Rules of the Game Books

What can I say about this book. Well it is useful, but I could have really done without it. It also is included on the core rules CD, however this is becoming difficult to find. There are some useful spells, but most don't warrant being put into a supplement. The magic items are worthless, don't even bother reading them. Some of the mage classes are interesting, but I give them mixed reviews. I could easily stick to regular specialist or kits from the wizard's handbook. This book has new spheres for priests which I didn't see any need for. Unfornately, these new spheres are used in the Faiths and Avatars book for specialty priests in Forgotten Realms as well as the specialty priests in the From the Ashes Greyhawk boxed set.

Hopefully for those switching over to 3rd ed D&D (I'm not), the new spheres or lack of them will be fully incorporated in the 3rd ed PHB.

Wild mages. They have great power and sole access to wild magic spells. Once powergamer players see the rules for them, they will want to play them. The priest spheres and available spells have been expanded greatly and thus this book is acually more useful to priests. Overall a useful addition to jaded parties

I'm an italian dungeon master and I've been playing AD&D a lot. Every serious DM has to admit that the spells and the magical items presented in the Player's Handbook and in the Dungeon Master's Guide are not completely satisfacting... This is my opinion! The Tome of Magic adds a lot of USEFUL new spells to the PH list and some FUNNY new magical items to the DMG list. What can I say? The new spells are surely worth the book's price; the magical items are not the best the writers could do... but if you remember that in this book there are new classes for wizards (elementalists, wild mages, etc) and new powerful schools of magic,... well, you must admit that you can't lose this book! Even the starting 2nd edition DM has to take a look at the Tome of Magic: it will be very useful to him!

The book did have some new spells and interesting items, although the Wild Mage class is lame, the elementalist idea is pretty cool. However, the spells and magical items are either too restrictive, worthless, or downright silly. There are a couple of good spells and items, but not enough. TSR probably held them back so they could force you to buy some other lore book.

There were a number of new concepts introduced into the AD&D magic system, which I now wonder how I lived without.

Wild Mages are a lot of fun, quite powerful, and almost as deadly to the party as to enemies (thus balancing them out with other mages).

New ways for priests to cast powerful spells, make them seem more like holy warriors, and less like walking bandages.

Metamagic: spells that affect other spells, is also an interesting and much needed addition to the spell lists.

If you like spellcasters, get this book. If you don't like spellcasters, get this book. It may change your mind.

As usual with most Amazon stuff the book got here very promptly. It was in perfect condition, (I think new) and is an amazing rule system. The title cover is a bit misleading due to a legal showdown between what is now Nero International, and Alliance. This book is technically now for the "Alliance" game and rules system, not NERO. Additionally it is much better than the Nero International official rulebook.

However I couldn't have figured out a bet set of rules with which to run a fantisy world. You can play a great manajaerie of traditional medival fantisy esk races, and humans. And the skills are really all emcompasing. I love this rulebook and for anyone who enjoys LARP'ing, or D&D, or anything related to that it is a must have! Great job Mike Ventrella!

Much improved system from previous editions. Like most other systems this one suffers from overgrowth in which basic rules have been split into many parts so that players may specialize their characters through skills and not necessarily role play.

The latest edition, shiny new cover and all, is not necessarily an improvement on the old. Some things have been dumbed down under the apparent policy of accommodating bad players instead of punishing them. However, the addendum has been incorporated, the spelling errors have mostly been corrected, some of the inconsistencies have been resolved and there has been a standardization of effects and their antidotes. What ever your opinion of them, these are the current rules and anyone playing in an Alliance game will be playing under them.

If you are going to play the game, buy the rule book. At least read the parts that relate to your character; you don't have to know what every spell does, but it sure helps if you know what the ones you cast do! The best way to get addicted... I mean, try out the game is to come to an event and NPC (it's cheap, we feed you and you get to hit people with foam-covered pipe!). The best way to learn the rules is to read this book. However, it is a ROLE-PLAYING game, and the plot, players and atmosphere will always trump minor changes in the rules system.

The new edition of this book is even better! Great explaination of rules and regulations along with ideas and helpful hints! A great game and an appropriately great book to go along with it! Highly recommended reading material for anyone looking for a good live action game!

This is a new edition of the NERO Rule Book, and therefore some of the reviews that Amazon.com has placed on this page are incorrect, since they refer to the old edition. As the author of the work in question, I have asked them to remove the old reviews but they have not done so. Please understand that some of the comments you may read here do not apply.

Yes, I hate to give anything with the words Battletech and Fasa on it one star. but I read through this manual and while I found the games it laid out to be played in the Battletech boardgame some of the stuff even I could not figure out. I have played "Hero Quest" some of you may remember the old board/Role-Play game. But, Battletech totally throws me on this concept. I just could not get this. If you are a veteran to RPG and advanced board games, buy this it can spice up your game. If your a newbie, look for a veteran to help you out to this stuff.

Let's get right down to it. This book is sensibly organized and many rules have been clarified (as a matter of fact the most significant changes are noted near the back for ease of reference). Some new level 2 equipment has been added (Inner Sphere) as well as several suits of battle armor. The extensive salvage and repair rules from Maximum Tech are also present.

As for missing the Protomech rules from TRO 3060: this is actually a good thing. Protomechs are a foolish idea that unbalance the game, while TRO 3060 is a piece of garbage.

One final note... this write-up is for the unrevised rulebook. The revised rulebook is another piece of trash.

This book is helpful for clarification. If you want a campaign, this is one of the books needed. If you are a newbie, play level ONE a bit more, I still am rereading it for certain things. The omission of AEROSPACE support is a bit confusing, is it legally there, or not?

I think this is an excellent Battletech source book. The layout is well done and easy to follow. Rules are easily understood and implemented. "Battletech Master Rules" is excellent all around and is definitely a must have for any fan of the game.

BEFORE I START MY REVIEW:
MECH WARRIOR IS BASED OFF THIS GAME
NOW THE REVIEW:
Nowadays there are two paths for minature gaming.
1: Warhammer, which is overpriced and has confusing rules.
2: Wizkids. Even worse. Untillegent play, "collectibily", and worse yet they made a "Improvemnt" to battltech that took mage knight, added a rule or two, made battle-y units and sold the [stuff] to your local store.

But this gem of a rulebook is Battletech. Intelegent and strategic play. Unit cuztimization, or you can even create your own. (Unit as in a peice on the board, not a group of peices). Lots of cool weapons that make sense and are very balanced. ...
Battletech is a lot of fun to PLAY. Its worth every last penny.

This book provides a great look inside the persona of a Ranger. It's a great reference for Role-Playing and a handy guide for a few new proficiencies, skills, and items. In addition to being a great guide through the life of a ranger, this handbook also features some of my favorite art work.

The book is excellent, I have always been a fan of Rangers( all of my most successfull characters have been of this class) I think it is the outdoorsman in me that draws me to them like a magnet. The book was put together well, I especially liked the entries about forgatherings and the times of the year they fall under, another thing I respected about the forgethering entrys was that they left you only with a vauge impression of how they opporate, leaving DM's such as myself with complete artistic freedome, It's a must buy for anyone even considering playing a Ranger of any type

The PHBR (Player's Handbook Reference) series is one of the most highly-regarded, and yet much-maligned, series of supplements ever created. Each sourcebook takes one of the races or classes of the AD&D game, and adds to it huge amounts of new detail - new equipment, spells, kits (sub-classes), lore, new rules, etc. The problem is that the players love these so much that the DM often feels compelled to buy into the rest of the series - an expensive proposition! Fortunately, these works were "reprinted" in the excellent AD&D Core Rules CD-ROM. This one includes everything you need to know to design and play a Ranger - chapters include requirements, level advancement, spell use, weapons and armor, tracking, animal empathy, natural lore, strongholds, followes, kits (such as the Explorer, Falconer, and Giant Killer), proficiencies, new spells and magic items, equipment, role-playing, religion, forgatherings, and more! An indispensible tome.

Excellent book with a lot to add for anybody that is playing a ranger or wants to play one. Some very strong kits (pathfinder, stalker, mountain man, etc) and a few week ones (what's up with the plant ranger?) Also recommended for a DM that wants to add an interesting ranger NPC into play.

The book is well organized. Writing style is reader friendly. However, over 60% of books is of interest only to players running Rangers above 7th level. I bought the book because I knew nothing about Rangers, and wanted more information for running a beginning level character than found in the Player's Handbook, or the the Skills & Powers book.

Mr Gygax's new role playing system has much to commend it. Leaving behind the rigidity of the Dungeons and Dragons system in all its incarnations it introduces some new, exciting races and a flexible system of character professions (known as Orders). Its beauty lies in creating a fully operational avatar (character) which even at the lowest experience level has a mouth-watering array of abilities and spells at the disposal of the player. There are no one-hit wonders here, newly rolled characters are robust enough to survive a few skirmishes. The combat system is quick-fire and uses a d100 for hits rather than the cherished d20. The spell system (and the remnant of psionic abilities from D+D) has been attractively revamped. But the game's simplicity is also its undoing. The editing, layout and pictures are crap. The text is littered with typo's and confusing statements and there are simply not enough ground rules. Mr Gygax, with all his genius, and experienced game masters could fill in the gaps but I believe that someone starting with no previous role-playing experience would find the system confusing. In fact, having read the player's manual a few times as well as reading the FAQ's on the Lejendary Adventure website, character creation is still wooly. At least Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 looks good and its structure lends it a certain reliability.
For my money, close but no cigar.

Actually, IMHO, he's neither.

Lejendary Adventures is a mixed bag. The rules light (we're talking baby air elemental light here) game has a definite unique flair to it? Takes a lot to create a game that basically has very little gaming rules. Definitely not for the girly-man RPG'ers.

If you're heavy into rules and fantasy-as-reality RPG (basically anyone who LOVES the 3rd edition D&D system), this is definitely NOT something for you...trust me...even Gary has said so!

Being someone who has not fallen into the category of a Gary-phile, my main critcism of this product is the packaging. Unlike some of my more scholarly counterparts seem to subscribe to, this book was NOT an easy read by any means. Maybe it's because I'm one of those sissy boys who love D&D...but the fonts alone caused me to wish for the days of DCS and DSL art.

A lot of promise, but far from a complete product. Then again, maybe that's what Mr. Gygax intended.

The Lejendary Rules for All Players--along with Lejend Master's Lore and Beasts of Lejend--is one of three books that form the nucleus of the new Lejendary Adventures system launched by Dungeon's & Dragons creator Gary Gygax. It is a basic rules manual intended for players and game masters alike and introduces gamers to the fundamentals of the game system.

Sections in The Lejendary Rules include an introduction to the Lejendary Adventures system; "The Avatar," a guide to character creation; "Avatar Abilities," what characters can do and how; "Equipment Lists," including starting equipment tailored to characters' backgrounds and skills; "Extraordinary Abilities," such as spells and paranormal powers; and "The Journey," the basic rules of play. Other elements include reproducible character sheets and "Forlorn Corners," a short introductory adventure. Creation of Lejendary Adventures characters is described in a clear, step-by-step manner, and is intended to allow players to design exactly the characters they want by allocating points for characteristics and selecting an appropriate mix of abilities.

Lejendary Adventures characters have three basic characteristics, or "base ratings," Health, Precision, and Speed. An optional characteristic, Intellect, also exists, but is more applicable to nonplayer characters. These base ratings, along with race, are used to determine a character's level of proficiency in more than three dozen Abilities (e.g., Commerce, Divination, Weapons), which form the basis for character development in Lejendary Adventures.

Races available to players in The Lejendary Rules include familiar ones, like Human, Dwarf, Elf (Wylf) and Gnome; some traditionally not open to characters, such as Kobold and Orc (three varieties); and others that are fairly unique to the game, such as Ilf, Oaf (three types), Trollkin, and Veshoge.

Lejendary Adventures characters have the option of either joining various orders (reminiscent of the character classes that form the basis of systems like Dungeons & Dragons) or of remaining "unordered." Either course has its advantages, increased proficiency in various abilities for the members of orders, and greater flexibility for unordered characters. Characters with the prerequisite abilities can select from the Demonurge, Desperado, Ecclesiastic, Elementalist, Forester, Jongleur, Mage, Mariner, Noble, Outlaw, Rogue, Soldier, and Warlock orders.

One especially interesting aspect of The Lejendary Rules are the various lists that players use to select initial weapons and equipment for characters based on their abilities. For example, Minstrelsy allows a selection from the Low list, Hunt from the Middle list, Learning from the High list, Enchantment from the Magical list, Weapons from the Military list, and Alchemia from the Special list.

Incidentally, this softback, perfect-bound book is durable and certain to last a long time, something inadvertently brought to our attention after a cat knocked our copy into the toilet one night. The next day we fished it out and let it dry, after which it was a bit warped but completely intact and usable.

If this book has a palpable weakness, it lies in its artwork, which includes a full-color illustration on the cover (depicting a traditional adventuring party) and hundreds of black-and- white illustrations inside. Unfortunately, quality of the latter are somewhat uneven, and many are coarsely rendered or poorly scanned. Many of these are reminiscent of the cruder illustrations in the old AD&D Monster Manual, and generous souls may allow that this similarity is deliberate.

Aesthetic flaws aside, this system has no substantive deficiencies to speak of. Like the Lejendary Adventures system as a whole, it is a solid, enjoyable, easy-to-use gaming component that is sure to provide years of entertainment to a great many gamers.

The latest RPG from the original creator(s) of Dungeons & Dragons. Gary Gygax after years in the industry gives us the total medieval fantasy Role-Playing experience. After writing many game systems it looks like he has taken everything that is good about role-playing games and placed it in this book.

Pros: Very fun. Quick and easy to play and learn. Incredibly flexible with rules which allows for a lot of creativity for the Game-Master. Adventure and Role-Playing are the focus, rather than tons of combat and creating characters or should I say Super Characters.

Cons: Not for people who are into todays D&D 3E type rules. But will appeal to most D&D 3E players because of the fantasy background. Needs a little more work on the readability and graphics. Finally, the game is not as well known as the D&D 3E (d20 community), so it does not get a lot of outside support.

Playing this game took me back to when I first started playing paper and pencil RPG's. I highly recommend this to anyone who is into Fantasy Role-Playing but does not want to stick with a standard d20 rules system. Very fun hope to see a lot more!

Lejendary Rules For All Players By Gary Gygax. Time to start anew. Start with a blank page, create a new game system from scratch, building on decades of experience, and what you end up with is a system of role playing which is easy to learn, fun to play, and all encompsaaing. Gygax has done it again.

The Lejendary Rules For All Players is THE Players Guide. Forget everything you thought you knew. Get this book! Period.

This game system is so easy you can learn while you play, but don't mistake ease of play for a incomplete product. All bases are covered here. The rules are straightforward and complete. Gameplay will be fun again, no more searching endless volumes for that missing "rule on battles where undead masters cannot be affected by certain spells when within their lair......" Get back to having fun playing the game, and away from trivial disagreements on "the average airspeed of an unladen swallow".

A fair assessment: scale of 1 to 5 (one being lowest)

Book: Lejendary Rules for all players

Binding: 3 Paperbacks are okay, but for the price a hardcover should be standard.

Design/layout: 3 Could be better indexed and have color section tabs.

Content: 5 Excellent work all around.

Cover art: 3 Nice, but not engaging.

Interior art: 2 No color, no race pictures, no armor/weapon pictures, uneven quality.

Editing/proofreading 2: typos/misprints exist, and some numbers don't add up.

Price: 2 $24.95 For a Standard edition, $29.95 for a Premiere, both paperback.

Overall : 3 Summary: Great content, poor execution. This project would be better if done First Rate; hardcover, better design, better art, full color.

A true prince in paupers clothing.

This book has come in handy many a card game night when rules are questioned. Great reference, the best I've found, very complete.

Very Informative on many games. Good refresher for those that need a review of games we used to play but can't remember the complete rules.

I first bought this book about 20 years ago. It is an excellent reference especially now that our children are of age to play advanced card games. I was looking for some new games to learn several years ago, and discovered what has become one of our favorites, Oh Hell. This book is essential if you play cards. Also included is good reference for various board games such as chess, checkers, backgammon, and some fun games for young kids.

Book is NOT user friendly, did not help me learn the game of Hearts...book is written to those that already know more than I do and my friend agreed.

Hoyle's Rules of Games, Third Revised and Updated Edition

There are easier to understand and more up-to-date descriptions of gameplay for most of the more popular games on the internet. The book is particularly weak on diagrams, which simplify understanding of many of the games tremendously. I would consider this book to be useful as supplementary information only; it would not be my first choice for learning a new game from scratch.

This book is a very interesting to review. I read it so that I could become a USCF tournament director, but it is still a useful book for anyone interested in chess. It is especially good to glance over if you want to start going to tournaments, but is not necessary. If you are looking for a story or anything of that nature, it is not a book for you.

The book is a necessity for every tournament director or club president. If you play in a tournament, it wouldn't hurt to have it either. Those are the reasons to buy it. So the real consideration is where to buy it.

There are the usual choices, the most obvious being the US Chess Federation. Amazon's better, cheaper, and the product's easier to find here than anywhere else.

You will find a very good index and table of contents making everything you are looking for easy to find. This book is a must for very serious tournament player, chess coach and required for tournament directors who run tournaments under the United States Chess Federation.
I agree that the book is so huge it is hard to pinpoint what rules are more important than others to focus on for a chess player. Most scholastic tournamnets use a "sudden death" time control but with digital clocks having time delay it is complicated to understand for a beginner to chess tournaments. There are a couple of books that do explain "chess tournaments" in a more simplified way already published. But no book can replace owning a copy of the "United States Chess Federation's Official Rules". My suggestion is for them to do a future edition with a chapter for the beginner to point out which sections are most important, especially for the scholastic player.

It appears that it isn't understood that the "United States Chess Federations'Official Rules of Chess" is NOT a book for a newcomer to be learning the rules from. It is a technical book suited for tournament directors and experienced chess players. Overlooked, is another book in it's first edition by the same publisher (Random House), "Winning Chess Tournaments for Juniors" look looks at the rules on a more basic and practical level for the non tournament director. I have read it will also be availlable in a new second edition. The rules are many, and the wording is important, just like the wording of laws, or the directions to putting together complex machinery. Do not expect an advanced guide, which it is intended it to be, and does a great job, to be easily understood by a beginner. I hope this review has taken a little confusion out of what this book is all about.

I got this book just before going into my first rated chess tournament. It was hard for me to make heads or tails from what was important to learn and what wasn't. I also found some of the explanations to be long and difficult to understand. This book is not very beginner friendly. Is there another book out there that makes things more clear for a newcomer?

This book combines philosophy, psychology and poker into an easy to read format that is thought provoking and fun. Does teach a few important lessons to help your game but more so about how to help your life.

I was vaguely aware of Larry Phillips and his "Tao" and "Zen" of poker before I decided to purchase them both a couple of weeks ago. As the reader probably knows, Steve Dannenman was carrying Tao around with him during the World Series this year. I will admit that this one isn't going to allow you to finish second out of a crowd of 5,000, but it is chock full of common sense which is exactly what one wants from an instructional guide. Phillips is no cardroom flunky, he is an erudite student who knows a little bit about everything; a renaissance man offering intimate insight on poker and human nature. I must say that several of the rules he offers are not consistent with conventional wisdom, but I agree with Phillips over the others. The notion that hot and cold streaks are the imagination of the individual player is often accepted, but Tao convincingly argues otherwise. Bad luck can last a few weeks no matter how many times you switch seats or tables. An example of his valuable perspective is evident in Rule 166 or the 75% rule. All he recommends here is that you book a win once you give back 25% of it. Those words are very wise and very accurate as greed is the death of every entrepreneur (which is the most charitable way of describing those of us joined at the felt to this glorious game). Phillips is a firm believer that emotions and the mental state of the player are a key variable in terms of who comes out a winner or a loser. Just about everything here is quietly valuable. Few of the things he says will make you exclaim "Wow!" but nearly all of them will make you a sounder player.

I am not a Zen kind of guy and was avoiding this book for that reason alone. I bought it based on the recommendation of another player that I met at a tournament, and am glad I did! Chock full of common sense advice that would take you a lifetime of playing to gain (if then). To my relief it is not some sort of "touchy feely," liberal nonsense book, but real poker wisdom, offered in a enjoyable format.

keep or buy Zen, dump Tao. This book has nothing much to add.

"The Tao of Poker" will transform and mold your thoughts on poker like Sun Tzu's The Art of War does for generals. This is not to say that the author provides concrete X's & O's strategies for winning, but rather illustrates the proper mindset to approach the game. Concepts like mentally focusing, planning, and how to manage your bankroll are introduced. For instance, after big wins in Texas Hold Em tournaments, I often "recycled" my money into higher money games, generally losing it. One of Phillips suggestions is to pocket a certain percentage of any big win, take a walk and come back refreshed. While I think most of the precepts in the book are just common sense to any moderate skill player, the book also advocates a certain philosophy to playing the game of poker, one that is useful from the novice to pro player.

This is a very useful volume filled with lots of information and ideas for gear. My GM has already used it to modify some of the ships in our game with information from the book. Thanks to that our survival percentage has just gone up. (I'm not thinking about how the danger quotient of the bad guys has gone up too.) ;-)

For SW fans who absolutely MUSt have every possible variation of weapon, speeder and droid available, then this book is a good purchase, however, nothing in this book is a vast improvement on what's in the core rules.

On the up side, there seems to be no redundancy in this book, meaning that if it's listed in the Core Rules, then it's not listed here. The downside being that you have to have both this book and the Core Rulebook handy for a complete list of items.

A MAJOR NEGATIVE is that there are no weapons/droids/vehicles/etc. tables for quick reference like there are in the core rulebook, which makes comparing items at a glance much more difficult (I got around tis by printing up a comparison table in excel).

Also, to my great dissapointment, there are not starfighters, cargo ships, etc. at all in this book. Only speeders, walkers, bikes, etc., none of which are all that impressive. Infact, save for the armor and possibly the droids, there's nothing impressive about this book at all.

I did, however, like the ability to customize and personalize weapons, armor and--to a limited extent--vehicles.

Some weapons have minor benefits here or there to the ones in the core rules, such as an increase in damage, but at the cost of range and/or accuracy. Spending more will not really get you a superior weapon (unless you personalize). Sorry folks.

I have a HUGE beef with the armor section. Armor lists the type, proficiency requires, cost, max dex bonus, speed, armor check penalty, weight, availability, era, and damage reduction, but not the DEFENSE BONUS the armor provides! WTF???

All in all this book could have been done MUCH better. I don't recommend it.

Glad I bought this book. The Star Wars RPG left many questions about weapons and technology open. This book answers about 30% of those questions, which is a lot of material.

To add a better sense of diversity, this book is an awesome tool.
It give a greater depth to the technical players out there

WEAPONS
The selection of weapons is HUGE (even adding more types than the RCRB has listed). Each weapon has WPs & break DCs (which I also like). Along with new rules on Customizing & personalizing weapons.
Species chip (a optional device for Sonic weapons) - which increases effectiveness against a selected species (a few species is listed, but a GM can add more if he/she wishes) - and they are pretty cheap too.

ARMOR
Vast selection of armor & protective gear. Also rules for non-human species.

DROIDS
All Astromech units are included (which are my favorite). They also have many, many more droid types & units listed.

VEHICLES
Rules on custimizing. A big selection including : airspeeders, swoops, speeder bikes, and many more.
Also for the STAR WARS fan who is familiar with Tatooine, this book also includes the popular "Sandcrawler".

OTHER
There's even a section on jetpacks & other devices that let you fly.

There are a lot more things in here (buy the book, I'm not telling you everything).

When you download a sample, you expect at least a little bit of the meat of the book so you can see if it's worth buying or not. In the case of this book, all you get is how the author uses people's names, and part of a pronounciation guide... useless.

When I started doing research for my honors thesis, I was excited to see how many books there were on the difference between American and Japanese business environments. I was immediately dissapointed; each and every book was filled with generalizations based on anecdotal evidence and weak extrapolations from history and language. Although Haru Yamada's book is an exception in that it actually has real data in it, that data is merely the analysis of a three-person American meeting and a three person Japanese meeting. That is hardly a representative sample.

The first thing you have to learn when attempting to interact with another culture is that culture does affect the way we communicate, and that bad experiences are often the result of misunderstanding. For someone with no experience with Japan, reading a book like this might be helpful. "Oh, OK. These are the things that I should watch out for." But there is always the danger that people will take the contents as gospel. In my experience, expecting that the Japanese will act a certian way only increases frustration and actually impedes progress. Its much better to start off on a clean slate, and to keep in mind that culture might throw off your "gut" impressions, so give people the benefit of the doubt.

What I would desperately like to see is a real linguistic study with hard conversation-derived data that merely attempts to discover what people DO, rather than how they ARE. As soon as you start talking about what an entire nation of people is like you officially leave the realm of sciences and enter the realm of stereotypes.

My dissertation is on US-Japan relations, so I've had to read a lot of these types of books. Its a shame more of them aren't like this. Granted, its not perfect, but if you had time to read only one book on the Japanese before jumping on a plane to negotiate your company's deal, I would hope this might be one of the books on the Airport bookstore's shelf... which it probably isn't.

If anyone is qualified to write about the subject of US-Japanese communication, it is Yamada. She is truly bi-cultural and bi-lingual, having significant experience in both the United States and Japan (her father's employment required the family to move in three year cycles between the United States and Japan, and she attended schools and universities in both countries). She adds to this experience sociolinguistic research credentials acquired under Deborah Tannen at Georgetown, which she puts to use in conducting a solid reseach study of US and Japanese business communication patterns. Yamada draws on this unique expertise to illustrate her points in a particularly clear and engaging way.

The very first page of this book made me wary. In an anecdotal style representative of the book as a whole, the author tells of her surprise at learning of the "American" version of Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper (cicada) in which the ants turn the grasshopper away during winter because he played all summer. She offers an alternative "Japanese" version in which the ants invite the grasshopper in to join a party because they worked so hard during the summer doing their "role" singing. She uses this to justify two polarized paradigms of communication (though not merely communication) for each culture: Japanese are interdependent and Americans are independent. (For some reason she never uses Westeners or even English speakers but always Americans). Interesting story but I thought it sounded suspicious. Well, guess what? After interviewing DOZENS of Japanese people from a variety of backgrounds and asking them to finish the story, I have YET to find anyone who can even believe the "nice ant" ending much less anyone who had heard it previously or offers it. Even when asked to brainstorm alternative endings, this ending never appears, however, grasshopper/cicada raids on the ant community do. Yamada disingenuously offers this footnote "I have been told that a more literal translation of the original version exists in Japanese where the rejected grasshopper sadly walks away at the end of the story." Exists? Have been told? It doesn't merely exist but is the only version anyone seems to know. Furthermore, somehow she interprets this story as showing idealized American independence and "the importance of fending for yourself." According to her, "the point is that each person is responsible for his or her destiny" while the Japanese version shows "everyone has a role in society." Really? How can one justify that? How is the work ethic of a collective ant colony about fending for oneself? It would seem much more apt to describe some kind of socialist system. If this kind of interpretation of endings is valid, what about the endings offered in which the cicada invades the ants' mound? Sounds like Manchuria to me. The first page is indicative of the whole book. Things are overly stylized and distorted for academic symmetry. Anecdotes are highly spurious and sometimes only tenuously related to the point at hand. After the first page I simply couldn't accept any of them so that now looking back at the points of this book requires a pillar of salt. In fact, one gets the very distinct impression from the personal anecdotes given that, despite being a trained linguist specializing in cross-cultural communication, Yamada often just doesn't get the REAL point behind what people are saying or the genuine motivation for their actions. Exaggerations, misrepresentations, and stylizations abound obscuring what would otherwise be interesting points. Nonetheless, the book reads like an article from Ophrah's magazine (or what I would imagine they read like) if you inserted a bunch of romanized Japanese words with constant parenthetical translations (also the subject of some disagreement for many of the native speakers with whom I spoke). You finish the book almost as soon as you start. In particular, the "quotes" of parents instructing their children in each language were amusing. I have heard very similar things myself. The notes from the business meetings are interesting (particularly the Japanese section-head meeting) but watching her dissect the American meeting raises doubts in my mind about the validity of her Japanese analysis. She does introduce some interesting points but the sample is so small one feels distinctly disappointed in not getting to see these "principles" at work in other situations. It reminded me of the perfunctory "labs" that might go along with a Junior High science class. One of the things I enjoyed most about the book is the abundance of Japanese present. I actually learned a few useful words from this book, however, as most things in the book, they too become stylized. The discussion of AMAYAKASHISUGI (too sweet), WAGAMAMA (spoilt), TSUMETAI(cold), AND KATTE(selfish) is a good example. No one I spoke to agreed with the sharp opposition she set up among these terms. While this did provide for many interesting discussions, she should not have introduced these as terms defined merely by nurturer/nurtured over/under indulgence. For example, AMAYAKASHISUGI, to my understanding, might be better thought of as "doting" and used almost exclusively for parents. WAGAMA is not merely spoilt in the taking sense that we normally think of. In fact, the first situation I was given defining WAGAMAMA had a person giving a gift in expectation of a certain response and being disappointed not to receive it. Not what we expect exactly. TSUMETAI and KATTE simply aren't polarized in the way defined in the book. KATTE is not merely selfish but also snobbish. I was told a KATTE person may even get mad at the rain. TSUMETAI is used not only for under indulgent nurturers but also for the nurtured. Of course, a lot of the time nurturing is not the correct metaphor for the relationship and so this whole system breaks down anyway. Overall I found the book worth reading but not because it gave me answers. Quite the opposite. I found that it made me ask questions. Unfortunately, if you don't happen to have access to a large group of Japanese people to discuss these propositions with, I don't think you'll get nearly as much out of it. I actually think the central conceit of the book is correct, namely that Japanese communication grows out of a culture of interdependence and American communication from a culture of independence, however, the support for this thesis is mixed and often counterproductive.