Robert Stone Books

This review speaks only for the book's format and NOT for the accuracy of its information.
Good Points
· Very complete. Stretches from Monterey to Carpenteria and covers many coastal hikes missing in other guides
· Easily understood writing style that gives the high points for each trail
· Two-dimensional map illustration for each trail. Appears to be accurate and to scale
· Current (based on ground-checking three listed trails and comparison to other guides for the area)
Weak Points
· Format. Each trail has exactly two pages for narrative and map. I have the feeling that this restricts what the author could have added to the trail narrative
· No topo info or trail profile. Anyone who has no trouble reading topo maps will find the illustrations in this guide limiting. Although the author includes the elevation gain for each trail, this is insufficient for the reader to determine just how tough any trail may be
· Very limited scope inland. "Coast" is in the title and "coast" is what is meant. You won't find much info for trails in Monterey county that have trailheads on the coast but extend inland
· No rating scheme. The author makes no attempt to rate any single hike more scenic or more difficult than any other hike
· No naturalist guide. This book is strictly for trail info
· No GPS waypoint info. Many of us now have handheld GPS receivers and want waypoints for trailheads, trail intersections, and scenic points as a minimum requirement
Summary: Sticking to its title, this book is a complete listing of coastal day hikes from Monterey to Carpenteria. Topo and GPS users or naturalist hikers will need additional resources beyond this book

The book, Exploring Stone Walls, A Field Guide to New England's Stone Walls by Robert Thorson is split up into eleven detailed chapters. From there it is distributed into three separate sections. The first section is divided into four chapters. Thorson mainly talks about how there are many different types of life in and or around a stone wall. Many different types of organisms live here including the smallest life forms such as lichens and bacteria to large mammals such as dogs and cats. Although Thorson doesn't give much of an overview about this section, it is highly detailed fact-wise. I found this quite interesting because even if you are not an in-depth stonewall observer, than you can still have an enjoyable time watching them if you also have other interests such as ecology or if you're a naturalist. During the course of this book, there was one small segment about how he talked about artificial stone being very abundant throughout New England. I feel like this had little reference to the rest of the topics that Thorson was explaining. But there was an extremely well-developed chapter that I felt helped me overcome the very puzzling question of "How do you know whether to classify stone as a wall or a pile?" Very challenging question. Or is it? There is a simple answer to this problem. If the wall is anything less than four times long than it is wide it is a pile and vice-versa. In chapter eight of the book there is a well thought of segment about how to determine a certain wall's age. If you like to have history tied in with reading than you'll like this book. I didn't enjoy the chapter about the terrain because it was too detailed and it barely even talked about the walls. But his best chapter was chapter eleven, where he described some of his personal favorite stone walls to visit. This is even more interesting if you love to travel and explore. Overall, Thorson is a very good author and many people will benefit reading this book.

As a geologist, I was looking for a book that (1)contained geologic information/knowledge that I would relate to and (2) was a good mystery ride. This book partially satisfied number 1, but sadly missed number 2. More importantly, it read rather slow and much like a travel log ("start here, drive X miles, turn there, stop here, change to road there, etc.). The basic geologic premise (diamonds in a geologic area not prospected for diamonds, during the pre-oil heyday, in the beautiful west) is good. The basic geology story and the way in which the details of geologic study are conveyed are good. The problem is that there is a weak story of mystery. No real drama here I am sorry to say (and I am sorry because I really did want it to be a page turner...I have frequented that region of the country myself!). If you have been to the area, know the lay of the land, recognize places and want a chance to revisit them remotely....this book will pass the time. If you want a thrill ride..go to an amusement park.

I wouldn't pay much attention to a lot of these reviews. Sure there are a lot of cliche fantasy elements, but the story is original and exciting. So I suppose it really all comes down to whether you read fantasy for the little details or for the overall quality of the story. This is one of my favorite series of all time. It is right up there with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

I'd been searching aggressively for some decent fantasy epic to read, since I'd managed to go through the current ones and was awaiting their next installments. This came highly recommended via SFBC, so I gave it a chance.

I have to say, I was thoroughly disappointed. One wonders what perspective Mr. Newcomb must have had to write something so blatantly one sided.

In a nutshell, 327 years prior to the story, a Coven of very bad women were defeated. Rather than execute the matrons of the group, they "kindly" put them into a boat and shoot them out beyond their ability to return, effectively abandoning them at sea. Now, magic is the province of men, until the shadow of this evil Coven returns. Prince Tristan, a goody-goody to the point of seeming almost mentally deficient in some way, is heir to the throne of Eutracia and possesses remarkable but untrained magical talent, while his simpering sister Shailiha meanders and simpers with nothing really to add before her much foreshadowed fall to evil. There's a garrulous old mage named Wigg, and a loyal steed named Pilgrim, and a host of other stock characters borrowed from stock fantasy lore.

The writing style has much in common with Paolini, of Eragon - that is, it's simple and unpolished, with heros delivering near hysterical dialogues in pre-pubescent tones that indicate their t*st*cl*s have yet to drop. Like Paolini, when the author feels he needs to make a point, he does it in the most dramatic, knocked to the back of the head manner. There's little explanation as to why these women are, or were, seeking to destroy the kingdom, or why any woman who practices magic is inherently evil.

Finally, after winning the day, eradicating the coven completely, making some friends with flying monkeys and saving his kingdom, there's this incredibly annoying two page epilogue where your basically told that the "true" evil still lurks out there, and this whole debacle was all to their plan. Newcomb isn't Frank Herbert, and the complexity of the plots available to him hardly have the intricacies of Dune, so why the ploy? To sell another book, in my opinion. For what it's worth, book two ends with the same irritating plot device. Had the author not opted to shoot for this "cliffhanger" method - blatantly used to simply sell another book, in my opinion - and kept this to one book rather than feeling the need to make it into a series, he would still have had the second story to tell, with same stock characters, without raising my ire.

Thoroughly, utterly, relentlessly, inconceivably awful. I can't imagine that anyone actually edited this book: the author's writing skills are so poor that no editor could have approved this. Grammatical errors, poorly formed sentence structure and dialog, misused words, overuse of superlatives and modifiers - and this isn't even getting into the misogyny, cheap adolescent rape-fantasy, shallow characters, derivative plot, and basic flaws in logic.

If you are interested in this book, PLEASE, take it out of the library. Don't waste your money on it.

I fail to see how someone who claims to have read a lot of fantasy fiction could give this book 5 stars (although I suppose there is a lot of bad stuff out there). I listened to the audio recording without having read any reviews but those on the cover, and was sorely disappointed. Although there were a few good twists and novel creatures, the majority of the book felt like it was written by a geeky high school student (no offense, Paolini) who is obsessed with horror movies and has been rejected by all the girls in class. Very predictable (I can't see how anyone couldn't figure out that Whig (sp? remember I am listening not reading) was referring to Tristan moving the stone during the big ceremony right when he said it, even though it took the "Chosen One" half a day and the brink of destruction to figure it out); gory and sick beyond reason or justification; outrageously and unnecessarily sexist (how could ANYONE believe that the sex that bares children could always be so evil?); racist (yes, so was Tolkien with the heredity thing, but that was written eons ago), etc. I did keep listening until the end (I did like Whig the wizard), but I sure wish it had been better and that the characters weren't so two-dimensional. I won't be reading sequels from this silly series (unless the author grows up).

I bought this book based on the Publishers Weekly review rather then the Amazon review, should have listened. I hope it is not a comment on the low expectations for fantasy writers as well as their editors that this book was even minimally recommended.

Wow, this book is shallow and it would appear not edited. On page 65 Tristan suggests that women allowed to learn the craft operate under a Death Enchantment. On the next page he is stunned to learn of the existence of Death Enchantments, come on.

I too was a Stuart Woods fan. I think I'm done. This book was so awful: no plot, the same boring wine, food, sex, private plane and Elaine's obsessions. Even more appalling than the book are Stuart Woods' comments after the novel is over. Just read them -- you'll never want to purchase another book of his again. He is so condescending and has such an inflated sense of self that it made me sick that I actually have been buying his books. No more, Mr. Woods. You've just lost another reader.

Really, horrible says it all. This is only a fun little page-turner if your mind is already mush from years of television, because that's what this is - bad television turned into a book. The characters are automatons who can summon up whatever they want whenever they want with a simple phone call to their people. Not only do they have no depth to them, they have no reality to them at all. The 'sex' is pointless. The writing itself doesn't do anything more than fill the pages. There's only one bad guy in the book, so that takes care of that. I'm still trying to figure out how this got onto my bookshelf. It's not going back up there though - the library sells this stuff by the pound and that's where this one is going. Avoid it - there are too many fine authors available for anyone to bother spending time on this sort of trash. Doesn't even deserve a star.

A friend insisted that I read this book. This is the worst book I have ever read in the last 40 years. The writing is mechanical with only a fill-in-the-blanks style. The kidnapping in the center of the book has no connection to the rest of the story and the motive is never explained. There is no attempt to explain the villain's motives for very real evil actions or even to present a state of mind. The only times the author seems excited about what he has written is in his pro-forma descriptions of guns, locks, or airplanes. If you have a friend who asks you to read this trash, cross that person off your friend list.

I was amazed that my primary suspect in the first third of the book was pretty much confirmed midway through, and I kept thinking "there has to be a twist here, it couldn't be that obvious!" There was indeed a twist, which I didn't predict, but it didn't shake me from simply revising my theory, which turned out to be correct.

There are some love scenes in the book which certainly don't detract from the overall work, but are so briefly written, it makes me think they are written by someone with no more experience than reading Penthouse Forum.

All that said, the book is well constructed, with workmanlike pacing and plotting. I think it simply lacks imagination.

The Margin
Perfect book title--Dark Harbor.
I took a break from Michael Connelly and tried Stuart Woods. So far I still like Connelly the best but Woods isn't too far behind. A Stone Barrington novel that follows the cop-turned-lawyer through a maze of suspense as he tries to solve the murders of a cousin and his family. Thinking that someone on the tiny island is the killer and expecting the crimes to be solved quickly was Barrington's first misconception, suddenly the investigation becomes complicated. He discovers his cousin has been a CIA operative for years, and for Stone, that's not the only family secret to unfold. Will a suspect emerge from within the CIA? As the investigation continues more murders are discovered. Retired CIA agents who live on the island partner with Stone to solve the mystery but find themselves targets as well.
The intrigue of the CIA--discovering a specially built room in the cousin's house to conceal his agency clandestined involvement--their access to secret world-wide intelligence, thermo photos of the island and the-who-done-it makes for an exciting reading experience. Dark Harbor is a well crafted mystery set right in the middle of intrigue.

Marvin Wiebener, author of The Margin

Reckless Abandon and Short Forever I was very happy with the order,
however, the order of Run Before the Wind came in paperback. The Prince
of Beverly Hills, L.A. Dead, and The Run by Stuart Woods that I ordered
the same day I have never received.

Thank you for asking about my feedback. Sandra LaBunski

You'd think that if Holly Barker teams up with Stone Barrington, you'd have a rip roaring murder mystery. Not this time! Stuart Woods has missed the mark on this book. The reader finds out the two main characters like to jump into the sack; but the author has not developed his characters very well. It's like he wrote this book "on the spur of the moment", while sitting in a New York apartment, with nothing else to do. The story line involving the FBI, NYPD and others looking for the murderous bad guy, Trini Rogriquez, is not very realistic. No high tech equipment (except powerful firearms) is referred to in this book. As the book concludes, it doesn't take much effort to guess how it may end. On the positive side,however, this book, like most of Wood's others, is easy to read.

I gave this book five stars to catch the attention of prospective readers.

Amazon's 5 star system is the equivalent of the greenish grassy stuff that falls out of a horse's backside in such nice twinkie-shaped parcels.

Stone Barrington is fun. Simply put. I found some of the characters a little thin, but I think all in all the combination of Stone's unique lifestyle (what a house!) and his personality and Woods' plotting drive this book (my first by Woods) along very nicely and make up for the problems I have with the tome. As a matter of fact, I think Robert Crais' novels get a lot better review and that is not necessarily justified. Poorly plotted sentence, but you catch my unique odor I am sure.

I think this is a particularly good vacation read, for those of you who can afford vacations. Fatherless offal you all are.

I will certainly read more of the Stone books at least.

Rick

This was my first Stuart Woods novel and I wasn't impressed. Stone Barrington character is like James Bond and I never liked him. The whole story is just too unbelivable. I like something a little more realistic. Sorry, this just doesn't fly.

A couple of Stuart Woods recent novels had caught my eye as I was looking for something sort of similar to Robert Parker's Spenser series.

This being the first of those two eye-catchers which I read, I can say I enjoyed the easy opening of the main characters from separate series making a slow jazz, "no problem" connection. The situation, setting, and dialogue were refreshingly, realistically simple and natural. Even with periodic shocks of abrupt overturnings of a flow of events, the plotting clicked along with no reading-resistance from moi. Chief Holly Barker was clever with her quips and guts, dancing through nonchalance; and Stone Barrington was so smitten and intrigued by Holly, the two melted like butter on a hot day, sliding right into a business mixing pleasure thing based from his home.

I noticed that a few reviews don't recommend this novel as a "starter kit" for readers who haven't read most of Woods's other novels, due to the fact that this story uses a sort of patchwork quilt of past plots. So, I wondered, would I be lost?

I was carried without effort by the interaction and dialogue among characters and didn't find the brief recaps of the past to be any different than what would be necessary in any novel. No plot works without a past, and segments of that history have to be plugged into an ongoing action.

Loved the way Woods stitched the title into the book as a true and actual THEME, becoming obvious with chapter 10, in which Stone interviewed his client-from-hell, professional photographer, Herbert Fisher. Of course Herbie was not the only character for whom Woods used "reckless abandon" as an identifier of personality traits.

Feel free to buy and read the novel to do this thought-provoking discovery of for whom, what, where, when, and how this "reckless abandon" plays off, from the simplest, to the most symbolic, to the most legal of meanings.

This book had more "live in" capacity than most, like a world was opened and I could simply step in each time I opened the pages.

The relationship between Stone and Holly continued the flow established in the novel's opening, and grew easily and naturally, without the usual blocks in romance novels or other P.I. persona series. The sex scenes were simple and gutsy and were slipped within the daily doings without much difficulty or unnecessary production. It was interesting to see how a man like Stone reacted to an aggressive partner like Holly. He was just there, and certainly had no trouble enjoying the ride, taking Holly at face value, which was refreshing both ways, with the blessed absence of the usual emotional games. Jealousy was toyed with on both sides, with a realistic touch, and like everything else, the two rambled through those glitches without over concern, no growing roots for those bleeps of green.

Given the way most of us live out our days, this novel might seem unbelievable. But, having worked and lived several years on the inside of criminal justice systems, my experience confirmed that the characters, dialogue, pacing, actions and reactions, the ways of dealing with a very different system of ethics, was on target with the reality Woods was describing. Though Woods's critical slant on the FBI and CIA might be slightly skewed based on his political leanings, it's plausible that those types of casual behaviors toward killing and execution could exist in facets of such agencies and bureaus. I also know from experience, however, that a good number of honorable, admirable men take on these types of responsibilities and jobs, with a type of pride and integrity which many of us will never know or live. They're to be admired and thanked.

I'm pro President George W. Bush. Woods is not. At least he's not, based on the info on Stuart Woods's web site, which is well done and very direct and clear in exposing his opinions, his work, and his trade. He comes across to me as a crisp, to the point, no nonsense, male of the species, and I can't help admiring his candor and directness.

Lest we forget, however, RECKLESS ABANDON is a work of fiction, a well done and highly entertaining one, in which, yes, the author expresses and dramatizes his political opinions about the world. As he notes on his web site, whose opinions should he write about, other than his own?

Though the whole novel was engrossing, the last quarter of the plot kicked up in reader capture enhancement. I was in high entertainment awe of the ways Stone, Holly, Dino, and Lance extricated themselves out of several seemingly untenable, end-of-the-road, into-the-grave, impossible scenarios. There's a term for what Woods accomplished repeatedly with incredible finesse throughout the last quarter of the book:

Deux ex machina.

Though ... I'm not sure how firmly that applied there, in the meaning, "saved by an unexpected event interjected by a `Higher Hand' of a God, or The Author." In most cases one of the characters saved the situation from disaster due to tangy thinking or fluid footwork. ANYway, all snafu's were undone in very cool, ingenious ways.

Also felt right on with the way Holly and Stone handled their budding relationship, as the book's sunset arrived.

Yes sir. This is great entertainment of the purest type given just the right complexity, with subtle, interesting wisdom extended simply (without heavy agendas imposed) through character contemplations, conversations, and choices.

I'll go for more.

Linda G. Shelnutt

If you want a detailed, rock critic-esque review of the making of Exile On Main Street, check out the The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St. (33 1/3). Greenfield's book is short on nuance and long on rumor and sensationalism, but that doesn't mean it's not a fun read. Yes, he's got inconsistencies and incorrect facts galore. Yes, he makes a random two-page attack on fellow writers. Sure, the chapter on the album itself is self-consciously arch and snarky. BUT, if you want to have the Rolling Stones equivalent of Hollywood Babylon, you could do much worse. Just sit back and let the book wash over you in its innuendo, filth and narcissism - just don't take it seriously. After all, it's only rock 'n' roll.

Exile on Main Street is probably my favorite Stones album, (well maybe after Tattoo You), and this book covers the band during that period. It's a short book and a quick read. The author describes how they came to live in the south of France for tax haven purposes, and how they lived and worked once there. You read a fair amount about drugs and girlfriends and band finances.

The book is in a tricky spot because if you are a fan, you probably know a lot of this stuff already, and if you aren't, then you probably won't care. That said, as a fan, I enjoyed it. I found the author's writing style fun, in, you know, a rock and roll journalist kind of way. This isn't Tolstoy and I didn't want it to be.

I loved STP which I regard as the best book ever written about the Stones. For this reason I was excited about the publication of another book on the same period by the same author. I even went to see him speak about the book at a local bookstore. It was a lousy talk and the book was equally disappointing when I read it. Just boring and the glaring factual errors make you wonder how much of it is accurate.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. I am a huge Stones fan and have read many books written about them (and by them, in Bill Wyman's case) over the years. Exile is one of my favorite albums of all time. However, I found that this book merely recycled stories I'd already heard-- it really offered very little new information. The best thing about it was that it tried to distill myth from reality regarding several incidents by offering competing accounts, but this was really not compelling in the end because the events recounted were, for the most part, banal and inconsequential. Worst of all, the author cites WIKIPEDIA frequently. Wikipedia, while useful and interesting, is not a legitimate source; interviewing the relevant persons (particularly Anita Pallenberg) would be the way to go to cite the same information. The book is an easy read, though; it took me about three hours. But again, the length itself was disappointing, as I was really hoping for a true-life novel about this era and not a novella.

It never ceases to amaze me how a bunch of people can judge something that they have no real knowledge of other than from some other guys book that was written only to make a buck at the expense of their "friends".. First let me say that Bob Greenfield is a long time friend of mine from the time of this book. We met while he was interviewing Keith Richards for his Rolling Stone interview that year. I was there working with the Stones from March to September of that year and saw much, but not all, of what was going on.
"It was what it was!" Weird as that may sound...it was a very weird place and time. Maybe Bob got a bit carried away with the way he presented it, but after 35 years of dealing with these guys do you blame him? I can tell you one thing from my perspective...After spending 6 months in the south of France with the Rolling Stones...and the French, I began feeling like a character in a Jean-Luc Godard movie. As much as I love and loved working with the Stones this was not their finest hour and that is what Bob was trying to capture and I think that he did.

i don't agree with many of the readers who panned this stone novel. i agree that stone set a high bar for himself in previous books, and that this one falls short, but still think a subpar stone novel is a notch short of a classic.

there are familar themes and motifs -- an academic, war, revolution, drugs, sex, deep-sea diving, religion -- as stone weaves his tale of an angst-ridden professor who follows an affair to third world revolution. my criticism is that the novel feels like two books crudely bolted together: part 1 takes part in a midwestern university; part 2 takes part primarily on a carribean island undergoing revolution. despite this flaw and the confusing climax on the island, this still has ton to offer and ponder. the writing is earing and memorable as always. the insights and surehanded descriptions of academic life, DC politics and war are powerful. and the spiritual quest at the book's heart will leave you pondering for a while.

so, yes, flawed. but give me a flawed stone novel anyday!

Robert Stone explores familiar terrain in this story of a man who gets into the ring with his own myths of masculinity, marital betrayal, and family discord. Stone adds strong drams of voodoo and dark spirits into this volatile, seductive concoction, which promotes a nightmarish carnival ending reminiscent of his first novel, A Hall of Mirrors. While a treat for his fans, this book doesn't reach the artistic peaks set out in Outerbridge Reach or the emotional depths of A Flag for Sunrise.

Robert Stone, one of my favorite authors, has written a novel which is clearly unworthy of his great talents. The book has a thrown-together quality, as one improbable incident follows another. I will not reiterate the plot, as so many other reviewers have done this so sucessfully. But I have to agree with the consensus: the characters are not fully developed, and their motivation is unclear. It almost seems like Mr. Stone just decided that he wanted to write a book that was exciting, frightening, and sexy. Start with a sensitive family drama, then add a little in-the-know power politics, a near death experience while searching undersea for lost emeralds, some terrifying Colombian drug dealers, and end with wild voodoo ceremonies and the wreckage of his home life. What have you got? That's the question.

Pas terrible, ce roman de Robert Stone. Moi, ma toute première impression était que "La baie des âmes" me semblait terriblement masculin. Le roman s'ouvre sur une scène de chasse où le personnage central, Michael Ahearn, part avec deux amis dans une forêt pour chasser le cerf. Passage dans un bouge pour se procurer du pur whiskey, ambiance locale et rustre, rencontre d'un être ensanglé et vociférant dans les bois... bref ce roman commence d'emblée à me décontenancer. Et puis, l'histoire paraît hésiter entre l'intrigue universitaire et le surréalisme. On se trouve dans une province américaine, où la couleur locale penche sensiblement vers la foi religieuse et non vers l'érudition digne de la Nouvelle-Angleterre. L'ambiance est glauque, on patauge dans la neige boueuse, on suit l'universitaire Michael Ahearn dans ses réflexions sur son enseignement, ses étudiants et l'atmosphère ambiante. Il est marié à Kristin, une épouse de plus en plus suspicieuse, jalouse et distante, père d'un petit garçon intelligent et sensible. Un jour cet homme va rencontrer Lara Purcell, dont la réputation de femme exotique, mariée à un français, ayant parcouru l'Afrique et venu en Amérique enseigner les sciences politiques, annonce un vent nouveau. Michael et Lara vont devenir amants, puis Lara doit partir sur l'île de Sainte-Trinité pour célébrer les rites funéraires de son frère et par la même occasion récupérer son âme perdue. Là, j'avoue que le sens de l'histoire a cessé de m'échapper. D'une province décalée et crasseuse de neige fondue, on bascule sur une île en proie aux soulèvements civils et révolutionnaires, aux trafics de drogue, aux soupçons d'espionnage, etc. A la page 192 (sur 292), j'ai capitulé. Complètement larguée. Ce roman possède très certainement un charme secret mais son histoire, trop embrouillée, envoie son lecteur dans les roses. On peine à décrocher du milieu sulfureux pour se retrouver vers des conflits politiques et autres rituels du vaudouisme. Et l'écriture brute de l'auteur n'accroche pas ma sensibilité féminine.

I find myself agreeing with some of the other reviewers. This book isn't poor writing style, but the story is so far-fetched, improbable and just plain unbelievable that this book cant be saved. There are two related stories, neither of which really works. First there is a group of professors deer hunting in the winter in a godforsaken part of minnesota (this is the characters' opinion, not to offend anyone). A few strange things happen, and the main character comes home to find his son has been lost in the snow. The son nearly dies, but miraculously pulls through. The main character goes on to meet a woman professor who has just come to teach at the college. She dresses exotically, comes from a ficitious Caribbean island, goes in for a little S&M, and he falls head over heels, despite his jealous wife and little son. After the woman tells him her brother has died of AIDS, has xtolen her soul and given it to a voodoo queen who died two hundred years ago, and how dangerous it is to walk around in a body without a soul (a recitation that would send most men running scared), he decides to pack up and go down to the island with her. Although it's hard to tell what is really going on, things get wilder and wilder, with Haitian voodoo ceremonies, Colombian drug gangs, Latin-American style juntas supported by the U.S. governement. At this point I felt the author was just letting his imagination run wild or he didnt know what he was talking about. If you've read this far, you'll have a hard time finishing, although I did. You''ll wish you hadnt. I cant believe people act like this.

This book strikes me as a combination of RL Stein, without the original plot, JK Rowlings, without the descriptive imagery, and JRR Tolkein, without the grand theme. The non-ending is so out of character with the rest of the book it will leave the reader wondering why anyone would buy the sequel. If there were a zero on the scale, I would give it.

Personally I loved this book, I felt it explored the tale of the pied piper and gave it an interesting new twist. Just because it is comic fantasty it should not be likened to pratchett, personally I found the characters much more enjoyable the humour was well writtenand the stroy gripped me right through to the end. I brilliant book that I thouroghly enjoyed reading, and I can't wait for the next one.

I picked up this book because someone (whom I will never forgive) told me that it was similar to Terry Pratchett. I bought it (with REAL MONEY!) and settled down to read it.

It was similar to Terry Pratchett alright. It looked as if the author had read a comic fantasy book before and thought that he could do the same thing. He introduced a bunch of characters (with stock quirks -- "mean", "crazy", "weird", "loony", "goofy", and "greedy"), conjured up an plethora of bizarre locales such as Dullitch, Phlegm, and the like) and used them as the backdrop for a "madcap" send-up of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

The main problem was that the humor was shallow, at best. The dwarf, named Gordo, had a bunch of short jokes tossed at him all the time. Tambor was a sorcerer who is apparently helpless without his Spellbook (he can't even manage a lock picking spell). Groan is a big dumb oaf in the mold of hundreds of thousands of big dumb oafs. And Jimmy Quickstint is a clumsy thief, or something, I guess. These guys have one joke (Gordo is short, Tambor is weak, Groan is dumb, Jimmy is clumsy).

And it doesn't help that all of the other characters are even less amusing or interesting. The Duke Modeset is a bland Vetinari clone, with even more outward malevolence and less control of his people. He had an assistant (or two) whose names are similar and forgettable. These characters desperately tried to make their pet shticks entertain for the book's run and they fail, badly.

The one character that I thought was mildly interesting was Diek Wustapha, the Pied Piper and unwilling villain of the piece. He was the main reason I kept reading, and the story cheated me yet again of a satisfying end of the character, preferring instead to give me a cookie-cutter ending in the tradition of stories that books like these are trying to mock, not emulate.

I'll probably get the next one out of the library in case it's better than this one. But I still have to give Ratastrophe Catastrophe only 2 stars.

Oh, and if you want to read a genuinely humorous send-up of the Pied Piper story, try The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. You won't regret it.

I only give this book one star because I cannot give 0. I was sorry I ever bought it and spent good money that would have bought me some other, more pleasant book.

If you want to read satire, read Terry Pratchett. If you enjoy reading the fairy tales you love re-written with wry humour and excellent characterisation, try The Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Masquerade etc. You will laugh and you will enjoy trully good books. Obviously Mr. Stone also loved them, and so he thought he could write something like that. But copying another man's style and ideas is vary rarely the road to success, especially if this other, namely Terry Pratchett, is already an established and, most important, a well-loved expert.

So I would suggest to Mr. Stone to avoid proceeding with more books of the Illmoor Chronicles, unless he is prepared to stop copying Pratchett and write something original. Indeed, I cannot stress how displeased I was when in every page of the book I saw bad copies of Diskworld characters (the mayor of the town for example is such a poor copy of the Patrician of Ankh Morpock), ideas (the criminal Guilds being part of the legal life of the town has been the major theme in most books of the Guard, and is mentioned in more than one other Diskworld books) and concepts (such as that of the magic having a life of its own and taking over the human mind). Don't waste your time reading Stone, go to the original and enjoy yourselves.

And, by the way, the story of the Pied Piper has also been reviewed by Terry Pratchett, in the Diskworld framework and for young adult readers, in The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. Read it and you will know the difference between a good original humorous book and a poor uninspired flat one.

David Lee Stone's first Illmoor Chronicle is not quite a catastrophe, but it's not good either. The first of this fantasy series, "The Ratastrophe Catastrophe," is one of those books that has to strain to be halfway funny and a quarter entertaining, but doesn't quite manage it.

Evil magic possesses a very ordinary young man named Diek, making his eye glow and giving him the power to charm animals and people with music. At about the same time, the ancient, run-down city of Dullitch is suddenly overriden with thousands of giant rats. Diek offers to charm them away, for a price. He does so... only to be informed that there isn't enough to pay him.

So he charms all the city's children away. So the dim Duke hires some not-so-competant mercenaries, including belligerent dwarf Gordo, crocheted-hat-wearing giant Groan, and has-been wizard Tambor. But can they find the missing children and defeat the evil magic in time, or will the parents of Dullitch revolt?

Something magical is missing from "Ratastrophe Catastrophe," and it's not just because of the constant comparisons to Terry Pratchett. A few too many things -- Dullitch, the Duke, the guilds, even the magical possession story -- are similar to Pratchett's Discworld, but that wouldn't be a problem if Stone had crafted a funny, witty fantasy.

Unfortunately, he tried and failed. With an old plot like the Pied Piper, a story needs exceptional wit to stand out. Unfortunately Stone seems focused more on contrived jokes that really aren't that funny, like hair loss or the Tower of Screaming Doom. They're a little funny, but not so funny that you might actually laugh at them. If he just let the humour flow, it would have worked better.

And even more unfortunately, all the time that Stone spends on his jokes takes away from the characters. They're all paper-thin one-joke characters -- inept wizard, big doof, grumpy dwarf, corrupt politicians. And the most interesting characters vanish pretty quickly, such as the weirdo who is mad because he LIKED having a rat infestation.

Humorous fairy-tale retellings are a common thing, but David Lee Stone adds little to the genre in "The Ratastrophe Catastrophe." Here's hoping the second book of the series has some substance.

you are planning on going on hikes longer than an hour or two. In fact the title should be "Hour hikes in Sedona, Arizona". My wife and I recently visited Sedona with the intent of hiking for a couple days with some short hikes and some all day opportunities. Sadly this book lists only the short hikes and incredibally fails to even mention that many of the great short walks can be extended through other adjoining trails (not mentioned). Most of the information (maps, description of trails etc..) contained in the book, and much more, can be easily obtained through the Sedona visitor center for free!

I wanted to learn more about back country hiking in Sedona. Once I read this book, I knew what I needed to know quickly. This book is very helpful in reviewing many hikes in the area, with maps as well as distance and estimated time of hike. Very good reading and the best hikes are reviewed. I would highly recommend this book for anyone visiting this area.

This book contains only a tiny subset of what's available in Sedona, and only the most passive hikers will find any value whatsoever in it.

"Sedona Guide: Day Hiking and Sightseeing Arizona's Red Rock Country" by Steve Krause and Teresa Henkle is vastly superior to this book (and, ironically, less expensive).