Bishop Books

Tim McCarthy was a decorated Chicago cop, but in his free evenings he studied law, sociology, and English literature, among other things. Burdened with all those term papers he never had time to take a wife, and now, well into his 40's, he is a credit-rich but lonely man who in his retirement takes on eccentric and challenging investigation work for equally eccentric employers. It is in this capacity that he crosses the pond to Ireland to investigate Nora MacDonaugh.

Nora is either very wicked or very unlucky. She is also very rich. The Dublin Police Department believes she slept her way to the money, its curiosity more than roused by the untimely deaths of both of her husbands, the latter blown to bits in his study. Innocent or guilty, she is extremely smart, and with modest effort this attractive widow becomes emotionally invested in the lovelorn McCarthy.

By happy coincidence the good Bishop John Ryan is vacationing in the safety of his hip nieces on the Emerald Isle. How to describe his role in this caper? Well, he is there, offering an occasional witticism, restaurant review, or forensic jab. He has a "call me if you need me" role to play in this novel. One gets the sense that he knows how this drama will play out from the get-go but that he does not want to ruin McCarthy's fun, so to speak.

There are enough mysteries here to please almost anyone. Will Tim McCarthy lose his objectivity to the charms of the luscious Nora? Will they actually "do it?" Is Nora stringing him along to divert him from the terrible truth? Does she deserve the Dublin Police moniker, "Miss Yo-Yo Pants?" [So help me.] How do two very unhappy families, an Irish terrorist, a Dublin pol, and an upstart Irish cream company play into the picture? And does Bishop Ryan eventually get a bigger role in the story than Zorro's mute compadre, Paco?

It's not MacBeth, but it's a pleasant enough read, with or without the Bailey's.

Andrew Greeley has enjoyed considerable success as the writer of the Bishop Blackie Ryan novels. Until now I had not read any of these tales. Amazon lists "Happy Are The Peacemakers" as the first novel in the series and so there I decided to make my start. It was only later that I found a bibliography that actually lists it as his sixth novel. While starting in the middle of a series is often difficult, it was not the case here. I was a bit surprised by the novel, however, on several counts. While not unpleasant, it was not quite what I expected.

" Happy Are The Peacemakers" is set just before Bloomsday in Dublin. Bloomsday, for the non-cognoscenti, is the annual celebration of James Joyce's novels. Tim Pat McCarthy, retired Chicago cop and private investigator, has been hired to look into the murder of billionaire entrepreneur Jim Lark MacDonaugh. More precisely he has been hired to prove that MacDonaugh's young wife Nora was guilty of his murder in order to lay her hands on his wealth.

Naturally, the ethical McCarthy intends to find the truth, not injure the innocent. Especially since he has fallen under the spell of the beautiful Nora. In the background, like a deus ex machina, is Bishop Ryan, also from Chicago, and convinced of Nora's innocence. If Nora is innocent, then who really did blow her husband to smithereens in a locked room? Jim Lake's brothers? His children? His business partners? The IRA? The list of suspects is nearly infinite, and the murderer seems quite willing to kill again to protect his secrets.

Greeley tells this story with a light, almost comic, touch. Once can't help but smile at the antics of the MacDonaugh clan, the budding romance between Tim Pat and Nora, and the countless bit players that appear. Greeley seems to tell most of the tale with a heavy Irish brogue. The ins and outs of that dialect are a fascinating study all on their own

I have only two real issues with the novel. One is that all of Greeley's Irishfolk curse a blue streak. Except for Blackie Ryan, of course. There comes a point where all the expletives become overused, and one wishes that Greeley had been a bit more circumspect. The other issue is that Bishop Ryan makes very few lengthy appearances in this tale. Most of the time he receives McCarthy's reports with a curt "fascinating." It is only at the end that he displays an almost Nero Wolfe-like brilliance. I like my detectives to be a bit more prominent. In any case this is a likeable story that will serve to provide several entertaining hours. Those of a literary bent will find the countless allusions to James Joyce a source of much amusement. And the romantics among us will delight in the eccentric relationship between McCarthy and Nora.

Father Andrew M. Greeley knows how to tell a story, and tell a story he does in this three-hundred page trek into late-twentieth-century Roman Catholic Chicago as he imagines it ought to be. True this one-time parish priest may not pen "great literature" but he sure leaves you feeling he gave you your money's worth during the time spent in his richly decorated biome. I've never quite grasped why the author of this book was once a figure of controversy when he seems staid enough to me, as well as a loyal ambassador of his religion, but can't imagine why anyone would kick at Greeley's theology or prose in Happy Are Those Who Mourn.

Here Greeley's alter ego and frequent protagonist, Bishop Blackie Ryan, is dispatched by his old friend and longtime boss Sean Cardinal Cronin, to one of the Archdiocese of Chicago's affluent and normally placid backwaters, the sylvan suburb of Woodbridge, to investigate reports of a bizarre haunting in effect at the local parish of Saints Peter and Paul. While Cardinal Cronin is a hard-core skeptic unwilling to entertain notions of ghosts in one of "his" churches, the cerebral Ryan, though a logical man, is too Irish at heart to instantly dismiss as explicable all claims of supernatural goings on. Arriving at the parish shortly after the death of its formidable priest and keeper of many secrets, Father McInerny, Ryan is simultaneously confronted with a classic "locked room" mystery, reliable reports of what seem genuine paranormal phenomena which began shortly after McInerny's death, and the undeniable fact that the preternaturally afflicted parish seems to be missing millions of dollars, misplaced over the course of many years.

As he unfolds his character-driven mystery, Greeley brings a number of interesting people onto center stage, including a local banker's wife, who once used deadly force to defend human life in a time of war. It's also an obvious pleasure to Greeley to have a bit of fun at the expense of the Woodbridge Police Department, a xenophobic, arrogant lot unwelcoming of an amateur sleuth from the big city, who of course runs rings around them start to finish.

This novel never loses its pace at any point in the story it tells, and while we do follow Blackie Ryan through a few unavoidably long and twisting journeys before we arrive at the truth to things, the conclusion comes with a satisfying "a-ha" that mostly puts things right again in Cronin's (and Greeley's) Chicago.

My first Blackie Ryan novel was "Happy Are The Peacemakers." While I enjoyed it greatly it was not quite what I expected. Set in Dublin, scented with a perpetually heavy Irish brogue, and narrated by someone other than the Bishop himself, it wasn't quite my cup of tea. I had already bought "Happy Are Those Who Mourn," and was worried that I would continue to be a bit disgruntled. The good news for me is that "Those Who Mourn" is much more the Greeley novel I was promised, and that I am completely satisfied.
Blackie Ryan, auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, is a wry and iconoclastic defender of the faith who often serves the Cardinal as investigator and chief meddler into suspect affairs. In this case Blackie is asked to investigate the apparent haunting of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in the up-scale community of Woodbridge. The death of the previous parish priest, Charles McInerny, is suspect, and the current incumbent, Peter Finnegan, is harassed on all sides by an irascible ghost. The Cardinal is not superstitious and wants to make sure that the ghost does not become a news story.
Blackie arrives to discover that the spirit in question may not be the worst of the parish's problems. For 25 years the finances of the church have been handled laxly and some 10 million dollars or more seems to have evaporated. Blackie's investigations lead him to those who were close cronies of the old priest. The banker Gerald Reed and his beautiful wife Evelyn are involved somehow. In addition, the eccentric Dr. Curtin and his spear bearing wife are certainly suspect, as well as Arnold Griffin, a commodities trader. Blackie finds that all of these players are somehow in cahoots with each other, and that much of the story dates back to Pusan in Korea. McInerny's murder turns out to be the kind of closed room mystery that the Bishop specializes in. With all these complications it is no surprise when a new rash of deaths occur.
One comes to like Bishop Ryan right from the start. He has a slightly sarcastic style that masks a generous nature and a brilliant mind. His first person narrative is full of spark and insight, and he is honest with the reader without giving anything away. He is the perfect foil for Andrew Greeley who seems to really care for his characters and takes the time to bring them to life. These tales are 'comfy' mystery stories, in that there is little real violence and much to enjoy. The reader can look forward to a good puzzle, humorous narrative, and a satisfying ending. If you've been reading a lot of noir fiction lately, try a Greeley tale for blessed relief.

I thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful book for people of all ages. Stephen Bishop was a great American explorer that most people have never even heard of. His adventures and discoveries deep in Mammoth cave are vividly described in a manner that will captivate the young readers of this book. This is a story of a man born into slavery who deserves the recognition he finally receives in this finely written story of his brief life. The detailed descriptions of Stephen Bishop, Mammoth cave and the turbulent pre-civil war era are enhanced by the excitement of his underground exploits and his quest for knowledge. Two thumbs up!

FL Booklover

Let's say you hear about a historical figure that strikes you as so interesting that you'd like to write a book about them. A book for children, say. When you make the decision to write such a book, two possible ways of proceeding are open to you. You can make your book a fascinating work of non-fiction that adheres strictly to the facts of the case. Or, you can take the already existing facts and use fictional dialogue to cushion the details of this person's life, thereby making it more interesting to your intended audience. Now, if you decide to go with the latter you've placed your book in a peculiar position. On the one hand, your story is about a real person who really existed. On the other hand, because you made up dialogue and situations that may never have happened in the way you've described them, your book is doomed to the fiction shelves of the library. Author Elizabeth Mitchell, when she learned the details of explorer Stephen Bishop's life, decided to go the fiction route. Personally, I feel that this was bad decision to make on her part. For while this book contains a multitude of wonderful details and facts about a fascinating man, Mitchell has couched her book in stilted dialogue and poor writing. She would have done better to stick to the facts.

Stephen Bishop was born a slave in the state of Kentucky in 1821. His owner Frank Gorin, owned the Mammoth Caves and needed a tour guide to schlep tourists in the busy summer months. Enter Stephen. Fascinated with the caves, Stephen proceeded to explore beyond the usual paths. As he did so, he would find more and more beautiful areas and hidden passages. He discovered blind cave fish (never before seen), huge gypsum caverns, and miles and miles of caves stretching under the land of Kentucky. He even created maps of the areas he had found that helped others explore as well. Though he died a short time after he was freed (at the young age of thirty-six), Bishop is remembered as being the first and most important guide of the impressive Mammoth Caves today.

The story is, as Elizabeth Mitchell rightly says, captivating. Cleverly, she has included Stephen's maps on the front and endpapers of the book. Mitchell also tells the reader, right off the bat, that she has reproduced his life with as much accuracy as possible and that the dialogue, "is not reproduced from any source". I commend Mitchell for her choice of subject. Stephen Bishop, rightly, deserves to be remembered for his great life and magnificent accomplishments. I personally believe, however, that an entirely factual book of this fellow would not have been out of place. Consider similar books about other people who lived in the 1800s. There is the book, "Phineas Gage", by John Fleischman. Here we have a beautiful non-fiction text with color photographs and engravings that is the perfect way to tell the story of a 19th century life. Think how wonderful, "Journey to the Bottomless Pit" would have been, had it been done in a similar format. When you read this book, you hear about eyeless fish and beautiful stalactites. Wouldn't it be great to see beautiful color photographs of them as well? Instead, you must rely on illustrator Kelynn Alder's black and white drawings. These pictures are nice, no question, but you can't help but wish that you could see the caves for yourself in a far more lively format.

You might argue that good non-fiction subjects have been given a similar fictional treatment to Stephen Bishop and that those books have been good. This is true, of course. There's just one small problem. Mitchell, for all that she is great at choosing the best details to highlight in her story, is not a good writer. Her language is stilted and cloying. Though the book is ostensibly written for kids between the ages of 9-12, the tone of voice taken here would be better for a seven-year-old reader. Stephen constantly is describes as being grateful to his master, proud that he has been chosen, and hoping that he'll do a good job. The wry sense of humor that Stephen had is mentioned here, but Mitchell's not adept enough to give us a taste of it. Worse, there are some truly unbelievable moments that are written solely to spell things out to child readers. Take this for example: "When he first heard the name `Underground Railroad,' Stephen wondered what kind of train could run for so many miles below ground". Mitchell doesn't seem to give Stephen much credit, and his abject gratitude and innocence makes him seem a very different person from the intelligent guide described by his contemporaries. Had Mitchell been a talented enough writer to pull off the additional passages in this text, the book might have worked brilliantly. As it stands, I yearn for the beautiful glossy-paged non-fiction text this could have been.

Will kids read this book? Not without some prodding. It's a fine story and a good adventure tale at times, but children will only ask for this if urged to do so. There is great potential in this material. I can only hope that a future author sees it and capitalizes on it themselves. A great story in a mediocre package.

Weather Control is out. The Judges are stretched as some alien residents are in temporary housing while new quarters are being built.

Dredd is running on empty when he is assigned to the alien sector and Sector Chief Caine. This Caine has a similar temperament and personality to Admiral Caine, from Battlestar Galactica, if you are familiar with that character.

Not helping the situation are a couple of xenophobic Judges on Caine's team, and past history between one of them and another.

Dredd and Caine don't get along, and the situation deteriorates.

Judges die, plots are revealed and it seems Chief Judge Hershey had a plan all along.

After enjoying Bad Moon Rising, I decided to pick up a few of these novels. This adventure is an exciting romp across the Black Atlantic, exploring new territory that has barely been touched upon in the 2000AD comics.

Dredd came across perfectly this time, in his gruff, no-nonsense manner. The story fit well with the lore of Judge Dredd and the characters were distinct and consistent.

This is mostly set outside of Mega-City One, but Dredd still manages the impossible in the name of the law, and he explores brand new areas of the bizarre future world.

A very enjoyable read that I honestly recommend to all Judge Dredd fans, and even those that are not fans, but enjoy a good adventure/investigation.

This excellent book on the life story of Bishop de Castro Mayer is as well the telling of the woeful catastrophe of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the last forty years. The prelate who stood with Archbishop Lefebvre at Econe to consecrate four new bishops is shown here as Lefebvre's intellectual and spiritual equal - high attainment indeed. The lives of these two men with differing backgrounds, differing temperaments and rich with differing circumstances, in the end reveal the same inescapably onerous story of the Church that devoured itself, cannabalising its various parts in a record spate of only ten years of incomprehensible flight from reality, leaving in its rapacious wake a skeletal heap of lies and spiritual betrayal. Bishop de Castro Mayer's formal association with Lefebvre takes up but a small part of the story, yet the deathly shadow of the root cause of their eventual union hovers over every page. While aspects of the book tend faintly toward hagiography, the author for the most part keeps his attention in check, tracing the early life and especially the ordinary diocesan life of Campos, revealing de Castro Mayer's foresight of what was to come in the wake of Rome's apostasy, and the means by which he prepared the people under his spiritual care for it. It's a cautionary tale told perhaps too late to awaken the Catholic world, but important nonetheless for revealing the wisdom of men who refused the treachery of the Roman authorities at every turn. The writing style of the author is banal but sufficiently effective to nourish and maintain interest through to the end. It is, ultimately, a quiet book about simple things, and simple things and quiet turns have a way of entering and illuminating those mysteries which are often obscured by presumptuous flourishes and philosophies.

This book shows us the effort of Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, to mantain the orthodox faith of the Roman Catholic Church in his small diocese of Campos, Brazil.. God heard his prayers and received all his sacrifies... now Campos is the most Catholic place in the World.

A pretty straight adventure tale. Super enhanced Russian noble bastard, in the wedlock sense, escapes, and is on the lam.

However, he is caught, in a brothel, no less, while being pursued by kabuki porn stars and laser shuriken armed ninjas, while swimming in a sake vat!

A shafted conspiracy sends him on a mission to save a living goddess in a vast Himalayan mystical invisible fortress full of monks.

He is, of course, pursued by his sadistic bastard-in-the-adjectival-sense war enemy and his book titled regiment.

There is a decent twist at the end involving the head female ninja, and the second in command of the Imperial Black.

"Imperial Black" features the further exploits of Russian rogue and adventurer Nikolai Dante. I think the best way I could describe Dante for those who have not read his tales is being a cross between the swashbuckling adventurism of Errol Flynn and the wise-cracking Bruce Willis of the "Die Hard" films. Dante is of the noble Romanov family but he's only a half brother and has renounced his family's name. Nikolai's body is embedded with cybernetic weapons but his most interesting feature may be his weapon crest. The weapon crest is also embedded inside his body and is an intelligent onboard computer with a personality all her... or its own. The pair often fight like an old married couple.

The story begins sometime after Dante's forces at the town/stronghold of Rudinshtein were routed by the overwhelming forces of the Tsar. The Imperial Black, the Tsar's elite soldier led the route along with their sadistic leader General Ivanov. Dante and his co-forts Flintlock and the disgusting Spatchcock escape the fray and end up as fugitives with prices on their heads. While hiding out under assumed names at a floating island brother, they are attacked by a mysterious group of Ninja and are eventually captured. They are brought before a group calling themselves the Parliament of Shadows led by Lord Zhukov who is leading a rebellion to overthrow the Tsar. Zhukov wants Dante to travel to the Himalayas to find the legendary Forbidden Citadel that is supposed to hide a powerful weapon, hidden by the Romanov family, than can be used against the Tsar. Leading them will be the beautiful female ninja Mai Tsai who has the ability to read Dante's mind because of his weapon crest...which leads to several slaps to his face due to inappropriate thoughts. Little do they know, however, that the Tsar is also seeking the Forbidden Citadel and sends Ivanov and his Imperial Black troops in pursuit of the prize. But Dante will have an even more sinister threat to worry about. Lord Zhukov may not quite be exactly what he seems.

"Imperial Black" is a fantastic adventure. The trio of Dante, Flintlock and Spatchcock are bawdy, brawling, drinking buddies...very much similar to Robin Hood and his Merrymen of film. The intelligent weapon crest lightens things up even more as she often takes Dante down a couple of notches with biting sarcasm. The sadistic Ivanov is a masochist and a bit two dimensional character wise, but he's still the kind of nasty villain you expect in a story like this. Thoroughly enjoyed this book!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

This prayer book, 'Oremus', is compiled by Bishop Andre Queen of the Old Catholic Church of the United States. He is also the editor of the book 'Old Catholic: History, Ministry, Faith & Mission', published in 2003. There are not very many books in the Old Catholic tradition that make it into print and stay in print, so texts such as this are very valuable to the scattered clergy and laypersons of the Old Catholic communities in North America. Bishop Queen references Bishop Elijah, whose own publishing efforts have kept some key pieces available, such as the 1909 Old Catholic Missal, which is utilised in this collection of liturgies and prayers.

The book itself is meant to be a standard text for some jurisdictions, bearing the imprimatur from authorities of the Old Catholic Church of the United States and the English Catholic Church, and bearing the approval of the International Synod of Old Catholic Churches (ISOCC). The General Instructions state that there is no authorisation granted for local modification of the sacramental rites herein; my personal view is that this instruction is a bit unfortunate, not least of which because it is unenforceable for the most part. I understand that one of the issues with more general Old Catholic disunity is disagreement over liturgical forms, but my personal view is against such restrictions. However, this does not detract from the general value of the text.

Like many prayer books (the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer being a good example here), the rubrics are in fact not printed in red throughout, but rather in italicised typeface, and often bracketed from spoken texts and title headings. There are thirty principle chapters overall, which cover sacraments (baptism, eucharist, unction, marriage), liturgical rites for special events (Stations of the Cross, various blessings and consecration rites), general prayers (morning, evening, meal blessings, Marian prayers, etc.), various litanies, processions, and creedal statements. The text includes some rare pieces, such as the form for release from excommunication or inhibition, the churching of women, and a form for exorcism (which, interestingly, has perhaps the longest section of commentary preceding the actual liturgical form of any section in the book).

The book does not contain forms for ordination of deacons, priests, or bishops, or confirmation rites. As a book meant to be useful for study as well as worship practice, having the forms for these liturgies would be valuable additions.

I do take one star off on my rating of this book for some editorial issues. There are various page layout, spelling, terminology and citation issues that are a bit of a problem with this text. For example, the General Instructions indicate that there are 'Modern English' and 'Old English' options - however, this is incorrect. The 'Old English' that is mentioned here is not in fact Old English (which is the language of Beowulf, the Exeter book anthology, etc. and generally incomprehensible to modern English speakers) nor is it even Middle English (which is best typified by Chaucer or the Pearl Poet, again a hard read for modern English speakers). The 'Old English' here is in fact Shakespearean/King Jamesian language, and the terms 'traditional' and 'contemporary' language would be much more accurate. Also, the information on the book speaks of the text being useful to seminarians as well as clergy - however, without citations throughout the text, this becomes problematic in an academic sense. The editors state the breadth of sources (as mentioned above) but do not cite throughout the text which liturgies, forms and prayers come from which sources, which would be invaluable for the student of liturgy.

In terms of it being a prayer book, these are fairly minor concerns (after all, the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer has various liturgies derivative of other traditions, such as Rite II, Prayer D being influenced by Orthodox liturgies, yet such influences are not referenced in the BCP itself). The combination of the fact that there is very little by way of standard and readily accessible collections such as this for Old Catholics and the breadth of material contained make this a valuable resource for Old Catholics, independent Anglicans, and students and liturgists of other Christian denominations and jurisdictions as well.

The text is readable, generally useful, and many pieces will ring a familiar sound in the memory of readers of many denominations, as these liturgies derive from the kinds of forms shared by Christendom from the earliest days in some cases; churches Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox share many of the same words, so this should not be surprising. For the high liturgical non-Old Catholic, perhaps the most interesting and useful sections of the books will be those on blessings, of everything from seminaries and church cornerstones to animals to simple prayers to be said while vesting for services.

A valuable resource.

Oremus is a wonderful Ritual for the Old Catholic Church. The contributors and authors have provided the Old Catholic Church with an important and much needed tool. This inter-jurisdictional Ritual establishes and provides a common ground for celebrating the Sacraments and other rites of the Church that helps to bind and solidify Old Catholic worship and prayer. Every Old Catholic clergyman ought to have this in hand and ready for use!

The title is somewhat misleading. Amidon has included some material from all the heresies that Epiphanius deals with. This consists of the description of the heresy given, and some of the narrative. The omitted portions consist of the refutation by Epiphanius himself, which in many cases is much lengthier.

The work will inevitably be judged against the complete two-volume translation done during the same period by Frank Williams. Had this not appeared, Amidon's work would have been invaluable. As it is, we are fortunate that two specialists should have attempted this work, which previously had attracted no translator into a modern language.

The work may well be useful to those less interested in Epiphanius than in those he detested.

This edition of the 'Panarion' of Ephiphanius of Salamis is a well-done abridgement of his comprehensive refutation of all heresies up to his time in the 4th Century. Philip Amidon has wisely chosen to focus on the presentation of the many, many heresies Epiphanius took on, while leaving out the refutations. The result is a highly readable history of the diverse movements that made up early Christianity, and Epiphanius himself in these pages is something of a Herodotus of heresy, chatty and digressive, yet always interesting. Perhaps the most surprizing aspect of this volume is that it essentially, though perhaps unintentionally, refutes the standard version of church history which presumes an unbroken, unified, apostolic orthodoxy deriving straight from Jesus, which scattered heretical groups diverged from. The picture I got from reading these pages, so much more complex but at the same time reasonable, was that 'heresy' was so widespread as to constitute the normal matrix of Christian belief and practice, while orthodoxy had to fight for survival using every intellectual and political tool available. If this volume were more available and more popularly priced, it might raise more than a few Christian eyebrows!

I mostly agreed with Eric Ma. There are some areas that Wrox needs to review the whole process of publishing Java-related books. Here are some drawbacks that I can draw from reading recent Java-related books:

(1) Repeated Contents: Materials about Servlet, JSP, EJB, JNDI, JDBC, XML, etc are repeated over and over many books. This could waste time, money, and papers for both Wrox and readers.

(2)Books or Articles?: I asked myself: is Wrox publishing books or articles? Each book is written by many authors and the book's flow is inconsistent. The assessment that it is not a book but a collection of articles may partially true. It is true that a book if written by a team of authors could speed up the process of releasing it, but if Wrox editors and coordinators have to do their better jobs.

I suggest that Wrox should review its strategy of publishing books to avoid the repeating of materials over and over and thus bring down the cost associated with publishing the books. The final result is: readers and publisher will both save time and money. Otherwise, readers will loose their belief with Wrox.

For the past 2 years Wrox has been publishing books dedicated to Windows-based data access (ADO etc.), but the same cannot be said about their Java/database collection. Although you find chapters on JDBC scattered all-over almost all server-side Java related books by Wrox, there was no single volume from them that teaches JDBC first, and then show how it is used by the newer dependent technologies, until this book arrived. After looking through this book, I must say the authors and editors have done a rather commendable job.

Why do I make the above conclusion? Let me give you my general impression of the book first. A theme repeated in several of my recent reviews on books from Wrox is about the problem in coherence associated with multi-author books. Well, having more than a dozen of authors for a single book seems to be a fact of life (for books from Wrox at least) now, as the publication cycle gets shorter. I was rather surprised to find out that the organization and coherence is very good in this book, i.e., there is very little overlap among chapters. Also, this books uses JDBC cleverly to tie other pieces of J2EE together, making smooth transitions from one chapter to another. If you want to know, this factor alone prompted me to add an extra star to the overall rating of the book.

Let's now run down the chapters of this book quickly. The first 115 pages deals object-oriented and database modeling, and can be skipped by any "Professional" developer. Then after your obligatory intro to JDBC API, the next chapter covers the JDBC 2.0 optional package. This is the best treatment of this topic I have seen. Then another chapter is all about SQLJ, another first. The effort of having a chapter on database performance should be lauded, where connection pooling, prepared statements and stored procedures usage are demoed. The reminder of the book is about applying JDBC in various J2EE components, such as JSP, servlets, EJB, JMS, and XML. For this part of the book, even though I accept the fact the proper stage has to be set for each one of them, I still don't believe the book found the right balance between focusing on JDBC and showing what these other technologies are about. A large number of pages are used to teach basic JNDI, servlets, JSP's, and EJB's stuff (remember there is already a book on J2EE from Wrox!). Therefore, it is up to the reader to discover the real nuggets of gold hidden in this pile, which are far and in between in places. I found that some critical issues are not highlighted or details are lacking, such as how to use connection pooling/data sources in servlets, JSP's, and EJB's, the threading issues related to sharing database connections, and good database practices in BMP EJB's. However, the one thing I cannot complain about is that the book did not forget to teach the transaction aspect of EJB with a good depth (there is a short ans sweet chapter on using JTA/JTS inside EJB). There is also a chapter on the brand-new JDO framework, even though the spec is still in a state of flux. Finally, there are 4 case study chapters in the book - although the design and implementation are limited in scope and as a whole those samples do not teach all you need to do know about enterprise scale J2EE system development, they do provide a flavor of how JDBC is used in real world, together with setting up Tomcat, JRun, Orion, and WebLogic to access MS SQL Server and Oracle databases.

Now my overall take of this book. For VB/SQL and pure back-end PL/SQL developers who are eager to jump on the Java express train and need a suitable platform (especially for the ones who learn best from playing with actual code), I recommend this book as one of several you should own. Compared to other JDBC books from say O'Reilly and Sun's JDBC Tutorial, this book is the most up-to-date, contains the most source code, and has the broadest coverage of related topics. But keep in mind some of the advanced topics such as EJB and JMS can be intimidating for new-comers. On the other side of the coin, people who are advanced in various server-side Java technologies are unlikely to benefit a great deal from this book and should look elsewhere for info (for example Wrox's J2EE and upcoming EJB titles).

Pulsed Neural Networks (90's), Artificial Intelligence (80's), Cybernetics (60's and 70's) Telephone Switch Board (10's and 20's) Hydrodynamics (1700 and 1800) it is amazing the names put on cognitive science through the years. This book is a symposium (13 small books) on developing hardware devices capable of replacing or enhancing neurological functions. Using modeling techniques to duplicate biophysical neural pathways can take two forms. The first are math models, which obviously show the relationship between the neurons (virtual reality). The second type is models that build-spiking neurons in real time to which this book is directed. In the first part of the book, a summary of current thought, written by the main compilers of the book (Maas and Bishop) is worth the price alone. The book addresses the question of biological electrical (vs. chemical or genetic) coding, in which the method of information is actually transmitted and received. The compilers have emphasized the chronological event of development with the articles so that the reader does not become lost in which came first. Gravy is given the reader in the form of articles written by researchers in other fields (VLSI) to the point that the reader wonders if one is still reading a book on biophysics. The hard-wired neural net components are then compared to their biological predecessors for the purpose of obtaining usable "dry lab" tools for experiments. ("Dry-wet-electrical lab", "electrical-dry-lab-wet-computer-lab"?). Even though the material contains electrical engineering stuff it is still very readable to biological types and if interested, can muscle through this stuff. The math model development in Matlab is mentioned, but the reference to Matlab's current capabilities in this area is dated (95). Most of symmetries run in the book are older 200 Pentium type machines, and with a faster (650 up) and better busing Matlab's new neural net toolbox can build some interesting stuff (remember however it is still virtual). The "home modeler" can use chap. 7 and 12 as a theoretical basis for stochastic resonance models which the writers, while dealing with stochastic bit-stream overlooked this aspect. However, H.Wilson's Spikes, Decision and Actions is much better. (Matlab interactive). This is a really good book for modelers (reason for the review as opposed to `me to' reviews). Most of the neural nets and circuits designs are easily modeled in Matlab's Simulink to give real time results similar to those reported. (Whether the results duplicate reality is always a question with these types of models). Flights of fancy (the reason for modeling in the first place, at least the addictive part) can then be implemented according to the capabilities of the reader. The book also discusses "hard wired" CMOS chips available replicating biological systems with plug in units to standard computer I/O units (Motorola, National, and Fuzzytech). However a larger question comes from this book. How can the output of a non-deterministic system be modeled by deterministic model (hardware or otherwise) inputs (H.Wilson)? Without a specific knowledge of the role that neural architecture plays in the phase modulations and oscillatory behavior, how can information be transferred by digital or analog devices duplication neural transmission. As the author puts it in Chap. 12, "Furthermore it is not even clear what the goal of a learning algorithm for pulsed neural nets should be; the goal to learn a function or a function (operator). This book is not a failing because it cannot answer this question. Indeed, the avenues it reviews and discusses opens up many more fields and sparks new uses for the fields it introduces.

This book presents a general overview to the growing field of spiking neural networks and their VLSI implementation written by many of the major figures in this field. It begins with several clear explications of the spiking response model which has been recently popularized by Gerstner (who has several good entries in this volume) and why looking at such a model might be a good idea (it really is completely fascinating). As with all neural network theory, understanding the model will require a fairly solid mathematical background. The middle portion of the book is dedicated to VLSI implementation (which I am not involved with so won't comment) and the last chapters present a wide variety of articles from the highly mathematical to advice for digital simulation of such networks. Chapter 10 is by far the most mathematical chapter and presents the analytic results that have been derived for a homogeneous fully connected network. Although this is far from a complete reference it provides a clear explanation of the reasons for this direction and enough good references at the end of each section to get you started. I have continually turned to this book while getting started in my research in this area.