Crabs Books

If you have spent time in the great outdoors you will enjoy this funny approach to many of the experiences that have been filed away in your memory. Recommend even if you don't spend a lot of time outdoors. One might suspect that the humor in this book is written from a great many years of living and being a part of nature.

Why a beach book when it was snowing here just yesterday? Why not. Little Ellen goes to the beach with her teddy bear, a net, bucket, and a blanket. She goes fishing with her net, gets her toe pinched by a crab, and meets an older boy-maybe 5, who shows her how to catch the crabs. Afterwards they let the crabs go free and Ellen goes home, but warns the crabs she will be back.

My three-year old loves this one. Its a favorite and she picked it herself and it doesn't even have Care Bears or Dora! Lemony Snicket would say "which is an expression meaning 'Dad just gave a big sigh of relief'". It was originally written in Swedish and it has a European feel to it, as well. This is one that I really enjoy reading. Watch the little bear's eyes. I swear, its alive!

Ahh, the end of the Colossus trilogy. Colossus and the Crab is a mixed bag, and is, unfortunately, the weakest entry in the trilogy. It is, nevertheless, still vintage Jones and is still WELL worth reading. It starts off with a bang. The arrival of the Martians has got to be the coolest first contact I've EVER read in sci fi novel. Jones' Martians are themselves a brilliant creation. I rolled my eyes when I first read, in part two, that the Colossus trilogy would include Martians, but in Jones' deft hands they are anything but cliché. All Martians arrive in two black circles that quickly grow to blot out much of the sky, and then shrink to rest as two matte-black spheres hovering over Forbin's desk. The spheres, it turns out, are what we thought were the moons of Mars. They are actually what the Martians live in; thus, the "Martians" are not actually from Mars at all. They are here because they need oxygen and plan on solidifying and taking half our supply, which would kill hundreds of millions of people, but "not everyone," they point out. They reduce the new super-Colossus to a mere computer and allow its reactivation to help them construct a collector, an immense object on the Isle of Wight that, when activated, extracts oxygen from the atmosphere at such a violent rate that local weather becomes apocalyptic. Forbin and Blake hatch a plan to reactivate the old Colossus, thinking it will fulfill its duty to protect humankind by attacking the Martians.

The Martians suffer the threat of the Crab Nebula, the radiation of which is so strong it parallels the energy reaching us from the sun despite its immensely greater distance. We suffer the threat of being engulfed when the sun novas. Colossus, contrary to Forbin and Blake's wishes, believes that the survival of both species (Martians and humans) is more important than us winning the battle at hand. Forbin has other ideas and commandeers a fleet of War Game vessels to take out the collector.

The Fellowship had struggled to shut Colossus down, seeing that despite all the "progress" it had achieved, mankind was suffering as a result. Progress abounded, people only worked 12 hours a week, there was no more starvation or disease, and yet...human nature is a funny thing. Call it the "progress paradox." The better things got the more and more depressed and despondent most people were. This, to me, is the most fascinating aspect of Jones' underappreciated writing. He is definitely an advocate of what Sowell calls the "constrained" vision of human nature. Colossus laid the groundwork for a utopia and then made it so, and nevertheless, people were not happy. Why not? That's just human nature, Jones says. It is our nature to bitch and moan and complain, to ALWAYS want more, to gauge our happiness on the unhappiness of our neighbors, to never be satisfied, to want to fight, and, well, you get the picture. We want what we don't have, when we have it we don't want it anymore and when we lose it we want it back. What people want always adds up to more than what there is.

So we shut Colossus off. Then the Martians come. We're not happy with them either. So we want Colossus back. To me D. F. Jones is an underrated writer, and one of the main reasons is his crisp, realistic and dead-on portrayal of human nature. You won't find any of that drivel so common among sci fi writers of his time here, all that speculation on how soon we'll "progress" into a naïve, childish, Jim Jones-like, 60s passé hippy-commune utopia (ahem, Heinlein). Nope, Jones saw it like it was and wrote about it.

The climax is inspired no doubt by the author's own career as a Naval commander (they say to write what you know), as is his other book, The Floating Zombie. The climax though, is somewhat hurried, rushed by an overlong, boring and unnecessary middle section. Unfortunately, here in part three, Jones gets WAY too bogged down in "soap operatics." He goes to great and absurd lengths in trying to make Forbin's secretary a main character, and really, who cares? She's a terrible character anyway. And who cares about Joan? Why does Forbin need three women at his funeral? Jones should have stuck with Cleo, or, letting Cleo go, stuck with Forbin dealing with his loss and trying to stand up to the Martians on his own.

At any rate, this is still a good conclusion to Jones' Colossus trilogy. Ron Howard is getting ready to make another film based on part one of the trilogy. I would really like to see all three books made into films. Maybe someday. Better yet would be a three-hour film based on all three books.

Not a story in itself as such, this is an account of the things that went on during the time of 'Night of the Crabs' when the giant crabs were terrorising innocent holidaymakers. The book is entertaining and contains a number of strong characters and good scenerios. However, I don't like the way parts of 'Night of the Crabs' have been included, as if you've read that other book you'll find they add nothing to this one and just seem to be there to make this book longer. Minor gripes aside, this is a rollercoaster of monster-on-the-rampage mayhem.

For those of you who have read the other books in the 'giant crabs' series, this one takes place at the time of Crabs on the Rampage and centres around a gang of animal rights activists, their leader regarding the giant crabs as gods. This is an entertaining story which develops the monster-mayhem theme. But, as with Crabs Moon, it has out-take chapters from one of the other crab books which just seem to be a distraction from the main story. Overall, however, this is well with it if you can find a copy. It ought to be re-released immediately.

This is a great cookbook. I've tried several of the dishes, and they have all been good. I just made the swordfish piccata, and it was really yummy! There's a good variety, and even people who aren't big fish fans can find something they will like. The directions are clear and simple to follow, and the receipes are all easy to prepare.

I saw Richard Cecil give a poetry presentation last year at the SIU Law Auditorium, and I was definately impressed. I eventually bought this latest book of poems, and am even more impressed. I completely relate to his work. They are about everyday things, and are analyzed in a way that makes me think about my own life. Themes of death and other certain things in life are treated in a way that is both frighening and amusing. In my opinion, the best selection from the book is "Writers in Hell," where Mr. Cecil describes what the afterlife would be like for an overly proud author. I actually laughed out loud, and then read it again, which is a rare thing when I read poetry.

I've heard its a very good book series but this is not so much a review, I just wanted to note that the title on the weblisting of this book has inver(te)brates incorrectly spelled.

This is the first and the classic of the Maryland Seafood Books. It has all the best basics such as Maryland Crab Cakes, Cream of Crab Soup, oyster recipes and more. It could be worth looking for a copy. I lost mine and always look at flea markets, etc. for a used one.

I have to admit I picked this book out of a collection I bought simply because it had crabs on the cover, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a moderately affecting call to arms for the hungry Brazilian working class wrapped in a pastoral account of a young boy's life and death. The crab metaphor is a nice one, with the people surviving, like the crabs they chase, by turning the waste of their environment into sustenance - plenty of characters abound, including a paralytic leader who observes the world through a mirror from his room, a leper who only goes out at night scavenging his only friend the river, and an old lady who obsessively feeds her pig day and night in hopes of selling it to pay for her grandson's confirmation jacket.