Biggs Books

158 pages of aliens, kid inventors, talking pirate rats, faraway castles, and one beastly beast are broken up into four easily palatable short length stories. Garth Nix has a lot of fun inviting his readers to do the same. Brian Biggs' thick-lined, simple, entertaining illustrations intermittently fill the pages just enough but never overwhelm, leaving the bulk of the visuals to develop in the womb of the imagination.

Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer
on 09/20/2007

ONE BEASTLY BEAST: TWO ALIENS, THREE INVENTORS, FOUR FANTASTIC TALES is a collection of four short stories by fantasy author Garth Nix.

In "Blackbread the Pirate," DVDs are stolen from Peter by a gang of pirate rats. Yes, pirate rats! One Captain Erasmus Rattus arrives to take Peter to a magical land in hopes of retrieving the DVDs--they are rentals.

In "The Princess and the Beastly Beast," Princess Chlorinda is bored and somewhat ignored. There is no adventure--until she's forced to dive down the throat of a monstrous beast!

In "Bill the Inventor," a baby boy was found in a banana skin with no clue to his parents' whereabouts, and he was sent to an orphanage. Several years later, he is faced with unusual prospects for adoptive parents. Being the smart boy he is, he uses his inventions to avoid adoption, until...

In "Serena and the Sea Serpent," a freak accident embedded Serena with the contents of fifty-seven encyclopedias. As the town know-it-all, she volunteers to solve a small problem: a huge sea serpent is running amok up and down the coast. She may be small, but she is determined!

These stories are clever and fun, sure to be a hit among children who enjoy a bit of fun and fantasy in the everyday world. Illustrator Brian Biggs brings Nix's tales to life with same hilarious fantasy spirit in which they were written.

For parents who worry that sensitive children may be frightened by the aliens, monsters, and such, I feel this is a good selection for reading together. These stories are presented in a fun, not scary, manner. The beauty of reading it with your child is that you can not only gauge their reaction, you can also talk about it and other things that either worry them or make them feel brave.

Fantasy writer Garth Nix has created a short story collection for the younger set. Exploring the underworld of rat pirates; adoptions of Earthlings by odd, tentacled aliens; a princess literally searching the belly of the beast; and a brainiac solving the dilemmas of a kindhearted sea serpent, Nix introduces young readers to the possibilities of the imagination between the covers of a book.

ONE BEASTLY BEAST is an excellent choice for the reluctant reader. The full manuscript is around 120 pages, which can make a RR groan. However, each story is only about a quarter of the book, so readers can actually finish a single storyline very quickly. Additionally, illustrator Brian Biggs provides a number of illustrations to kick-start the imaginations of readers who might need a little extra motivation to continue to the end.

Possibly the strongest point regarding the construction of this book, however, is that even though it is a collection of four short stories, Nix still divides each story into chapters, thus giving young readers a taste of chapter books, as well as further dividing the reading challenge into smaller bites for the most reluctant of readers.

For those who are looking for something that will motivate a boy to read, this book will do just that, with pirates, rats, inventors, and aliens. Nix doesn't forget about his young female audience, however; they will love the adventure-seeking princess, penguinmaids, and the super-smart Serena, who saves the day with her bravery and willingness to dig deeper and understand the heart of a vegetarian sea serpent.

Overall, this is a book for every young reader; Nix has scored a fantasy winner with ONE BEASTLY BEAST (TWO ALIENS, THREE INVENTORS, FOUR FANTASTIC TALES).

Reviewed by: Mechele R. Dillard

He was the nicest, most helpful spaceman on the Venus cargo run . . . and just happened to be the biggest menace in all of space! A classic science fiction novel, originally published in science fiction pulp magazines in the 1950s. Still a lot of fun and better than much of what is being published today.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, there emerged a curious form of present-as-future space opera based on the modern navy. Book length treatments of this type of story include Nelson S. Bond's _Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman_ (1950) and Malcolm Jameson's _Bullard of the Space Patrol_ (1951). Individual stories of this sort include Robert Moore Williams's "The Red Death of Mars" (_Astounding_, 1940) and the Ensign de Ruyter stories by Arthur Porges, in _Amazing_ during the 1960s. According to these stories, there will be fleets of spaceships in the future, either military or merchant. People will talk in space navy slang. There will be rival football games (or some other futuristic sport) between different space academies or spaceship crews. There will be Admirals and Skippers and First Mates and Cooks (usually bad ones). There will be testy, short-tempered doctors. There will be radio operators nicknamed "Sparks." And there will be Scottish engineers:

"Ye're no suggestin', Mr. Biggs," he said, "that I try to dooble the _Saturn's_ speed?"
"You must!"
MacDougal grinned mirthlessly, nodding his grizzled head to designate the laboring, old-fashioned hypatomics in the firing room. "Yon motors," he said, "is calculated to carry us from Venus to Earth in ten days. By babyin' 'em, we can make it in nine. By strainin' 'em, we can maybe make it in eight. But if we force 'em beyond that limit"-- he shook his head--"we'll arrive at Long Island spaceport as a bonny conglomeration of assorted bolts, plates, an' rivets.
"Ye woulndna like that, Mr. Biggs." (67)

Did you really think that Scotty, Kirk, and McCoy from _Star Trek_ had never been done before? _Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman_ is based on a series of stories written between 1939 and 1943 for _Amazing_, _Fantastic Adventures_, and _Weird Tales_. Bond rewrote the original stories somewhat to smooth them into a more novelistic form. The result is an enjoyable piece of light entertainment as the gawky, awkward mate on the _Saturn_ gives his space-dog captain high blood pressure by getting the crew into one jam after another... yet always manages to save the day in the proverbial nick of time.

Nelson Bond had a sense of humor similar to a pair of other up-and-coming pulp writers of the forties, Robert Bloch and Fredric Brown. For my money, Bond's stories were more stylistically polished than those of Bloch and Brown. But the other two authors wrote more novels than Bond, and that made all the difference. They hit the big time, while Bond's reputation has remained more modest. Still, there are pleasures to Bond. I have always had a sneaking fondness for many of his stories. _Lancelot Biggs_ is not a classic. It never was. But it has a certain old-fashioned charm that makes it worth reading even today.

I read this book when it was first published -- I think in a library copy. I was just a kid, and at that time hadn't really decided I would be a professional writer.

But I loved the book. I don't write this particular style, true, but I enjoy reading it. And I enjoyed it more as a kid.

As a budding writer, this book taught me the value of vivid characters who behave in a consistent manner.

I learned one of Robert A. Heinlein's rules from this book -- that what a writer is selling is entertainment. That your work competes for the book-buyers beer money. Later, when I saw R.A.H. articulate that rule, I understood what he was talking about.

For myself, I slowly hatched the ambition to grow up to give other people the kind of sheer, soul-satisfying, good READ that Nelson S. Bond gave to me. Of course, there were many other authors that contributed to that ambition, but you know what? I bought this book at a convention at a premium price in the 1970's - and I still have it on my treasure shelf.

As a professional reviewer and teacher of writing, I recommend this book for readers in the 10-16 age group -- and those mature enough to be able to enjoy a book aimed at younger readers without being embarrassed.

If you like Farscape, Stargate SG-1, and/or Star Trek's new ENTERPRISE -- you really should read this book. This is their source-material.

Parents should read this book with an idea to judging at what age their own children would be able to appreciate it. But they'll be asking you what you're laughing at, you'll be having such a howling good time reading.

This kind of writing is timeless and can appeal to readers of all ages, if they're mature enough to enjoy for the sake of enjoying. And this is the kind of book no home sf/f library should be without.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Finally, Marvel is putting together these exhaustive handbooks in hard cover form. If you are a big Marvel fan you absolutely have to have these reference books. Also, finally, there are biographies for Marvel Golden Age characters which is very nice.

If you collected the Official Marvel Handbooks from the 1980s-1990s and enjoyed them then these updated versions are a MUST have. The matching spines and similar covers look good on the book shelf and the back covers give a list of all the biographies inside.

Pretty much perfect for what it is.

This is such an attractively made series I can tell you now I'll be recommending them all. Comics shops ought to have a special section for these volumes, similar to sections that contain Marvel Masterworks. My favorite entries in this 3rd volume include Daredevil, Deadpool, Defenders, Doc Samson, Doctor Doom, and Elektra.

The contents here include: Captain (Nextwave); Captain America of the Revolutionary war; Captain Axis; Centennial; O.Z. Chase; Chronok; Chtylok; Cobra (Piet Voorhees); Coldheart; Collective Intelligence; Colossus (super-computer); Colossus (Vegan); Commanda; Conquistador (Beast foe); Crazy Eight (Shappe); Crimson Dynamo (Gavrilov); Crimson Mage; Crooked World; Crossbones; Crusader (Blackwood); Crusader (Thompson); Crusaders; Crusher (Iron Man foe); Crystal; Crystar; Jaine Cutter; Cutthroat; Cyber; Cyclone (Fresson); Cyclops (Summers); Cypher; Dagger; Daily Bugle; Daken; Damballah (Dam-Ayido); Danger; Danger Man; Daredevil (Murdock); Dark Angel; Dark Beast; Dark Gods; Dark Rider; Dark Riders; Dark-Crawler; Darkdevil; Darkhawk; Darkhold; Darkhold Redeemers; Darklore; Darkstar (Petrova); Darwin; Daydream; Days of Future Past; Dazzler (Worthington); Dazzler (Blaire); D'bari; Dead Girl; Deadly Dozen; Deadly Ernest; Deadpool; Karolina Dean; Death (cosmic entity); Death Metal; Death Wreck; Deathbird; Deathcry; Deathlok (Collins); Deathlok (Manning); Deathlok (Truman & Young); Death's Head (FPA); Death's Head (Minion); Death's Head (Page); Death's Head Warguard; Deathwatch; Deathweb; Johnny Dee; Debrii; Decibel; Defenders; Delilah; Delinquent; Deltites; Deluge; Demogoblin; Demogorge; Demolition Man; Demon-Fire; Demons; Desak; Desert Sword; Destiny (Destine); Destiny (Adler); Destroyer (Marlow/ Falsworth/ Aubrey); Destroyer (Stanton); Deviants; Devil's Heart; Devil-Slayer; Devlor; Devos the Devastator; Jean DeWolff; Diabolique; Diamond Lil; Diamondback (Stryker); Diamondback (Leighton); Diamondback (Bertrand); Diamondhead; Digger (Vegas Thirteen); Digitek; Dimension of Manifestations; District X; Divinity Drake; Doc Samson; Doctor Demonicus; Doctor Doom (Von Doom); Doctor Doom's Generals; Doctor Druid; Doctor Faustus; Doctor Glitternight; Doctor Nemesis (Stockton); Doctor Octopus (Octavius); Doctor Strange (Carlo); Doctor Strange (Stephen); Dominic Fortune (Fortunoff); Domino (Thurman); Milla Donovan; Doomsday Man; Doop; Doppelganger; Dorma; Dormammu; Nadia Dornova; DP7; Dracula; Dragon Circle; Dragon Man; Damon Dran; Drax; Dream Weaver; Dredmund the Druid; Drom; Droog; Druig; D'Spayre; Jean-Paul DuChamp; Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan; Dust (Quadir); Dweller-in-Darkness; Earth X; Earth-A; Echo; Ethan Edwards; Effigy; Ego; 8-Ball; El Dorado; Electro (Dillon); Elektra; Elementals; and then Elements of Doom.

I am a Field Training Officer for a large Southern California law enforcement agency and the most difficult part to teach new officers is how to write a proper report.I have trained over 30 law enforcement officers with various educational backgrounds and all of them have had problems with police report writing. I consider this book to be an excellent reference to improve your report writing skills. I have encouraged every new officer that I have trained to purchase this book.

The book explained the basics of investigation, note taking, rules of narrative writing, describing persons and property,and issues in writing. The book also explained how to write a search warrant and how to dictate your reports.

The overall content of the book was excellent and my only complaint was that the book should have provided sample narrative reports from several different agencies. The law enforcement agency that I work for uses headings(Assignment, Victim Interview, Suspect Statement, etc.)for the narrative portion of the report while other agencies do not. Hopefully, the author will include some sample burglary,theft,vandalism, robbery and other criminal reports in a future edition that will show reports with and without headings.

In closing, if you are a rookie or veteran law enforcement officer that wants to write quality police reports without the traditional police lingo then buy this book and follow the advice in it.

I teach report writing for one of our state universities, and am a recently-retired cop myself. I adopted this book for this quarter's class, and my students have given it very favorable reviews. I use this book as the foundation reading for my lecture and practical exercises, and so my students are "dialed in" much more quickly. I rate this book as the best of the available choices for introducing this essential skill to current and prospective criminal justice employees.

I used the previous edition of this book, and thought it was the best book from which to learn Maori. This edition is even better - the explanations of the grammar are even clearer. The only improvement needed is to add audio tapes to help with the pronunciation.

My earliest attempts at trying to understand the structure of a Polynesian language (Hawaiian) didn't get very far, principally because I found the authors' explanations of phrase structure confusing. Once I had read Bruce Biggs' explanation of Polynesian phrase structure, et al., in his book, "Let's Learn Maori" (LLM), everything started falling into place. His discription of Maori "parts of speech" is also clear and precise. He also keeps his explanation and examples of the verbal particles simple. There is a lot to recommend this book for the serious student of the Maori language, especially when LLM is used with the audio tapes that go with the text, but I would also recommend at least one other text to study along with LLM; one recommendation is John Foster's "He Whakamarama: A Full Self-Help Course in Maori" (with audiotapes), and an out-of-print book by Hoani R. Waititi, "Te Rangatahi" books 1 and 2 -- I have the 1970 edition.

It should be noted that LLM has one "curious" feature that some may find "offputting": Polynesian languages have both long and short vowels, and most grammars, if they represent this important distinction at all, use macrons to represent the long vowels. Biggs follows the convention of the University of Auckland by representing long vowels with doubled letters: manu 'bird', maanu 'afloat'; tupuna 'grandparent', tuupuna 'grandparents'.

"Let's Learn Maori" is an excellent text for gaining a deeper understanding of the structure of this beautiful language, but the author's intent, I surmise, was that it should be used as a supplemental resource while using other basic grammar texts and materials. I highly recommend this book for any serious student of Maori.

Really interesting book. I originally bought this just as a guide to learn more about the folks that live in our back yard like the opossums, raccoons, skunks and others who frequent our bird feeding areas. But there's so much more in here. I had no idea we had so many different moles, voles, woodland rats and mice, for example. Also animals that I didn't realize were here like weasels, fox squirrels, minks, and others. Bats are covered here too which was a treat. For each animal there's a color photo, a description of the animal, distribution and abundance, a map of its range, habitat, and natural history. I was especially interested when I first opened the book and flipped to porcupines - I knew they had all been killed off in VA but there's a neat description of them as well as info on the occasional sighting that has occurred. Really a great book - I'm so glad to have found it.

It's a hardcover, so not the most comfortable field guide to throw in a backpack, but I don't have any other complaints about this book.

Animal profiles are accompanied by excellent color photographs, basic statistics about each animal (distribution, habitat, abundance, etc.), and a shaded map outlining just where each animal's distribution is. Entries for each animal are detailed enough, but don't seem to go on so long that a person would lose interest.

One more gripe: pictures of the animals feet, so that pawprints could be identified easily, would have been a welcome inclusion here. The Simon and Schuster's Guide To Mammals, by Boitani, is an inexpensive book that includes this feature. It might be a helpful second book to get on the topic.

It's an exciting book for young naturalists, too, who will likely get stirred up just by seeing some of the photos (star-nosed mole, northern flying squirrel, big brown bat, etc.).

Essays on conservation, the region, and tips on observation precede the main body of the book. The essays are short and well-written. They should be helpful to anyone who wants to scout out some mammals in the Carolinas, Virginia, or Maryland.

ken32

Its a great book, I came on here to buy another copy for a friend who runs a well known hedge fund. Well organized? No, not really, but it doesn't matter. It really does capture the flavor of the world nicely.

The quality of the writing is substantially better than expected - which is to say quite good.

Biggs is an engaging enough teller of anecdotes, but he's prone to making conclusions based on little to no data. He also seems blinded by his own industry's whoppers. Claiming, for instance, that LTCM went down because of "3 sigma" events is just plain wrong. The Kindle conversion is sloppy. Font sizes are off. Dashes that originally seem to hae split word in a paper text are for some reason retained. Lazy.

As a finance student,i thought that i will capture some good ideas,and fascinating stories from a book written by an experienced man in the finance business.Unfortunatly it was not the case the writer did not have any common sense on how to organize the book ,the style of writing was ok Barton Biggs surely knows a lot of fency words,but he lacks organized thoughts.
To conclude this book is just flash backs from lunches and dinners that biggs attended ,almost in every page of the book he used [lunch or dinner]meeting ,i never seen his picture before but in my mind he must be 300 pounds

Hedgehoggers come in different sizes and personalities, and their results swing widely from high levels of success to abject failure. Hedge-fund investing is only for rich people and institutions; however, these funds play an important role in the stock market and the economy. Author Barton Biggs is a cultured, high-level money manager and global strategist. After 30 years with Morgan Stanley (which took public exception to parts of this book), he raised substantial capital through his wealthy family and investors, and entered the hedgehogging jungle. He describes the field both coldly and romantically. He is an effective raconteur, especially when he details war stories about Wall Street's unethical, double-crossing maneuvers, and strange but wealthy characters. getAbstract recommends this book for its smooth, dramatic writing about hedge funds, their context and the players who run them.

the book is compeltely unstructured. the author jumps from one theme to another. finally we get this crazy story about the guy who sees tommorow's numbers in today's WSJ and get a brief on Keins biography. come on guys! if you dont know what to write in a book, publish your articles in journals. he's a smart guy(the author), but a lousy writer. Maybe he's got a lousy publisher, somone shoul've helped him structure it much better.

Calfornia is not usually my favorite setting for books and I passed the first time I saw this book at my local Borders. Upon second review I decided to give it a shot and I am very glad that I did. The plot and characters draw you in and you become interested in them. Karp throws as good a curve ball as they throw in this genre. This book has heart.

This book had the potential to be a 4 or 5 star book because SOME of the characters were interesting and the dialogue was great.

-but-

The author was too consumed with making politically correct villains that Hollywood embraces these days, and making sympathetic heroes out of the scum who undermine families.

Even if you can overlook that stuff, the book really stalls out three quarters of the way through, and gives you know reason to continue reading.

I like detective novels. Usually I don't think such books should run much over 400 pages. If they do, they have to be very well-written and amusing. This book fulfills that requirement rather nicely.

Mike Lomax and his partner, Terry Biggs, have been assigned to solve a murder at the local theme park. The author, Marshall Karp, has obviously worked in Hollywood for years, and has created a fictional movie studio with an attached theme park and a series of cartoon characters, the best known of which is Rambunctious Rabbit. As a result, the studio is known as the Rabbit Factory by studio insiders. For those who don't know, in reality people in Hollywood sometimes say they "work for the Mouse" when they're employed by Disney. Disney Studios is sometimes known as "the Mouse House". If you read carefully, you can see elements of Disney, Universal Studios, and perhaps Paramount or Warner Brothers in the composite studio that Karp has created.

The killing Lomax and Biggs are working on is that of one of the guys hired to play Rambunctious Rabbit around the studio's theme park, Familyland. It soon develops that the guy was a child molester who had managed to buy a new identity. When another person gets killed, and then yet another, it becomes apparent that someone has it in for the studio itself, and Lomax and Biggs have to race to solve the crime quickly, for fear the whole studio could be destroyed.

Karp has created two interesting characters in Lomax and Biggs. Biggs is a happy guy with a bad sense of humor, and his counterpart, the story's narrator Lomax, is a more morose, quiet guy, following the death of his wife. The two characters play well off of one another, and the resulting story is intelligent and well-told. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it.

I could not put this book down. It has wonderful characters, great dialogue, it makes you laugh out loud and makes you cry. I read it in a day and half. Sad to have it end. I just ordered Blood Thirsty and pre ordered Flipping Out. I hope this series runs a long long time. These are characters you care about.

Mr Karp has done an awesome job with this book. I have read 68 books this year and this is the first book I have have given 5 stars.

Unplug the phone, pull up your favorite chair and settle in for the best mystery novel this year. This strong debut is an often hilarious head-scratcher, and features a smartly drawn cast of character, from the lead detectives down to the most innocent victims.

Familyland, the showpiece theme park of the Disney-esque conglomerate Lamaar Studios, is stunned when one of its own--the man dressed as the centerpiece cartoon character Rambunctious Rabbit--is murdered in a hidden corner of the park's vast underground work area. Park operatives swing into high gear, shielding the company and its reputation from a public who would be horrified by both the murder and by the fact that the victim was a convicted child molester. Enter author Marshall Karp's first of many great inventions: Detective duo Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs.

Lomax and Biggs continue a grand tradition of mismatched partners, but they never descend to the now-standard method in which partners are written with diametrically-opposed qualities for the sake of a few laughs and some loud discourse. These two differ in the ways the real people who work together often do: One is married with kids, one is widowed with none; Lomax is handsome, while Biggs is brutally ugly yet blessed with a hypnotic voice and great charm. Biggs also likens himself a comedian, and his sharp comments throughout the book provide many great laughs. Both excel at their jobs.

The supporting characters, including Lomax's doting Teamster dad who keeps playing matchmaker, Lamaar PR queen Amy Cheever, and the Machiavellian company chairman, Ike Rose, are all created with great care and cunning. The players in this amazing book never seem created merely for plot purposes, but instead breathe on the page, living their lives in the most spontaneous ways. Each is a treasure.

The book is often quite moving, especially when Lomax opens his monthly letter from his late wife. She penned a number of these while undergoing unsuccessful chemotherapy, and the time he spends reading each letter is touching, enlightening, humorous, and provides an eloquent exploration of married love. His wife, like all the characters in the book, has been created with both broad strokes and fine detail, ably assisted by the author's nearly 700-page canvas. Yes, the story could have been told in half as many pages, but the resulting book would have been merely another bestselling page-turner, instead of the rich and satisfying read that lies between these covers.
It is a page turner, despite its length, as the initial murder soon becomes one of a series, each targeting disparate individuals with loose connections to Familyland.
Can Detectives Lomax and Biggs solve the crimes with the help/hindrance of Lamaar security and PR? Who is responsible for these heinous crimes which seem intent on destroying the Lamaar legacy? Is Lomax's black-sheep brother somehow involved? Grab The Rabbit Factory, settle in, and find out over it many tantalizing pages.

When I set up my first e-mail account, I received an e-mail about every three days. That same account now gets over 150 pieces of spam an hour! And most of what comes is worse than the garbage that is handed out in the sleaziest part of Times Square. That's the sort of great problem that the Internet brings along with greater connectivity.

I was intrigued by this book because I wanted to learn more about those who are creating problems on the Internet for the rest of us. If you just want to know a little more about spam, spy ware, worms, viruses, scams, pirates, break-ins and how to avoid the problems, this book is a fairly good introduction that you can read quite quickly. Each chapter is a stand-alone, so you can skip the subjects that don't interest you.

If you are a security professional, this book is much too elementary for you to find it helpful. If you have been effective at avoiding scams, identity theft, spam, viruses and worms through your own diligent effort, you probably won't learn too much of practical value from this book.

The ideal reader is probably someone who started onto the Internet in just the last year or so . . . or doesn't know how to overcome some practical problem related to these nuisances. There is a brief bibliography for those who would then like to learn more.

I was pleased to see that the author appreciates the benefits of the open software movement and can explain the economics of complex battles over piracy quite well. So you are getting a sophisticated view of the on-line world presented in its simplest form. Nice!

While reading this breezy introduction to the unlikely but inevitable cloak and dagger cyber world of hackers and spammers, encryption and "things that go ping in the night," I had a terrible sense of estrangement mixed with fear and loathing simply because I knew and know jack diddly about hacking and how to protect myself against it. So I suppose this book is a start, lesson one in Cyberspace judo.

There are eight chapters, covering such topics as spam and spyware, worms and viruses, scams and counterattacks against the black hats. In one chapter Biggs explores the "Dear Friend," advanced-fee fraud, often referred to as the "Nigerian potentate scam," or simply "419" since it is section #419 in the Nigerian Criminal Code.

You might recognize this con as the outrageous come-on that promises you a nice percentage of some many millions of dollars if you will allow an abused princess (or such) of some African country to use YOUR bank account for a transfer of the millions. (Right!) Of course you'll be asked for a few thousand dollars up front... Biggs writes that "in 2002 over 16,164 Americans, including 74 who reported losses totaling $1.6 million, reported being suckered by 419 scams." (p. 72) Biggs actually found one guy, a Dr. Shahla Ghasemi, who admitted to personally losing $400,000 to the scam. (p. 77) But Biggs also shows how he and some others had a lot of fun by leading these would-be scammers along with encouraging emails and baited bits of information.

Biggs also introduces us to some notorious hackers and spammers, "Ebola Monkey Man," Marc Maiffret aka "Chameleon," and Alan Murray Ralsky, "the spam king of Detroit," for example. There are some black and white photos of Web pages and persons, including one of Patrick Kroupa aka "Lord Digital" caught in dark light in front of his lap top, looking for all the world like a cross between Darth Vader and a young Bobby Fischer. (There is an element of glorification in this book that may be off-putting to some.)

There is also something eternally juvenile about the nether world of Internet "hax0rs" and spammers, something gloriously amateurish about their pursuits and values. Why hack? To make a buck, to gain fame, to win the heart of the prom queen? No. Because it's fun and because it's there? Yes, oh, yes. Why spam? Well, in the case of spam, if somehow the monetary reward could be removed, that is, if somehow people would NOT reply to spammers and their scams, then spam would gurgle to a trickle.

In other words, the nefarious world of black hats and white hats, phreaks and crackers, acne-sprouting adolescents in trailer parks and spam king millionaires in Cancun is an all too human world doing what humans do best. That is, trying to rip each other off while puffing out their chests.

John Biggs draws a distinction between amateurs (e.g., "script kiddies" and "punks"), and the pros who go after Citibank and other places where the money is. Script kiddies create nothing "but are just stupid enough to be dangerous" (p. 125) while the pros can, if they like, toss their black hats and don white ones and become hired guns who hack for the establishment.

He also makes a distinction between "free as in freedom" and "free as in free beer"--a very nice distinction new to these ears. There is freedom of expression, and there are free things worth having. Be sure you know which is which. I should also note that Biggs's mantra throughout is "open source, open source, open source." (As opposed, I imagine, to "Microsoft rox, dude!")

Personally I think somebody like Gilbert and Sullivan ought to make a comic opera of the whole scene with dance numbers and catchy tunes. The Net is in a sense a soap opera in which you can play a part. All it needs is a musical score.

Like many books that have their birth on or about the Internet, Black Hat is full of flashy terminology and tortured syntax, missing words and choppy organization characteristic of quick and easy netstyle communications, featuring not fully professional editing. Nonetheless this book is definitely worth reading if you are, like me, pretty much an amateur Cyberian. A more engaging and professionally accomplished (but more narrowly focused) intro to this world is Spam Kings (2005) by Brian McWilliams, which I also recommend.

This is a review on a book called Black Hat, Misfits, Criminals, and Scammers in the Internet Age.

This is a book on computer security. The book talks about how to
secure your home/office computer from the script kiddies. The book breaks down the different types of security issues that you might be faced with, being online. It covers all types of security from Email to Hacking, (Script Kiddies) to Scams.


The book talks about current security issues (Blaster Worm, Melissa, Mydoom). The book is current, it was published this year (June 2004). The content of the book is good for people just starting out in computers (security). It will not be a real useful resource for the experienced user.

This book covers a lot of topics, but 90% if the information is designed for the novice user. If you have any computer experience at all, this book is good, but a little basic. I liked the book for some of the information it provided, but a lot of it was not new. Most of the security web sites that talk about security will cover this same information.

The author talks about Windows and Linux for the Operating Systems used in the book. Since Mac (OS X) is also a viable operating system,I wish they would have covered it as well. Since it is Unix based.

The book is very readable. It is a very easy read, I was able to
read the entire book in a few days. There are some examples in
the book. I liked most of them, but some (few) had really dark screens. It was not to bad. I wish that he would have lighten them up some. So there where kind of hard to see.
It did help having some of the illuastrations to see the point
that was being made. I wish they would have given a few more.

The book does not come with any software, or any code samples.
I think that it would have been helpful to have a CD in
the book.

The book does give a lot of information on the fact that all the
information you see on TV and in the movies is just not true.
You can not use your computer to play a game of "Nuclear War" on
your computer. As is shown in "War Games" (1983)

In Chapter 1 is about the guys and gals that have been caught
hacking different types of machines. It also gives a basic
over view of what you can expect by having a computer on the
Internet. That the best (Only) way to keep your computer safe
is to cut the cord. I agree that it is safer to not go on the net, but if you want to stay current, or talk to others you need to be on the net. I wish that they would have covered the different types of devices (Router, Firewalls, Switchs) that can be used to help prevent attachs.

When you get to Chapter 2 the book will cover what is happening
with SPAM. He goes over a lot of different items on SPAM. He
tells you that you can not do anything about SPAM. Then he
talks about "The Solution" which he covers what a "Whitelist"
and a "Blacklist" are. He covers the way a Bayesian filter works.
This is one of the ways to protect your machine that he goes into
a lot of detail. He does cover the what kind of messages
look like that are SPAM.

In the next chapter he goes into SPYWARE and what it is
caused by and what kind of software it is in. He does cover
the information about "Gator" and what they have done.
He does cover the how to get rid of it, and what you can
do to be careful and not get it in the first place. It is good
information, and if you follow the advise it help keep it
off your machine.

Each of the chapters cover a different type of security risk.
I wish that some of the chapters would have covered the secuirty topic in more detail. As I have stated above, the second chapter covers spam. The information that they talk about is good, but it could have been better. One of the things that was lightly touched on was a way to discover if the mail that you are getting
is really from the sender. This is one of the chapters that I
was looking really forward to.

One of the other items in the book that could have been covered
in better detail is the Phising section. They talk about how
it is done. I would to like to had it covered in more detail.
With more about the ways to discover it. They talk about how
a user can determine the if an Email is really fake or not.
Most novice users will not have the first clue on what needs
to be done. I wish that it would have been covered in a little
more detail. One of the other items that I wish had been covered
is that all of the major Credit Card companies will never ask
you for this information. It is information that they have on
file already. I wish that he would have done a little better
on explaining what was happening.

You can tell he has done his research on what is going on in
the real Internet. He does a good job at explaining what is happening over all. I wish that the book would have given more detail on what was being covered.

This is a short, but well written, book on the wide variety of nasty things that can harm you when you are on the web; adware, viruses, spam, scams and spyware. There are eight chapters, each covering a different malicious software or activity.

The first three chapters cover the stuff you will encounter the most often; spam, spyware and viruses. These chapters together make up the majority of the book and are the heart of the content.

After that the book goes into scams and then inverts coverage from the malicious stuff done against the average Internet user to covering hacking and fighting the hacking.

This is not a for-dummies book. The content is designed for people of reasonable technical expertise. And the design of the book is a short overview to get you started on securing your computer and yourself on the Internet. This book is an excellent way to get started, but from there you will have to guide yourself or make purchases of books that provide more in-depth coverage of specific topics, like security a Windows box.

Black Hat is an excellent, enjoyable read that tells the computer layman just about everything he needs to know about the dangers of online computing. If you've ever used a computer, you'll already be familiar with some of the topics discussed here - spam, viruses, online scams, etc. John Biggs takes you much further into these dire subjects, however, and I can almost guarantee that you will learn something you didn't already know - which is especially good, in that it can translate into better computer security for you. This isn't just a "what they are, what you can do" kind of book, though, as Biggs also takes you some way into the hacker community and lets you take a gander at the kind of mindset that drives all these script kiddies and outright criminals making our online experiences much less enjoyable than they could and should be. Hackers weren't always the spawn of Satan, and you will find a measure of respect in these pages for the hacker purist community, but that reflects the feelings of many computer experts. Your original hacker did it for the challenge, and I daresay software designers learned a great deal from these intellectually-oriented hackers - and what they learned has been incorporated into tighter, more secure software than we would have seen otherwise. There is a difference between these guys and the unscrupulous minds working their scripting magic to bring down networks or steal your personal data. The book ends on a positive note, as Biggs talks about the White Hats out there working silently to offset the dangers posed by today's Black Hats.

The book opens with an illuminating look at spam and some of the Spam Kings making money off what they consider to be a legal business method. This is the best overview of spam I've ever read; it gets a little technical in places, but it's a truly informative read. From there, Biggs is off to spyware and adware, those increasingly pernicious programs that install themselves silently on your hard drive, bombard you with unsolicited pop-up ads and slow down your system's performance speed significantly. I take care of the public computers in a university library, and these malicious programs are a constant thorn in my side. As many precautions as you take and as many sites as you block, these things just multiply like rabbits and keep coming at you thanks to users who have no qualms about clicking on anything and everything they see online. If you are an online user of any kind, you really need to know all you can about protecting your computer from spyware and adware, and the author tells you all about it in this book. Lest we forget viruses, these are also covered in some detail.

Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy getting ye olde "Nigerian" scam emails; they are a constant source of amusement, and you have to wonder if anyone actually takes these things seriously. They do, and they come out much poorer for their mistake. Biggs tells you all about the most popular scams in perpetual online existence - including phishing, which is becoming increasingly sophisticated these days. Music companies will surely be pleased by Biggs' chapter on the pirating of movies, music, and the like. File-sharing and peer-to-peer networking have spread like wildfire across the Internet, and you had better know what's what unless you want to wake up one day to find the FBI knocking at your door. The book closes with chapters on the many different types of hackers and the White Hats working to protect you from the bad guys' exploits. Biggs really gives you a good idea about where these guys are coming from.

I deal with many of the problems detailed here on a daily basis, and I learned some really good and useful things from this book. Thus, I would heartily recommend Black Hat to computer novices. If you spend any time online, you really need to learn how to protect your data and identity, and Black Hat provides a great deal of helpful information in a very engaging manner.

I used to be one of those guys who prided himself on the fact that he had never used Cliffs Notes in his life. Now here I am, twenty years later, teaching literature and poking around looking for a writing guide with which to help my students with their essays. So imagine my surprise when I find a CliffsNotes guide on writing. And it's a good one, too. Really good. So well done, CliffsNotes guy, whoever you are.

After being out of college for twenty years, I wanted to review basic grammar and punctuation. So, I ordered a copy of this book -- Writing: Grammar, Usage, and Style -- by Cliffs Quick Review. In a word, it was just what I was looking for, a clear and concise review of English grammar. Although the book is 240 pages long, it has just the right amount of detail and examples without overdoing it. One can read it from front to back (as I am doing) without getting too bogged-down in detail. Or, the work could serve as a ready reference guide to basic grammar and punctuation. It's not just for students, but for anyone who wants to improve their writing skills. Highly recommended!

This is a great supplemental book that everyone who writes anything (from thesis papers to brief e-mails to your friends) should have!

This is a great book for brushing up on the basics of grammar, but I have found some mistakes in the answer keys to the "Chapter Checkouts". For example, in Chapter 4, it goes over comparative and superlative adverbs. In the answer key it says the comparative and superlative for "easily" are "easier and easiest", but this is not true; it would be "more easily and most easily". "Easier" and "easiest" would be the comparative and superlative for "easy", not "easily". I have found myself checking this book against the Gregg Reference Manual more than once since it is THE standard on this subject. But this book is easy to read and understand; and it is also easy to find something if you need to look something up. I'm still glad I bought this book and do still recommend it.

I disagree with the previous reviewer. For one thing, the reader inaccurately assumes this book is in the same genre as the Gregg Reference Manual. The Cliffs book is intended for basic writers who need the core basics of a Freshman ENG 101 course from research to revision. It is not intended as any sort of intensive grammar review or grammar dictionary. To use it as such or frankly to expect a Cliffs book (the publisher should be a tip off to the genre, level, and intended audience) to do more than that is naieve at best. The reader also places excessive faith in a book that is by no means the industry standard or even a particularly well liked by those in the profession. As a tenured and distinguished English professor at a top ten university with twenty six years of experience in teaching writing, I think I am qualified to say with authority that Gregg is not the definitive anything. For what the Cliffs book intends- to provide a comprehensive and brief introduction to the basics of college writing for individuals with little to no previous experience and even less confidence- I think it exceeds expectations. Many of my students have improved their writing using this book.