Fictional Books

This is a pretty cool short story that anyone would enjoy. Especially anyone with any kind of horse racing background. I almost gave it 4stars, but it was just too short, even for a "short story". I LOVED the last few pages/"ending", and I would recommend that any person with any screenwriting abilities contact Mr. Tuttle @ [...] He even expresses this sentiment at the end of this story.

I'm out!

J.R.

HEMINGWAY served a generation of men because he walked the talk and inspired thousands of young, wild at heart writers to 'go', to 'inquire' and to grasp truth within the human psyche and soul. His creed was to always "write the truest sentence ever told." Papa would not yet have sent First Light to Scribner. It requires living truth but only bears a walking truth. True at First Light triggered my love for Papa's writing and my yearning for the old days of youth and truth and vigor and substance. I saw elements of the early years but True Light left me wanting for Papa's LOVE OF LANGUAGE and insight into our all too human paradox. It touched his genius but couldn't hold on to his full expression. I felt the anger and petulance without any meaningful redress or resolution. Patrick, you WILL do better expressing your own voice viewing life from the perspective of your personal vision. Yet, I thank you for rendering this final perspective of the man we've grown to love and revere.

good for research papers and stuff. dont get it just to read though coz it gets really boring

I read this essay in Spanish -it hasn't been translated to English yet- about a year ago, and I liked it a lot, though in Peru this essay caused controversy due to the tough way it takes on Ribeyro's work. Since I haven't read much -almost nothing at all- of Ribeyro's, I can't comment on the subject, but it's quite amazing to discover how this promising writer quit the mastership of the craft, despite having it all to get such a big success as Mario Vargas Llosa's. By the way, Zorrilla also has an essay on Vargas Llosa, titled "Vargas Llosa and his major demon: the father's shadow", which unfortunately hasn't been translated to English either. Hopefully, these great essays -the one on Vargas Llosa is unique- will get a decent edition in America anytime.

The information contain does not give enough data to properly evaluate. The price of this paper does not justify the content. It is too expensive and I will never do it again

The idea of an Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages is an excellent one, but not original. Such an encyclopedia already exists in Italian published in 1994 by Albani and Buanarotti as "Aga Magera Difura: Dizionario delle Lingue Imaginarie" (also translated into French) and there is of course also the wonderful "Dictionary of Imaginary Places" by Manguel and Guadalupi. Somehow I think it would have been better just to translate the work by Albani and Buanarotti, because this book is disappointing in almost all aspects.

First of all the choices of languages is highly suspect and one wonders whether the language of "Mork and Mindy" or "Tarzan of the Apes" should have been included, and then one notices that there are too many entries based on films or TV shows. Yes, I can agree with the language of "A Clockwork Orange" possibly being included or the languages of the Tolkien novels, but this book relies too much on what I would call barely developed languages where there are only a few unique words.

So we have dozens of languages that might have been better omitted in an "Encyclopedia" that is only 236 pages long including List of Entries, Guide to Related Topics, Foreword, Acknowledgements, Bibliography, and indices. This means that the entries are brief. Many entries are less than half a page long and this not exactly the format for describing something as complex as languages, many of which have their own writing systems. Most of the entries are not informative and most give only a single reference.

When the authors do encounter a language that is original, complex and incredible such as the language of the Codex Serpahinianus for example, the description is weak. One short paragraph long, no illustrations, no attempt at description and the only reference is the Codex itself. This is not exactly helpful.

In summary, what we have here is an overpriced slim volume posing as a dictionary with short entries, many of questionable value containing limited information, and a bibliography that lists only ten sources, half of which I would not have included. I should have given this book one star, but gave it two because of the idea. Now someone needs to expand on this and create a real Encyclopedia.

Review by Walter O. Koenig

[...] He claims that they are unnecessarily violent, hateful, misogynistic, and harmful to children. He builds this case by ignoring a very large body of good children's literature which includes fantastical worlds, fairy tale elements, sword fighting, violence, masculinity, and all that good stuff that children love to read about. The points he makes are drawn from quotes stretched and spliced and immediately interpreted (some quotations are too short to have any meaning unless he gives them meaning), and some are from exaggerated conclusions drawn from private letters including infrared and ultraviolet fluorescent probings to find "deleted ideas." These he pieces together to create an image of Lewis that is misoginist, sado-masochistic, slightly homosexual, obsessed with or ashamed of masturbation, and continually obsessed with his deceased mother. The dead mother concept and breasts surface frequently in his conclusions. His point? That Lewis's Narnia books are harmful to children and that Lewis had many unresolved issues that appear in his writing and make them less than Christian in their themes and interpretations. The scholarship of The Skeleton in the Wardrobe is shady and unconvincing and the conclusions would be laughable if they were not so insulting and defamatory. There is nothing creditable about the way Holbrook draws his conclusions. He continually reminds the reader that a particular word of course means a particular thing, therefore this passage of this book reaffirms his point. This is a Freudian interpretation of the life of a man who has contributed to Christian apologetics, literary scholarship, children's literature, adult fiction, science fiction and fantasy, and poetry. The variety of his subjects elude such limited conclusions about childhood issues with feminity and masculinity and it is the one-track view of the author that gets him into trouble from the start, when he writes that some children have been "unduly upset by them [the Narnia books]." The Narnia books are, for many children, childhood favorites and adult treasures; enjoyed as children, treasured through adolescence, read as adults and read to their own children later. Read this book if you love Lewis and wish to be amused, offended, insulted, and deceived.

This is a bad book with a story line that is fairly simple. There are two young girls, both pregnant and both claiming to be virgins. One, Kathleen, rich and privileged, lives in the United States. The other, Colleen, lives in a small country village in Ireland. According to a secret missive from Our Lady of Fatima, one virgin will give birth to Satan's child, the Anti-Christ, while the other will give birth to the child of God, a new Messiah.

Meanwhile, all over the world apocalyptic manifestations are sprouting up. Pestilence, drought, famine, and and other evil portents seem to dominate the global landscape. Something strange is going on, and it appears as if the forces of good and evil are gathering about, girding themselves for one final battle.

Father Rosetti, an emissary from the vatican, has been entrusted with a secret mission by the Pope relative to these two young virgins, and it is one that will sorely try his faith. Meanwhile, former nun turned private investigator, Anne Fitzgerald, has been retained by the Archdiocese of Boston to look into the phenomena of a possible immaculate conception with regards to these two young women who inhabit disparate worlds. Anne must not only confront the unknown in order to assist these two young women, she must also confront her own powerful emotions and a destiny she could not have imagined.

Written in 1980 and originally released under the the title, "Virgin", this book has been updated by the author to make it appear as if it were a more contemporary work and recently released again under the title "Cradle and All". The book is riddled with ridiculous cliches from the horror genre and lacks any real tension. It has been released again to capitalize on the author's success with his Alex Cross series of thrillers. Unfortunately, it is not cut from the same bolt of cloth and lacks the quality of both writing and plot that earmarks his Alex Cross novels.