Jackson Books

Cliff Connor is an eighteen-year old boy with a passion for baseball. When the story opens, he is playing for a town team, and while good, he is not a star. A major league scout is at the game looking over another player and Cliff tries to make an impression. However, he is so involved in making himself shine that his performance is less than stellar, as the only thing he has going for him other than the passion is his tremendous speed.
When spring training rolls around the following spring, Cliff is an uninvited attendee at the Rangers training camp. He manages to survive the day and improves so much over the course of the spring that on the last day he is offered a contract. To his surprise, he is sent to the same minor league team as his two friends, Scat and Mark. When they arrive, their team is lackluster, but it improves dramatically over the course of the season. Unfortunately, while he improves dramatically and is soon known as the "Base Burglar", Cliff gets way too cocky.
As "punishment", he is briefly called up to the major leagues, where he fails miserably. When he arrives back at the minor league team, he is a changed man, very unsure of himself. Fortunately, he manages to recover in time to save the last game of the season and also prevent the team from being disbanded. Devoid of his pretenses, Cliff now has a shot at playing regularly in the major leagues.
This is a very good book of juvenile sports fiction as there is a main theme concerning behavior and how adults face life. Confidence is important and a person must have it in order to succeed. However, cockiness is a completely different thing, as it is an artificial construct. A confident person can bounce back from a failure or two, but the cocky person generally cannot. Cliff learns the difference and when the story ends, there is no doubt that he will be successful.

If you like card games were you get to [upset] people ..., form little groups to [upset] people ... even MORE, and just have a plan old good time...this is the game for you. In this card game (Battle Cattle) you are cows and other players try to defeat you. The last player or "COW" standing wins. If you buy this I assure you your money was well spent. If you do buy this I advise you to play with three or more players just because it's longer and a lot more fun. And another great Steve Jackson card game to check out is Car Wars:The Card Game. It's just like Battle Cattle, but your cars instead. You can also combine Car Wars and Battle Cattle to have cows trampling over cars. There are so many Steve Jackson card games that are great. You should check out Munchkin, Star Munchkin and Munchkin 2: Unnatural Axe. They are RPG card games where you kill monsters, level up, steal the treasure and [upset] everybody so much they will never play it with you again, let alone talk with you. All three of those kinda make fun of D&D because they cards are just so funny. Well this is a review on Battle Cattle so I'll shut up now. FINAL NOTE: Battle Cattle kicks ... and also buy Car Wars and combine them.

The Battle of McDowell is the first of it's kind in the respect that it is devoted to the history of this important battle in Highland County, Virginia. Anyone interested in further details of the battle may e-mail me at 7thcav@va.tds.net and I will do my best to answer their questions. I thank you, Richard L. Armstrong. P. S. - Yes, I am that Richard L. Armstrong.

This book is not a large book, only 46 pages, but it is filled with things that we need to hear. I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series.

This second erotic anthology, featuring the Bear genre is a wonderful, lusty romp throught the woods of bear fiction. the stories are varied and captivating and hot and ironic and funny and well written literature.
This book answers the question: What would Anais Nin have written if she were a bear.
Bravo and thanks and a big bearhug for Mr. Suresha and his latest accomplishment.

A cautionary tale of a family of patriots fighting for their freedom and very survival as the American nation is betrayed by it's own government. Well written and fast paced. You will enjoy the ride.

During the past year, I've had occasion to read several books on theological education. This book is by far the most interesting and suggestive of the lot. Repeated visits by the four co-authors to two campuses and careful observation of how students are shaped by the all the dimensions of campus life (included but most certainly not limited to classes)yields a compelling picture both of what actually happens at a theological school and of the role of such schools in religious communities. For anyone with even a passing interest in theological education.

Fuller's "The Best of Jackson Payne" is an ambitious novel. Were it concerned with a man's life and especially a jazz life, it would be interesting. The fact that Fuller tackles some harder questions of philosophy in a fluent literary wrapper, makes the book remarkable, and a remarkable achievement. Some of these questions include: How can we know another person? Is "truth" a composite? What explains great art?, and the great question of aesthetics -- is the life of an artist relevant to an understanding of his art?

Slowing down to wrap the reader in the reality of these issues, never so bluntly posed, Fuller brings to life Jackson Payne, a composite rendering of a saxophonist, and full-featured, full-blooded man in the world. We find in Payne a Faustian character at once difficult and sublime, no matter where or when we find him. He is a hero in Korea, later deep in heroin addiction, in prison, performing at the top of the jazz world, betraying some, loyal to others, complex, conflicted, modern, an enigma to himself. A Bronze Star, "that should have been Silver," seems a small reward for the wounds that Payne takes from Korea. If jazz is the symbol of Payne's existence, so is Korea. The hard side of Payne -- Korea, junk, prison, his murder or assisted suicide, always stand in balance to his achievement in art -- some great records, some good relationships, some great performances, a cult around him as a supremely gifted experimentalist.

Jazz fans will puzzle more over who served as the model for Payne than the manner of his death, which Fuller builds to full-blown mystery status by the final pages. Certainly Payne is drawn from several jazzmen's biographies, and to have made him anything other would have denied Fuller the opportunity to explore generally the jazz life, especially that of the 1945-75 era of which he writes. It is hard to escape the belief that nonetheless the author had someone in mind, just as love songs are said to be about a particular person. Clues are scattered throughout the text, for example, Payne has a low point where he opens for some sixties rock groups - music "so bad that it shouldn't even be heard through a wall." Sounds like Archie Shepp, or Pharoah Sanders, just as earlier passages suggest Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins, or Sonny Rollins. But there are just too many other clues --- an R & B background, mastery of every playable scale, rhythm, syncopation, extended solos (some lovely, some excruciating) the reach to the sublime spiritual level, and a wife a lot like Alice -- to make it that hard to hazard a guess. If Jackson Payne isn't mostly John Coltrane, his music has got to be the closest suspect. For jazz followers this is satisfying to a great degree. Fuller allows Payne to live another 10 years beyond the life of Coltrane, and projects what direction his music might have taken. In Payne he hints, toward the sweeter, certain of its roots, self-referential but not arcane, with a profound human touch. We have always wondered where Coltrane would have taken jazz, in Jackson Payne, Fuller gives us a sophisticated, informed guess. There is a lot of jazz criticism laced in the book. Fuller dismisses Miles' late experimentation with rap beats, which provides another clue that jazz development suffered the end of its most interesting evolutionary line with Coltrane's death.

But this is all conjecture. The recreation of Payne's life is all conjecture. After Joyce, and Gide, and William S. Burroughs, time-splicing, multiple points of view, and the unreliable narrator are no longer pioneering literary novelties. In the post-modern narrative these techniques are no longer employed for effect, but for thematic purpose. Fuller uses all of these approaches to build his largest theme, a theory of knowledge, within several sub-texts, not the least interesting of which is the nature of jazz, its origins, and its "meaning." Jazz is, and is not, a metaphor in this book. The time-splicing, syncopation, lyricism, painful and blissful reality of the tale are difficult to mistake as an extended literary solo that literally builds on the basis of Payne's life in the first 200 pages, to the free form explosion of the final third of the book.

If "The Best of Jackson Payne" sounds like a compilation CD, so in fact it is, --- a distillation of a complicated, pained, sad, but ultimately triumphant life. Fuller reaches across race, age, class, gender, and truthfulness in the narratives of the informants he quotes in the book. The remarks of his alter ego, Quinlan, a musicologist who is stiving to re-create the life and death of his hero Payne, are italicized in the latter part of the novel. Un-italicized replies and commentary comes from informants who for the most part have been introduced earlier in the text. Some informants are not introduced, but their identities are intuited. The reader begins to understand the reference and the shifting points of view. Now you are playing jazz with the master.

One ought to forgive the author his day job. He writes convincingly of shooting galleries, jazz charts and clubs, and has an ear for the profane end of the world where pain and suffering turn to art. We forgave Charles Ives and Raymond Chandler their careers in insurance. Fuller runs the risk of being mistaken for a Pulitzer-winning editor and publisher of a major newspaper and not the very great novelist he has become.

If you know someone who watched Ken Burns' "Jazz" and now wants to know what jazz is REALLY about, or if you want a companion to Ashley Khan's "Kind of Blue," if you don't have a CD player but want to hear jazz, are interested in philosophy as literature, or literature as literature, this is the place to start.

The Best of John W. Campbell (1976) is a collection of short SF works and an editorial. In his introduction, Lester Del Rey states that Campbell had three successful careers in Science Fiction: the first as Campbell the author, the second as the author Don A. Stuart, and the third as editor of Astounding/Analog. The first two careers are amply illustrated by the contents of this volume, but the last career is best shown by the works of dozens of authors who learned from, or were influenced by, Campbell the editor.

The Last Evolution (1932) was originally published in Amazing Stories under the John W. Campbell byline. It tells of an invasion of the Earth by aliens from outside the Solar system and the rapid invention of machine/immaterial minds to defend humanity.

The following stories were written as Don A. Stuart. All were originally published in Astounding Stories:

Twilight (1934) involves the accidental transport of a scientist from 3059 into the remote future where the remnants of humanity still survive but without curiosity. Before he attempts to return to his own time, the timetraveler takes some steps to resume progress.

The Machine (1935) tells of the departure of the ubiquitous Machine that first came to Earth to help humanity, but finds that almost all mankind has since settled comfortably into dependency and indolence.

The Invaders (1935) depicts the invasion of Earth by aliens several millennia after the Machine leaves. The aliens find humanity dwelling in a paradise of plenty among the fallen ruins of great works. They put mankind to work and start a breeding program.

Rebellion (1935) recounts the results of the alien breeding program after a few centuries and the reinvention of secrecy, deceit, and rebellion.

Blindness (1938) portrays the efforts of a dedicated scientist to provide humanity with a new source of energy.

Elimination (1936) shows the influence of random chance upon any foretelling of the future.

Forgetfulness (1937) conveys the muzziness of an advanced individual trying to remember the techniques of his more primitive ancestors.

Out of Night (1937) is the first part of the story about the human rebellion against the Sarn using truly advanced technology.

The following stories were written as Don A. Stuart and were originally published in Astounding Science Fiction:

Cloak of Aesir (1939) is the second part of the Sarn rebellion story.

Who Goes There? (1938) is one of the most famous horror/suspense stories of all time. How do you detect shapeshifters who have taken the form of your friends and livestock?

Space for Industry (1960) was originally published as an editorial in Analog Science Fiction/Fact. It makes the case for industry in space rather than upon a planetary surface.

The Postscriptum is a recollection of the ways of John Wood Campbell, Jr., by his widow and is fascinating reading.

These stories are only a few of the short works of John W. Campbell. Many of the Campbell stories were eventually incorporated into novels of the space opera variety; some were very good, even by current standards. Of course, Campbell commissioned or influenced the writing of thousands of short stories and novels by other authors, contributing suggestions and even short outlines. In many respects, most of the Astounding/Analog fiction was coauthored by Campbell, as were many stories published elsewhere.

Highly recommended for Campbell fans and for anyone who has ever enjoyed stories originally published in Astounding/Analog while he was the editor.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This book takes you through a fictionalized account of Menno Simons. It was wonderful. My boys were engaged. Both had to read the book a second time on their own after we finished using it for school.

I learned much about persecution that christians endured in Europe. There is ONE chapter that is a little intense. It is set in a dungeon, and describes a form of torture. However, it is historically accurate, tasteful, and important to the plot.