Clarke Books

this book offer a lot of info about boats and ships. it also has new races and subraces.Good book

Nice addition to the environment books being put out by WOTC. One would have thought these would have come out just after the core rulebooks.

I liked this book... the information is really useful for DM's who want to add water to their adventures and adds new features such as races, spells and scenarios (rules included).

I would like a better choice of races and a little more of information about underwater adventures since the information is focused on anphibious races and more pirate style adventures (which I don't mind about it).

The spells are Ok and the monsters included are interesting too.

This book is a good reference for coast and shore adventures, if you want to play a pirate-style adventure or just to change the location of your standard adventures, this book is right for you.

Stormwrack is a nice book about sea trade, pirates, and aqauatic adventures. It has a few bits of rather nice advice for those seeking to add an aquatic touch to their campaign or make a purely aquatic one. They have some of the best rules for boats (as far as I'm concerned) out of any d20 book.

That being said, this book is really only about oceans, and is most useful to DMs. Players won't get much out of it unless they know they're going to be playing in waterbased campaigns for a long time.

All right. I've been looking forward to this book for a long time. I've heard great things about Frostburn. I had a positive reaction to Sandstorm. This is the third book in the environment series and it deals with one of my great loves . . . the sea.

So how did Richard Baker, Joseph D. Carriker, Jr., and Jennifer Clarke Wilkes do? Did this Wizards of the Coast book meet my (admittedly high) expectations?
Well, no.

I can't recommend this book. I wouldn't have bought it but that's because it fell woefully short on the only areas I'm likely to use. Your game might differ, so lets discuss what they book actually contains.

Chapter One discusses the uses of this book and the type adventures a GM might run. This discusses aquatic adventures, planar adventures and the like. The chapter ends with a discussion of a stripped down narrative way of handling naval combat, under the premise that in a D&D campaign, naval combat won't be exciting for the players (this is the first time I disagreed with a premise of the book).

Chapter Two contains four "new" aquatic races. Now, the Aquatic Elf is an old D&D standby, but please, WotC, enough already. I've got more sapient races in my D&D games than I know what to do with. I've got enough. Stop deluging me. Races are getting as bad Prestige Classes.
The second half of the chapter deals with existing races and their interaction with the seas. This is more in line with what I wanted.
Chapter Three is classes. The first half deals with class variations, such as how to handle an sea-based druid. This is what these books should be about. The second half deals with Prestige classes.

Sigh. Those who follow my reviews know my deep hatred of Prestige Class proliferation. Now this book had a shot of getting a pass from me like Waterdeep. I mean, the sea is an alien environment. A few new prestige classes might be a must, especially dealing with characters that actually live or work underwater.

They had seven. Seven!

I think I'm going to swallow my tongue.

Chapter 4 has the same problem as the previous two. It begins with some expansions to skill rulings, which is delightful. Then it moves on to continue Feat proliferation. Twenty-Three new feats by my count. Really, isn't there a Betty Ford program for these people? A few, like sea legs, I can see. Now stop it.

Chapter 5 deals with ships and equipment. This is the chapter that made me want to toss the book. I'll get back to it later.

Chapter 6, Spells and Magic Items. You guessed it. Spell proliferation. Has anyone explained to these people that there's a point where "crunchy bits" become "soggy bits?" They also have new psionic powers, which was novel enough for me to be charmed (I don't have a psionic proliferation issue, but I have faith WotC will get me there eventually). New magic items are good. I think my favorite part here was the new Epic spells. Hey, high-level campaigns don't get a lot of love from game companies.

Chapter 7 is monsters. New monsters don't dilute or unbalance a game (yet) and this is a new environment, so huzzah. Some of the monsters, like the hippocampus, are a bit familiar as well, and I welcome them back.
Chapter 8 is adventure locales. I've enjoyed this chapter in the previous books, and this one is no exception. Hear that? I liked the last two chapters.

So, let's discuss the book overall.

Half of it is filled with stuff (Chapters 2-4, plus 6), for which I frankly have no use. What are the odds of one of these prestige classes ever making it into one of my games. Compare to the hundreds of prestige classes out there and honestly tell me why I'd be willing to pay for that paper and ink. The same is true for races and feats and spells. WotC needs to learn to pick their battles. If these chapters were focused, like a laser, instead of this scattershot approach, drowning us in game mechanics, I would have liked them. They aren't. So half the book is all but useless to me.

Now we get to two deeper issues, however.

First of all, research. I felt like a lot of research went into this product, there was all sorts of things that I didn't know, and I'm a bit of a nautical buff. Still, the things I did know often have glaring omissions. It's as if they wrote rules without thinking them through, or as if they didn't fully understand the implications of what they wrote.
Let me give you a couple examples.

First of all, there's the sinking ship. Now they have rules based on such facts as how much damage the ship has taken, and a ship can sink very fast with these rules. Still, they never mentioned that ships are made out of wood (at least most ships a PC will see). A real age of sail ship wouldn't typically sink quickly. They'd sink until their deck was a foot or two below the surface and stay that way for an hour or more, until the wood became water-logged enough that it went down the rest of the way (they might sink fast if they were very heavily laden, but the book doesn't address that). Now, this is an extremely important fact, one that would radically change the way a sinking ship is handled by the players, but it's never mentioned at all. If they had just spent one sentence on that fact then the DM could have used those rules to model it and this would have been a usable rule. Either they didn't research enough to understand this or they didn't think it important to tell the reader. Either way, the book doesn't get you the information you need. Since I found one important fact missing in an area I knew about, I now doubt the stuff I didn't know.

A second example. They use age of sail ships and they have some cannons, but they also have much older ship weaponry, the kind that you can't use from an age of sail ship. I don't see where they ever mentioned that you can't use a catapult from most of the ships in this book without damaging the rigging. They discuss that there might not be gunpowder on some worlds, ruling out cannons, but they never give an alternative. The ships on this book are designed based on a level of ship technology that can't evolve without cannons. If you are going to say that they might not have cannons, a reasonable alternative is needed, and in a game with little one-shot alchemist items in the PH, it would seem they could produce something. Heck, Wizards, back when it was TSR, actually published an article in Dragon where they discussed this problem (They owned Dragon back then if I have the time line correct). Someone at the company should know their intellectual property better than I do. Again, it's like they didn't follow through.

But this isn't the biggest problem for me. I'm used to companies screwing up ships.

No, the biggest problem is you have a book built around water adventures. Your game might vary, but in my game 90% of the time I'd use that book I'd be dealing with a ship. The book has perhaps 20-30 pages that directly relates to ships. I don't see anything in there what would improve my nautical game. I see very little in there that would improve anyone's nautical game. Instead of giving better rules for ship combat, they give sketchier ones. Instead of sprinkling the book with boxes describing details of ship life, they discuss world building logistics that are more likely to make your world more improbable. Instead of giving us useful ship data, they skimp over it with a minuscule treatment. They could have taken that old Dragon article, updated it straight to 3.5 and had a more useful book (and that article had a lot of problems of its own).

So you have to look and decide if this book is right for you. Maybe you need more aquatic races because your starting an exclusively underwater campaign. Maybe you want skimpier ship combat because you know your players will hate it. Maybe you don't intend to use the ships from this book (or don't need them, or only need one or two). If that's the case, this might be the book for you. It's not that it was poorly written, I've had this many problems with books and given them a recommendation. It's that this book's entire focus seems to be geared toward a different type of game than I would ever run.

Maybe you're the one it's focused at. If that's the case, buy it. If not, let it be.

I love every one of Stephen Clarke's books. I have never laughed so hard reading. Looking forward to getting his newest. I wish these books would also go to the big screen. Hugh Grant?

Clarke provides an eerily accurate view into Parisian life. From inattentive waiters to constant strikes, you'll get an amusing take on life in France.

I enjoyed this book but it's very British. I've lived in France since 1996 and most of his observations are right on the money. I also lived in the U.K. for 6 years and I have to admit that this book if more relevent to his fellow Brits. For example, Americans tend to use the "real" medical terms, which he finds funny with the French. Americans do this too and it drove me batty in England when I couldn't figure what they were complaining about. Call the disorder by its name people!

But the book is entertaining, as long as you keep in mind that it's written by a Brit for his countrymen.

Having just moved to Paris, I found Talk to the Snail both humorous and accurate when it came to some of the idiosyncracies of the French. Some of the Commandments are more enlightening than others, but all of them lay bare some truth to the motives behind what otherwise strikes someone like me (an American) as bizarre behaviour. I love France and the French, but it takes some help in figuring out why things work the way they do in France. Thanks for the lifeline.

This is an excellent and funny guide to France and the French. Clarke has constructed his book around a series of commandments that the French supposedly obey: thou shalt eat, thou shalt be right, and thou shalt be ill, among others. "Thou shalt eat" obviously discusses French attitudes to food and drink, and the behavior around those attitudes. "Thou shalt be right" discusses French haughtiness, among other topics. "Thou shalt be ill" looks at how the French enjoy being sick, and enjoy getting suppositories when they are.

The book is fun to read, and I'd recommend it for its humor alone. However, it would also serve the more serious purposes of improving your cultural literacy if you are going to travel, work, or live in France. Clarke would give you a good understanding of why things work they way they do, and he often offers advice on how to get by in the face of frustrations. Many things that frustrate outsiders make sense if you wrap your head around them and understand them in their full cultural context.

Clarke even provides a "useful sentences" guide in each chapter. Some provide generally-useful vocabulary (how to ask a doctor, "Will it be refunded?") while others are just jokes ("What do I do with this suppository?"). These guides, along with the text in the accompanying chapter, would help you in the very serious business of asking pointed questions of a potential landlord or real estate agent, for example.

The book posts relentless fun at the country and its people. It would be tiresome if Clarke hated the French, but it's clear that he loves the country and this fondness makes the whole package work. Though Clarke is British, he has decided to make his home in France. Fortunately, he although enjoys poking fun at the foibles of his adopted country.

We own all of this series! Started reading them when my daughter was 4 (she just turned 5 now), and they are age appropriate. Not too scary and always a happy ending. One book only takes us about 4-5 nights worth of reading together. The longer ones are good too "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg" and "Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand", but they are a little bit scarrier than the short books (more appropriate for ages 5-7 I would think).

While I found much of the plot frustrating (why doesn't Tink just tell everyone she lost her hammer? What's the big deal? ...), I found the scene between Tinker Bell and Peter Pan fascinating. Since their relationship is part of such a much bigger mythology, I found it surprising/odd that we would see Peter Pan in one of these chapter books (as opposed to, say, in the hardcover books by Gail Carson Levine), but I thought the author captured Peter Pan well, and my 6 year-old daughter was delighted by the humor in the scene between these two iconic characters. For me, that scene was "worth the price of admission," and, as usual, the illustrations are gorgeous as well ...

I like this book, due to the broad spectrum of Tinkerbell's nature and revealing her naughty side. My daughter is fully engrossed with the book, since she likes everything Tink.

I read TheTrouble With Tink.The Trouble With Tink is a book I love.I love this book because it makes me curious about whether Tink will lose her talent or not.I wonder this because I read'', So it's true,Tink thought. Everone is saying I've lost my talent''.This helps convince me that it was a good book!000

I bought this as an audiobook for my daughter, and she enjoyed it. I thought it was alright. I just found it increasingly frustrating, as Tink refused to tell anyone what her problem was (it was only an accident!) or to ask for help. What's the moral here - if you have an innocent accident, better to lie, and refuse to ask for help, and get deeper into trouble, than risk embarassment? Is she that afraid of her "friends"? Yeah, I know, reading too much into a kids' book, but it just seemed a bit odd. :)

As with Sabuda's other pop-up books, this will not disappoint.

This mini book has mostly white (metallic accents, red for Santa) pop-ups that "pop" in 2D, as well as 3D, because of the solid-colored background. The book spells out Christmas with each page layout having a letter and a pop-up that corresponds to that letter (SPOILER ALERT: C-Candle, H-House, I-Icicle, S-Snowflake, T-toy, M-Manger, A-Angel, S-Santa).

While this mini book can be enjoyed by all ages, it seems like it would be an especially good option for younger children. Small hands could hold the book and the pop-ups aren't as intricate, with the potential to harm them, as with some of Sabuda's other books.

I have sent many of Sabuda's books to nieces and nephews over three. At last one to send to someone between 1-2 years with little hands.

If you are looking for pop-up books. The best are made by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart.My son really enjoyed this book.

Like every other Sabuda product, it is first class! It was a nice item for a small gift.

Not much to this book, but it is OK for a few dollars. Doesn't measure up to others by Robert Sabuda

While there are some interesting elements in the book and it is a unique lookat the supposed childhood of Jesse James, I do not recommend it for children. There is a lot of swearing in it. I know most folks are exposed to swearing all the time, but I do not want that for my children. It is possible to write wonderful fiction and get the point across without having to resort to using swearing. As I read old time fiction I notice this!

Secondly I do not like Matt's attitude toward his mother. He is not respectful, he hides things from her. I do not like my chidren being exposed to things like that.

In Guerilla Season, written by Pat Hughes, I saw that family was an important part of the novel. He chose to stay with his family instead of in Missouri, the place his father died and where he felt he belonged. He had to choose between his friend and his family, and through his decisions he managed to sustain good relationships with both despite his encounters and decisions. He tried to remain neutral, but the more they pressured him, the more he became a staunch secessionist. He didn't quite realize how much he depended on his family until he was sent off to the federal work camp. He soon became aggravated and heartbroken over not seeing his family for a whole week. It was then that he decided to stay intact with the family instead of staying in Missouri to see his crop grow into a harvest. It is in this decision that Hughes us that our personal goals are not more important than family. He is conveying to us that when we look back upon our lives, family is the closest form of friendship we have. They will be the ones that listen to us, that understand us for who we are, not who we should be. Jesse tried to make Matt into a guerrilla, but Ma was persistent on Matt choosing to be neutral, which basically meant to stay alive. Matt also thought that leaving his homeland meant he would leave it forever and betray his father, who spent his whole life tilling the land. Towards the end of the book he realized that he would be betraying his father more if he stayed behind without his family. His family needs him to continue the family tradition. Family is the last institution and the only institution that has held up since the creation of man, and Hughes proves why.

Guerilla Warfare, by Pat Hughes, is about the choices an adolescent, Matt, has to make during the Civil War. After his father died he became the man of the house and feels responsibility for his father's possession such as farming the land. Matt lives in Missouri with his 'Ma' and five other brothers and sisters. Throughout the novel he struggles in deciding whether he should engage in Guerilla Warfare with his best friend Jesse or if he should try to remain neutral for the safety of his family. Another decision he struggles to make is whether he should move north with his family or he should stay with the land that has belonged to his father. Nearing the end of the novel Matt moves up north with his family deserting pretty much everything he knew.
Historically, this novel seems pretty accurate. This story really could have happened given the time and the setting. It showed me a part of Kansas/Missouri History that I never knew. Living in Kansas, I have learned the history of 'Bleeding Kansas' and the fighting that went on in the area. However, I never knew that Jayhawkers terrorized Missouri in order to try to scare people into making it a free state. This book is fictional, so that part might not be true, but the way Hughes writes the novel makes it seem completely logical and accurate. This is a great book I encourage you to read, especially if you enjoy action-packed novels.

If your son or daughter ever asks, how can neighbors and friends start fearing, hating and even killing each other over politics, hand them a copy of Guerrilla Season. Not only will they find themselves totally immersed in the story of 15-year-old Matt and his friend Jesse, who are struggling in their own ways to cope with the war that is infiltrating and ripping apart their patch of "neutral" Missouri in 1863, but they will find themselves understanding just what guerrilla warfare does to a community. It *can* happen here, and already has. For a teenage boy, the idea of staying neutral in the midst of civil war is an illusion. Hughes does an amazing job of bringing her characters (and their families) to life, as well as the forces and events that compel them to take sides. This middle-aged man found Guerrilla Season thoroughly compelling, and appreciated the rich attention to detail, the careful interweaving of character and historical plot, and the absence of 21st-century value judgments.

I have to wonder what sort of books "Book Worm Mama" (below) reads beyond the Bible and fairy tales. Where is the swearing she refers to? I noticed about three very tame cuss words, hardly out of line for a book set in the middle of a war. And I had to laugh at her description of Matt as "disrespectful." She clearly just doesn't get it. This is a book about real, flesh-and-blood people in a terribly difficult situation, and the choices they have to make. The triumph of Guerrilla Season is that perceptive readers still care about them.

My 14 year-old son came home from school with this book, because of our family interest in the WBTS when our ancestors fought for the South. The book is nominated for the Children's Book Award in Georgia. When I saw on the back that it was written by a northerner I got suspicious. But I assure you the book is not just one more Yankeefied version of the war. If you have kids in school you know that most books about the war put Southerners in a bad light but this one is different. For one thing it shows Southerners who didn't own slaves. (Like my ancestors didn't.) Also the people in the book who do have slaves, don't beat or mistreat them.

Guerrilla Season is about a boy named Matt who lives in Missouri, where they had heavy guerrilla activity through out the war. Matt is 15 and he to decide, will he go to fight for the South with Quantrill, or will he leave his home and stay safe with his family? (Fighting for the Union, NOT an option for this proud Southron boy!) The story is about everything that happens to Matt and his family, his neighbors and his friend Jesse through that summer, 1863. North and south, both do terrible things and the author is very fair in showing it. I won't say how it ends because until the last minute you can't be sure if Matt will change his mind.

I can't say enough good things about this book. All the characters are so real, and for boys, there is alot of action. This is a great story for parents to read, along with their kids.

I guess every geek would have watched the movie "2001: The Space Odyssey" when the year 2001 arrived and asked a question what's missing? Why we still don't have anything even close to HAL? This book tries to answer the question by giving you essays written by experts in specific areas of computing. I found some of the chapters getting really boring, especially those tiring to speculate how HAL would have worked instead of reporting current state of affair. The book is not the kind which will make you sit and keep reading it. The noise to signal ratio after about 100 pages was high enough for me to get distracted and pick something else.

There are few films that have had the influence of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is difficult to say how many A.I. researchers were inspired to go into the field by the viewing of the film, but this book is good evidence that research in A.I. has undergone a sort of "public benchmarking" via a comparison with HAL, the arch computer-villan in the movie, and whose name is now ubiquitous in debates on robotics and artificial intelligence. This excellent book is a summary of just how far A.I. has come, as compared to the abilities of HAL. All of the authors acknowledge that the present level of A.I. is not what it is in HAL, but that progress is being made, in spite of, as one author remarked, the fact that A.I. is one of the most profoundly difficult problems in science.

Marvin Minsky is interviewed in the book, and he believes it is the problem of knowledge representation that has slowed down the progress in A.I. Too much time has been spent on chess programs and character recognition, and not on fundamentals, Minsky argues. Minsky also believes that emotions are absolutely essential in intelligent problem solving, and this is interesting in light of recent work on computational models of emotion.

The large physical size of HAL is compared with present sizes of computers in the article of David Kuck. But, the author argues, the human brain is also much smaller than HAL, but such a marvelous computing machine has yet to be emulated by even the best of present-day supercomputers. Size does not matter in matters of intelligence.

The article on error correction by R. Iyer is particularly insightful, for he argues, quite correctly, that making mistakes is a characteristic of true intelligence. HAL's brag that it is "incapable of error" is a sign of stupidity, rather than intelligence. False leads, uncompleted strategies and goals, and inconsistent reasoning are all part of genuine problem-solving.

M.S. Campbell discusses the efforts in machine chess, with Deep Blue of course being the focal point. Comparisons of how HAL plays chess compared to Deep Blue illustrate Campbell's belief that a mere combinatorial approach to playing chess should not be considered an intelligent one. HAL is intelligent because it plays intelligence like a human does, but Deep Blue does not. Campbell also gives an interesting historical summary of computer chess. He cites that example of a "fortress" position as one that chess computers have severe difficulty with.

The ability of computers to speak, and not sound "machine-like" is the subject of the article by J.P. Olive. His discussion gives the reader both an historical and technical overview of the difficulties involved in computer speech. And yes, the song "Daisy, Daisy" is real, and was the first song ever sung by a computer.

R. Kurzweil gives an optimistic overview of computer speech recognition. He details the "lessons" one needs to perform speech recognition and repeats his well-known desire to "reverse-engineer" the human brain, once the computational ability becomes available.

R.C. Schank discusses why he thinks A.I. must be able to understand more than just words, if natural language processing is to become a reality. And, interestingly, he believes that intelligence and problem solving are not necessarily the same thing and gives the reader insight into the difficulties involved in language acquisition by a computer.

This book was first printed in 1997, but given the recent news of a common sense reasoning computer developed by the company that D.B. Lenat heads, his article is particularly interesting. The ability of computers to exercise common sense is considered a fundamental requirement for machine intelligence, and Lenat outlines "3 easy steps" for the building of a HAL-like computer. It remains to be seen whether Lenat has indeed achieved this.

The ability of HAL to recognize images is discussed in the article by A. Rosenfeld. In light of the recent need for face recognition software for security enhancement, this discussion is particularly interesting. Rosenfeld details just what is difficult and what is easy to do in this area.

The capability of a computer to perform speechreading is the topic of D.Stork's article. Noting that speech has both auditory and visual aspects, Stork argues that HAL's ability to perform speechreading is far advanced in comparison to the real computers of today. He discusses interestingly, some of the tools used in current research on speechreading, such as hidden Markov models and neural networks.

The article of D. Norman addresses the human factors involved in living with intelligent machines. Norman contends that 2001 is too optimistic a projection of the future, and, in addition, that its technology is too large and bulky to be of much use to humans.

Computational models of emotion have been a subject of intense interest of late, and R. Picard addresses the issue of emotion and computers in his article. The discussion is fascinating, and Picard clearly believes that emotional states can be recoginized and mimicked by a computer. "Emotional" intelligence is something that must be part of any notion of artificial intelligence.

The ability of HAL to manipulate circumstances and trick the crew members is addressed in D.Wilkin's article. The ability to plan is based on common sense issues, and this is no where near being realized, he argues.

D.Stork interviews Stephen Wolfram in another article, and the reader learns of Wolfram's opinions on A.I. and related issues. Wolfram believes that its the nature of intelligence that must be understood to develop thinking machines, and not just processing power.

When thinking machines are built, legal issues of responsibility will naturally arise. D. Dennett addresses this in the last article of the book. Dennet puts HALs behavior in the context of what a human might do when faced with the mission priorities given to him. Turning off HAL was justified, but so was HALs response to it.

I always enjoyed HAL's obnoxious
selfconfidence. His insistence that
- No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information.
That they are foolproof and incapable
of error -
is funny, absurd, very human, proud and down right crazy.
But at the same time intriguing.
The book look at the issues and technologies
that would be critical if we were to build HAL.
And the book let us in on some of HAL's secrets.
In the process it just all becomes even more intriguing.
An excellent book for anyone
interested in artificial intelligence, cognition
and Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction.
A must have book!

-Simon

This book is an ART and amazing. You can learn and know what
really Artificial Intelligence means and you feel happy, relaxed
and enjoyable in reading each chapter.
If you don't want to waste time to read lots of technical
words to understand AI, this book is the only and best choice.
Every chapter will give you concise and clear information, and
also is interesting.
An excellent book for anyone who
is interested in mind, thought, robot, cognition, AI or
just like the Sci-Fi wrote by Clarke.
This is a book for professional AI programmer and
for anyone who just want to know what is Artificial Intelligence.

I have only one word for this book: COOL! For science-fiction aficionados everywhere, HAL's Legacy is a review, in 1997 when HAL was supposed to be created, the state of the technology (artificial intelligence, natural language processing, speech processing, etc.) from premier Sci-Fi writer Arthur C. Clarke and leading computer scientists in the area of AI (and other areas) like Marvin Minsky. Are we there yet? Is HAL really possible? It includes deep analysis of specific scenes in the movie and tying it in with the different premises presented in the articles/chapters in the book.

This is one book absolute die-hard sci-fi fans should have, especially if you are working in the high tech sector.

I've bought several other types of more expensive vibrators but this one has stayed in good working condition much longer than any of those did.
It is very nice for its size.

Like most reviewers have said. This IS the hash book of hash books. A book devoted to hashish from around the world. It is a massive book and very thick with lots of illustrations and color and black and white pictures. I would rate this as a mucho better book for pictures than "The Cannabible" that Clarke also did some writing for.

Great book about Hash. Everything you could ever want to know about hash is in here. Nothing is overlooked. The book is packed with photographs and the color section is incredible. You will love this book about Hash. Get it!

I got two new books over christmas. This and a grow manual. I really love both of them. This is a great book about the great hashish. It is very historical with lots of hashish history. The book is really big too and can not fit on the shelf sitting upwards. It has to lie down but how bad. There is enough information to keep you going here for awhile. I really like it and if you like hash then you will like it too.

Hashish is the ultimate hash companion. It covers everything that you need to know about hashish except for good home extraction methods. Hashish is a text book on the subject. It covers the basics of marijuana with respect to the world we live in today and then hurtles into the origins of hashish, mapping it out around the world. There is lots of interesting information to read here especially about cannabis plant researchers and early hashish writers. Lots of folk tales with illustrations. The book is well researched!

The second half of the book after the splendid color section - WOW! is about the different grades of hashish, how it is made and how it works on the body. There are lots of charts and illustrations which cover almost every section of the book. There is a huge table at the back which even covers what types of hashish have been busted around the world with descriptions of the hashish. It really is that deep.

So how does it pan out overall. Well I have never read this book from start to finish in one go but have referenced it well over a thousand times. It is a difficult book to read in one go and can be quite grueling at times even for cannabis enthusiasts. As a reference book it gets 5 stars but as a good read only deserves about 3 stars. This book does not lack in anything though except for one crucial thing. The hash making methods described are not really used by growers anymore. If you are looking for the best possible way to extract hashish (and the most easiest) then consult The Cannabis Grow Bible by Greg Green for water extraction. It has the best method I have ever used by far.

Do not miss out on the book Hashish! by Clarke. Even though the title might sound a little tabloid-like this is the kind of book that would earn you a degree in HASHISH!

John G Jackson was a master of history, and I enjoyed this book: Clear, Comprehensive, lot of valuable Information and Sources.

This book was written in 1970 (or something) so it currently could not proposed the latest genetic studies about the Egyptian civilisation. But we can see that, even nowadays, the western scientists are still avoiding the ADN tests which could close up the debate....

Somebody said:" his ridiculous comparison of ancient Egyptian and modern English words"; this comparison has been done by people of great erudition like Gerald Massey (The book of the beginning Part I and II) and his disciple Albert Churchward....

And the qualification of what is a "pure Black" is pure hypocrisy...It's a way to avoid the truth. If for instance you go to the British Museum (London, UK) you could see the face of the Pharaoh Thoutmosis III: A pure African face (his nose is not broken though....).

I read this book in 2007; it was just to answer to a reviewer

This book is a Bible of black history. It contains the truth about the origin of civilization in Afrika, as it has been told through the years, in recorded history, from various historians. I literally use it on a weekly, if not daily basis, to combat ignorance about the Afrikan/Khemi origins of everything, including various nations around the world. It, also, talks about how Afrikan people discovered America and how Afrikan people "civilized" Europe. It's simply a must have book!!!!!!!! I love it.

As a scientist myself, it seems that this author did not intend to write a critical analysis of African civilizations, but instead wanted to challenge our views of what we've traditionally grown up with. If this was Jackson's goal, then he's done a great job. It's entertaining and provocative. However, statements like, "We are pleased to say", should immediately flag the reader that this author is biased and not afraid to admit it. Perhaps it is because of the time it was written, but scholars cannot write like that today.

Some examples of poor scholarship include lack of genetic evidence and reliance on the vague qualification of "black" from sources that may not share his same definition, his ridiculous comparison of ancient Egyptian and modern English words and his continual use of statements like "We now know without a doubt", when there is, most definitely, a doubt. Despite all these problems for the majority of the text, Jackson hits a sweet spot at the end, when he discusses the impact of slavery on Africa today. For some reason, that chapter had better research and could probably have been expanded to a book in of itself.

Overall, a fun book to read which opened my mind to a number of new possibilities. However, the conclusions drawn must be taken as a grain of salt due to the strong bias of the author.

Anyone wanting to bengin their African Studies must read this book! It is a wealth of information and a joy to read. No true person of character nor lover of truth could say anything negative about this work. Dr. Jackson was a gift to humanity!

Would like to see chris's comparative analysis of why Mr. Rashidi's book is a bunch of black glam...

Thats right... crybaby's are doom from the start when they don't show any evidence for what they disagree with... they just cry... wow!


Anyway, for anyone who can look past the obvious of how ppl like to play around with subjective references and the objectives, one can come to their own conclusion without being over bearing about it...

I have had the pleasure of viewing Mr.Rashidi's work... and he always goes out of his way to give references that are credible...

Some how, all of the naysayers against so-called Africentrism has made up their minds to discredit African historical (evidence) based solely on selective favoritism... or pure bigotry, because they are not black... and possibily mad because they ancestors owe a lot to Black Africans that eurocentrist are constantly trying to dumb down, because of their fragile ego's for not being the first or the originals of civilization, math, science, art, etc... boo-hoo!

Ok, it is a fun book to look through, but honestly I can't see how it could help us select house plans which is why we bought it. The house picture on the book cover is obviously made up from many different houses and not what one would see a sane person build. We know what looks good and what we like and wouldn't make the blunders this book warns about.

I've done a fair amount of reading in architecture over the years, mostly on historical topics, and building and designing your typical family home wasn't something I knew as much about. As I was in the process of building my own house for the first time, I decided to look at this book to see what I could learn.

I was a little bit nervous, actually, since I was afraid I'd found that I'd made so many mistakes. But I was pleased to find out that overall we'd done all right, and hadn't made any horrible blunders. There were a couple of minor errors, but nothing terrible. So overall I was pretty pleased, or at least, relieved. :-)

If you've never studied architecture before, this book is an easy way to get your feet wet, especially if you're planning a home yourself. The authors cover the most important topics, such as entry ways, porches, columns and open spaces; the proportions and ratios of structural elements such as that of columns to supported beams; correct design, proportion, and placement of dormer windows (the window should take up 75% of the space, otherwise it looks too small); the use and misuse of building materials; problems with walls, windows, and rooflines; and other topics.

The book is liberally illustrated with many examples of correct houses, and incorrect ones on the same page so you can easily compare. Some of these well-intentioned but faulty houses were almost comical. Several houses had high, arched, entry ways that were way-oversized and would have looked fine on a Gothic cathedral, but on a family home, they looked wildly out of place. The massive entry way dominated the whole facade and just detracted from the rest of the elevation (or front of the house).

Some of the other errors were more subtle, and weren't quite as obvious, but as you learn the canons of true architecture, as oppposed to merely winging it, which is what the authors say happens more and more with builders, you begin to appreciate the correct way of doing it. For example, one problem you run into is a too-complex roof line that's broken up and takes away from the facade and other structural and design aspects of the house, or a too complex facade that's just too busy. When first looking at these houses, they looked fine to me, but when I saw the corrected house illustration, I could see what the authors were saying. In other words, sometimes less is truly more. Or a better way to phrase it might be to say that good design is more about the harmonious combination and integration of all elements, which complement and flow smoothly into each other, rather than ostentation and needless complexity, which causes disruption and interrupts that flow and harmony.

The book is well written, profusely illustrated, and contains a huge amount of practical advice on what to do, and what not to do, in building a house. If your average builder just read this book they'd learn a lot, as I did, about good design and how to go about achieving it. The rules really aren't that hard to learn, and you can read the whole book in just a few hours, since it's mostly illustrations with some explanatory text. This is money well spent considering how much you'll probably save if you ever decide to build your own house.

As a novice looking to renovate my house, it has been a good crash course for me which made me aware of things that I found wrong in houses I saw but couldn't quite put a finger on. In the big scheme of $$ spent on a house renovation, cranking out $25 for this book is small fish and a good start .. but yes, it is limited in what it teaches, mainly what not to build. Four *s regardless, because of the value of the book as a crash course. I saw immediately afterwards what my neighbors should have done to get their renovation right. One may say that the examples in the book of what not to build are obvious, .. but that it the achievement of the book, to highlight them so clearly that they seem obvious.

This book brilliantly details what is wrong with american architecture. Too often builders build what clients come up with-no matter it is a monstrosity simply because the bills are paid. Hopefully home owners will read this book and put thought into their homes, rather than going on a wing and a prayer. The before and then the photo shopped afters are masterful. bravo!!!

Starting the late 1930's, Architecture schools have been teaching a steady stream of "modernism" to young architects. The rules of architecture that were developed over the course of 2,500 years were tossed out in favor of a new design agenda. However, most new home buyers have never bought into the modernist agenda. They prefer more traditional styles of homes. The result of this mismatch is that many architects were never taught to design traditional styles of homes. One only needs to drive the streets of America's suburbs to see the monstrous results of this failure to educate the nation's architects.

"What Not To Build" is a visual survey of all that has gone wrong in the past half century. Using photographs of actual buildings, the authors show what not to do when building a new house. Then using computer technology, they create new images of the same building that are done correctly. There are over 50 before and after examples and over 300 photos that show how homes can be improved through good design.

The target market for this book are people who are thinking about building a new home. Ideally, this book will help a person working with an architect to see if the proposed design even makes visual sense. Beware, hiring a licensed architect is no guarantee that the architect has any idea how to design a traditional home. This is the largest investment that most home buyers will ever make. It is essential for new home buyers to educate themselves on the basics of good home design. "What Not To Build" is an inexpensive book and the little time spent reading it, can spare a home buyer a real architectural disaster. This book is highly recommended.

The authors appear to have done their research, and present the story in mixed third person objectivity and first person period prose. For the casual reader who has an interest in Civil Warfare, or more specifically, the Kansas-Missouri Border War, this is an entertaining book. For the scholar, it must be taken with a grain of salt. The authors have taken literary license to the extreme in their description of scenery, battlefield and camp site conditions, personal conversations, et cetera. Although the essence of news-worthy situations are, more often than not, accurately portrayed in historic newspapers, the use of quotes and eye-witness accounts are often biased and stretch the truth. The authors appear to continue in this vein of sensationalistic reporting. There is no way the authors could know of the detailed conversations that took place between officers, combatants, and/or farmers, and thus, their factual portrayal of these more intimate situations must be questioned. If they had told the story entirely in the third person, this book would be good and much needed reference. As presented, with interjections in the first person literary style, the book lacks a degree of credibility. This is unfortunate, as it is a great story of guerrilla warfare and otherwise well-written. 170 pp., Stackpole Books (1998).

Great biography of a Western Civil War barbarian. When it came to being ruthless during The American Civil War, Bloody Bill broke all bounderies. Not for the weak of heart!!

Thomas Goodrich did an outstanding job of researching his subject. I've read many other accounts of Anderson, but this is the most complete and revealing. It's unfortunate that Stackpole insisted on bringing Castel into the mix, as the two men's writing styles are so different. The end product, though the best work so far on a fascinating man, doesn't equal Goodrich's original work.

This book reads like a romantic western novel. A description of Anderson: "Dressed entirely in black- hat, velvet shirt, pants, boots- he was lean and sinewy and looked taller sitting in the saddle of his large black horse than his actual height of five ten." (p. 11, hardback edition) It continues like that for another 150 pages or so. The only thing missing is voluptuous maidens.
Castel's biography of Quantrill doesn't read like this, and Goodrich's "Black Flag" doesn't really have much style at all, as it is mostly quotes from primary sources. I don't know why they felt the need to write this the way they did, but it ruins the story. Both authors have done their work in researching, but the writing leaves much to be desired. A definitive account of Anderson still needs to be written.

Bloody Bill Anderson was a product of savagery in the early days of the Civil War's influence on Kansas and Missouri. The border war there was bloody and brutal. An eye for an eye conflict that escalated beyond anyone's imagination. The region was devastated. The atrocities that men were willing to commit against each other on both sides of the fratricide in that area are horrendous. Rocketing out of that soup came Bloody Bill. He is the prototype of a deadly psychopath. He was sadistic, ruthless and devoid of conscience.

Castel and Goodrich have outdone themselves in taking what little historical data is available to present as thorough an accounting of Bill Anderson's life as you're likely to find. They hone in on two of his most infamous rampages around Centralia, Missouri. You'll believe you were an eyewitness. However, they don't fabricate the stories or engage in fiction. The book is thoroughly researched and very credible in every detail. They could only have exceeded in this endeavor if there were more firsthand historical data to draw from.

Fact is Bloody Bill was a real individual and these events really did transpire. You will be transfixed even as you are horrified.