Ronin Books

This book offers a very detailed and accurate chronological compilation of monumental and pivotal events in "Puffy's" life and Bad Boy's history. While it often portrays Puffy as determined and focused, it also depicts him as an egomaniacal and self-serving tyrant. All the people who have played a key role in helping him build his Bad Boy Brand and near billionaire status are woven throughout this story of his meteoric rise to fame including Biggie; Craig Mack; Mase; The Lox; Black Rob; 112; Carl Thomas; Faith Evans; Mary J. Blige; Heavy D; Dream; Andre Harrell; LA Reid; Russell Simmons; and Clive Davis.

You will discover things about Bad Boy that you didn't know (such as Biggie selling his publishing rights to Puffy for $150,000), things that you wish you didn't know (like how Puffy used the tired 60s tactic of buying cars for highly pursued or recently signed new artists with their own money and used it as a smokescreen to blind them to inequitable business practices), and many other serious music business lessons. Despite the fact that this book ends abruptly, it's rivetting, entertaining, and highly informative. Ronin Ro should definitely update this. There's a lot that has happened with Puffy and Bad Boy since it was written.

I read this book in about 3 days and I couldn`t put it down. Ro echoes the sentiment of a Hip Hop patriot and tells just how doctored the music that we integrate into the fiber of our egos is. I would read anything else that he writes and he has great journalism skills. It is also super educational for would be hip hop r&b artist looking to learn about the harsh realities for the music bizz without reading a dry ass law book(law books have their place) but this makes the info a lot more palatable. I feel that the material here does not deal with Puff Daddy unfairly and it didn`t make me hate him , on the contrary I actually like him a little bit more then I did before. At the end of the day hes just a guy trying to make a profit off of the kids just like all the other CAPITALIST. I no longer dichtomize him into good or bad. I salute you Ro. Keep writing good work and I wanna hear that work. Big difference between social political artistic hip hop and doctored market commidity Rap. Drop Me a Line!!!

Album in stores in February. T Piddy and the GK family present HELLA. Go cop that.

Many people might not know about this book since it was released in early September of 2001. But Ronin Ro's Bad Boy is a must-read work. Instead of rehashing details about the coastal rap rivalry he already covered in Have Gun Will Travel, Ro presents an entirely different tale, in an intriguing new voice, but with the same eye for the telling detail. For the first time, a book details every stage of Puffy's career--Ro describes his days as an ambitious aspiring music executive, his first steps at R&B/rap label Uptown and his apprenticeship under Andre Harrell, his contributions to the rap remix format, his rise in the industry(precipitated by well-placed acquaintances at various rap magazines), and his relationship with the late rapper Notorious BIG (covered through a mix of Big's lesser-known interviews and compelling and exciting interviews with label insiders, associates and more). Bad Boy also reveals the creative process behind the label's string of hit albums during the 1990s, how Puffy marketed and--in some cases--watered down his artists' music and how he scrambled to save face after some, including The Lox and Mase, abruptly left the label and the man who claimed to have made them famous. Anyone expecting another book-length retread of the Bad Boy Death Row beef might want another book. Bad Boy is more than that. For a balanced look at Sean "Puffy" Combs and the empire he tried to build, the most in-depth portrait of Biggie Smalls ever offered, and a gripping account of Puffy's 2001 criminal trial, read this book.

I enjoy reading about entrepreneur and learning about how they built their particular business into a success. If you are looking for the same thing in this book you will be very disappointed. The book goes through a blow-by-blow account of P Diddy's problems and ultimately questions his ethics. I believe the book is written objectively, but very few pages are are actually dedicated to expalining how he actually made the leap from intern to a CEO of a multi-million dollar company. That was the story I really wanted to read about. Unfortunately, I learned more about Puffy's legal trial than I did about how he built his empire. If you want an entrepreneurial focused book buy Russell Simmons' Life and Def instead.

Do not buy this book! The subject is hashish oil, and thats fine. And you could problaby produce some fine oil you read this book. But it seems the writer has read "Cannabis alchemy.." By D. Gold, and then made into a cartoon. There is so little information in the book, and insted the writer has filled the book with pictures of a mad sicentist.

If you want to make hashish oil then buy "cannabis alchemy". Here you will find many details and a lot les junk!

This book is a very explicit review to growing marijuana. This book is very useful and i recommend it to anyone and everyone who is interested in this, keep in mind this is illegal in the United States. If you want to learn how to grow, this is the book for you! This book focuses on indoor growing however it includes outdoor growing as well. This book is the best for "all around" growing. With this book you can learn to grow with Quality and QUANTITY!

This book and D Gold's "Cannabis Alchemy" describe basically the same proccesses, but "Cannabis Alchemy" has better illustrations, more information, and more lucid prose.

There are many people who have been very critical of this book. This is completely undeserved. This book deals with the process of turning regular everyday herb into both hash oil and hashish with cartoons and easy to understand 'baby' directions.

The method described in this book really works! It can help you take any plain Mary Jane (both high grade sativa and low grade kack) and create some very potent hash oil and hash (increasing in potency by 6 to 12 times on the Adam scale from what you started with).

...Dr. Atomic has a really useful and easy to follow cartoon drawing which uses kitchen utensils like a wok and soup pot... I would like to point out however that this book only deals with part of the process described in Cannabis Alchemy. It covers the chapters on making hash oil that is either (a) a crude extract or (b) a purified isomerized extract. From this you can also make hash - Dr. atomic breaks Gold's seven recipes down to four simple ones). Dr. Atomic does not bother describing the acetate process mentioned in Cannabis Alchemy. This is a disappointment but understandable... For some really incredible smoke expect about 25-30 hours of pretty well continuous work. The benefits are the increase in potency, far less toxins ingested and some incredible bragging rights :)

Okay, the plot is a little predictable. What makes this book stand out in the Vampire genre (and I have heard this as well from She Who Must Be Obeyed, who reads a lot more Vampire novels than I do) is the descriptions, especially the detailed description of the process for becoming a vampire. Get the book and see what I mean -- that one scene is worth the price of admission.

This book was an Honorable Mention for the Darrell Awards for Best Midsouth SF/F/H Novel the year it came out. The Darrell Awards are given annually by the Memphis SF Association to promote literacy by recognizing the best published SF/F/H works, in novels, short story, and other categories....

Allan Gilbreath goes back to the core idea of the Victorian vampire in this book. Sensual, dark, deadly, mysterious, tempting and at it's heart horrible. The title character is charming and seductive while at the same time murderous and amoral. I found it a wonderful read and can't wait for the next book in the series.

Feeding scenes to make your toes curl. If you've ever closed your eyes and wondered what it would be like to be bled by a vampire, this is the book for you. A tremendous effort by Gilbreath that leaves you wanting more.

Gilbreath's novel by no means stands-out among the ever popular vampire genre. There is nothing original in this story. The characters are trite, especially the well-groomed and gregarious title character. The writing is mediocre at best, and the proofreading of the finished copy leaves much to be desired. Though the story is okay, and perhaps worth a reading if only for the sake of something to do on a lonely night, it is not worth the cover price. Though the cover says "Galen: The Saga Begins", the saga should probably also end here.

Contains 50-60 monsters but feels like a lot less. Basically very few of these monsters jump out at or inspire me. I might use two or three of them at most. The Monkey God was a fun read though and the highlight of this book. Save your money for larger and more interesting monster compendiums and put an asian twist on them yourself.

First the bad,
If you are looking for more then monsters, tough break, there is nothing but monsters here.

The good,
Though black-and-white, the artwork is very nice and the presented monsters do all have a decent picture. To make life easy on the DM, all monsters have a well enough documented past. Monsters come in all kind of varietys, from CR 1/2 to well over 20. Combining this with the Oriental Adventures book, gives you some great possibilitys.

Let's start off with the good:

Some really cool new monsters (mostly undead and shapechangers).
Some really cool artwork.

Now the bad:
Some not very usable (although interesting) monsters.
Some old monsters just redone (zombies, giants, dryads etc...)
Some really bad artwork.
Too many dragons (yes I realize that "Jade Dragons" is part of the title, but my characters just don't fight that many dragons)

I would suggest this for anyone running an oriental campaign setting. But if you're just looking for new monsters, it may not be worth it.

Green Ronin hasn't disappointed me yet. This is a collection of creatures that haven't been done to death, and that are fun to play. I like the dragons (there's only two, and one is very different from the traditional, European dragon). I like the mechanics (new twists on the undead, on spirits, and on "friendly" monsters), and the good/bad ratio of the art is about 75% good to 25% bad. Better than a lot of d20 game stuff.

It's a decent mix of aggressive, friendly, city and wilderness creatures. It includes two gods (the Monkey King, and the Ryushin, the Dragon God), both of them usable as patrons or sponsors for expeditions. Finally, it presents one new PC race (the tanuki, sort of a Drunken Monkey type, but it's more like Drunken Badger).

Francis Moraes, The Little Book of Heroin (Ronin, 2006)

There was a disclaimer at the beginning of this book about it being for educational purposes only, and I figured the publishers were being paranoid and just going along with it. Then I got to Chapter 7, which is simply entitled "Scoring", and I just started laughing. I'd never heard of Ronin Press before, but now I've got a pretty good idea that they belong on the same shelf as the stuff I own from Amok, Loompanics, Feral House, and other such wonders of modern literature-- that is to say, stuff I enjoy reading, perhaps a bit too much, but in general don't take at all seriously.

If you're actually looking for information about heroin (in a less specific sense than, say, how to score), there is some stuff here that will probably help your research, though how much of it you've likely already read I'm not sure. The book does have a slightly polemic tone at times (though, I admit, not nearly as much as I'd suspected from the disclaimer), and, of course, you've got chapters on activities like scoring. But you may still find it of use, if you sift the wheat from the chaff carefully enough. ** ½

I found this book to provide information with much clarity and in language that the real world can relate to, rather than the usual propoganda and scare tactics utilized to "keep people from indulging." The author is clearly aware that even if the entire world supply of any type of "recreational drug"were completely erradicated(and it never will be) there will ALWAYS be a demand - people have always "self-medicated" and there are no amount of laws/restrictions that will ever stop their desire to do so. That can only come from the person from within to decide to refrain from partaking in items that are not good for them. It's unfortunate that such information as provided in this book is so hard to find, as I truly think if more people had access to this objective and REAL information, it would be revolutionary in that people would in fact make the right decisions for their lifestyle, rather than "learning the hard way"(i.e., billions of people in prison, etc.)-which doesn't work anyway - that route only destroys otherwise productive lives and it certainly is not condusive to "rehabilitating" any body.

that's pretty much my review. it was helpful, informative & a quick read

I would not recommend reading this book as the information is often technically inaccurate and misleading. There are many other books that provide much better and more accurate information.

I have an interest in the work of John Lilly, and I purchased this book as further reading after reading his book "The Scientist". This book is interesting and well written.

However, the authorship of this book is unclear. It says it is written by John Lilly, but inside, it says "translated" or "channeled" by Beverly Potter. Also, it carries an original copywrite and a "derivative" copywrite (2004).

I believe it is a rewrite of his essay "Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments." But I am unclear as to how much is original and how much is contributed by others.

Lilly was one of the greatest scientists and pioneers on the limits of human possibility of modern times but after his death a collective amnesia has descended and his is now almost forgotten.

Lilly was a generation (or more) ahead of his time. He is almost single-handedly responsible for the great interest in dolphins (which led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the USA and helped to found the animal rights movement). In 1958 he noted that the brains of elephants and cetaceans were larger than ours, that we should not abuse them and that it was one our most important projects to communicate with them. He invented sensory isolation tanks (at NIMH in 1954) and used them extensively with and without powerful psychoactive drugs at a time when it was thought that either the brain would shut down or one would go insane if external stimuli were eliminated.

He created methods for implanting electrodes in mammal brains and was planning to do it to himself. He was one of the first to make serious use of computers in bioscience research and created the hardware and software to make the first attempts to communicate with dolphins. He self experimented with dangerous physiological investigations in high altitude medicine for the military during WW2, took LSD with dolphins and movie stars, submitted himself to the rigors of Arica training, and taught classes at Esalen.

He was the first one to investigate the bizarre psychedelic ketamine, and his results (published in the two last chapters of his book `The Scientist`) are still the best data on the dose/effect relation of any psychedelic on one person. And all this happened before most of us were born!

He had courage,honesty and integrity that is rare anywhere and almost nonexistent in science. His goal was to find the ultimate truth about everything and he went about as far as anyone ever has. He had little patience with the stupid and hypocritical games one has to play to fit into monkey society. Of course the reaction of the establishment was predictable. He left the NIMH and was never given any government or academic support for the last 35 years of his life. His paper and comments at a conference on sensory deprivation were removed from the published version. He was not invited to government sponsored symposia on dolphins(he had refused to help develop them as weapons), though he clearly knew more about them than anyone in the world.

He liked to live and work on the edge and few could keep up with him, as this books make clear. If you have read some of his other books it will be much easier going. He was a pioneer in consciousness research and pushed the boundaries of our understanding of who we are and what we might become. Among other things he catalogs the various states reached by drugs, meditation, and isolation, tries to determine their significance, and suggests how to use them.

As a result of all his research, especially his months of continuous hourly injections of ketamine, he became convinced that our ordinary reality was not the only one. During his trips he was often in communication with members of a civilization a 1000 years in the future. We all allow ourselves such experiences every time we watch a sci fi movie and sometimes it leaves us more than just amused, but when anyone meditates or takes a drug to do it we tend to discount the results. Lilly however, took it all seriously, and parts of his book explain why. Whatever our mind produces --by any means --only happens because our brains are programmed by our genes to make it possible. So it's at least plausible that any of these routes inward reveal fundamental aspects of what's possible for us in the future, or even for some other species elsewhere in the universe.

If you find his scientifically based viewpoints irrational, consider that most people believe without evidence (really with abundant evidence to the contrary) in good and bad luck, in super beings living in space who rule the earth, in a place in spacetime where dead people go, in stars millions of light years away influencing their lives, and in ghosts, angels, witches, and gods that come to earth to inhabit statues that read our thoughts and violate all the laws of physics, chemistry and biology in order to help us personally.

He describes his tank work (and lots more) in The Dyadic Cyclone, The Center of the Cyclone, and in Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer (1967) and other books and papers.

This and his other books are pleas to examine your beliefs with an open mind.

He defines metabeliefs as those about belief systems. He says that our simulations of reality (with meditation, isolation, drugs, computers) can provide access to other realities which may include the future, the past, or extraterrestrial. He refers to metaprograms as learning tools (symbols, programs, languages, ideas, models) which our central programs (mind or part of it) run all the time. Cognitive psychology did not really exist at the time he was most active and now we would likely call the central programs cognitive templates, modules or inference engines.
He refers to self-metaprograms (or essences) as parts of the mind that program our experiences.

Though he carried out an exhausting and dangerous program of self experimentation with psychedelics (what many now call entheogens), he did not believe they are a final or complete path to higher consciousness.
However, as I reflect on this, I note that tens of millions have successfully explored their cognitive templates with psychedelics while meditation alone may have generated a few hundred thousand satoris and probably less than 1000 mystics of whom we know. It is also clear that psychedelics have led millions to meditation.

He mentions the very psychedelic Revelations of St. John and understands that Jesus taught revelation from within-- ie, the same sort of self transcendence as Taoism and Buddhism. He discusses how we use drugs, sex, money, groups, war etc as substitutes for God. God as compassion, science, consciousness or superspace (the then current concepts of cosmology are explained and he imagines the universe collapsing and being reborn--very contemporary!). He discusses god in here vs god out there but notes that if it's out there then its a puzzle where math comes from. His experiences make him doubt that death is the end.

He was very open to all ideas and his desire to consider all points of view makes some parts of his books rambling and a bit incoherent. He crams so many ideas on each page that there is easily enough in each to form the core of ten books or a lifetime of research and personal exploration. Among the blizzard of mind boggling ideas are: war is the resultof a future civilization using us for war games; we are god simulating himself, our interstellar rockets find intelligent machines that follow us back to earth and take over; government sponsored meditation classes, computers that control and monitor all communication and take control of civilization, our genes generate the illusion that we live in a certain and determinate universe; we are simulated by God or vice versa.

Though he must have crossed paths countless times with Indian mystics and Buddhists,strangely, he was most influenced by an obscure American mystic named Franklin Merrell-Wolff--another remarkable figure now almost totally lost in time.

Lilly was an extremely bright and highly rational person yet he became convinced of the reality of his extraterrestrial membership in a future civilization and he went into a 6 week depression after a ketamine trip in which they showed him the collapse of the universe.

It was clear to him that the phenomena of the mind were capable of scientific study but this was quite heretical 40 years ago. What a great pity that he never delved into Wittgenstein's philosophy nor became acquainted with Osho!

Some of his books like "The Scientist" end with reprints of some of his papers and poems.

Someone should put all his writings plus photos and other memorabilia on a DVD!

Warning: not for the intellectual dullard! This can be a challenging work at times. Lilly uses technical terms which may be new to the reader. BUT, for those willing to take time to understand what Lilly is writing, the reward is equal to the effort.

It is good to see this work back in print, although I prefer the layout/design of the old , out of print, paperback edition (the publisher of this new edition, Ronin, has a habit of designing most of their books in an irritating manner, as if assuming the reader is too "stoned" to read small print). Also, this edition has been edited and I prefer the original but I am sure that many will find this new edition more "reader friendly". These objections aside, Ronin has done a service in providing this work.

The contents: Lilly presents an interesting model of neurology, human bio-computer, and posits an interesting statement near the beggining of this book, "We may be nothing but our programs". Not that Lilly is a mechanist, as he had recorded greater experiences of quantum-esque with greater clarity than most "mystics".

I would especially recommend this book to those interested in LSD, transpersonal psychology, neurology, and "human potential". Therapists might find much useful information here. I read this as an undergraduate and it's effects are still experienced at times.

This book provides a groundbreaking view of the functioning of the human mind and how a person can redirect its operations to more favorable patterns. This work is central to any program of personal growth and development.

This joyous book offers the dieter and would-be dieter a specific psychological plan for managing his or her thoughts, moods,and behavior in a way that helps him or her start and stick with a diet and overcome backsliding. Complex cognitive-behavioral concepts interwoven in the text are presented in a simple, comprehensible, accessible fashion, helping the dieter take control of his or her food intake and develop a life-long healthy relationship with food and eating. Useful tips come tumbling down throughout as Dr. Mautner becomes your guide and companion in the difficult but doable task ahead. I know this book worked for me. Two chapters into it and I stopped eating at night and between meals, and felt good about myself and my accomplishment. If you are struggling with losing weight, don't miss this. Highly recommended.

I bought D'Agostino's book, "Living La Vita Dolce," and loved her style so much that I sought out "Change Your Mind, Change Your Weight." The information in the book is nothing new but her style is engaging and she emphasizes how important it is to get your brain involved before you even attempt to change your body weight. Having said that I would have a hard time recommending this book to a friend because it is difficult to read - typographical mistakes and grammatical errors truly distract from the information. I am not talking about one or two errors throughout the whole book. An example is a section title in bold print, "The Weight-Loss Maize." Ronin Publishing, Inc. has failed this author miserably. Buy the book for the motivation it provides but be prepared to shake your head at the poor quality.

This little book has a lot of informative techniques on what you can do to win the weight battle. Instead of focusing on nutrition D'Agostino zeros in on your mind. How to use the mind to help you help yourself to the body you deserve.
The book includes ideas such as aversion therapy (ie imagining the food in a negative manner), rethinking your attitude after you have blown it, visualization etc.
The draw back is, as another reviewer pointed out the editing. If someone is going to write a book on "loosing" weight lets at least spell it correctly. Throughout the text the word "loosing" kept cropping up casting doubts on the authors expert ability to help anyone be effective at "losing" weight as she couldn't even spell the word! Santa "Clause" also makes an appearance. Hmmm didn't know Claus has changed the spelling of his last name. These errors and others really cast a big shadow over the book - distracting. I am not the world's greatest speller either, but if my book was up for publication I would certainly run a spell check on it.
The illustrations were also unattractive. Tiny pencil drawings of stick figures with pot bellies.
Though most of the ideas in the book are very good, you will have to look past the drawings and text errors, and that can be tough to do.

show me step by step how to grow

gottlieb obviously has never grown anything, and has just collected a lot of lore and anectdotes here. if you are really interested in growing, don't waste your money on this book.

i just wanna know how to dry marijuana when it's grown???

Growing Wild Mushrooms is a good book for a biggining Mycologist. It runs through the basic procedures from making an agar medium to harvesting. But what makes this book worth a four star rating is it's wonderful color photos. It's one thing to read text, but quite another to to see clear illustrations. I would recocgmend this book to any aspiring Mycologist

This is a great book, and at no. 137,000 this Bob Harris' book on Mushrooms seems all set to pass the other Bob Harris' book on Chomskian analysis of how dumb all those journalists are, excepting of course Mssrs. Cohen and Solomon.

Apparently, this book was written to cater to those interested in hallucinogenic fungi. I initially bought this book in the hopes that it would teach me how to set up a cultivation operation focused primarily on edible, gourmet mushrooms. What I got instead was a poorly organized book rife with errors. The text has almost nothing to say about growing edible mushrooms. Rather, it is basically little more than a souped-up underground manual for the cultivation of hallucinogenic or so-called 'magic' mushrooms.

To demonstrate how erroneous this book is, the author begins the book by saying that fungi are plants! As any good student of biology knows, fungi lack chlorophyll, thus can not be considered plants, and occupy their own, separate kingdom. These and other gross errors throughout the text make it unfit as a starting point for those interested in mushroom cultivation.

The book is poorly organized, and places way too much emphasis on the psilocybe mushrooms, with passing reference to the cultivation of Pleurotus (oyster) mushrooms. In addition to some gratuitous color photos of a variety of Psilocybe mushrooms, and a few poorly placed black and white photos, this unremarkable book comes without an index, references, or supplementary materials. Furthermore, for the money you spend, you will not get much more than eighty six pages devoted to terse methods for locating, identifying, and cultivating the Psilocybe mushrooms (and this even is at a very low level).

The title of this book should actually be: 'Growing Hallucinogenic Mushrooms'. For those interested in Psilocybe mushrooms, this book may serve as an adequate reference. For individuals interested in the edible and gourmet mushrooms, a good starting point is Paul Stamets' utilitarian book 'The Mushroom Cultivator' and his comprehensive, though sometimes off-beat 'Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms'.

this book guides you through the history of acid (LSD-25) and gives examples of forms of it (blotter, windowpane). It also has legal ways to extract LSD like substances from Hawian Wood Rose and others. An informative peice of information!

this book guides you through the history of acid (LSD-25) and gives examples of forms of it (blotter, windowpane). It also has legal ways to extract LSD like substances from Hawian Wood Rose and others. An informative peice of information!

Cam Cloud's "The Little Book of Acid" doesn't really add much to our understanding of LSD, its effects, or is subculture. More of a resource for acquiring seeds and directions for synthesizing psychedelic substances, this contribution to the growing literature on LSD pretty much just summarizes and charges for information commonly and easily available for free on the Internet.

This book and other Ronin publcations do attempt to respond to an important readership, and they do represent a kind of avant garde in that respect, but they really need to improve the quality of their work. Misspelling "Aldous Huxley" as "Aldus" in a book on LSD indicates weak editorial work and a lack of commitment to the quality of their products. Other sentences in the book simply don't make sense as a result of editorial carelessness. Ronin has an interesting catalogue. I like it, and I like them, but they need to sharpen up their publishing skills!