Simmons Books

Great book with incredible imagery. There are many pages that will make you think twice about that darkness outside your door, the farm down the street and going upstairs. The plot remains thick and twisting the whole way through. Good read.

This is my second Simmons novel, and I must say that he is fast becoming one of my favorite writers. I read this book without knowing that "Summer of Night" came before it... which is sad because I bought them both together an am now apparently reading them out of order. Never the less, I had no trouble following the story without having read the preceding novel. I think having read it would have filled me in a bit on some of the information that the sheriff seems to randomly blurt out toward the end of the novel, but it didn't really bother me.

Dale is an interesting character; pitiful, deplorable at times, yet not so appalling as to make him hard to root for. After destroying his life and his relationships through bad choice after bad choice, a failed suicide attempt sends him back to his childhood to try to write a novel while sorting through his past. Dale drifts in and out of possible madness, as the reader you are never sure... is he being haunted by ghosts? His past? Or simply madness? Is he loosing his mind or are there hell hounds growing and growling in the night outside of his childhood friend's house. The tragic death of his childhood friend has scarred him, though we are never sure how deeply. Is Dale writing notes to himself or communicating with his long dead childhood friend Duane?

Most of the complaints about the "slow pace" of the book come from the flashbacks Dale has of his life with Claire. Clair is not a very likeable person and we know that Dale has thrown his marriage away to be with her, and of course... it ended badly between them. Also we have chapters from the perspective of a spirit we assume to be Duane, watching Dale and telling us a bit of what he sees from the outside. The spirit chapters bothered me a bit; particularly at the end when I wondered why, if the spirit was so eloquent was it so cryptic in it's warnings to him. Perhaps it knew that Dale must traverse this path whether it wanted him to or not.

Dale's choice to live in his dead friend's farmhouse is a strange one, and when it seems that the reader has figured out what is going on, the twists guide you into a new direction. I went through a range of guesses hoping always to be wrong. For the most part I was, and I am glad for it. I like to be surprised by a novel. Though I didn't find the book to be "Hair Raising" or "Spine tingling" I did find it to be a wonderfully enjoyable read. Well written and perplexing without being confusing. You find yourself just as baffled by events as Dale and hoping that he finds a way to survive either the madness or the haunting. 4.5 out of 5 stars... excellent read!

Dan Simmons is a great author.This was a very enjoyable and intense read.I couldnt put it down.I loved the characters in the book.Devinitlty a must read for any horror fan

As a ghost story, Dan Simmons' A Winter Haunting disappointed me. It's neither scary nor thrilling. The storyline plods, the protagonist is not particularly likable, and the ending falls flat.

Maybe the novel is not a ghost story, but it is set up as one. In Elm Haven, Simmons presents a decaying, depressing place, the ideal setting for a ghost story. The protagonist, Dale, has bottomed out in his life, the ideal character for a ghost story. When things get weird for Dale, the author balances the supernatural explanations (ghosts) with more natural ones (sleeplessness, madness, pharmaceutical reactions), another staple of ghost stories. And of course there are ghosts.

In my opinion, Simmons ruins this novel with all the literary references/allusions. He has done this before, in Ilium and Hyperion, both of which failed to dazzle me. In this novel, the references to Beowulf, Henry James, and obscure languages obfuscate the plot; they do not enrich it. Additionally, the flashbacks to Dale's time with Clare retard the pace and atmosphere. I think that a ghost story relies on an escalation of tension, and the flashbacks stunt that buildup. Also, the author labors over the descriptions of setting; do we really need to know the models of various houses? Finally, the novel contains a mystery regarding Duane's demise, but Dale does not solve it. It gets solved for him. Shouldn't the main character solve the mystery? Instead of having Dale rush off to the library to decrypt some bizarre ghostly email, Simmons should have had him investigate the circumstances of his childhood friend's death.

I like Dan Simmons, and I like how he experiments with different genres. Song of Kali, The Crook Factory, and The Terror are excellent, atmospheric novels. When he chooses to tell a straightforward story, Simmons excels. For me, when he injects his novels with literary meaning, he stumbles. Simmons is a good writer, but in my opinion, A Winter Haunting is not a good book.

I had a really hard time staying with this story.Some parts were good than it would very quickly get boring and drawn out,I found myself skipping over many pages.It is not a story that would stay with me,it just didn`t keep my interest.Not even half as good as the prequel.

The Op Centre series is going from bad to worse, I have brought all Tom Clancy's books (all the earlier ones from Red October to my last Red Rabbit) but after I happen to read the first Op Centre book I stopped buying them and just got them from the library, hoping that they would get better and that they would be worth buying again, unfortunately that didn't happen.
This last one is so bad that it is the last one I will get from the library and just stop reading Tom Clancy's books all together.
Always very sad to see a successful author run out of ideas and continue for the money. I would wager that in the long run you will loose money Tom as people will just stop reading your novels.

Even though this is not the best Op-Center work, This book portrays an excellent look at a serious problem in our world today. That problem is the idea of total Pacifism. This book sets an outstanding contrast between those who favor war and those who oppose it at all costs. State of Seige shows the frustrations of Pacifists and the frustrations of those dealing with them. As a Navy Seal once said, "No one wants to fight, but someone ought to know how." State of Seige is a must read for students war or pacifism.

When I read Clancy's books for my first time, it sparked my attention. These books are great for reading on free time and when you have homework or nothing to do. Clancy expresses the urgency of the book greatly when terrorists attack the UN H.Q. If you keep reading clear through to dinner time, you never want to put it down and eat anything. I hope that Clancy will make more books so i can read them.

Clancy has done great in ditching those sometimes boring political plots and went into the action theme. The story is excellent and here is a summary: Paul Hood has retired as the Regional Op-Center director and now wishes to be with his wife and kids more. Sharon was a TV cooking show personality and his daughter Harleigh was an excellent violinist for her teenage age. His son, Alexander Hood (I hope I got the name right) enjoys video games and challenge. When Paul Hood finnaly retires, there is a sub-plot of emotional issues between him and Sharon but when they go to see Harleigh perform at a special diplomatic concert in New York for ambassadors and senators, greedy terrorists with a grandiose plan to get the world's attention and recieve a high ransom invade the United Nations building where the teenagers will perform and take the children and government people hostage. It is a race against time as hostages are killed on an hourly bases and while Secretary-General Chatterjee complains about giving diplomacy when Mike Rodgers wants to send in the Striker team. This has a good plot and lots of adventure that will "dazzle all readers!" (Me!)

I am apparently in a minority of one but I am beginning to find Mr Clancy et al right-wing polemics a little alarming. From strong beginnings with Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and particularly Sum of all Fears, his novels (including his mainstream as well as Op Center novels) have deteriorated in paranoid, simplistic visions of a Pax Americana who owes nothing to the rest of the world and is justified using any means to achieve any ends it sees fit.

I am aware that none of these novels reflect 'reality', but their continued popularity may reveal dangerous tendencies on the part of their fans to believe this is the way the world could/should be. The US represents the greatest civilisation that the world has ever seen... if these books represent the views of its population, is in danger of going the same way as its predecessors

Hard Case is dedicated to the legendary Richard Stark although it owes more to Philip Marlowe and The Continental Op than it does to the remorseless Parker. At first I thought this was a subtle parody of the form but that is because Simmons is such a fine writer. He has written novels in almost every genre. In this case he takes the themes of noir novels and works them into a story which is genuinely exciting, with a dry humor that makes the violence acceptable.

This is overall some of the best writing I've seen since McDonald's Travis Magee series. It is deceptively simple and direct but the main charecter is unforgetable. We also have some fully developed unique badguys.

Okay so I am a fan of the Joe Kurtz books, I wish more than three where written. Solid writting, good depth of people that make this book so great.

Hardcase by Dan Simmons could be thought of as hardboiled crime fiction on steroids. The action is not merely violent, it is brutal with a take no prisoners attitude.

Former PI Joe Kurtz has just been paroled from Attica after a rather long stay. His first act as a free man is to hire himself out as a stalking horse for the head of a western New York crime family whose fortunes are rapidly dwindling. This is a novel with a very fast paced, action packed narrative. The body count mounts up at a dizzyingly accelerated rate, with no shortage of new and improved ways of dispatching the ever shrinking cast.

Does Hardcase qualify as great literature? No. The plotting, though not without some unexpected twists, is contrived and not believable. The characters are generally over-the-top stereotypes who lack nuance. Still, for what it is, Hardcase is very competently written. If you like action-adventure laced with graphic violence, you could do considerably worse than this book.

Dan Simmons writes Science Fiction (he won the Hugo award for Hyperion in 1989). Dan Simmons writes Horror (Bram Stoker Award, Carrion Comfort). Dan Simmons writes Fantast (World Fantasy Award, Song of Kali). And Mr. Simmons writes detective fiction.

These different genres mostly have different writing styles. Instead of trying to force one type of writing into another genre, Mr. Simmons changes his colors, adjusts his pacing, wording and style for the hard-core nasty world of private investigation.

Hardcase is the first of three (and we hope more) Joe Kurtz novels. Hard Freeze (A Joe Kurtz Novel) and Hard as Nails (A Joe Kurtz Novel) are the other two. Joe Kurtz isn't mean and nasty, but he also has no compunction about sticking a man's hand in a disposal or running over an unconscious man's legs. Kurtz has his own code. Getting out of jail after following that code, Kurtz throws himself in the middle of a Mafia mess that he learned about in prison, and starts churning up the mob and old acquaintances.

The pacing of this novel is well done, the dialogue believable. The plot integrates several subplots well, although some of the plot twists are tipped off early (ain't this called foreshadowing?).

I also liked how Mr. Simmons slides in a reference to one of his other books, The Crook Factory, about a spyring in Cuba run by Hemingway (see page 221 in the paperback for the reference).

Language and graphic violence make this an unsuitable read for kids. Everyone else will enjoy it.

I really like Dan Simmons, unfortunately this book is truly awful. The characters, the writing and the story were all well below par for this talented writer. The characters, in particular were so "hollow" I was rooting for bad things to happen to them, and that's not a good feeling.

If this was the first book I read from Dan Simmons it would also be the last. He seemed to be forcing the story forward simply to complete the book. Perhaps he had a publishing deadline.

Anyway, don't give up on Dan Simmons he is typically a very competent writer with great ideas and a novel view of the world.

This could have been a really neat sci/fi story about telepathy. Instead, Mr. Simmons feels the need to try to "prove" the validity of his mystic mathematical pseudo-religious view of the (parallel) universe(s). All the quantum physics mumbo-jumbo didn't add to the story, and didn't convince me of anything.
I also thought that it was quite silly to close this at times shocking and gruesome novel with a "happily-ever-after" ending that didn't seem to fit.

Hard to tell if Simmons was trying to define misanthropy or if he just wanted to show Stephen King that others can write horror/sci-fi hybrids also. I never really cared for Stephen King's books, and I'm glad that Simmons moved away from this kind of stuff. He is a gifted writer of intelligent science fiction; I am not interested in horror novels.

"The Hollow Man" is mostly science fiction and delves into some significant concepts, but his main character descends into a darkness that, after a horror scene that just doesn't fit, finally becomes distracting--too distracting. Probability waves, brachiating realities, God doesn't play dice with the universe...Simmons could have used his skill to probe these concepts much more deeply, but instead the reader is treated with something that feels like one of those horror movies in which the central character is incongruously pursued by bad guy--demon--ghost--or whatnot only to wake up from a nightmare within a nightmare until some baseline of reality or presumed reality is completely lost within a tangle of interference patterns. And maybe this is what Simmons was trying to show--his protagonist lost in a jungle of shifting reality and madness--I just couldn't grok what he was up to. A re-read might clear some of this up, but there were just not enough strong elements to draw me back for a second try.

There's no doubt about it, Dan Simmons is one of the most versatile writers out there. Whether it's horror, sci-fi, suspense, the guy does it all. With "The Hollow Man", not to be confused with the movie of the same name, Simmons seemingly mind melds with Stephen King to produce a nice little horror/suspense story. Though Simmons' books tend to vary in theme and genre they do tend to all start with a wild "what if" question. The main question posed here is "What if certain people could read minds?"

That's what our protagonist Jeremy Bremen can do, as can his wife. The book flashes back and forth quite a bit going from Jeremy's relationship with his wife Gail to the time after her death. It is this morning period after Gail's death that sends Jeremy into a deep depression causing him to lose some control over his mind reading abilities. Jeremy tries to escape his former life by going into seclusion but then a series of unbelievable events take hold of Jeremy forcing him into a world of death, violence, and a million minds all speaking to him at once. While Jeremy sinks deeper into his pit of pain and darkness, a young deformed boy who is mentally challenged is forced to live his own personal hell. By the end of the book, all three, Jeremy, Gail, and the young boy will have a chance to connect in a way that may bring them all the peace they desperately need.

Compared to other Simmons' books "Hollow Man" is a fluff read. It can be read in a couple of sittings and it's ideas, though dated, are interesting and fairly easy to grasp. It's a short book for Simmons at a brisk 341 pages (paperback) and the best thing going for this work is that the story seldom gets bogged down in too much detail. The plot, though utterly ridiculous, keeps the interest up and the pages turning. It's not one of Simmons' smarter or better books, but it still works for some reason. 3 and a half stars!

Let me begin by saying that for the most part, I LOVE Dan Simmons. I was very excited when this book arrived and dug right in. That's when my disappointment hit... I couldn't wait for this book to end. Within the first 3rd of the book I caught myself skimming, throughout the rest of the book I struggled with the fact that I was not enjoying the story and had to force myself to read.

This was a book that should have been about telepathy and mind reading, should have been a very exciting read, and could have been brilliant. Instead Simmons spends large parts of the book dropping the plot and spending page after page explaining the physics behind mind reading, and it doesn't make a whole lot of rational sense. Jumping back and forth between a plot that could have been entertaining, and a lecture on the physics of mind reading wore out my brain... especially since the physics part was completely unnecessary to the story. Then you throw in the completely out of nowhere idea that a mind reader would end up in all the different situations that occur in this book from serial killers to gun wielding Mafioso none of it came together. I struggled with this book, not because it was overly difficult, but because it was completely un-engaging to me.

I have read a lot of Clancy books, among them several in the many that are actually written by other authors. This is my third Net Force book. That said, I have read worse books with Clancy's name on them, but this book just wasn't very interesting to me. Part of that is because I have lately started wondering why I even read these books, because they are all rather similar; the good guys always win and usually by killing the bad guys; the only good guys to get killed are minor characters while the more major characters might get injured; etc. The only major diferences is how the story is developed. This book actually increased my questioning as to why I read these books. This is mainly because this book seems to put across the message that the main purpose in life is to have sex. This book is absolutely packed to references about sex, mentioning people having sex, or such references as two people taking a shower together. That gets really tiring after a while. Other books in the series do mention such things a lot, but not as much as this book.
This book has most of the characters returning from previous books, but there are two that are noticably gone. There are only two quick references to Tyrone Howard, and they are about him being away on a school trip. These references remind you of the importand role he played in the last few books. Also, there is no reference to Tyrone's boomerang-throwing friend (can't remember her name).
As for the good parts? The noticable, worth-mentioning ones are few. This book does have a few surprising twists in the story, such as the rogue government agents, which help keep it from becoming too plain. Also, this book does not have very much bad language, which is surprising. It does have some bad language, but I have read books that were much worse in that respect.

Even so, 3 stars is the most I can give this book. It is just not very interesting, and there are other books that I can read and enjoy much more than any of Clancy's. I cannot truthfully recommend this book, although if you are reading through the series, this would be a necessary inclusion.

This book was my least favorite book in the net force series (yes i have read all of them up to springboard)because it has too much useless day to day stuff that is boring. Toni keeps complaining about how shes fat and is on and off with the scrimshaw stuff.

Most net force books take me 2 weeks to read...but this one took me a month!Also, what does net force have to do with controlling drugs?

The other novels that came after this were pretty much a chore to read, especially state of war. They always just start out with a death (or many),and go through the introduction. Then they just go for days or even weeks without any leads at all. Then a personal event happens, and they get a lead. This is where most of the books start to pick up their pace. This is when its hard to put the book down. But thats changing with every new novel. However when springboard came out in January, it renewed my interest in Net Force.

There is an illegal drug being sold on the Net that makes you Superman. The FDA calls on Net Force and the NSA to stop the seller.
I liked the action and the descriptions Clancy uses to describe what's going on. Every thing is described with great detail.
I would recommend this book to adults that like violence, action and details about guns.

Once again Tom Clancy has outdone himself. This book was the greatest book I've read in my whole life. Tom Clancy's Net Force starts to track a major drug dealer that has created a new drug called, Thor's Hammer. The inventor of this new drug is, Bobby Drayne. Drayne's father is retired from the FBI. This drug is like a steroid, except a lot more potent, it increases all of your senses and makes you really strong. If you want to feel like "Superman" for a few hours, it will cost you $40,000. But due to the fact that it is like a steroid, you'd better have a lot of time on your hands to recover from the drug. The Net Force starts going after Drayne, and then there is "The Point of Impact."
If you like novels that have a lot of action and adventure, this book is for you. It is intriguing and will hold your attention during the whole book. When you think it is about to get boring, more action and adventure comes along. This is a great book! You should buy it!

I was fully prepared to dislike this book. To begin with, it was a gift, not something I would have chosen. I'm not a big Tom Clancy fan. I don't have anything against him, I just haven't read any of his books. The thing is, I still haven't read any of Clancy's books. Although POINT OF IMPACT has Clancy's name all over it, it was actually written by Steve Perry, someone I had never heard of.

Then there was the prologue, which contains some very hokey and contrived dialogue. By the time I got through the first few pages my eyes were rolling. Given the larger-than-life action and comic book characterization typical of this type of book, combined with what I had seen so far, I figured I was in for a real stinker.

But, to my surprise, POINT OF IMPACT turned out to be pretty good. Not a literary masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but entertaining and quite readable. The prologue was just a setup. To be sure, you still get the over-the-top plot, but that goes with the genre. Beyond that, there actually was some character development. Not so much for the Net Force "good guys" (I assume they're already familiar from previous books in the series) as for the "bad guy" drug maker and his sidekick. These two become somewhat familiar and interesting as the story progresses.

I enjoyed POINT OF IMPACT and I hadn't expected to. It wasn't clever or memorable in any particular way. There isn't any real depth. Still, it didn't bore me and the writing was competent. For a light read, you could do a lot worse. Fans of this genre won't be disappointed.

The book basically gives a very simplistic overview of each body system (college-level anatomy and physiology textbooks are much deeper in scope) and ends with several main points from each chapter that would seem to point to design. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Christian and I believe in God. However, I have read better and more informative books about the design inherent in the universe as well as in humanity.

I'm really stunned that this book got published, it's so full of errors and misunderstandings. He seems to be unaware of the transitional fossils of the whale and and giraffe lineages dug up in the past 20 years. He also wants to take Darwin down, a man who lived in the 19th century. Though his foundation was correct, we now know he made some missteps. Imagine an attack on Christianity called "what Adam didn't know."

His lazy "things must be as they appear" approach is flawed (resurrected from the Bronze Age, perhaps). For example, to most of us, the sun *appears* to go around the earth, space *appears* to not be curved near massive objects, matter *appears* to not be made of mostly empty space. Yet these are incorrect. Likewise, to some people, human life *appears* to be designed. There's strong evidence that this is also wrong.

The author should join the 21st century. It's quite nice here.

First of all, this book received two stars from me as opposed to one because it was very interesting to read about some of the intricacies of the human body. However, I could have just as easily gone to an anatomy text for such a purpose. For that reason, I say that it is misguided.

Dr. Simmons, while writing passionately and eloquently, does absolutely nothing to discredit or bring to doubt evolution. In a nutshell, the book largely consists of a pattern that first describes an intricacy of the human body, and then fallaciously states in one manner or another that 'it can't be imagined' how something of such complexity could possibly arrived through evolution; i.e. the argument from personal incredulity, which is extremely popular among creationists and apologetics.

Additionally, I found it quite interesting that though the concept of evolution clearly applies to all living beings - macro and micro alike - Dr. Simmons curiously decides to ignore the rest of life by focusing only on humans to myopically imply that humans are the divine exception to biology.

I feel that this book was 'designed' for those who are already staunch supporters of Intelligent Design and have no wish to learn the actual science behind evolution. This book will no doubt be very successful in reinforcing creationist belief, but for those who have an actual grasp on the specifics of evolution as a whole, this book in actuality fails to dispute any of the key cornerstones such as random mutation coupled with non-random natural selection over a geological timespan to produce complexity.

If someone is interested in learning about evolution as opposed to human body complexity, they are urged to search elsewhere, because any actual discussion of it within this book is sorely lacking.

Those wishing for a true expose on the shortcomings of Dr. Simmons' book need only to read a general evolution text such as Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker".

The ancients had it all wrong. They dubbed the Pyramid of Giza, and Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Colossus of Rhodes, etc to be the Seven wonders of the world. Little did they know that to find the biggest wonder in the world, all they had to do was look inside themselves. That ability had to wait for the technology that would allow humans to discover what a marvel they really are. As the wonders of what transpires under my skin were skillfully unfolded, my mind was filled with awe. There is no part of the body I will take for granted again. Who can not be impressed that their blood vessels laid out end to end would circle the globe twice? How about the fact one cell is more complex than the space shuttle? Those stories and more await discovery between the covers.

Dr. Simmons tells the story with humor and clear, precise language. He is the tour guide on this ultimate, incredible journey. At each stop in the human machine, he reveals in detail the complexity of that particular part of the body and how it relates to the whole. The chapter on reproduction is absolutely mind boggling. The chapter on the development of an embryo gives the reader a play by play account of the development of a new human being. All the major systems of the body are explained in language that makes it fun to read this book. Dr. Simmons is a writer who is also a scientist. This is one of the most edifying books I have ever read.

If you home school your children or teach science in a private school, this book is an excellent resource to augment your curriculum.

I felt embarrassed for the author. Moreover, I felt embarrassed to have bought the book new and thereby contributed to his royalties.

He maintains he is a doctor bringing fascinating medical gems to a wide audience - but his explanations and analogies are humdrum and often misleading to the point that he verges on saying: 'Wow, this is a really intricate mechanism whose development I can't begin to understand - magic must be involved.'

Unforgivable is the distorted 'flat-earth' logic he applies to his arguments. As an example, he suggests our balance apparatus amazingly filters out distracting stimuli, including all the rotations of our spinning planet. It is indeed an impressive filter - but more miraculous would be if we could detect such minuscule relative accelerations as caused by our rotating and revolving solar system.

He glibly dismisses the fossil-record; insists that all our organ systems must have sprung up fully-formed as their individual components could serve no possible purpose without all the others; he fails to address 'Darwinian propaganda-mill' theories except as straw men; points out a few differences between us and monkeys; and rounds off with a chapter on how 'gifts' such as painting or singing serve no evolutionary cause so must, presumably, be divinely bestowed. These may be standard enough moves in ID literature - but can only be overlooked if he is preaching to the converted. Anyone with a modicum of scepticism will struggle to trust the author's deliberate and blatant distortions of others' arguments.

His salient point is that science itself continually adapts and no theory claims to be the final word. Hence, Darwinist theory too must be expected to undergo modifications or be superseded by new models and paradigms. As indeed does happen. What sits uncomfortably is his failure to acknowledge the usefulness of theories despite their incompleteness. How does science's lack of omniscience justify a return to his superstitious fire-and-cave notions of life? Such an alternative theory as he proposes is of the sort known as 'Not even wrong'.

If you want fascinating insights into the human body, buy a college-level Physiology textbook such as Sherwood's 'Human Physiology'. If you want to explore Omphalos theories, the best versions are still to be found in the holy books. If you want to wallow in shameless polemic, try 'Of Pandas and People'. And if you want to know what weaknesses and limitations Darwinism really has, head to the popular science shelves and explore the likes of Dawkins' 'The Selfish Gene' first-hand.

This is indeed an astounding achievement: the author writes coherently about a subject he knows nearly nothing about. The result is a book that will be highly enjoyed by everyone who does not know much about biology but dislikes the theory of evolution.

The book brings nothing new to the discussion, as all "arguments" are well known creationist canards. Biological and biochemical systems are deemed unevolvable because the author decides they are. He knows, after all, that his readers will never bother to check or ask a scientist if an explanation might exist (at best, as we see with the high-rating reviewers here, they will imagine a "Darwinist" and imagine their response - so much easier to do then to actually ask someone a question).

Then there is the oldie but goodie about no transitional fossils - meaning, the author does not know certain transitional fossils exist, so therefore they don't exist. He knows his readers will never try to check this claim either.

This applies even to the genuine gaps in the fossil record - the author, for instance, gives great weight to the fact that there are no transitional bat fossils (which is true). By ignoring all other transitions, however, he ignores the obvious retort. We have transitional fossils for evolution of tetrapods from lobe-finned fish, mammals from early synapsid proto-reptiles, etc. The lack of bat fossils, therefore, can mean two things: either the bats evolved just like everything else and we just haven't found the fossils of their earliest forms, or pretty much everything else on this planet evolved except for bats (who were created or intelligently designed by something or some One)

Then there is a bunch of other things (coevolution, for example, is a complete mystery to the author). It is a book that can be completely ignored on scientific grounds.

However, we should take it as an indication of what we should do as scientists to combat the spread of creationism in the public. It is obvious that just putting information out there doesn't work - many people will automatically disbelieve anything a biologist says (including everything I wrote here), while automatically and unquestioningly believe anything written by a creationist author. Instead of trying to teach people about evolution, we should concentrate on teaching them skepticism and scientific method: evolution can stand up to scrutiny of evidence, while books like this one will fail very rapidly under an onslaught of fact-checking. Average Joe Creationist will not be convinced he was wrong until we somehow convince him to check the evidence directly...

I'd put this book at about the middle of the pack of the ID books I have read. It's certainly not groundbreaking like "Black Box" or "Icons" or some of the others, but at the same time it is well written and entertaining. If you have a gram of objectivity, and most of you don't as will be evidenced by how many negative votes this review will get from people who never even read it, you have to observe that there are a lot of bright people writing books on ID these days, both for and against. Just labeling it creationism and moving on is an easy way to avoid dealing with it, but the author makes an honest effort to marshal his facts and present his case in about as non-threatening and non-condescending way as possible.
What it lacks is a key issue, like irreducible complexity or the design filter or one of those things that are hard to argue. The main observation reminds me more of the William Pawley view that things this complex and wonderful have to have been designed. While I would agree, I don't think the case is overwhelming, and I don't think his points are likely to move anyone off of their stance, assuming anyone reads it who doesn't already agree with the premise. He has about as many amazing science facts as you're likely to come across in one place, and that can make it interesting no matter where you are coming from. "Darwin's Ghosts" was like that for me from the other side- I found his evolutionary arguments very unconvincing but enjoyed the forays into animal behavior.
All that to say, it's a good read and well worth the effort, but in my opionion it misses as a top-tier ID book.

I was surprised by this book and that is why I decided to write a review, which usually I don't.

Billion of missing links is a long list, describing what we call in one word "Nature". I think mostly we think that we know what is going on around us, or at least we think that someone knows. We take our precarious inexplicable existence on earth for granted and try not to think about it.

I enjoyed opening my eyes to the wonderful, amazing world we are part of, the constant changing of everything, while keeping the delicate equilibrium of existence. I choose to believe chance (what does that word really means?) is not the only mechanism behind the fact that you are reading now on your computer the words I am writing right now.

It is amazing to think that a person could write a book about a subject he has no understanding of. I got curious who would propagate such awful scholarship. Alas...the infamous "Discovery Institute" (The organization responsible for re-branding creationism as "intelligent design." If you are in the mood for a laugh, check out the simmons pz meyers debate on youtube.

Once upon a time, I taught a mini-course in faulty thinking. It was the early 70's and there was a lot of faulty thinking around and a lot of romantic energy behind it. Even though my field was anthropology, I felt a duty to talk about the quality of thought apart from its cultural relevance. I thought then, and still do, that there is a rigor to thinking that's independent of our wishes.

This book was presented to me by a young friend. He was troubled by the 'missing' aspect, but his intuition told him that something was wrong here. Could I help?
He was especially upset about the chapter(s) on bats. If evolution proceeds in steps, how come there are no intermediate bat fossils? How on earth did bats learn to fly around in the dark and echo-locate dinner. The best answer I could give him was that I don't know and neither does anybody else.
Now, the fact that nobody has a good answer to this question might be a reflection on either:
*Darwinism, which has, with some modern elaboration explained everything else about the evolution and development of life.
*Intelligent Design, which-as far as I can tell-not only has explained nothing, but doesn't even claim to be able to.

So we are left with two possibilities. Either developmental evolution will, when the fossil record is sufficiently explored, be able to fill in the record and tell us how bats got to squeak in the night or the story of bats will be one that is explained by something else-maybe the notion of Intelligent Design which has, so far, explained nothing.

Personally, I told my young friend, I'm going to bet on the horse that's won all the races it's been in, not on the horse that won't even go out on the track.


Lynn Hoffman, author of the track-proven novel, bang BANG

I originally bought this book because Deborah Simmons wrote one of the stories (The Bachelor Knight) but I found, much to my delight that I really liked a couple of the other stores MORE than I did hers. Not that it was a bad story, it was quite good actually, but my favorite of all of them was The Seige, by Glynnis Campbell. I enjoyed it so much that I MUST obtain her other books...My Champion, My Hero and My Warrior.

I also liked the Minstrel and The Traveller. Neither were bad stories. In fact I am a sucker for time travel stories which The Traveller is. The only contention I have with it is that it seemed a bit to rushed. I actually wanted more. I also discovered that she mentions characters from one of her other books...A Dance through Time. It might be noted that this is William De Piagets story and Juliana is a friend of Elizabeth Smith who is the central character in A Dance Through Time. Which just means I now have to hunt down Kurlands other books because not only am I a sucker for time travel books but I also love sequels.

1. Lynn Kurland-* * * This story might have been better if it were more developed. It was okay, not boring but no pizazz at all. William of Artane was a pretty good hero and could have shined in a full length story. Julianna Nelson was adorable.

2. Patricia Potter- * * * * * This was a very charming, subtle story with great sentimental characters. Duncan, so handsome, and Lynet, a lovely and loyal person, were sweet together. It was a joy reading this one!

3. Deborah Simmons- * * * For the most part this story was quite boring, but it did pick up a bit - most notably with Guenivere's tearful confession of love to Beren.

4. Glynnis Campbell- * * * * * This was the other great story. Ryance was a great hero, very handsome and vulnerable in a charming sort of way, and Hilaire was very lovely. My only problem with this story was how to pronounce the names.

I find it hard to rate books like these because you have to give an overall rating for four different stories. One of these stories was really quite good while the others were just okay.

1st Lynn Kurland's The Traveller-Julianna is a modern day unemployed woman with multiple degrees in ancient languages. She is sitting on a park bench reading a letter from her friend who lives in Scotland and believes in time travel when she herself is transported to a castle under siege in 1299. She is rescued by William de Piaget great grandson of Robin of Artane who made a vow to God to help all maidens in distress. William ends up losing his castle to save Julianna's life, but they fall in love and marry. They end up travelling back to the future and it is kind of comical to see how people adjust to different time eras. However, this short story loses what Lynn Kurland is a master at and that is taking the time to develop her characters so that you know how they think by the end. This story is just okay.

2nd-Patricia Potter-The Minstrel-I liked this story but once again it is just too short to really draw you in. Duncan is a wealthy lord who makes a vow to his dying mother to marry for love, so he disguises himself and travels as a minstrel to find a woman that will fall in love with him not his name and title. The only problem is his musical talents are limited. He meets Lynet in an open field and mistakenly believes she is a peasant woman. He hears her singing and asks her to meet him every day to give him music lessons. Lynet is really the daughter of a wealthy landowner who is being forced to marry. She must choose a suitable husband within a fortnight. When caught in a compromising position , Duncan is captured and Lynet threatened with being sent to a nunnery. No one realizes Duncan is a lord and would be perfect for Lynet...but then they escape together and things come together.

3rd Deborah Simmons-The Bachelor Knight-This is my least favorite of the four. Beren returns to his foster home and marries Guenivere to save her from being married to a land hungry lord. Each had secretly loved the other in their youth, but a bunch of misunderstandings lead them to believe the other has no feelings to return. I just couldn't warm up to this story and some parts never made sense.

4th Glynnis Campbell's The Siege-This was by far the best of the four short stories. Campbell comes close to delivering the perfect short story but you end up wishing for more. Hilaire is escaping through a tunnel in her family's keep to avoid a marriage by order of the King to the Black Gryphon. He is rumored to have killed his first three wives and when he comes to marry her she convinces her father to go under siege until she has time to escape. Ryance, the Black Gryphon, is misunderstood. He is not a violent, evil man, but one who suffered through a series of misfortunes and lost three wives and a daughter through no fault of his own. The king orders him to marry and produce an heir. He goes to meet his bride and when her father resists, rather than beat down the doors and risk injuring anyone, he decides to dig under the foundation. He is unaware his bride to be is in the tunnel attempting to escape him. Ryance ends up buried in a landslide and then hears a young woman crying for help. He manages to dig his way to her but realizes they are trapped and most likely will die without oxygen. Hilaire doesn't at first realize that her rescuer is her husband to be and she is amazed and charmed at how gentle he is and the pains he goes through to convince her he will get them out alive. He even digs through rocks until his nails come off to keep her calm until the end. Ryance wishes things were different and he could have ended up marrying and loving this young woman. He vows he will do everything in his power to make her final moments less terrifying. The two talk and open up to one another and fall in love within a short amount of time, when Hilaire finally realizes who Ryance is, she is remorseful and wishes she had done things differently. She knows he is not the person the rumors make them to be. I loved this story and wish it were a full novel. BTW, things work out better than you first believe.

This collection is worth reading solely for Lynn Kurland's story and it isn't one of her best. However, it could have been if they had been smart enough to have her write it as a full length novel. The other stories were boring as hell. I do not understand why the publisher persists in having Lynn write short stories. They are NOT her forte. She is too good an author to waste like that.

A Knight's Vow is a collection of four romantic stories, all based on the title's theme. Four authors - Lynn Kurland, Patricia Potter, Deborah Simmons and Glynnis Campbell - each weave a tale of love and excitement. I own many short story collections - some classic, some sci-fi, some fantasy. In each case, there are stories I love and stories I'm less fond of in the collection, but the book is well worth owning because of the superb ones. The same is true here.

I want to say first that you might think it's easier to write a short story than to write a long story. The opposite is actually true. It is MUCH harder to create believable characters, get the reader engaged with them, put together an understandable plot, and resolve everything satisfactorily all in only a few words. So where an author might be excellent at a full length novel, they might have much more trouble writing a short story.

The first story is The Traveller by Lynn Kurland. This is definitely a story that seems "squished in" in short story format. The heroine is an out of work medieval researcher in New York City. She gets a letter from a friend, goes to sit on a park bench and POOF she is in medieval England. The idea that she managed in one instant to find the exact portal and the whole setup would have shone in a longer version, but here it seems forced. Her incessant hiccupping is an interesting but frustrating touch. I appreciate that the author attempts an explanation for how she can understand what they're saying. However, I'm never a fan for people who fall madly in love after looking at each other for 16 hours, so again that's a place where they story was forced to fit the guidelines. Even the end where the couple come back to modern times and the knight is obsessed with the fridge turns him into more of a "cute anomaly" rather than an intelligent, well rounded mature adult. This is definitely a story where I think it would have done well as a full length novel, but the author seems less skilled at writing a story perfectly suited for the short story format.

The second story is The Minstrel by Patricia Potter. This is a fairly typical story - knight pretends to be commoner, lady pretends to be commoner, and they fall in love with each other without the issues of greed and conniving they usually have to deal with. I do like the idea that people who are cynical about love can find their hearts opening up and able to trust. The problem is that the whole story *is* predictable. You even know the exact timeframe of how the romance will run out, thanks to a schedule set by the father. So then it's just a matter of waiting for the story to plod through. For several reasons I felt less than connected with both the hero and heroine.

The third story is The Bachelor Knight by Deborah Simmons. Every collection has to have its worst story, and this is the one here. A knight begins life as a poor waif and is taken in by a local lord. He falls in love with the lord's daughter - and she with him - but once he goes off into the real world he never returns to her. When the lord dies, she calls him back and forces him to marry her as part of a vow he's sworn. They both love each other, but both are full of pride and hurt from the separation and have to wear down their walls. Much of this story seems extremely forced, and the characters seem to act quite unnaturally. I actually found the main heroine character to be annoying and poorly developed. The annoyance level was high enough that I had to force myself to finish the story. That's pretty rare for me.

The final story is The Siege by Glynnis Campbell. This is by far the best story in this book for many reasons. First, it is EXCEPTIONAL as a well done short story, regardless of what genre you enjoy. There is superb character development, the storyline *naturally* fits into the time frame provided, and you get the full range of the story - the start, middle and end. This is definitely a story that "works" in the short story environment. Next, the characters are well drawn and quite believable. Where in other stories here the characters are a bit two dimensional in order to fit into the short format, here Glynnis has been able to describe and bring to life two individuals who have full personalities. They have flaws and strengths and backgrounds. You really believe that these characters are real people who would talk and act like this. Finally, the connection that grows between the characters is quite powerful and well done. He is a knight who is feared by the locals - she is the maid he has been forced to get engaged to by the King. They are trapped in a pitch dark, collapsed cave. The way they slowly learn to trust each other, and face their entrapment and potential death - is quite powerful. This is the type of story you can read over again several times and really relish the dialogue and the descriptions. Highly recommended.

It's always interesting to me how people enjoy different types of stories. One person can adore a simmering regency romance, while another person would rather read a swashbuckling Scottish romp. Whatever *styles* you enjoy, I think we can all agree that a well done, believable dialogue and character development is what makes any time frame story sing. I think what's great about a short story collection is that it exposes you to writers and time frames you might normally never read about, to learn about the authors who populate that world. I hope that this series exposes readers to Glynnis Campbell who might not normally have read her works, so they seek her out. There are some authors who can make any time period, and any environment, enjoyable and immersive. This is definitely the case here. Enjoy!

There are a few good stories here, but I strongly suspect that when Saratonio began pestering the authors for "cutting edge" material for this anthology that many of them sent in the first thing they could find in their reject piles.

I really liked Baxter's "In the Un-Black", Moorcock's "A Slow Saturday Night at the Surrealist Sporting Club" and Wells's "'Bassador", and liked the stories by Whitton, Kelly, Rucker+Shirley and Niven. But 7 stories out of 30 is not a good yield.

While I am a big fan of several of the authors included in this anthology, this book was a disappointment. "Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction"? I'm afraid not. This is not hard sci-fi, or even good fiction. With stories like "what if Marilyn Monroe and James Dean dated, and nothing out-of-the-ordinary happened?" or "A girl who turns people into bugs", the tales in this anthology consistently fail to satisfy. All in all, I have to say that Sarrantonio did a very poor job of selecting stories, and then gave the book a title that sets completely inappropriate expectations.

A good collection of 'speculative' fiction. Mainly sci-fi, but some just 'what if' type scenarios. The one about James Dean and Marilyn Monroe was just boring, and there was one less than a page long that seemed rather pointless. Overall though, good to try out some stories like this that you might not come across in mainstream science fiction. I definitely recommend it.

Great stuff, a little on the fantasy side at times. The title of the book "Redshift" apparently refers to the measure of planets and the solar systems moving apart from each other, and though I didn't see anything in the collection on that particular subject really, it's a great collection.

Spend your money on a book that not only defines terms but also helps you to understand the application of the information. Just figuring out the relevance of some of the material is tough enough but add to it an overall and inexplicable ambiguity; it gives the appearance of being written by someone who is being paid to fill a set amount of pages with networkish facts and trivia. The practice exam is well designed in the format but the content of the questions are ridiculous (with some errors). After finishing the book I not only felt cheated out of money but my time which is even more precious. Save both and skip this book.

This book touches all bases of the fundamental basics that are required for the test. I had a peek at it before printing because I was able to do a bit of editing with one of the authors. If there is only one book that you need to be able to pass this test......BUY THIS ONE! I had chance to read a few others upon recommendation of one of the authors of this book and in all honesty, they were not quite as detail-oriented...to the point! This book has given a stay-at-home mom a new insight into life.

After taking this exam with only 2 days of study, all I can say is, This is the only book you need to pass! I did, however, find a few errors on the practice tests (hence the 4 stars instead of 5). If you only get one book, this is the one to get.

There are not too many study guides for you if you are working on the i-net+ exam. Most of you probably get the one from Sybex and the Exam Prep. Both of these are just average quality compared to A+, Net+, CCNA, or MCSE study guides published by those two companies. I used both of the study guides to prepare for my i-net+ exam. This book covers more than the Sybex one, other than the fact that this book is too dry for people to read. I did not read that from cover to cover, instead, I did the practice tests, chapter tests, and tests from the Sybex book, and found the explainations and definitions from this book if I answered wrong. Overall, this book has a lot of information but it's just hard for the reader to digest.

I bought this book a while back and let it sit for quite some time before I finally dug into it. Unfortunately, when I went to schedule my exam (I was 3 chapters from the end of the book) I found out that the test objectives were slightly altered(to reflect changes in technology). Fortunately, I found a 25 page study guide on the internet that gave an overview of the new objectives for the new exam(IKO-002).

The i-Net+ exam covers a broader scope of knowledge than any certification exam I have previously taken (A+, Network+ and Server+). As for this book, I think it's a fantastic resource. It covered the broad spectrum of material in as great a depth as I believe is possible without being dry and unreadable. The fact that I was able to pass the new exam with flying colors (I got an 811 out of a possible 900) using this book and only an amended study guide is quite a testimony to the thoroughness of this book.

I should warn that there are a few errors here and there on some of the practice tests. Also, the practice test questions range in difficulty from very challenging to insultingly easy - fortunately the latter type of question is rare and most give at least a moderate challenge. Oh well, if you take your time and read/study the book cover to cover you'll know the stuff well enough to edit what few mistakes there are in the pracice exams.

A+, Network+, Server+ and i-Net+ certified