Forbes Books

I have to agree with previous reviewers. I read this book because of the author and was gravely disappointed. Not only was the plot over-the-top ridiculous because of the numerous Winthrop family deaths and not one expert or not-so-expert investigator and/or political higher- up questioned it. Dana Evans was just too much the expert policewoman/investigator who was "lucky" to an understated end (getting almost run down but actually run under a truck)! Come on now, how often does someone get that lucky especially after a vehicle had just come between her and a round of bullets. I also found errors in continuity as far as timelines in several places where Dana is globetrotting without a flight delay or a lack of cash to get her there. The plot was predictable and the ending was way too "happily ever after" for a Sidney Sheldon story. This book, I have to say, is my first real disappointment in Mr. Sheldon's talent. However, like others before me, don't let this be your guide. "Master of the Game" and "The Other Side of Midnight" were two of many outstanding novels by the "master."

The story line may have been interesting, but the writing is horrible. The descriptions and the analogies are eye-rolling. The abridgement was halting and didn't make sense in some parts as if a vital part to the story was lost. But these are not the worst parts of this audiobook, it was the narration that was grossly inept and flat. It could not have been worse. Instead of sounding like a thriller, it sounded like a person on valium reading a bedtime story to a four-year old. A long cry from the Sidney Sheldon that I remembered

If you picked up "The Sky is Falling" because it was written by the famous Sidney Sheldon, you will be grossly disappointed in what you find between its covers. Like other reviews here it is: flat, tepid, and extremely predictable. It would not be so horrible if it were written by a first-time author but this is S. Sheldon, for Pete's sake, not a newcomer. The sad part about this read is that now I don't want to read another Sheldon book. I do realize that this is not fair to his ability. However, he set this piece of fluff in motion and William Morrow HarperCollins printed it. Where are the good editors when you need them? If an unknown author wrote this book, it would never have found a publisher.

If by "loved" you mean "loathed" and if by "this book" you mean "this piece of garbage." I would say the characterization comes off as flat, but that would be an insult to flat characterization. This book has NO characterization. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero. You don't give one rip about the characters or their lives. Ditto for the tepid plot. Ditto for the awkward, wooden dialogue. Ugh, it makes me hurt just thinking about it. I've read bad books before that nonetheless drew me in, affording the opportunity to at least suspend my disbelief even if the story still stunk in the end. The Sky Is Falling is not one of those novels. Buy this if you're a writer and need a primer on how NOT to craft your fiction. Otherwise, steer clear.

We first meet Dana Evans, the feisty TV Anchorwoman in Sidney Sheldon's "The Best Laid Plan". In that book, Dana is on the trail of the President of the United States who might be guilty of murder. In "The Sky is Falling", Dana is racing the globe to find out who wiped out the entire Winthrop family. The digger she deeps, the more she is determined to prove that the fairy tale Winthrops were the target of a conspiracy.

As with any Sidney Sheldon book, you get a lovely young women who is ready to take on the world. Most of his story lines are so unbelievable that you want to say "yeah right,,," but that is the reason I buy his books. They are fast reads and no matter how many people are out to get the heroine, she is always one step ahead. Reading his books are akin to seeing an action suspense movie where almost 99% of the time you know the good guys will win.

Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy mysteries have begun to take on aspects of a soapbox...and it's irritating. What I found enjoyable in the earlier books were the interactions among the characters, human and animal, and the descriptions of the beautiful Virginia countryside. There's less and less of that now. Instead we're treated to personal harangues...and there's not even a balanced rebuttal or a respectable opposing perspective. I 've just begun reading the book after this one, "The Purrfect Murder" and it's even worse. But I'll withhold judgement until I'm finished with it. Still loyality keeps me going and I keep hoping the old Mrs. Murphy will come through in the end.

The Mrs. Murphy series has been a delight! While some series featuring animals prominently in the plot can easily put the reader into a diabetic coma, this series stands out because the animals have not overshadowed the main characters, who have been well-developed and have lived in a realistic world. It has been edgy and tart with good plots and murders galore in the small town of Crozet, Va., in each successive volume. We have heard the thoughts of the animals in italicized conversations that did not interrupt the unfolding of the plot and, in fact, often aided its flow. This series has had well structured plots and thoughtful character development while including the right amount of local and cultural history of that region as well as thorough but not overdone amounts of background explanatory detail of elements such as fox hunting, farming, and horses necessary to the story.
Unfortunately, however, "Puss'n Cahoots," like "Sour Puss" and "Cat's Eyewitness" before it, continues her disturbing and thoroughly annoying trend of forgetting that it's a mystery story and not a soapbox for the author's favorite cause(s) of the month. Long before the first murder, the story screeches to a halt several times with what I assume Ms. Brown believes are well-presented arguments for her currents favs: illegal immigration and performance enhancing drugs leading at the first turn. There was a time when Ms. Brown could deal with a issue she believes in with one or two well-crafted sentences without stopping the story in its tracks; perhaps she had an editor then. Now, we the reader are subjected to pages of preaching talking points ad nauseam which completely detract from the mystery, and this happens throughout the story! I actually found myself skimming through her sermonizing to try to find the story line again. When even the animals put on a surplice, Ms. Brown needs to remember that Crozet, VA. (or Shelbyville, KY) is not a part of Hyde Park, London, and get off her soapbox! Forget a tight plot with a suspenseful and foreboding atmosphere; forget a suspenseful climax; forget a tight denouement which ties up all the pieces neatly. These elements are barely present (or not here at all) as if they were afterthoughts because Ms. Brown was too busy preaching to craft a good mystery story instead of the weakly developed alleged mystery that is "Puss'n Cahoots."
I give "Puss'n Cahoots" two stars because Ms. Brown does include a lot of her trademark background information about her setting: Saddlebred horse shows and all therein. This is part of what made this series so good and once again I learned a lot. Otherwise, sadly, thumbs disappointedly down.
To rescue this series as a legitimate mystery series, Ms. Brown needs to do two things: (1) start writing real mysteries again, and (2) STOP preaching at us! Would Miranda Hogendobber put too many ingredients in her cinnamon buns and then tell us why we need to like them?

For this outing Fair and Harry are on their honeymoon at a horse show with all of Harry's pets along for the ride. Gone was the cozy feeling of the Post Office and her usual friends. The friendships in this book seemed forced. Too much time was spent on descriptions of horse shows. The dialog was dreadful and stilted as the author preached her political beliefs through her characters. I'm sad to say this is probably the last of the series that I'll read. In the past couple of books the author seems more concerned with preaching her political views rather than telling an engaging story. I miss the mysteries and fun of the earlier books. Heck, I even named my corgi, Tucker.

Being one of the many here who have read all of the books in this series, I picked up Puss 'n Cahoots with great hope. Hope that this story would be good. Hope that the characters - especially the ones we've come to know and love - would be present in their fullness. Hope that the series would pick up where it left off a few books back. Unfortunately for fans of Mrs. Murphy, et al., that is not to be.

The animals are still in character: Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker. In fact, they seem to occupy the bulk of this story. Stories placed away from Crozet, the home of most of the earlier stories and the background characters who have been such a part of earlier books, are to be expected, perhaps even necessary. But each story loses something if the old friends aren't there.

Many readers who hoped to see Harry and Fair get back together have looked forward to seeing their marriage and renewal of their lives. But there really hasn't been much improvement. Even when the old post office closed, the story lines could have become fresh again, although it was seen by many readers with a certain dread of what was to come. As it turns out, they were right to dread it.

New readers of Mrs. Murphy should not judge the series by this book. Start at the beginning where the characters are fresh and the stories have more imagination. Some loyal readers keep picking up the new ones just in case Ms. Brown has found her way back to what made her stories unique and fun. Unfortunately she has lost her way, and so have we.

This is by far the worst book of the series, not only because of the colors of the cover, and most certainly the last one I will touch.

Not only does the author start the book with 30 pages of background information about "Saddlebred Shows" and horses, there is no reward for ploughing through them, it does not get get any better.

Other already mentioned the views of the author being very visible. I cannot remember these opions being so unnerving. When mentioning the drive to the horse show and the huge car, the reader is told in no uncertain words that "industry pollutes more than cars", that there are no bus stops in the country, large cars are fun and that every charity organisation is corrupt anyway. Great philosophy... The idea of legalizing steroids for humans was the next low blow.

Shame about the paper the book was printed on.

(More like 3.75 stars compared to other books in the series.) Some of the reviews actually discouraged me from going to this latest Mrs. Murphy mystery as soon as it arrived. I thought, hmmm, so series fatigue must have got it. In fact, it is not bad; not the best, but it should not disappoint most regular readers. I like the world Rita Mae Brown has realized through this series, a rural western Virginia town (the very real Crozet) that over the years has grown urbanized rural. RMB uses the excuse of murder and detection fiction to explore how its Southern heart remains stolid as it absorbs newcomers and the challenges of living in the 21st century. In this outing, a popular OB/GYN who has performed some terminations is killed, but after a militant antiabortionist confesses and is jailed, past patients are blackmailed, seemingly by the same culprit. This gives RMB a chance to look at the impact of one of the most divisive issues of modern times in a place where opinions clash but people need to stick together. Her regular crew of characters falls on both sides. RMB treats both sides gently.

As usual, the human characters' pets have their own conversations which the adults never get and if they did, the mysteries would be solved long before they are. In light of how the ubiquitous CSI television shows have educated the populace, the human characters, including the actual law enforcement officers, seem to ignore key evidence or lack thereof until it is almost too late. It doesn't really matter that much to me; I value this series for its social observations and wit, and it has both.

I enjoyed the early books in this series, but like many other reviewers, am getting tired of the politics involved. Also, while I appreciate the descriptions of life in rural Virginia, is it necessary for Ms. Brown to trash people from other areas?

I'm also noticing inconsistencies, some of which have already been pointed out by others. One that I noticed that hasn't been brought up yet is that Big Mim states to Little Mim that she never had an abortion, but in an earlier book in which a doctor is poring through old medical records, it is revealed that Big Mim did, in fact, have an illegal abortion. Either Ms. Brown is getting sloppy or Big Mim lied to her daughter. Hmmm....

Please, RMB, be more thorough and get back to the plain old mystery telling and animal banter that got you your fans in the first place.

Aside from the preaching, I found the errors in the book to be so glaringly obvious that they were distracting (not to mention repeated over and over). I very strongly suggest that Ms. Brown research more carefully in the future, starting with the difference between veins and arteries and carotid artery v. jugular vein.

Sadly, I'm finding this more and more commonly among mystery authors or their editors.

First, I have read every book in this series. But the more recent ones are just not as good as the first ones (though this one was 100% better than the last one--at least we're back in Crozet!). But this is a cute murder mystery series where all the animals (rats, snakes, owls, etc.) talk to one another. Not a platform for political views. If I wanted that, I turn on CNN. Sure, people can have an opinion, but some of the things said by the characters are straight out of a book. People I know just don't talk like these characters--and I live in a very big city!

Second, the ending was incomplete. OK, now is Tazio off the hook? The ending never mentioned that. Will this continue in the next book? I assume we will have something about her marriage to Paul. Did we absolutely prove the Kylie was the killer? No. She took off. So you have a supposed double-murderer on the run. And really, were you supposed to believe, considering how Kylie's character was described, that she was a murderer of this kind. No, to me, she was written as a guy-crazy young woman who liked to shop. Maybe that was her disguise. And did Harry simply forget about seeing her buy the $19,000 watch? That tidbit was never mentioned again. As in the previous book, the ending was over in the last two pages. Boom, story over.

Third, Harry. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Harry should have been arrested for illegal trespassing or breaking and entering. You simply can't break into someone's house because you think they are guilty of something unless you are the law and even they need probable cause. She should be dead, and that would be the end of the series.

Now, I realize these books are fiction and cute, light-hearted mystery. Or at least the first ones were. Ms. Brown is turning out these books in an assembly-line fashion. It seems that not much thought is going into the characters (and way too many new ones--bring the old ones back like Miranda and Boom-Boom) and way too much thought goes into what is Ms. Brown's view of the world. I still love the banter between Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, plus all the other animals (even the rats). Their conversations are more enjoyable than the human conversations (and more understandable).

Hopefully, the next one will improve. Yes, I will continue to read the books (I also get them from my public library and do not waste money buying them), but it's getting more and more disappointing to read. I hope Ms. Brown spends some time reading her loyal readers' reviews and takes the hint.

Signed, A real Mrs. Murphy

I've read all the books from the beginning and at first liked them a lot, but this one'll be the last for me.

It's not even the soapboxing that drives me crazy, but the product placement. It's always designer this and brand that from her tractor to her work boots. I suspect the author makes more money from advertising than from writing.

And then people sitting on some million dollars worth of land going on, "Oh, no, I'm not rich at all, see me re-using my old socks for catnip toys!" LOLcats says, "Your white privilege it's showing!"

And you know what RMB? I can follow my family line to the early elevenhundreds, so, a family history of twohundredsomething years is really nothing special. Please stop bothering me with harping on about it. Cheers!

This was a debut novel for the Canadian journalist, Leslie Forbes. It is a story about Rosalind who comes to Bombay for many reasons. The primary one being in response to her sister Miranda's silent cry for help. However, soon the hijras arrive, the monsoon threatens and Bollywood beckons.

The book underplays the main storyline and instead architects a roller coaster ride through Mumbai. The author is so insightful about so many aspects of Indian life. Being from there I was completely able to identify with the sounds and smells evoked by her writing. Her use of allusions, at time confusing, is relevant to the overall plot. The picture she paints is so vivid that I hardly cared for the plot of the story and instead enjoyed the nuggets of information that are so casually inserted.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I found it to be an engaging and exciting read. The blend of the main character's relationships and the bollywood characters was fun and fascinating.
I think it is interesting that there seems to be a good deal readers who did not find the wonders some of us did in this book. I loved this book but found her other book horribly tedious and boring and could not finish it. But I reccomend this one to everyone I encounter, I loved it so much!
go figure.

I couldn't wait to get into this book, touted as good as "An Instance of the Fingerpost," but about India and the Monsoon--favorite subjects of mine. While I did actually finish the book, it was a huge disappointment. Characterization was one of the biggest problems--I didn't care about any of them, most especially the main character, Rosalind Benegal. The way she was portrayed actually CHANGED halfway through the book (where was the editor of this book?). The plot was impossible; and with thin characterization, this "thriller" was the complete opposite: boring. I can't believe I actually finished it.

The only reason I bought the book is because it is about two things I love - Bombay and the monsoon. Now I regret the waste of my time and my money. She recreates the city and the people in it from a tourist's eyes, rearranges the geography of the city to suit her purpose. Of course she misses the real Bombay completely. The author seems to have spent so much time developing the infuriatingly complex plot that she pays almost no attention to the characters. Some of them flit across the pages briefly and then completely disappear (whatever happened to Bada Johnny and Chota Johnny? who were they? where was Robi at the end? Sunila? Gulab?). The errors she makes when naming the characters should have been the first giveaway for me that her understanding of the place and its people is far too superficial. She turns a Sharma into a Parsi, and a Mistry into a Maharashtrian and gives many of them western first names which is more than a little unusual for india. Her depiction of the city is authentic only in tiny little vignettes spread through the novel, and even those would are more suited to a travel guide than to a novel.
If anyone is looking for an understanding of Bombay or India or Bollywood, this is not the place to find it. If you are looking for a good murder mystery, keep looking - this one makes very little sense. Her literary allusions just cloud the plot and leave the reader confused.

In her debut novel, Leslie Forbes' reach exceeds her grasp. Fortunately for the reader, in failing to achieve perfection, she has still surpassed the bulk of the new fiction on the market. "Bombay Ice" is a dizzying, sultry foray into the dark underside of Indian culture.

The reader is pushed and pulled through a host of mind-bending circumstances and events as the heroine searches for her sister's murderer. In gritty detail, the reader is exposed to Bombay, and to a lesser degree, the rest of India through the eyes of someone who both loves and loathes the country.

The downside with this novel is that Forbes tries to tackle too much in one book. "Bombay Ice" is alternately a look at the sociology of modern India, an examination of mental illness, and of course, ultimately, a murder mystery. All of these elements are executed well, to a point; but there is simply not enough time to flesh them out completely and keep the novel moving along. Ironically, this mish-mash of angles confuses the plot and ends up having the positive effect of masking the conclusion.

Forbes is a writer of prodigous talent, and with a little polishing, she will undoubtably win raves in the future. In the meantime, "Bombay Ice" is a very strong effort, and a thoroughly enjoyable novel.

I found this book to be ponderous and, in the end, unreadable. I gave up on it with only 100 pages left to read - I cared that little about what was going to happen to the characters. The book is now in the donation bin of my local public library.

I can see how some readers might be put off by all of the science and detail in this book, though I was personally not bothered by it. There were several things that did trouble me however:
1.) The abrupt switch in the third section from first person to third person. I felt separated from the characters, especially Claire, and more or less ceased to care about her. Her behavior on the expedition didn't feel like the person that was established in the first two-thirds of the book, either.
2.) The many parallels between Magda and Claire felt a little contrived. Her quest to trace her family's history was compelling in and of itself, and didn't need to have those "clairvoyant" elements.
3.) The Ripper subplot was pointless and uninteresting. For a truly fascinating real theory about the Ripper murders, read Alan Moore's From Hell.
4.) Absolutely no resolution on what happened to Nick and Christian.
5.) The Jack-Claire affair was just creepy.

Fish, blood and bones originally appealed to me because of the forensics mentioned on the book jacket. The forensics involved was minimal at best. There was no mention of any of the major themes on the book jacket ( Did the author of the jacket blurb read the book?) I continued reading because of the "history" of the botany giants, gardening lore (a little),unrecognized native artists and the role of botanical illustrators, the lure of the Victorian interactions with native peoples in Asia, some of the scientific ideas expressed in the book, and the artwork on the front cover (paperback)

A nice summertime read, unfortunately there were too many fortuitous coincidences and inconsistencies( a Himalayan trek with no preparatory fitness regimes, etc.?) for this to be great literature.

However, I would not discourage any readers from reading this book. Lots of bits of info on many subjects- much of which I found to be substantiated (i.e., Britain's role in the spread of heroin addiction throughout the world, the rape of the world for exotic and medicinal plants, etc.).

Forbes tries a little too hard to tie too many things into one novel.

This is a somewhat interesting book that I feel lost its way somewhere along the way to the conclusion. The plot was murky, although the writing is generally excellent, and the characters finely drawn. The reader tends to lose the sense of the book, and there's many times when you have no idea where the plot is heading. I had the feeling that the author was as confused at times herself, which is what made the book so unusually odd. There are too many strands of plot lying around, and they really don't tie up neatly, or even close to neatly, at the end, which is not so much a termination as a petering-out of the storyline. You get to the point where you don't really care about the characters and what happens to them, and that's deadly in any work.

There have been a number of negative reviews of this book. This probably stems from the book being marketed as a "breathlessly paced thriller." Do not be mislead - this is not light summer reading.

The author has deliberately selected a specific genre to highlight the theme of the cycle of birth, life, death, decay and rebirth. The various plots and subplots form a dense, layered narrative hinting at the complexity of this cycle. Everything from the description of garden compost overlying a hidden bonepile, the protagonist's multiple exposure photographs, decaying Indian botanical studies, misleading diary excerpts, even descriptions of the growth cycle of various trees are fragmented clues leading to further complexity and layering. Hidden within the fictional layers are insightful references to how 19th century colonial attitudes still resonate and affect the present day.

Like Eco's Name of the Rose or Shield's The Fig Eater, or Pear's An Instance of the Fingerpost, the genre is merely the framework for a much more multi-dimensional excursion than the average.

What happened to the standards at Eos Books? This work was amateurish at best. Maybe after a few more novels under his belt, Forbes will start turning out some decent work. Maybe.

Bad plot, bad pacing, bad characters. Too much pointless description. Too much passive language and style, even in the action scenes. The main character does nothing during the climax. I could go on...

Only good thing I can say about this novel is that the prologue was excellent and shows that Forbes has some talent. I bought it after reading the prologue in the store. Wish I had read a little further first.

All the people who wrote that Gerin was naturally "too perfect" completely missed the point of Gerin's character. He knows that hes to perfect, and buckles under the weight of expectation. Also, Gerin never uses his "amazing sword skills", its just to establish Therain's "second best" mind set.

I can't wait for the next book. Thats actually why I'm on amazon right now. I was checking to see if it was out. I recommend this book for people who want a good, solid story. It may not be flashy, but thats what gives it its unique storytelling perspective.

What I hoped for when I opened up this book was a heroic fantasy that was easy to read, but put in some interesting vocabulary and nice, crisp desciption. I *DID NOT GET IT*.
The vocabulary got about as challenging as 'overtly', a word I use in low-key *conversation*. He will either describe things enough to make you sick, or say 'he was handsome' and move on! And, to top it all off, it was as easy as one f the sixty-three word picture books. A *preschooler* could have read this!
The plot could be figured out by a six-year-old, the violence was bland and much too common, and the characters were arrogant idiots who had not a single flaw!
No scope at all, a classic ending and a predictable magic scheme. I felt bad for the villain, because he was a) completely flawed and b) had the only sense of character in the book and c) was kind of comical. I really wanted to lov this book, but, but, it was Shannara x 10!

Picturing: F
Description: F
Characters: Worse than an F
Action: D-
Challenge: F
Overall: F

After getting to the end of Chapter Six, I am putting this book down for good! It is so incredibly poorly written that I cannnot even get to the point of commenting on the quality of the story. The author insists on "telling" rather than "showing" almost everything. During non-action scenes it slows the story down with wardrobe descriptions, and depictions of yet another great pillared hall (a standard fantasy image), or historical fact. In action scenes, it just ruins any attempt at pacing. So one minute the Prince/hero is being attacked by the badies, and the next you're learning his horse's name, and the name of his bodyguard's horse too! If the horses had any type of character or quality to them it would be understandable - but they don't! The author goes on to pin names and descriptions to countless other people, historic eras, magical objects or acts - but there is no purpose to any of it! I would far rather learn of a hero's character and image through his actions. Instead, the author "tells" us one thing, and then contradicts that initial impression by having him/her do something that does not build on that initial impression. The end result is that the character's of this story are wooden at best, and confused at worst.

If you want to read something more impressive (though of a slightly different ilk) pick up "Moonshine" - the second book by Rob Thurman. Beyond Tolkein, there is little fantasy that is truly well written, but Thurman's writing is tight, fast, fun, and character intense.

It was alright, I suppose. the ending is really dull, you start out expecting something exciting, but in the end it becomes a mediocre plagerism of a Tad Willams Series: Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

The similarities are glaringly obvious: the villain is the "Storm King" of race exterminated through a human genocide, now the powerful undead king wants to return from the land of the dead and destroy all life. He even has red-robed priest/mage henchmen. Its really depressing, you should just buy the DragonBone Chair, its the first book in a series that David Forbes plagerised for the Amber Wizard and the series is superior.

You start out excited and interested in the characters, but that fades. Gerin is perfect, as Rashel, his Wizardess sister, and Hollin, the Wizard who trains them. Although they don't seem to need much training, almost immediatly after their power is awakened, they are master wizards and from that point onward recieve zero training, but somehow do just fine.

The characters are paragons of noble perfection, Therain is the only one who posseses any sort of flaw whatsoever: an inferiority complex. This isn't at all suprising considering that the author made his older brother and protagonist Gerin quite literally perfect. He is the most powerful Wizard ever, a master tactician, master swordsman, benevolent Duke, charismatic, smart, handsome and responsible. Even his one bad act in the book is forced by an evil compulsion spell rather then a possible imperfection in his character.

Interestingly, considering how perfect and glorious Gerin is, after halfway through the book, he does virtually NOTHING. He sits in his castle until the very last chapter when he runs off alone and banishes the evil king back to the land of the dead.

Therain is really the protagonist of this book, he held back the Storm King's army until their father the king could arrive to crush them, even though he is the book's sole imperfect character.

This book had a lot of potential, but I wanted a book about Gerin, not his brother. And when I read a book, its nice if the characters seem like actual people. The characters here are perfect virtuous Gods whom we cannot hope to relate to.

I was excited to read a book that was a historical-modern-Italian-art book, but it took me a while to get through the book. There seemed to be many unnecessary characters and a lot of vamped up importance of things that you never really find out much about. I thought that it could have been much better, but I gave it 3 stars because it is a story that had a lot of potential.

in fact, it was pretty boring. Sure, there were metaphors, but the characters were boring, and it was hard to care about what happened to them. And what was up with the wolf??? And why did Fabio and Paolo create the "miracles"? What happened to the mute woman after she left the courthouse?? If you really want to read this, get it at the library....don't waste your money.

I'm a lifeguard so all I do is read for nine hours. The nine other books I've read so far have taken me less then a day and a half to read. This one took me 3 days to finish. It was boring. I never really cared about any of the characters or what happened to them. The only reason I kept reading it was the fact that I had nothing else to do or read.

This book got such high reviews from everyone else, that I was really excited to read it. Was I ever disappointed. The book moves so slowly, I was forced to go to the end to find out what was happening before I was bored to death. If you don't want a quickly moving story with interesting characters, then this is the book for you. Otherwise, I would pass it up. Dull! Dull! Dull!

An interesting plot combining bits of WWII outrages with what is happening in nineties' Urbino. The tale twists and weaves a lot due to a mulitude of characters introduced. Many of the characters are implausible and the book has to contrive various unconvincing vignettes around them to knit them into the story. My general reaction was that the reader was introduced to too many points of view which weren't prioritised and as the book draws to a conclusion I began asking myself who cares? Also there is an annoying habit throughout of introducing the criminals in short conversatiosn without their identifying names. They usually hint at violence to come, but at the end of the book I wondered why they were there at all, since their roles are both thin and thinly described. I agree entirely with the reviewers who wrote that the book took too long to read. It is not a page turner.

This book is meant for an upper-level (preferably senior) undergraduate introduction to Symbolic Logic class. It is not meant as an introduction to logic class and those that do not have the sufficient background in logic should not be introduced to this text. If so, the student will be utterly disappointed. It is a difficult text to master given the extended detail that the author goes into higher-order logic. The modus ponens, modus tollens, and other should be introduced in a sophomore or junior level class alongside fallacies, truth tables etc. This books basically starts off at truth tables and translations and goes from there. That is why it is important for the student to take an introduction to logic class (freshman level), a modern logic class (sophomore/junior level), or the introduction to logic class and discrete mathematics or any other mathematics class that introduces the student to symbolic logic keeping in mind that the terminology may be somewhat different. The student that has taken all these classes plus a set theory class will have no difficulty with Forbes' Modern Logic textbook.

It is important to be forewarned that this is not a good text for an introductory logic class. I have taught classes using several other texts, and, although they had their flaws, the Forbes' text has flaws that are almost unsurmountable for the typical lower-division college student. The explanations, though creative,are not clear enough, and the flow of topics is out of sorts. For example, the exercises which accompany the sections start out too difficult to be any aid in helping the introductory student grasp the techniques. In short, for upper-division courses or for people who already have a logic background, this is an interesting book and might be worth a look, but it fails miserably as an introductory text.

As an accompaniment to the program MacLogic for an upper level course I can see where this book would have a place. Unfortunately my introduction to it was tutoring for an introductory class. The material is well written and organized but far too densely written, particularly for students who have never had a logic class before and are coming from questionable mathematics backgrounds. That there is no index of symbols just makes navigating the text that much more difficult.

On another level, the author seems to eschew a good many things that many other logic courses--at least those I've seen and taken--use in depth. Things like Modus Ponens are barely touched on in favor of "v E" (disjunction elimination). This seems unusual for an introductory textbook in the field, though I am not familiar enough to know for certain.

(Review of Graeme Forbes, Modern Logic: A text in Elementary Symbolic Logic.)

Prof. Forbes Modern Logic is a compact, lucid, and rewarding introduction to deductive logic . The treatment is mainly formal, but enough intuitive and philosophic explanation is given to reveal the motivation for the symbolic machinery. The use of interpretations for testing validity is helpful in relating logic to the worlds to which it could refer. Basic classical logic is thoroughly covered in chapters on sentential, monadic predicate, and full first order logic. The rules presented for introduction and elimination of logical constants are clearly justified; the proof strategies are varied and relevant to the notion of logical consequence being developed. The concluding chapters on modal, intuitionistic, and fuzzy logic, while brief, provide substantial exposure to these systems. Throughout the book, interesting material comparing various types of logic is to be found. Altogether, definitely worth the effort.

This seems like an overgrown doctoral thesis rather than an attempt to describe the life of one of the greatest military rulers the earth has ever seen. As said above, the legendary sacking of Delhi and the Battle of Ankora hardly merit mentioning.

This book is not worth reading unless you want to kow who tended the sheep of Tamerlane's housekeepers cousin.

An excellent scholarly study of the society from which Timur sprang and the empire he created.

It is clear thet Munz did her research, it is her writing style that i found painful.

There is almost nothing in the book on Timurs actual battles and campiaigns. Just a couple of sentances. Instead the book becomes a never ending list of Turcoman Mongolian names and tribes. It becomes very tedious.

Concentrating on Timurs realtionship with the many internal Turcoman Mongolian tribes, it becomes extremely frustrating, as you begin to long for some intersting story or narrative of a great battle or exploit. Anything of any interest is skipped over in lines!

One point that i felt was not adressed in Manz's obsession with Turco/Mongolian internal tribal politics was the factor of how differing percentages of Turco or Mogloinan heritage within the tribes affected tribal relationships.

Summing up..... a great deal of deatiled information on Timur is included in this book, but not all the exciting information you want to know about!!

Temur was born in Transoxania near Samarqand, probably in the 1320s or 1330s. He descended from the Barlas tribe of Chinggis Khan's confederation, which through the adoption of Islam had come in close contact with settled populations and learned to participate in their culture. Although the chronicles written by the Persians during (or soon after) Temur's lifetime suggest that he was a conventional Muslim, a careful reading has revealed that more than a hundred years after the death of Chinggis Khan and the conversion of the Chaghatay Mongol tribes in Transoxania to Islam, Temur and his warriors still continued to observe many of the old pagan practices.

Indeed, what was true for their culture and religious practices was also true for their politics. Beatrice Forbes Manz's book The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane is not a biography. She is not interested in the colourful or (as she suggests) fictitious youth of Temur as a sheep-stealer and provides a rather brief account of his rise to power as a warlord in Khorasan and Transoxania in the late fourteenth century. Nor is she interested in the military history and details of Temur's conquests; the conquest of Delhi (1398) and the Battle of Ankara (1402) are described in a line each. Legends of Temur's ruthlessness and persecution of victims (including the pyramids of bloody skulls outside smoking cities) are also not to be found in this work. Instead Manz focuses on analyzing how Temur manipulated the nomadic and political traditions of the Chaghatay in order to take control and power over them, and how he later undermined those traditions and effectively destroyed the independent power of the tribes.

The conquests of Temur were quite different from those of Chinggis Khan and predecessors (even though Temur ceaselessly invoked Chinggis as his model). This is partly because the world that Temur conquered was not an alien one, but a known entity, almost all of which had been previously conquered by Mongols. And although by the fourteenth century the power of the Chinggisid dynasty had declined and the Mongol empire had fallen apart, the steppe nomads still retained much of their power and prestige. In fact, the tribal confederation within which Temur rose to power and the world he conquered were the products of the Mongol empire. As aforementioned, these nomads preserved the Mongolian heritage of their ancestors in a new guise suitable to the rule of settled people with whom they were now intimately involved. They were able to constitute themselves as a separate ruling level over the subject population by manipulating both steppe and Islamic traditions and institutions. Manz suggests that it is only from Temur's time that the Turkic people and the traditions of the steppe became truly indigenous to the Middle East.

Despite Temur's ambition to approximate and imitate the methods of conquests and career of Chinggis Khan, his own achievements were less substantial. Manz attributes the downfall of Temur's dynasty to his extremely jealous and untrusting nature. When Temur assigned his sons and grandsons to take care of provinces, he took care to limit their powers and to keep them securely under his eye. This was to some extent necessary to prevent the formation of rival powers within such a loosely structured army and administration. Unfortunately however, Temur carried this policy so far that he damaged the efficiency of his administration and more importantly, made it difficult to his descendants to maintain control over their own territories after his death. Within a few days of Temur's passing away in February 1405, his sons, grandsons, and closest followers had begun a struggle for power that occupied the next fifteen years, leaving behind it a dynasty both economically and politically weak.

Beatrice Manz's work is intelligently written and well researched. The book is divided into eight chapters and three appendices. Extensive notes, a bibliography of sources and literature, and an index help guide the reader through the complexities and intricacies of Temur's rule. She organizes the book, first by outlining the historical, political, and cultural milieu of the Mongol period, developments since Chinggis Khan and his second son to the middle of the fourteenth century before then focusing on the rise and fall of Temur. Supplementing the main text, the appendices provide information on Temur's sources of manpower, his family, and his administration. Manz also has a tendency to place great emphasis on the importance of Temur's personal following, referring to it several times though the text. Also, besides traditional sources on Temur such as the two Zafarnama and several others, Manz has not taken advantage of other possible areas of research for sources such as coinage, inscriptions, or archaeology. This can be forgiven however, since perhaps they do not contribute greatly to her arguments.

These are minor flaws, in an otherwise excellent work on the rise and rule of Temur. Manz's work may very well serve as an important contribution to our understanding today of tribal politics. Ultimately with this work, Manz has unveiled the pattern behind the seemingly random approach of the last great conqueror of the steppe empire.

The first couple of pages of 'The Power' are intriguing and promise to develop into a gripping thriller. However, after that it is downhill all the way. This is possibly one of the worst books that I have ever read. The characters are paper thin, and completely unbelievable. The dialogue is mundane and pedestrian. The development of the plot is juvenile, it reminds me of the universal baddies such as Smersh from the Man from U.N.C.L.E. The 'stage whisper' comments from the characters explaining the significance of particular plot developments are insulting to the readers intelligence.

For a far more credible, readable and enjoyable thriller read Stephen Leather.

Colin Forbes sets his novel in rural US, in Washington, the UK and mainland Europe. Clearly a travelled and educated writer, Forbes has written an interesting and suspenseful novel, with convicing and sympathetic characters. For my taste, a few too many players in this ruthless story of murder, intrigue and power play, it is nonetheless a great book for a long plane ride.

And a very unlikely villain, which is apparent in the closing chapters! British secret agents Tweed, Paula Grey and Bob Newman investigate a string of murders brought to their attention by a reporter on the run. Then a massacre takes place in a mansion in Cornwall, Tweed's headquarters is firebombed and the agents are on their own, even the Prime Minister won't sanction a mission to track down the perpetrators. Who is behind all of this? The action and story move from the UK to Switzerland, France and the White House, where a power struggle with a corrupt right-wing President is under way in a deadly sense. Then Even Amberg, widow of a Swiss banker killed in the Cornwall massacre, and high-class prostitute Jennie Blade appear on the scene, who have connections with a leading industrialist. What is his part in the Washington power struggle and the aftorementioned murders? This thriller weaves its way through some unexpected twists and turns very typical of Brit writer Colin Forbes, the locations add to the interest and overall, it is a satisfyingly original storyline with an easy-to-read narrative. Highly recommended.