Bradley Books

Not worth having: confused writing, poor indexing. Buy Stern and Lettieri's "QuickTime for Macintosh and Windows" instead.

This is a great book for anyone developing digital content using QuickTime. The writing clearly shows an enthusiasm and dedication to the QuickTime platform that a beginner needs to get through the technical complexity of the product (which is greatly alleviated by third party applications, by the way). Although the publisher clearly skimped on the editorial side, I learned a lot from this book and it inspired me to explore QuickTime in more depth.

If you have any interest in or need for Quicktime as more than a simple download viewer, then START WITH THIS BOOK! I love the Visual Quickstart Book on Quicktime but this one is even better. It describes the history and powerful significance of the Quicktime development (for Windows as well as Mac), it clearly explains the amazing feature set of the dirt-cheap QuicktimePro upgrade while providing a CD packed with actual illustration material and demo projects. This book is also the Quicktime User's manual that Apple should have written. For no additional charge, you also get a frank and succinct review of virtually every type of related product including the entire Adobe digital video and web suite. Finally, on the CD you get a fully functional demo version of the premiere ($) Quicktime production product LiveStage Pro 3.1 (only the ability to save projects is disabled) along with a $ discount coupon for the full version.

Wow. After seeing the author list for this book, I had to get a copy. You don't have to spend much time at industry events like Apple's QuickTime Live before you'll run into several of them, lecturing to the assembled. Turns out they're not just nice people who know QuickTime intimately well, they're also great authors!

This book is a solid introduction to the underpinnings of QuickTime and many of the applications empowered by its multimedia abilities. While other books, such as Steven Gulie's QuickTime for the Web or the QuickTime Developers Series might offer more focused explorations of certain complex areas of QuickTime, no book I've found provides as good an overview of the technology - and it's use in the real world - than this book. If you're new to QuickTime and wondering what it can do, this book will be an eye opener. And it'll make you laugh too.

I was one of the people in the role of technical reviewer for Revolutionary Quicktime Pro 5 & 6. I can recommend it as a comprehensive and sophisticated reference for Apples Quicktime format. It describes in depth the tools you use from capture to deployment of your Quicktime media content. It covers QuickTime's integration with a broad range of media types and the expansive methods of deployment for your Quicktime media.

Most importantly it discusses the Quicktime format in relation to the content creators needs including information for the linear filmmaker to the interactive media designer. It is an in-depth resource for any designer looking to author interactive media, QTVR, DVD or Streaming QuickTime. Each chapter also includes some excellent tutorials especially for those interested in pushing QuickTime's level of interactivity. The section on tools is particularly relevant because of the amount of software, which supports QuickTime, and this is a guide to how the developer might choose tools and resources for their particular project.

I started reading this book and the topics didn't seem to me that advanced. Also, I had to debug every code example in the book so far just to get them to run which I guess is a learning experience in itself. I guess I just wasn't that impressed.

This book is fantastic! Previously, I had difficulty with concepts such as pointers, arrays and structures. This book clearly explains the differences, provides excellent examples and also includes good programming advice. I have compiled many of the example programs and they are highly instructional. Each example includes an analysis section that explains the examples by line number which is also extremely helpful. The book is well laid out and each section begins with a checklist that tells you what to expect to learn for that section. I highly recommend this book! Compile the examples and you too can learn C!

The C in 21 days is really a good programming book which provides example, coding, explaination and many more useful exercise. Then, the Advanced C is my next programming book, I'll more expert in C and many more. Explore it today !

Remember, C IS FUN!

This is a great book for learning some advanced C programming. Highly recommended. I can't believe someone would give this book 1 star because they didn't grasp the concepts. That this book is ADVANCED enough to thwart the learning efforts of a beginner makes it worthy of its name. In my mind, this is a praisworthy trait for a book to have (truth in the title).

Gone are the days of DOS console programming. You dont see the types of interfaces that are used in this book anymore. So why is it so good? It teaches some advanced concepts and libraries used in C. Also, you never know when that legacy app will need fixing I found the subject material facinating and learned alot about putting together a database program without a fancy RDMS system. Something that can carry over to my JAVA programming world.

I've searched through the most popular books on C and C++ trying to find something on how to determine how much memory is available for your data. I was looking for something comparable to the "memavail" command in Turbo Pascal. A programmer wants this information if he plans on putting most or all of his computer's available memory to best use. Finally I found something, and it was in this book. (I am amazed that other books on C offer nothing by way of advice or anything else in this area.) It was an example of how to use the memory allocation function (malloc()), and it also provided an excellent example of what you can do with C pointers. My compliments to the author(s) of this book.

This book is good and will teach you a lot. But at many points i felt like giving up because it is easy to get lost as it is too complicated.

This is the first C programming book I read. I still recall the excitement I felt when I run the first code example in the book and saw "Hello World" displayed on the screen.

1) The authors present the key concepts in C language, such as pointers and arrays, in a concise and easy-to-understand manner.

2) The many code examples (with analysis) in the book enable the readers to better understand the language features. More importantly, they can get a feel on when and how to use these features.

3) The programs are fun to run, and the pace of the book is easy to follow. I finished the book (including most of the exercises) in 21 days.

I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to learn C.

This book is nice one, I'm sure that it could make you understand the language. I'm a C++ programmer, but somehow I have to read/analyze C code very often (since C is more popular than C++ in Japan). This book is well-done in many aspects. However, there are still something/functions that shouldn't be use. For example, the author used "gets()" function, which is dangerous.

Anyway, overall this is a nice book on C tutorial. Note for noive/beginner don't hope to finish it within 21 Days, remember that learning any language, not just programming language, take times.

This book starts off excellent, giving the user the belief that C is easy, etc. In fact, it is not easy and you need to have some programming experience before attempting this book. For the first 5 days no experience is necessary, but this changes quickly

good book as a classroom study, not so good as a self learner. lot's of info missing that you would get in an interactive environment, such as the exercise answers. and no website available for more info as many others provide. as a class text this is understandable as the students normally wouldn't have all the answers available to them except thru the teacher.

I NEVER ordered this book but you sent it and charged me for it anyway. I returned it upon its arrival but had to go to extreme hastles to communicate with you people. Have you re-embursed my account yet? That's the first time I've ever had a problem with Amazon, but I still love you.

the book was received in a good, timely manner at a cheap price
at a fraction of the cost of a new book, i am doing all my assignments and learning more about vb
the only thing that would need improvement is packaging
a cd came along with this book but since the packaging was done in an envelope it was broken in half which has prevented me from doing work at home
otherwise, this is a good seller and would deal with them again if they improve their packaging
thanks

I was lucky to stumble across this book in Amazon.com and didn't really know what I was getting. Once reading through the first chapters and trying some of the exercises I realize this is great. The book teaches you the correct way to program in simple descriptive language. I have now leant what I need to start my own small projects and have ordered the Advanced VB6 from the same authors, looking forward to getting it. The book also comes with the learning VB6.0 CD which gets you started.

Concise, precise and with hands-on examples of entire projects. This book is scattered with coloured screenshots to illustrate their instructions so you never have to guess what the authors mean. Targetted at the absolute beginner (in programming) but as it is a breeze to read, the more advanced reader is sure to pick up a few VB gems on his stroll through it.

I was one of the people involved (at the very end stages) with this book. I had a short while to look at it (in all its minuscule type-face) for the publisher as it was being prepared for print. I'm truly delighted that it has made its way into the big, wide world and appears to be doing so well. However, I would like to share what little inside information I have about the book and its intentions. I read that some are disapointed with the conspiracy theory element to the book. If I remember correctly, the author wasn't really focusing on providing a conspiracy theory account exactly. This is the story of one man's inadvertent involvement in a much larger and complex set of circumstances. It's a memoir on the surface, which is why he describes the breakdown of his marriage, his girlfriends, etc. If you read between the lines, though, you realize that he was witnessing history and this book is his heartfelt effort to recount what it was he experienced as a CIA insider.

If you're looking for a down-and-out conspiracy theory text, then you may or may not like this book. But if you take this book as you find it, without having too many preconceived notions about what secrets it should be giving away, you will probably really enjoy it!

As others have noted, the size of the print is a problem, to the point that for me at least it was difficult, nearly painful, to read. If I weren't so interested in the topic I'd have never purchased the book due to the print size. It would have been better to cut some of the unnecessary verbage and increase the font.

I'm extremely puzzled by the author's identification of Gordon Campbell as the individual (from Veciana's description) drawn as Bishop for the HSCA. To my knowledge only one photo of Campbell exists, and it is the one the author refers to in his book--that appeared on the video that was available on the BBC in November 2006--if in fact that was Campbell. To me if that was Campbell, or if that person looked anything like the real Campbell, he doesn't look anything like the HSCA drawing of Bishop. Which makes me wonder about Ayers' other identifications.

Ultimately, the author really doesn't know any new details about the JFK case (although he may be correct about some of those involved), but his description of his involvement in the anti-Castro activities in the 1960s is worthwhile to those interested in every available tidbit about that, but be prepared to strain your eyes to be able to read about it.

I was looking forward to this book, but it disappoints, mainly due to the lack of any real evidence cited.

I am 2/3's the way thru Bradley Ayers' excellent book, "The Zenith Secret". Interesting in itself, its 2006 edition by VoxPop (voxpopnet.net) using a mainland Chinese book publishing company (probably cost-effective). A sign of the future for independent book publishing in America?

Bradley happened to be in a unique and pivotal point of the secret history that took place in the USA in the early to late 1960's, and his observations on the assassinations of the Kennedys and MLK was on the mark. His backgound as an Army officer and CIA operative in that period makes his viewpoints all the more believeable.

The book is well-written. He states that US commissioned officers in the Army are prohibited from keeping a diary, but he seems to have organized those events in detail that makes it apparent he has a outstanding memory or he perhaps secretly kept some his notes away from the authorities, for future reference.

This is perhaps explained in the paragraph on page 158:

"...Because I had nothing to work from, to reconstruct my account, it had to come from memory correlated to work with my accumulation of routine records, receipts, flight logs, letters and other personal documents that would helpt pin down times, places, people and events."

In any event, he has done a great service to the people of the US for his history of a dark age in our country. I rank his contributions in the JFK assassination genre right there on the level of what Col. Prouty has done, and I would not be surprised if the dear Colonel could have agreed with me on this assessment.

[...]

This book is written in fine print which means that reading the book is like reading only the "legal notices" or disclaimers on a website. So if your eyesight isn't 20/20, forget it.
The info on the secret war against Cuba is good, but the idea of who killed the Kennedy bros. lack any kind of evidence.
I'm quite disappointed with this book.

Captain Ayers is the primary researcher of the life and career of career CIA rambo David Morales. This alone makes The Zenith Secret a must read for anyone interested in understanding how the American republic was put to sleep in the postwar era by its patriots. The evidence re complicity of Senator Barry Goldwater is clearly presented; one may draw one's own conclusions. Googling "newcombat" and "bradley e. ayers" leads to a discussion of the book in the context of the current debate as to whether Morales and another CIA officer whom Ayers knew well -- Gordon Campbell -- were present in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the evening that Robert Kennedy was murdered.

I have gifted my golfing friends with this book for Christmas and others are jealous! It is an exciting excursion through the top golf courses worldwide, many of which avid golfers have either played or dreamed of playing. Those lucky friends are planning their next vacations around playing the courses with the most holes mentioned. It has become a game with everyone reporting to me how many holes they have played! The descriptions are tuned to a golfer's ear and the photographs are brilliant. Indexes make it easy to find favorites. This is a most welcomed addition to the golfer's library!

This book was a gift for my sister and brother-in-law. They seemed to like it.

I have to agree with the reviewer below. Too much chit chat. Barely any useful picture of the holes or of the hole field layout.
From a regular player, this book is basically disappointing.

I thought that the book was too small and many of the golf courses did not show pictues of the holes but rather a professional hitting a golf ball which could have been any where.

For Example, pg 92 Kooyonga Golf Club, hole No2 has two pictures of two golf pro's hitting golf balls with no picture of the golf hole itself. Similarly on page 24, Royal Melbouren GC hole No. 1, no picture but two close ups of golf pro's.

Los Angeles Country Club Nth Course, 3 holes , no pictures.

National Golf Club, Moonah course, 6 holes, not one picture.

Additionally, the structure of the book is poor as it should have depicted every golf course by hole in alphabetical order. Ie start with Aa Saint-Omer GC pg 1 and finish with Zaudin Golf Club on page 952.

Instead they have decided to chapterize the book from chapter 1 (1st Hole) through to the 18th chapter (18th hole) and fill each chapter with different holes from different clubs. If I want to see the holes of Spyglass Hill GC I Have to go to pgs. 44, 70, 164 and 648.

Great concept for a book but dissapointing in its design and structure.

Peter Montgomery - Australia

I am not a golfer, but gave one as a gift. The reaction was so good that I am now routinely using it as a gift for golfers. [Even a non-golfer can enjoy the great photos.]

I've had IBS for several years, and have never really gotten a good grasp on it. This book helped me to do that. I felt like there are people out there who are dealing with the same thing I am, and there are stories included in the book that I totally related to. It made me feel so much better and not so alone in this condition.

I have suffered with IBS for many years. This book offered simplistic advice that any reasonable person would have tried already, such as visualization. Save your money, do not buy this book.

I agree its useless; just like so many IBS books. There a million of IBS books out there everyone with their opinion on how to treat IBS. I bought this book and Eating for IBS. I followed the suggestions and got no relief. They are now recycled paper.

After buying, reading and giving away many, many books on Irritable Bowel Syndrome, I was blessed to have found this one. No recipes in this one, this book makes clear the powerful correlation between IBS and anxiety, IBS and stress, IBS and depression, IBS and fear. After spending a week of increasingly severe pain accompanied by increased anxiety about the pain (or was it increasing pain about the anxiety?)and winding up in the local ER, I realized that I needed to help myself by calming myself. This book tells how. In compassionate, orderly chapters, Barbara Bolen teaches how to truly "break the bonds of IBS." Hooray for her! Hooray for all of us!

I really enjoyed this book because she makes everything very understandable. She also discusses the possible links between IBS and childhood abuse, stress, foods that irritate, etc. She states that studies have shown a link between depression (or stress related disorders) and IBS. She also gives practical advice on how to cope both mentally and physically. Some suggestions may be things you have heard before, but she puts it in such a way so you can really see the benefit of doing these, that outwieghs the inconvenience. A good example is the food diary. Who wants to be bothered with doing that. I didn't...so I never have. But she makes goods points as to why you should take a few weeks out of your life to do something that would likely save you months or years of dealing with the symptoms and pains because you didn't do it.
The read is light and interesting, unlike medical books tend to be. It was helpful to me, a sufferer of IBS as well as Chron's Disease.

This book published by PrimaTech has decent coverage of some of the general and more popular features of ColdFusion such as declaring variables, Querying a database, File Uploading, Modifying Dynamic Date, Email triggers and many other useful features.

In general, this book serves as a good reference to these ColdFusion functions, presented in a quick and easy manner, although this book does not serve as a good introduction to ColdFusion. The concepts taught are sort of scattered throughout the book and there appears to be no consistency in the order of topics covered throughout the Chapters.

There is no real coverage of ColdFusion syntax, which is something essential to a beginner of any language. Although, general syntax that is required to complete tutorials throughout the book is given, it is not presented in a fashion that a beginner can truly grasp and follow. But those with a background in some web programming language will be able to pick up the concept that was intended to be taught. I should still note that a beginner will still be able to complete the tutorials throughout the book. But the order of the topics and the manner in which they are presented and discussed does not appear to be the best methodology for the absolute ColdFusion beginner.

Although I still recommend this book to any web programmer who is interested in ColdFusion, if you are looking for a book to introduce you to ColdFusion, its syntax, etc., this may not be the book to buy. It may be more appropriate if you are looking for a quick reference to some of the most used ColdFusion features mentioned earlier.

Out of all the ColdFusion books out there, if you are trying to get a really quick handle on the program, this is the book. It falls short on a lot of topics (arrays, basic output formatting, etc) but has enough meat in it to get any novice on their way. Once you've dog-eared and coffe-stained this book, without a doubt move onto one of the Mastering series books, but without a doubt, start here. I thought the screen captures were very helpful, and the content very digestable. You can't beat the price either!

This is a great book for an experienced web developer who needs to jump right in and get learning. If you already have a background in development, this book will help you transition quickly into Coldfusion. Anyone without experience will likely be lost, but that is why it is labeled at the Intermediate level. This book will help you greatly if you have a quick learning curve. You will definitely need to get something more in-depth and something that you can use as a handy reference when you get over that initial learning curve, this book is neither.

I needed a quick jump start on getting into ColdFusion for my employer. I checked out the Forta book and the Mastering book, but they were both way too involved to get me started in a hurry. This book got me exactly what I needed, when I needed it.

The topics covered just enough material to allow me to produce results immediately. My boss was ecstatic.

On the downside, the comments about the typeface in the screen shots are valid, but this did not hinder me from learning what I needed to know. The code is on the CD and it was easier to go from there anyway.

I highly recommend this book for beginners in ColdFusion.

I thought that this book cuts through a lot of the formalities and gets down to what you want to do. This book allows someone with little to no experience with ColdFusion a chance to get your hands dirty right away. My only criticism of this book is that it could be a little more detailed on why somethings work the way they do. However, if you want to get started coding solid ColdFusion programs, and develop your general knowledge of the basics of ColdFusion, this book is great. On the other hand if you want more indepth explaination, buy one of those 800+ paged books written by Ben Forta, or one of the others.

A great book. I would have given it 5 stars but thought it was overwritten and too detailed at times. I'd previously thought Hirohito wasn't so bad -- just a captive of the military. Not so. The extent of George Bush's heroism was another revelation.

The book was a little too boardly based. It covers US and Japanese relations from the 1850s to the end of WWII. But it was wonderfully engaging and any history/WWII reader will greatly enjoy it.

My dad loves true military stories, and I got this for him for Christmas. The previous Christmas I had gotten him "Flags of our fathers." He loved it. My dad is a good reader, but he never reads for hours on end putting other stuff aside just to do so. But, this book had him reading for the better part of his Christmas break. He also said it was somewhat sad, but not overly.

I had seen the book but never made the connection to the author of The Flags of our Fathers. I decided to pick it up and give it a read after chatting with an older gentleman about the war. He said it was good.

I had never hear of Chichi Jima. A bypassed island which was overshadowed by the Battle of Iwo Jima. Chichi Jima was a communications center for the Japaneses. American pilots "flyboys" were assigned to try and take out the radio stations so they could not inform Japan that bombers were on the way. Bradley tells the story of what happened to the flyboys that were shot down. Their names were Dick Woellhof, Floyd Hall, Marve Mershon, Jimmy Dye, Grady York, Warren Earl Vaughn, the future President George HW Bush, Glenn Frazier, Bill Connell and an unnamed B-24 crewman. Only George Bush and Bill Connell would survive.


What I found interesting is the way Bradley tries to explain the two cultures and the history leading up to the war. The history mentioned ranges from the Samurai, the restoration of the Mejii, Perry and the rise of the Militaristic powers. Bradley made an attempt to explain the pseudo-Samurai culture that arose and the actions of the so called "Spirit Warriors" committed. Actions which the real Samurai would have never done.

Bradley makes no attempt to "white wash" the history and the wars that were fought. Bradeley tells of barbarous acts committed by Japan, the US, and even China throughout the years. Actions which at the time people thought they were the right thing to do and with future generations can question.

The clash of the two cultures does come into play. To the Japanese soldier the act of surrender was a shameful horrendous act. It basically made you the lowest of the low. Treatment of such men was horrible especially with the brutal thugs that ran the army.

War is about dehumanizing the enemy. It makes it easier to kill them. The US even practiced it with songs such as "I am going to slap that dirty little Jap" and the use of a parade float which showed scurrying yellow rats being bombed.

Hollywood likes to paint a noble John Wayneish view of the war and yet our boys could be a brutal as the enemy. As mentioned by flyboys who strafed Japanese soldiers and sailors. Bradley doesn't try to paint an evil image of the US soldier. Simply that war can make decent people do bad things in war.

I knew prisoners were executed as I have seen the famous photo of the Australian soldier about to be beheaded. What I did not know was the acts cannibalism that went on.

Such acts happened to the flyboys that crashed and were captured on Chichi Jima. Such acts suggested the War Department thought it was not a good idea to tell the families of the flyboys as they were told they were MIA. It's kind of sad hearing the mothers went to their graves not knowing what happened to their sons. Yet, would you want to tell a mother that her son was beheaded and partially eaten?

This story only made it to light because of Bill Doran felt the flyboys stories needed to be told and he contacted the author and told him about them. Bill Doran was present at the war crimes trials for the leaders and soldiers involved with the killings on Chichi Jima.

Bradley talked to endless people and even Japanese soldiers who were on the island an interacted with the flyboys. The cannibalistic commands were executed in 1947. The stories told about the flyboys facing their deaths is indeed courageous and noble. Depending on your viewpoints you can take it as true or simply soldiers making them honorable rather then what happened.

Bradley also visited the islands of Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima with President Bush. He asked the author if he knew anything about what happened to the two men he lost when he was shot down that day. President Bush stayed with his plane longer then he should have and even tried to turn it so they could get out safer. They didn't make it even though it was thought two parachutes were seen.

President Bush said to this day he still thinks of them.

Overall this is a great book to read and I highly recommend it.

"Fly Boys" an incredible botch. The book promises to tell of American fliers shot down over Japanese-held Chichi Jima. Not far from Iwo Jima, scores of Japanese on Chichi could only watch impotent as a huge American force utterly devastated their nearby comrades, opening the door for fiery assaults against the Japanese home islands. The Japanese proved far better at amassing forces than maintaining them, effectively stranding troops across the Pacific. (Imperial doctrine called for troops to "provision" themselves - by stealing from local inhabitants or by subsisting on insects and flora.) As a result, islands like Chichi and Guadalcanal became home to thousands of starving Japanese troops barely able to bring the fight to the enemy. Desperation exacerbates the sort of hysteria already endemic to every level of the Japanese military when the war began, and the "Fly Boys" suffer their captors' wrath.

Some reviews complain about Bradely's use of "moral equivalence" (Bradley compares Imperial brutalities with those of an expansionist America from the post-Civil War era through the war in the Philippines) to anti-American effect. But those problems mask the book's larger flaw: that it really isn't about anything at all. What starts out a story of American prisoners, goes back to the dawn of Japanese-American relations, the birth of modern Japan and the road to war. Then there is the rise of American airpower, the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, and finally the landings at Iwo Jima and the firebombing of Japan. These historic events don't simply form a backdrop to the story, but become the story, grabbing as much of Bradley's focus as the plight of his downed airmen. Bradley never integrates these threads into a common historic theme, and never explains what they're all doing in the same book. In a book about nothing in particular, everything is irrelevant.

For his research, or maybe because of it, Bradley loses his way almost immediately. Instead of learning about the downed Chichi fliers, Bradley begins with the historical roots of the Pacific war...and then works backward. We see how Commodore Perry "opened" the closed yet sophisticated and highly regimented Japanese society to the outside world. Japan's honor system - epitomized by Bushido - was blameless for the barbarities of WWII. Instead, the modern combat experience of the Japanese demonstrates both compliance with that code and extraordinarily humane (Russians captured in the 1907 war received treatment little worse than that for guests). Bradley contrasts this with the aforementioned brutality of Americans in war.

Getting to WWII, Bradley barely touches on his subjects - instead rehashing more milestones already familiar to anybody with the least basic grasp of military history (or with basic cable). From the court martial of Billy Mitchell to Doolittle's raid on Tokyo; from the Battle of Midway to the fire-bombing of the home islands of the Empire - Bradley gives some marginal insight, but again little bearing on the downed American fliers who become extras in their own story. Bradley not only forgets whom he's writing about, but never clarifies whose perspective. (Bradley compares the cruelties perpetrated by Americans in giving some shape to those committed by the Imperial Japanese, but did the Japanese know of "Wounded Knee" during the Bataan March? Is Bradley is arguing for moral relativism, or merely demonstrating that the Japanese had done so?)

When it's clear that Bradley is writing from his own perspective, the result is a soft concoction of history and euphemism, with little hard fact. This is especially true of the title - nothing in Bradley's book gets to the meat of what it means to be one of the "Fly Boys", though he uses the term throughout. In that vein, "fly boys" may be an image, like the one used in "The Right Stuff" in which pilots were the lone shining knights of the nuclear powered space age. But Wolfe fleshed out his metaphors without being conquered by them (by the end of "Stuff", Wolfe's America has matured beyond its need for such archaic heroes like the Mercury 7 - the era of the lone, shining and supersonic knight had come to an end). Bradley instead uses "Flyboys" to refer to fliers in general - ignoring much distinction between the fliers of different services. Instead, Bradley has "flyboys" as FDR's one-word answer in the desperate early days of the war (was FDR such a fan of naval aviation?), without saying much about how FDR turned that answer into the force that won the war. Other glossed over points - the relative industrial might of America and Japan, and the exhaustion faced by Japan in China even before hostilities began with America. Bradley "shows" much, yet teaches little.

As to the problem of moral-equivalence touched upon by unfavorable reviewers, "Flyboys" engages in a sort of thematic shell-game. In turns, he eschews then embraces the sentimentality of American pluck over Imperial aggression. In a work that reveals the contrasting imagery that each side used for the other (uniformly hostile, of course), Bradley freely engages in imagery and sentimentality of his own - of spirit warriors and Samurai, of those betrayed the warrior's honor code, and those who've inherited it. Bradley charts Japan's ironic metamorphosis from honorable warrior to barbaric marauder, fleshing out the contrasting extremes for each. Yet having plumbed American atrocities, reverses direction for Americans without explanation, and makes them the heirs of the Bushido - a characterization (much like "Fly Boy") qualified or even defined. "Flyboys" is supposed to be an unflinching look at WWII as we haven't seen before, yet its subtitle, offering a story of "courage" suggests he's as much reliant on heroic and unreal imagery as those who written before him.

I picked this up on a clearance table at B&N a few years ago, and I've pulled it off the shelf at least once every year since then to read it again. I haven't read any of the author's other works, and indeed I find Tolkien closer to my worldview than this brief tast of Ms Bradley's sub-creation. However, I greatly enjoy this little field trip into a well-detailed fantasy world. She explains just enough for someone who doesn't know all the background of her work to follow along, and makes it all seem so natural. (And the plot's pretty good, too!) If you find it at a yard sale or thrift shop, pick it up to enjoy on a rainy Saturday morning. 4.5/5

This should have been published with another story or two (there are some uncollected Lythande stories, maybe the administrators of her estate should look into a complete Lythande collection, including the Thieve's World stories). It's just a novelette - really a long short story.
As a story of Lythande, it is thin and lacks the complexity of the other stories. It was good to see Beeauty and Tashgan again. I'm glad to add it to my collection of MZB.

Being a huge MZB fan and a lover of her "Mists of Avalon" series, I bought this lovely little book simply because it was Marion Zimmer Bradley.

If you are looking for a complex, substantial novel, this book may not be for you. It is after all, a short story, revisiting Lythande the sorcerer/magician, and not a huge novel in and of itself.

This novel is a really fun read, because it gives the reader a glimpse of Marion Zimmer Bradley's world, but does so with a bit of humor. "Gratitude of Kings" is full of symbolism, and I feel that the book's message is very clear.

This is simply a delightful, "not too deep" novel, and for those unaccustomed to MZB's work, a quick look at her ability to make fantasy completely believable, and another of her fine offerings which focus around the power of women, whatever form that power may take!

...is my impression of this fairy tale like story. The female magician is conjuring her way in the usual charming wit and manners through one of her many old friend's (in no way surprising after a few centuries of lifetime) wedding ceremony in a medieval setting. With a cheerful smile on my face, I finished reading the little book with the pretty cover (hardcover, therefore its price). Just too short. I'd recomend it as a gift to casual readers or as a children's book for second grade. Isn't there someone you've always wanted to turn onto MZB?

While the story about Lythande was fairly interesting, I found myself asking at the end, "So, what was the point?" The book reads more like a short story. While somewhat entertaining, it just didn't seem to have enough plot to it to warrant making a whole book from it. I can understand printing it as a selection in an anthology, but not in this format. I have thoroughly enjoyed Bradley's wonderful Darkover series but this just falls short of the quality I expect of her. I believe this book is simply a way to make money off Bradley's name.