORY IN THE PAST. ALSO, A REASON WHY HMONG WERE VERY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN THE SHADOWS BECAUSE THEY HAD MADE LOAS A HISTORY BY JOINED WITH THE AMERICANS TO FOUGHT AGANIST COMMUNIST. IT INSPIRED ME IN MANY WAYS WHICH I CAN NOT EXPLAIN BUT WITH TEARS AND FEARS. NOW THAT THE HISTORY IS TOLD IN THE BOOK "TRAGIC MOUNTAINS," I FELT THAT IT IS MY DESTINATION TO MAKE A DIFFERANCE IN AMERICA. "BY MAKING A DIFFERANCE IN AMERICA, IT WILL BECAME PART OF OUR HISTORY," SAID NELSON NAGAI.

As will be established by many other reviewers, there ARE some significant points of contention, particularly regarding the Yellow Rain element of the book and the occasional heavy-handed romanticizing of the Hmong. But these are not enough to totally undermine the value of the book.

By and large, it really tells a deeply engaging story about the Hmong and should be considered one of the essential reads on the matter.

Considering the large lack of material on the Hmong prior to this book, it is an important step.

One might want to compare it to Backfire/Shooting At the Moon by Warner in particular, or even The Ravens / Air America by Robbins. Another good text to have on hand is Sky Is Falling by Morrisson.

We should all still be waiting for the great Hmong account of the war in Laos from their own perspective however. That should make fascinating reading.

Troung Nhu Tang was a true freedom fighter to liberate Vietnam from colonial slavery and unite Vietnam for Vietnamese. As an integral part of the North Vietnam political cadres, he gives a unique perspective into the human motives, internal struggles, and bitter resolution to the war. Dismayed at the heavy-handed approach of the Viet Cong, the economic incompetence and the eventual communist enslavement of Vietnam, Mr. Tang defects to the West. If you want to know why America lost the war and the thinking of the VC and NVN, read this book.

This is more than an inside story of the Vietcong, it is a personal account of one young man's journey through political optimism to revolutionary zeal to political disillusionment. It is a moving personal tale of the cost paid by so many for what their strongly-held convictions and then the realization that what they fought to win was worse than what they defeated. It is the personal side of revolution and the demise of so many revolutionaries once the struggle is over. A very moving account of the power of an idea and its demands on the lives of those it touches.

Basically this is a personal account of a priviledged Saigon family member who joins the Viet Cong and then becomes very disillusioned with the 'final victory'. While I enjoyed reading parts of this book, most of it reads like a personal diary with many names and characters who few even know.

As a very educated man, the author did not seem to understand that politically aggressive countries like the Soviet Union, the US, China, and even North Viet Nam need to control. So when the South Viet Nam government fell after the US left, North Viet Nam and the Soviet Union swept right into power. How could anyone not see this coming who actually lived most of his life there and dealt with these governments almost daily?

The author also had lived a very comfortable life in Paris for years as a student and later as a Viet Cong official. Later he would also make official visits to Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union getting a good view of their poverty and bread lines. I was amazed that after he saw the contrast between communist countries and capitalistic countries he could ever embrace a communist ideology for his own country. He doesn't really explain his polictical expectations for Viet Nam.

The book describes the Viet Nam struggle from a personal view but never really measures the sacrifice of millions from many countries. The book talks about the 'glorious' meetings in the jungle and the words of 'Uncle Ho' in their hearts but it never discusses the 22,000 buried alive in the Cu Chi Tunnels, or the hundreds of thousands killed during B-52 attacks along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, or the millions dead in the Killing Fields of Cambodia, etc, etc. The irony of this war is that In the end, market forces are driving Viet Nam to a market-based economy where the communist government becomes more irrelevant every day. Capitalism was the enemy for so long and now it is consuming their country. Maybe the author should update his book because now the future is starting to look very bright for Viet Nam!

As a Vietnam veteran who survived the Tet Offensive, I was deeply moved to read about the war from the "other" side. Mr. Truong Nhu Tang describes in depth how dedicated the Vietcong leaders were. They were "nationalists" who were intent on saving their country from politicians whom they perceived to be corrupt elitists. After reading his description of life in the jungle it is a wonder any of them survived the hardships of such an existence. The evolution of the Ho Chi Minh Trail was fascinating. I was amazed at The dedication of the workers who were responsible for keeping the trail open...bomb craters from night bombing runs were either filled or detoured around.

I gladly award this book a 4-star rating. The author expresses himself well, and certainly has a lot to say about Vietnam's military struggle. He details Vietnam's fight against (1) the French; (2) the U.S.; and (3) North Vietnam and their Soviet supporters.

What's missing is a more gritty description of guerilla warfare. As I was reading this I wrote in the column "So who invented the perkinje pit?", and "How effective were the coca-cola cans you guys turned into bombs?" and "How did you convince housewives to become snipers and kill people?" There is nothing like that here. According to the author the Viet Cong were one big, happy family that had fun together when they weren't being tragically bombed by American B-52s.

Tang's description of Vietnamese politics is even a bit sketchy. He talks quite a bit about Ho Chi Minh's beliefs in "independence," and what a humble, sweet guy "Uncle Ho" was. He never says what Ho's beliefs about guerilla warfare were. Really, how did this "Sweet guy" resolve to have his people put on black pajamas and become killers?

With his high and mighty position in the Viet Cong administration, Tang would have known where the V.C.'s supplies were coming from. He mentions the Ho Chi Minh trail, but nothing about who gave all those poor vietnamese the gear they used. He says that in 1975 the South Vietnamese army (enemies of the Viet Cong) were going to be "outgunned." I remember writing in the column "WHERE'D YOU GET THE GUNS, TANG?"

Basically, this is a very good book. It is NOT a definitive account of guerilla warfare, however.

The dictionary is helpful if the words you are looking for are listed. I understand that to have a dictionary of every version of the old english language is not feasible but why list a word with a "see [such and such a word]" if the word you are trying to see is not listed?

the book arrived in perfect condition from the seller. There are a few organizational issues that are easily resolved (the placement of words starting in eth, etc). not all words and meanings are there, so if you have a glossary for a text you're working on in practice, use it in coordination.

This dictionary comes in handy for looking up that word in your Old English readings. The first copyright is over a hundred years old and it is still being reprinted and at such an accessible and reasonable price. Bravo to the author, J. R. Clark-Hall!

I haven't anything to add to these reviews, except to offer some clarification on this dictionary's exclusive use of "eth" (ð) and never "thorn" (þ). Several reviewers have complained about this as a defect in the dictionary, so it is worth pointing out that in Old English the eth and thorn characters are used interchangeably. The phonetic quality of each is determined not by the character used, but by its placement in the word. For instance, at the beginning or end of a word, it is voiceless, but it is voiced when falling between other voiced sounds. (Here the other reviewers were, perhaps, confusing things with Old Norse, in which eth does always = voiced "th," and thorn = its voiceless counterpart.)

Now, one may say that the dictionary editors might have been more charitable by standardizing the eth and thorn characters, one each for voiced and voiceless "th" (as some editors do) to aid in pronunciation, and that would be a fair statement; on the other hand, it would be equally fair to assert that students of (or even dabblers in) Old English are expected to be able to tell the difference without the editors' help. In any case, it is highly erroneous to say (as one reviewer did) that this dictionary "screws up" the usage of thorn and eth.

Originally published in 1894, revised in 1916, and enlarged in 1931,
this dictionary saw its fourth edition in 1960, which is reprinted here.
This reprint will surely be of great value for in-depth studies
of Anglo-Saxon by readers who have already got some introduction
to the language. It contains a wealth of lexical materials, part of
which is not so easily accessible from other sources. I have given it
only four stars because it lacks some important essentials of a
high standard dictionary: Compound and derived words are hardly
analyzed, grammatical information is minimal, there is no hint to
pronunciation, and there is no English - Anglo-Saxon index. Although
as a rule there is a clear rendering into Modern English, one will
also note that some words are only translated into Latin. So I see
the dictionary as a very valuable source of knowledge about Anglo-Saxon,
but difficult to use without prior introduction into basic facts of the
language.

As a baby boomer, I found this book exceptionally insightful and grounded in real world research. Since I manage many GenXers, every page turning example jolted my thinking. I now have a better understanding of how to attract and retain the GenX employee. Thanks, Bruce Tulgan for the wake-up call!

I am a "member" of Generation X. I was very optimistic about reading this book, but after reading the first half I am now extremely embarrassed to make that statement. What a frustrating book! I found myself rolling my eyes and groaning in disgust as I read how Generation X is picked on by the evil (and obviously clueless) Baby Boomers. A consistent underlying message in this book was "Xers will do a good job as long as we get what we want, when we want it, and how we want it, otherwise we just won't bother to make the effort because obviously we aren't appreciated. I'm sorry, Bruce, but the Xers needs for autonomy, credit for the results they produce, opportunities for creative expression, and the ability to learn and grow (to list only a few examples) is something all professionals need to flourish. I don't think it really matters what year we are born. Your constant whining that "Nobody understands us!" is insulting to Xers that are able to work and adapt within an environment that encompasses three almost four generations. If Xers are so adaptable and we are so great at solving problems on our own why the need for this book? If Xers are so creative and innovative won't we figure out a way to work within the current market and still be able to "think outside the box?" Bruce, this book is over 200 pages of you tooting your own horn and trying to convince us that you have stumbled upon a revolutionary method of management. I laughed out loud when I read your statement that "you were struck by the fact that more senior lawyers in your firm (your first job after law school and the bar exam) didn't have a clue about how to manage people your age." And you wonder where people get the idea that Generation X is arrogant. Maybe that's just what they told you.

While I believe Tulgan spends too much time bashing baby boomers, his assessment of how to market to generation x is quite good. When he focuses on the needs of this market segment and what it wants, there are good insights into how to manage them in the workplace.

I have a habit of highlighting as I read, and this book has more yellow in it than any of my others! As an Xer (former military officer and now clergy), I saw myself on just about every page. Tulgan offers many excellent insights into the formation of our generation and how we are best approached. He also offers some truths that are true for GenX, but not necessarily unique to GenX. The first half of my book has more yellow in it than the last half, in which Tulgan begins to restate himself. Nevertheless, this book is worth the price of admission and is a must read for all managers.

I am about as much of a GenXer as can possibly be being born in 1970. For my entire life I saw a great deal of things as "off key", such as the broken homes, the druggies, and being mistreated by many of the Boomers in the workplace. This book proved to me that it was not just my little world, but an actual issue. Bruce disarms the sterotypes of GenXers extremely well. This is a must read for anyone, Xer or Boomer, to successfully manage the most driven and innovative generation in American history.

W.A. Criswell is by far one of the clearest teachers of the Bible. I use the commentary in this Study Bible as a resource to teach and preach. If you are looking for a clear study Bible, this is the one you should purchase. Criswell College is named after W.A. Criswell and home of the Pasche Institute of Jewish Studies. His teachings are clear and easy to understand.

1) They almost never inspire "study" - we Americans are laaa-zeee. We would rather have someone else do our thinking for us. 2) Their "notes" are too often propaganda rather than exegesis - please learn the difference and always keep this distinction before you. 3) Any Bible that has a subtitle is, by definition, suggesting that this edition is better than the rest - do you see why I would say that? 4) Too often "Study" Bibles are simply devices for selling more paper and ink - the same applies to "new" translations.

If you want to celebrate your heritage, good for you. But be aware of this - if you are a Christian your heritage is neither in your church's denomination nor even in your church's pedigree. Our heritage is in Christ and in Him alone. We need to stop thinking in terms of "It's all about me" (e.g. I'm a Baptist / Presbyterian / Episcopalian,etc.) and start focusing on the excellencies of God in Christ. (Perhaps you might want to read Packer's KNOWING GOD.) It's not about "me", it's all about Him

... I'm just along for the ride.

P.S. for some additional historical issues see the review titled "Errant Notes to the Inerrant Word, October 24, 2006". Interesting, if true.

This study Bible is a fantastic resource for any and every Baptist believer! When you open the cover, and see a forward by Billy Graham, you know it is going to be good, and when you look at the list of contributors and see W.A. Criswell and John MacArthur, you know it is going to be great!

Each Bible book starts out with an in-depth introduction that discusses such things author, date and theme, then has a nice outline, and then follows with the Biblical text (New King James Version) with copious and highly informative annotations at the bottom of the page. At the end of the book are several Bible study articles, maps, and a nice concordance.

Now, my description above is not really exhaustive. There is so much in this great book that I could probably write a small book just describing it! So, suffice it to say that this is a great study Bible, one that is sure to please any Baptist believer. I love this great study Bible, and give it my highest recommendations!

This study Bible adds errant notes to the inerrant Word of God. It represents the definitive position of a theology (dispensationalism) that will be so changed in the next few decades that it will be unrecognizable from its present form. Those who believe that dispensationalism is Baptist theology don't know their Baptist history. Gill, Fuller, Boyce, Dagg, Carroll, Hovey were all covenant, calvinistic theologians. The precursors to modern Baptists who hold to dispensationalism were either holiness folks like A.J. Gordon, or radical sepratists like William B. Riley. This study Bible is no more representative of Southern Baptists than the Ryrie Study Bible. Go buy the Open Bible, a much better choice.

This Bible is the direct descendent of W. A. Criswell's original 1979 "Criswell Study Bible", revised by his chief protegé, Dr. Paige Patterson, and a who's-who of Southern Baptist pastors and theologans. If you are interested in exploring the full depth of Southern Baptist theology, this is the Bible to have.

Dr. Criswell was the long-time pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas and one of the bulwarks against the influx of liberalism into the SBC, and one of its intellectual giants. Dr. Patterson, who is now the President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, was one of the principals of the conservative movement within the Convention. Together, they have produced a study Bible that represents the essence of classical Baptist theology, represented in the copious amount of study notes that appear throughout the text. I have read every page and was greatly enriched from the experience.

Its content is much more in-depth than appears in the "Life Application Bible" and IMO is a little more in-depth that even the "MacArthur Study Bible". A thorough reading will be richly rewarded, but be prepared to spend a lot of time looking up cross-references (buying the thumb-indexed edition will help here!). In many places, particular words are explained with references to the original languages, or when symbolism is used, it is thoroughly explained.

The main body of this Bible is the standard Nelson Reference Bible (taken pretty much verbatim, including the typeface). Commentary on various verses and passages appear at the bottom of each page. A introduction and outline precede each book, and there are charts and diagrams interspersed as well.

The only strike against this Bible is it has typical (sub-par) Nelson construction. It is best used in your library than in your pew as it may not stand up to the rigors of use over time. This edition begs for the Nelson Signature Series treatment as that line of Bibles are superb.

I highly recommend this Bible to any serious Bible student! It would be the perfect companion to the "Reformation Study Bible" as these represent the 2 remaining theologies that still hold true to the historicity, authority, and accuracy of the inspired Word of God.

It is the turn of the twentieth century and science promises to explain many of the wonders of the world. Walter T. Goodwin is an eminent scientist who has just finished a field study of the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. At Port Moresby, in Papua New Guinea, he boards a ship headed for Melbourne, in Australia. From there he intends to travel further to his home in New York. Having boarded the ship he finds to his surprise that his old friend Dr. David Throckmartin is also a passenger. But Throckmartin seems strangely distant and changed. His face wears an expression of both extreme ecstasy and horror weirdly co-existing. Throckmartin tells Goodwin that he has discovered the ruins of an extremely ancient city on an island of the coast of Papua. In these ruins he discovered a strange door, which led to an underground pool. From this pool, during the rising of the full moon, an apparently supernatural creature emerges. This creature steals away people, turning them into zombie like creatures who then disappear underground never to be seen again. Throckmartin's wife Edith has been taken as well as two other members of the scientific party. Throckmatin, however, has a plan to travel to Melbourne, collect some necessary scientific equipment and return to the 'moon pool' to rescue his wife. All this of course seems too much to believe, but then the 'creature', the "Dweller", arrives and steals away Throckmartin before Goodwin's very eyes. Goodwin decides the only thing he can do is to try to compete Throckmartin's rescue plan.

Just about everything in this story is given a 'scientific' explanation by Goodwin, the die-hard-rationalist narrator of the tale. The story is thus technically science fiction, however, these 'explanations', at least to the modern reader's mind, seem so thin that the tale in fact has the feel of fantasy. Merritt seems particularly taken with the then new field of nuclear physics and this gives the story interesting depth. Merritt is aware of the possibility of nuclear science promising great benefit, but also great harm. The luminous "Dweller" is thus a predecessor of Godzilla, the radioactive movie monster that destroyed Tokyo, though Merritt, of course, wrote well before the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped.

Of course this book, like all others, takes its place in the history of literature and owes some of its details to earlier novels. The phosphorescent walls of an underground kingdom is highly reminiscent of Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864). The discovery of a lost civilization which is ruled by a totally amoral, iron willed woman is straight from Rider Haggard's She (Oxford World's Classics) (1887).

I must warn that this is not an easy book to read because of the complex writing style. Merritt uses long and winding sentences that are difficult to keep track of. I found myself sometimes going back and rereading what I had just read to understand it. Also Merritt at times uses a super-profusion of adjectives, most of which are little used in common language. I at first ran to the dictionary, but soon gave up, letting the worlds roll over me in a strange, hypnotic, half-understood, poetic spell that added to the weird atmosphere of the book.

I don't mean to be overcritical of the book. is in fact a rip-roaring read full of high adventure. Merritt certainly manages to keep you turning the pages. The ending is great, keeping you on the edge to the last page. No anticlimaxes here.

A loose association of adventurers penetrates the lost kingdom that lies far beneath a South Pacific island, where opposing religious factions teeter on the brink of war and a being of living light threatens to conquer the surface world.

Abraham Merritt's verbose and adjective-heavy prose varies in its effectiveness. At times, he does such a good job of describing settings that they appear effortlessly in the mind's eye. This is particularly true of the first part of the novel, which is set on and around the island of Ponape. On the other hand, once our heroes descend into the bowels of the earth, things become rather murky. Even after paragraph after paragraph devoted to depictions of his otherworldly settings, I was more often than not mystified as to their physical layouts and it made some of the action confusing.

The pacing is problematic as well. The first part of the novel is riveting and mysterious, so much so that I thought this would be a 5-star book. The story slowed down considerably once the action moved underground, with those confusing descriptions and too much uninteresting characterization. I was particularly annoyed by the character of Larry O'Keefe, a stalwart pilot whose superstitious Irish nature is way overblown. However, things pick up considerably at the end, with an exciting, apocalyptic climax that features some extraordinary imagery.

One of the most popular science-fiction writers in the early 1900s, Merritt had the reputation of the Lord of Fantasy. "The Moon Pool" evidences the "baroque complexities that Merritt introduced into his fairly standard plots through his use of elaborately contrived creatures, technologies, and settings," as the editor Levy remarks in his Introduction. The Dweller reawakened on the island of Ponape where an ancient civilization once existed by a Dr. David Throckmartin and his group of scientist explorers is a vampire seeking new souls to devour. Merritt's fantasy about the Manichean struggle between good and evil is colored by his interest in the mystic Madame Blavatsky. Looked on unfavorably by some leading critics of the time, Merritt never gained much notice outside of the field of science fiction. For later generations, his ornate style limited his appeal. But he holds considerable historical interest in this genre of popular literature for opening it up to diverse elements such as developments in the sciences of physics and biology, figures from folk literature, literary references of all types (e. g., Celtic literature), and philosophical and religious ideas and themes like Blavatsky's mysticism which were all a part of his eclectic erudition. One sees such effects not only in today's fantasy literature, but also the popular fantasy movies.

A. Merritt's masterful first novel, "The Moon Pool," originally appeared in the magazine "All-Story Weekly," as a short story entitled "The Moon Pool," in 1918. Its full-length sequel, "The Conquest of the Moon Pool," followed in that pub the following year. The first book publication, later in 1919, combined these two works into a unified whole, and the result is an astonishing piece of fantastic fiction. And it would seem that Orson Welles' radio rendition of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" on 10/30/38 was not the first piece of fantasy to dupe the public, either. Readers of "The Moon Pool" in 1918 were so convinced of the book's veracity that they wrote to "All-Story Weekly" wanting more information. I can easily understand their confusion, as this novel is told in a very realistic style, purportedly from notes that the famous botanist Dr. Walter Goodwin had submitted to the International Association of Science. Goodwin had been en route from Port Moresby, New Guinea to Melbourne when he encountered an old associate, Dr. Throckmartin, who told him a remarkable story. It seems that Throckmartin's entire scientific party had been abducted by a being of light, while they were exploring the (actual) Nan-Matal ruins off Panape, in the Caroline Islands. Throckmartin himself is abducted before Goodwin's eyes, leading to Goodwin's exploration of those same ruins. Throckmartin's tale is eerie and quite suspenseful; indeed, those first 30 pages of the book are so very intense that the reader will be amazed to realize that there's another 250 pages in this novel yet to go! En route to Panape to effect his investigation, Goodwin, through a series of somewhat forced coincidences, encounters a Norwegian captain whose family had been abducted by the strange light entity; a visionary, somewhat fey, Irish fighter pilot; and a duplicitous Russian (German in the original magazine version!) scientist, all of whom accompany him on his adventures. And this is just the introductory setup in what turns out to be a long, involving, at times hallucinatory, and all in all quite remarkable tale. Underground civilizations, invisibility cloaks, giant jellyfish, disintegrating beams, good and evil priestesses, battles involving thousands, frogmen, shell-shaped flying cars...Merritt's imagination seems to be bursting loose in this, his first work. Much has been said regarding the fact that Merritt, a newspaperman for the most part (for many years on "The American Weekly"), could switch so easily from dry journalese to the florid, purple prose that soon became his trademark. This book would not be what it is without his dense, adjective-heavy, hyperimaginative prose, with its wide range of reference and yearning lyricism. Just take this example, in which the author describes the flora of the underground world that Goodwin & Co. discover:
"...moss veils like banners of a marching host of Titans; pennons and bannerets of the sunset; gonfalons of the Jinn; webs of faery; oriflammes of elfland! Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of pedicles--slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in ancient Carthaginian groves--and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones, caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and unnameable--shapes delicate and lovely! They hung high poised, nodding and swaying--like goblins hovering over Titania's court; cacophony of Cathay accenting the "Flower Maiden" music of "Parsifal"; bizarrerie of the angled, fantastic beings that people the Javan pantheon watching a bacchanal of houris in Mohammed's paradise!"
Despite the reader's desire to flip through the pages breathlessly to see what happens next, prose such as this almost demands a more leisurely pace. I found myself rereading many such passages, just reveling in Merritt's ability to conjure up dreamlike word pictures. But strangely enough, although he is extraordinarily good with these descriptions, sometimes Merritt overreaches himself, and then his attempts to picture things fall flat. I defy any reader to fully visualize Goodwin & Co.'s means of descent into the Murian underworld, for instance, or the geography of the bridge leading to the Portal. But for the most part, Merritt's prose is extremely effective at conveying a sense of alien wonder, and "The Moon Pool" does indeed live up to its reputation as a fantasy classic. I recommend it wholeheartedly to all amazon.com readers.

This is a fascinating novel. Merritt has a gift for setting. You actually feel like you are in a South Pacific ocean, or standing in front of the moon pool. This book grabs you and suck you into the setting. You have the feeling of gloom and wonder as you enter the Moon Pool for yourself.

However, Merritt's gift for setting is also the books main drawback. His prose gets wordy and adjective-heavy to the point of being absolutely unreadable. I kept rung back to Strunk and White: "Omit needless words," "Be clear," "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place," and "Avoid the use of qualifiers."

I cant tell you how many times I read "coruscations," a word that refers to metallic sparkles and glitters. It is also the noun form of "Coruscant," of George Lucas fame.

It is an obscure word, but it blunts the prose's effectiveness and story-flow if you have to stop reading and get a dictionary to figure out what's going on.

Once again, Strunk and White:

"Avoid fancy words. Avoid the elaborate, the pretentious, the coy, and the cute. Do not be tempted by a twenty-dollar word when there is a ten-center handy, ready and able. Anglo-Saxon is a livelier tongue than Latin, so use Anglo Saxon words."

Amen!

*

Aside from being thoroughly unreadable, this novel fascinates me. The setting is supernal, and I felt something move in the dept of my soul as I read it. To be sure, it is pure pulp, but pulp is just a corruption of true myth. It seemed to be a return to the underwater cave of Grendel's mother in "Beowulf."

Pits strike fear in the core of our being. That is why Luca uses them so much in his films for the death of villain. This same archetype works in this novel. Once you get past the awkward prose, you find a very interesting story.

I hope someday they adapt this to film.

Serious pulp, written by a man who preferred to be known as "A" instead of "Abraham" Merritt. It's one of those adventure stories that involves vaguely supernatural elements that are never quite all they're cracked up to be: in Merritt's novel, the heavy is a criminal mastermind of unknown origin who claims to be none other than Satan himself (if that's so, why does he need to eat, sleep and brush his teeth like the rest of us?). A wisecracking tough-guy adventurer (not unlike an urban Indiana Jones) gets caught up in his net and risks his very life to free a beautiful woman held in Satan's thrall. The big gimmick here is that the bad guy's victims are forced to walk up a mechanized staircase (with rotating steps), and if they place a foot incorrectly they're put to an ignominious end. Hugely popular in its day, the story was filmed at least once during the later silent era--I've never seen as much as a still photo from the movie, so I can only assume that it's been lost to the ages.

I read this one years ago, and I mean years ago, and it has sort of stuck with me. I recently pulled in from our storage area (barn) and gave it a reread. I see why it has been lurking in the back of my mind all these years. Now to be sure, I do love pulp fiction and pulp fantasy, I make no apologies for that. The reading is fast and the reading, to my taste is fun. This is one of the better of the mass. Simply put, it is the story of a man who meet Satan and plays a game against him on his, Satan's, own ground. No spoiler here. The pace of the story is fast, the story telling great, and the imagination of the author is without equal. This is one of those books that you will set down with and not put down until the last page is finished. Recommend this one highly.

Simply put, this is the most exciting adventure story that I ever read. One of the other reviews said that it would make a good Indiana Jones movie and it definetly would. I wont go into the plot as the other reviews outlined it pretty well. I will only add that I had to track down this book several times as I lent it out and would never get it back as the lendee's lent it to someone else. Great escapist literature.

Abraham Merritt was one of the few good writers of the pulp era, and this novel is one of the few classics. It is not great literature by any means, but as far as escapism goes, one can't do better than this. Who can resist a plot where famous people are kidnapped and forced to gamble for their souls by a menacing satanic figure? In the right hands, this would make a great movie in the Indiana Jones vein.

Readers of Abraham Merritt's first four novels--"The Moon Pool," "The Metal Monster," "The Face in the Abyss" and "The Ship of Ishtar"--may feel a little surprised as they get into his fifth, "Seven Footprints to Satan." Whereas those earlier fantasy masterpieces featured exotic locales such as the Pacific islands, the Himalayas and Peru; extravagant purple prose, dense with hyperadjectival descriptions; and living light creatures, metallic sentient cubes, a lost semireptilian race and battling gods, "Footprints" takes place, for the most part, in good ol' New York City and its suburbs, and tells an almost realistic tale of kidnapping and crime in direct, almost blunt prose. Indeed, although "Footprints" first appeared in "Argosy" magazine in 1927, and in book form the following year, it almost reads as if it had come from the pages of one of the crime pulps, such as "Black Mask" or "Crack Detective Stories." In this fast-moving tale, we meet James Kirkham, an adventurer/explorer (and, with a name like that, future candidate for Star Fleet Academy!) who is kidnapped off the streets of downtown Manhattan by the minions of Satan, a crime lord/supervillain/evil genius. Kirkham is forced to play a game in Satan's lair, during which he is made to tread on seven glowing footprints, four of which are "fortunate" and three "unfortunate." Depending on the steps he lands on, he will either be killed, serve Satan for a year, be given a fantastic fortune, etc. I am not giving away too much by saying that Kirkham winds up a bond servant to Satan, and is compelled to commit various fantastic crimes while in his service. He is housed in Satan's mazelike chateau with dozens of others, and falls in love with a fellow prisoner, Eve. (I suppose having Kirkham's first name be "Adam" would have been forcing things a bit!)
Grotesque in appearance, vast of intellect, profound lover of beauty, and sadistic in the extreme, Satan makes for one terrific character. With his strain of Chinese background, he is reminiscent of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, but also of the supervillains of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. Indeed, for much of the novel, it is unclear whether Satan is or isn't the actual article; Old Scratch himself. The scenes in which he is present are quite riveting. Merritt keeps things barely on this side of reality; nothing that transpires in the book--the museum theft, the slaves kept in bondage by the mind-altering kehft drug, the worldwide criminal organization, the high-seas piracy--is beyond the realm of credibility. And, suiting style to story, Merritt, as I mentioned up top, writes in spare, wonderfully controlled, crime-pulp prose. Thus, we get a line such as "I shot from the floor, and ...drilled [him] through the head." The dropping of the aforementioned purple prose makes the book seem lean and streamlined; it really does move, and keeps the reader turning the pages. The finale of the book is thrilling in the extreme, and concludes most satisfactorily. I have read that "Footprints" was turned into a 1928 film starring Thelma Todd as Eve, but from the plot synopses on imdb.com, it would seem that this film is a very loose adaptation, at best. I'd love to see it one day, just for comparative purposes, but can't imagine it equalling the suspense and excitement of the book. "Footprints" may have been a change in direction for A. Merritt, but it still makes for marvelous entertainment.

This is a good book, but I would not recommend for a beginner. The dicot' key is thorough, but as a new comer to identifying aquatic inverts it was a bit overwhelming. It has not been the easiest key I have used in my studies. My peers more adept in aquatic inverts were more at ease with the book.

Unfortunately, Merritt, Cummins and Berg did not pay close enough attention to the details of this 4th edition. There are numerous mistakes and revisions that are not correct. They lifted whole sections from the 3rd edition and put them into new pages without changing the page numbers the keys direct you to. The Coleoptera section has too many changes and uses outdated or incorrect terminology. The best part is the new color photos at the beginning, even though they were not used in the keys themselves. Unfortunately there are mistakes in the labeling of some of the photos. Maybe this edition was put out too soon. Hopefully a correction edition will come out soon.

The 4th edition of an Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America is a great upgrade from the 3rd edition. There is nothing else out there that compares to this book. That being said, there are a number of errors in this book. There are couplets that take you to the wrong place. It is especially prevalent in the Hemiptera family key where it sends you to the Odonata section for the genus keys. It seems like the section was lifted from the 3rd edition and pasted in this one without updated the page numbers. All in all a great book, just needed a better review before being released.

This is the one book for every aquatic insect taxonomist. Any book like this needs constant updating and the editors do this very well. There is no other taxonomic document as comprehensive as this one for North American Insects.The drawings are a real help in the identification of aquatic insects.

I am a fly fisherman who purchased this title to learn more about the aquatic insects in streams and lakes. I was very happy with the drawings (plates) in this book, but they and the text are a little above (graduate school level?) what most fly fishermen are looking for. The drawings are of insect parts, not the entire insect in most cases! What is helpful is the detailed description of the life of each insect, and what its behavior is and where it would be found in Lentic (lakes) or Loctic (streams) bodies of water. Before purchasing this detailed study of entomology, fly fishers should first read more practical titles such as "Caddisflies" by Gary Lafontaine, "Mayflies - Top to Bottom" by Shane Stalcup, or/and "Matching Mayflies" by Dave Hughes. The great thing about Aquatic Insects Of North America is that in this one text, it covers completely all of the insects fly fishermen will need to know...just put on your PHD hat before reading it. It is spiral bound and well indexed by families!