History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity

Average customer rating:

At home in the universe, A New Proposal...
Proposals to Unanswered Questions
Fascinating Science Applicable to Evolution and Business
A fascinating look at self-organization
Fantastic and enlightening

At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity
Stuart Kauffman
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195111303

Amazon.com

The best treatment I have yet encountered about how order emerges naturally -- and possibly even necessarily -- out of chaos. Profoundly important, and considerably more informed than better-known pop-science treatments of chaos theory. Very highly recommended.

Book Description

A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science--and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos. We all know of instances of spontaneous order in nature--an oil droplet in water forms a sphere, snowflakes have a six-fold symmetry. What we are only now discovering, Kauffman says, is that the range of spontaneous order is enormously greater than we had supposed. Indeed, self-organization is a great undiscovered principle of nature. But how does this spontaneous order arise? Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls "order for free," that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. Kauffman uses the analogy of a thousand buttons on a rug--join two buttons randomly with thread, then another two, and so on. At first, you have isolated pairs; later, small clusters; but suddenly at around the 500th repetition, a remarkable transformation occurs--much like the phase transition when water abruptly turns to ice--and the buttons link up in one giant network. Likewise, life may have originated when the mix of different molecules in the primordial soup passed a certain level of complexity and self-organized into living entities (if so, then life is not a highly improbable chance event, but almost inevitable). Kauffman uses the basic insight of "order for free" to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena. We see how a single-celled embryo can grow to a highly complex organism with over two hundred different cell types. We learn how the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. And we gain insights into biotechnology, the stunning magic of the new frontier of genetic engineering--generating trillions of novel molecules to find new drugs, vaccines, enzymes, biosensors, and more. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws, that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe. Kauffman's earlier volume, The Origins of Order, written for specialists, received lavish praise. Stephen Jay Gould called it "a landmark and a classic." And Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson wrote that "there are few people in this world who ever ask the right questions of science, and they are the ones who affect its future most profoundly. Stuart Kauffman is one of these." In At Home in the Universe, this visionary thinker takes you along as he explores new insights into the nature of life.

Customer Reviews:

At home in the universe, A New Proposal..........2007-04-05

In this book, Stuart Koaffman opens new doors to us. Through the theory of the chaos, proportions fractals and their networks boulinas, give an interesting speculation us on the origin of the life, the complex systems and the societies. It is hour to be on the awares and to try to focus to us in new horizons. This book took to him of the hand by these new horizons. It is hour to know our house in the universe...

Proposals to Unanswered Questions.......2006-09-16

Stuart Kaufman's At Home in the Universe is a lay redaction his scientific hypotheses from his Origins of Order, a rich, fascinating, sophisticated, and complementary set of hypotheses added to Darwin's theories of evolution. For the moment, at least, they are the promising fruit of speculative or theoretical biological hypotheses (with physics, chemistry, geology, paleontology, mathematics, game theory, and economics thrown in), but they go a long way to filling in many of the gaps that strict Darwinists seem content to ignore. And some of his hypotheses, he readily admits, are heretical.

One of the obvious problems, if not primary one, that Kaufman sets to answer, Is how can natural selection work, culling the fittest to survive, without something to act on? In other words, natural selection operates on the already existent (i.e., regressive engineering), not in the formation of the entity itself. Another problem is that 4 billion years, long as that is, is still not sufficient time for natural selection to have acted through a totally random, step-by-step process in determining today's survivors. Even 100 billion years would not be enough. Another problem is how could so many species have come into existence and failed to survive (99.9%), leaving a mere 100 million for the present, in the span of a mere 4 billion years (mathematically impossible on Darwin's theories alone).

The central theme of Kaufman's work is Self-organized Criticality, a scientific twist on the notion of irreducible complexity (from the Discovery Institute's lexicon, no less), where a minimal degree of inherent complexity in a subcritical-supercritical phase transition is what spontaneously orders the animate world and generates and sustains life in accord with other, as yet, unknown, but implicit laws. From the moment that a sufficiently critical diversity of molecules reached the ideal phase transition, life itself was "spontaneously generated" as inevitable, not by accident. Once life appeared, the acts of natural selection, adaptation, coevolution, evolution of coevolution, cellular, morphological, and physiological differentiation, ontogeny, niches, populations, stable cum-chaotic dynamics, etc., could operate, but in addition to forces beyond natural selection. And while speculative, apparently many scientists share Kaufman's intuitions, inferences, and insights.

But the "other" force or forces is not mystical, much less divine, even if they may be truly awesome. Rather, it is in the nature of the universe, and more particularly in our evolving earth, that these implicit laws work in tandem with Darwin's laws. At this point, these laws are posited from the empirical knowledge we do have, but have not yet demonstrated in the scientific manner to make them even hypotheses. But Kaufman's speculative biology is not a whimsical or arbitrary metaphysics, but logical inferences based on laws and facts already in place. Having done the easy work (thinking the notions of what these other general laws of nature must be like), now science must work in earnest to confirm or reject his speculative hypotheses.

The key word and concept throughout this humorous, heady, and exacting exposition is "complexity" and within the manifold complexities of lives, environments, and mutually intersecting dynamics is a spontaneous order that arises "for free" that in turn sustains stable and steady systems just at the subcritical-supercrticial phase transition (e.g., horizon, or "edge of chaos"). Another key word and concept is "dynamic." Steady-state and homeostasis are often thought of as a static plateau, but that is mistaken, as such states are actually in a fluctuating dynamic at the phase transition between equilibrium (death) and disequilibrium (disorder). Indeed, on many different levels, living organisms are born, dwell, and die precisely at this phase transition between the subcritical (stasis, moribund) and supercritical (chaotic, disordered) states. And the key thesis is that order ("for free") is embedded in the delicate balancing act precisely at this phase transition.

Kaufman extrapolates some of these implicit biological laws and applies them to human cultural and technological advancement. The "fit" is remarkably uncanny, helping us to understand some of the dynamics of technological improvements (and diminishing returns), innovation, extinction, and spontaneity of the economy. Perhaps the most salient features are the concepts of "dynamic" and "spontaneous."

Moreover, if an analogy can be drawn from the biosphere and ecology to the social and political realms, the overwhelming preponderance of biological evidence screams complexity, diversity, and interdependence of organisms and their environments, which arise spontaneously and reciprocally to each other, in a constant dynamic that is vibrant, active, and always on the threshold of "chaos," but retains some stability through change. It is only those social and political forms that are "adaptive" that are socially and politically the "fittest," and democracy and market economies are obviously the most adaptive mechanisms to adapt to changing human needs.

Frederick Hayek addressed himself to these very issues over 50 years ago, and called the market economy and democracies "spontaneous" associations, in contradistinction to "planned" economies and governments. The former "adapt" to changing environments and circumstances, while the latter lack flexibility, and thus do not easily yield to adaptive mechanisms. "Planned" economies attempt to calculate rationally human desires, motivations, and needs in either an abstract or a priori fashion, then calculate the mode of production, the degree, and whether to accommodate, as if some "Absolute Human Mind" could anticipate all contingencies and changes by a simple mathematical formula. The problem is that bureaucrats are notoriously theory-laden and too calculating to include, much less advance, diversity (think Medicare Part D for "planned" absurdity). In practice, socialisms impede innovation and stifle ingenuity. With no means of adaptation, there is no "fittest," much less any mechanism to adapt to the actual dynamics of the world.

Communism's planned economy is an extreme case of an irrational calculus asserting what the government will allow, applying the lowest-common denominator as a criterion of sufficiency. We all know of the U.S.S.R.'s food lines, limited products, forced housing, inferior merchandise, and minimal labor investment. But even weaker forms of the rational calculus, such as socialism, does not do much better. At least their democracies allow policies to change, even if it becomes years for government to adapt to the new exigencies. Even the most socialized societies have "capitalist" outlets, to provide some barometer of social wants and meeting them. Social insurance makes sense on many fronts, but social or state "planning" of economics has rotted state and worker. Kaufman's biological analogies explain why.

Postscript: Kaufman's book is a provocative, challenging, and fascinating (sometime heady) read. Even if all of his hypotheses in the abstract are found to be untrue, at least he captures the reader's imagination, and asks the questions that most of us non-dogmatic Darwinians have raised for some time. In a time when the "easy" and "orthodox" are all too convenient for slipping under the rug, Kaufman's questions (and suggested answers) go the the very nexus of the difficulties. His suggested answers are at once perhaps too simple, on the other hand, perhaps too complex. What is refreshing, above all, is that he's not afraid to ask, and even less fearful of suggesting solutions. Thank gawd for the Sante Fe Institute, where brave and curious minds still ask questions.

Fascinating Science Applicable to Evolution and Business.......2006-05-17

Stuart brings the science of complexity and complex adaptive systems to a broad range of topics from evolution to business to learning curves. The book is masterly written to allow you to skim over the formulas without lossing the excitement or to dig into the technology to understand its broad application.

A fascinating look at self-organization.......2005-01-18

We see a great deal of order in living systems. Where does this order come from? Is it entirely from natural selection? The author says no. He explains that much of the order we see in the world is spontaneous, such as in the symmetry of snowflakes, and that much of the order needed for the origination of life and in living organisms is of this spontaneous nature.

Kauffman is making a non-trivial point here, as the extent to which spontaneous order is more important than selected order is not entirely obvious. While a snowflake is indeed an example of a system that is highly ordered as it gets synthesized, that's not true of, say, a solar system, in which short-lived bodies quickly depart the scene in favor of long-lived ones. It's clearly significant that disordered entities tend to be shorter-lived and unable to replicate.

The author then addresses theories of the origin of life. Could it have started with RNA? After all, replicating RNA could then produce the needed proteins. Kauffman says no. The amino acid chains one would need would be too long to replicate accurately enough (the "error catastrophe"). I tend to agree. Besides, RNA is awfully fragile (DNA is not fragile). And once one hypothesizes that RNA has a template to keep it safe, one's theory is that templates came first.

Of course, the "error catastrophe" is devastating if the minimum complexity of a living cell is rather large. Kauffman argues that this minimum complexity is indeed large, and that it is no accident that there are hundreds of genes in pleuromona, perhaps the simplest free-living (non-virus) organism.

Spontaneous order also refutes the argument of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe that life could not have arisen on Earth because the chance of creating the 2000 functioning enzymes would be too small: 1 in 10 to the 40,000. Well, given that life does exist here, the Hoyle argument is almost certainly wrong anyway (with a chance that small, the odds would be overwhelmingly small for life to arise anywhere, ever, so the chance that the argument is wrong must be huge, since a correct argument might then give a much higher probability for life to appear).

The author then asks how we get the large polymers we need. After all, life is basically autocatalysis (that's what I was taught in the 1960s, and that's what Kauffman says as well). How does this big autocatalytic set get into gear? The author makes an analogy to putting connectors between random pairs of entities. At first the length of a connected chain will be small. But once the number of connections is about half the number of entities, the longest chain quickly becomes almost as large as the number of entities. That raises the question of how all these entities can interact, but Kaufmann says that having reactions on a substrate, effectively reducing the region to two dimensions, helps. So does having less water around.

We then get to the question of homeostasis. That requires plenty of order. Is there a way to get that order "for free?" The author says there is, and here is where he makes his most dramatic point. He points out that a network with 100,000 entities (call them "light bulbs") with two states each, has 10 to the 30,000 possible states. One might expect such a network to cycle through the square root of the number of states, or 10 to the 15,000. But it actually tends to cycle through the square root of the number of binary variables, which is only the square root of 100,000 or about 317. That is a huge amount of "order for free!" And it argues strongly for life's origination to be unsurprising. As Kauffman puts it, this changes life on Earth from being "We, the improbable," to "We the expected."

There's plenty more in this fine book. The author discusses order in ontogeny. And he has a chapter on the relationship between the diversity of species in an ecosystem and the diversity of organic molecules added from outside. And there's also plenty of material on "fitness landscapes."

One question that arises in this book is statistical: how long does a species tend to last? That has implications for the question of how long humans will last. It may not be that long. But that doesn't bother me, as long as we're replaced with something better. After all, I'm for progress!

Fantastic and enlightening.......2004-03-21

This particular book is a fantastic revelation and study of the boundary between order and chaos as it applies to the evolution of life, culture, technology and anything else in the universe. Its goal is to seek a universal law regarding the emergence of order in what we've traditionally considered unordered or random sets of fundamental stuff. For example, one of the observations that it makes is that evolution as Darwin revealed it is by itself not a sufficient explanation (scientifically) for why and how creatures like us could be here at all. In other words, natural selection is not sufficient to accomplish what life has accomplished in this world of ours. It needed the help of a very important other "force"... the life force, I might call it, and to which I've alluded many times in many forms through my writings. It's that special something about the nature of the universe that brings about the cooperation of systems, the autocatalytic closure which makes "hanging together" and "existing" some sort of "goal" deeply encoded in the nature of it all. You might be able to see how I might identify these ideas very closely with that term "lifetoward". What goal-oriented force brought life to be and continues to make life strive for ever more order and complexity? This book answers I think very well with: it's not a force, per se, but rather a fundamental aspect of the basic nature of the universe. To quote the book, "We the expected." We as living beings belong here and are an integral part of an incredibly awe inspiring process of creation of meaning and order in a world aching to give birth to it. The book closes with a nice summary, which much like a message I had posted to the lifetoward@yahoogroups.com list some time ago, extols the development of a new and enlightened faith, based on a realization of the wonder of the way the universe deeply is and how we are in it.

In terms of the meaning and importance of this book, I would recommend it to everyone. However, I will warn you that it may be a significant challenge to read. It calls on a deeply considered understanding of a variety of disciplines, including most notably evolutionary biology, organic chemistry, mathematics, anthropology, and economics. It proceeds with an assumption that the reader has realized or can quickly recognize the common ground between these different areas of study. It uses a lot of mathematical models and visualizations of 2, 3 and hyperdimensional spaces to discuss the nature of this common law and its emergence in the world around us.

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Pip and Flinx

Pip and Flinx are at it again.

Why can't we award negative stars?

Good

Could have come anywhere in the series

Trouble Magnet: A Pip & Flinx Adventure (Pip and Flinx Novels)
Alan Dean Foster
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Flinx's Folly (Adventures of Pip and Flinx)

ASIN: 0345485041
Release Date: 2006-11-28

Book Description

From science fiction icon Alan Dean Foster comes a blazing new Pip & Flinx adventure for fans of the green-eyed redhead with awesome mental powers and his miniature flying dragon. In this dazzling new novel, Flinx confirms his status as the galaxy’s greatest magnet for big trouble.

Wandering out there in some remote region of the galaxy is a gargantuan sentient Tar-Aiym weapons’ system. All Flinx has to do–while his pals look after his injured love Clarity Held–is find the hefty object and persuade it to knock out the monstrous evil that is hurtling through space to waste the entire Commonwealth.

A no-brainer, really, especially for Flinx, who is never without his loyal entourage of official snoops, crazed zealots, assorted goons, and the occasional assassin. Indeed, the boy wonder and his mini-drag, Pip, are eager to commence their heroic task . . . just as soon as Flinx visits Visaria–a dangerously depraved planet–to convince himself that humans are indeed worth saving.

The chances of stumbling across high moral values and utopian ideals don’t look promising–what with Flinx playing a lawless Pied Piper to a gang of lying, thieving juvenile delinquents. But prospects really go south when Flinx runs afoul of the corrupt planet’s ruthless crime king.

Still, life is full of surprises, and Flinx is about to get smacked by a passel of them–by turns devastating, heartening, and positively jaw-dropping. For although Flinx came to Visaria to plumb the enigma of humankind, there’s another mystery waiting here, a shocking clue about his own shadowy past.

Customer Reviews:

Pip and Flinx.......2007-03-09

I found this to be a very good addition to the Pip and Flinx story. It follows the story line quite well. Hopefully this won't be the last we hear of Pip And Flinx!

Pip and Flinx are at it again........2007-02-01

Alan Dean Foster has written so many books that you kind of have to wonder if there's really a Mr. Alan, a Mr. Dean and a Mr. Foster, all cranking out words. But I'm assured that there's not, and here he's presented us with the 11th, or is is the 12th Pip and Flinx adventure.

As usual, they are on their way to some far away place in the Galazy to find a huge Tar-Aiym weapos system to ... well you know.

On the way he gets side tracked into an adventure on the crime ridden planet of Visaria. Here the story develops in typical Foster tradition with a lot of description of the planet, its people, its society and of course of the desparate situation in which the heros find themselves.

This book can be read as a free standing book and it will make sense. More fun will be had though by those of us who have ridden into adventure with Pip and Flinx before. Is this the best of the novels - No. Is it the worst - No. Is it great fiction - No. Is it a fun way to spend some cold winter evenings or an airplane ride, it sure is.

Why can't we award negative stars?.......2007-01-31

This is the eleventh book in Foster's Flinx series, and I'll say up front I did not expect it to be *good*. But I started this series when I was sixteen, and dang it, I do want to know how it ends. But this is not the book where I found out. It is a complete waste of time for anyone not thoroughly familiar with the series, as it follows the protagonist through a series of encounters designed to showcase references to previous books, culminating in a completely unforeshadowed deus ex machina.

I'd have thought an old pro like Foster would be embarrassed to have this published underhis name, but of course several of his previous books have disillusioned me on this account.

But I still want to know how it ends, drat it.

Good.......2007-01-10

The book was good and I enjoyed it. It could be me but I felt like it was especially short.

Could have come anywhere in the series.......2007-01-08

This book is a stand-alone story that could have come almost anywhere in the series. The beginning of this book is a little like the comedian who says, "bang," and then continues with "and speaking of bombs." In other words, the first chapter feels to me like pap intended to shoe-horn it into the series as it stands and feels forced and unnecessary. For some reason that never clarifies he felt the need to bring Peot and the Vom into the story as driving experiences and places this story soon after "Bloodhype" (1973, out of print), and also soon after the more recent books, "Flynx's Folly" (2003) and "Sliding Scales" (2004).

That being said it's an OK Flinx story but not a great one. It moves along just fine, but a significant portion of the book is not about Flinx, but about building a situation from which Flinx must save, or in turn do battle with, strangers. The book is about a group of street urchins (or teenage gang if you prefer) on some unimportant planet (who for some reason have access to advanced theft technology with very short notice) who need to be rescued multiple times by a bored visiting Flinx (visiting for reasons given, but ultimately unimportant). The characters are fairly thin and the Flinx character is not significantly enhanced by this story. So, if you don't know him already, you won't really meet him in this book and if you are long-time fan, as I am, you won't learn anything new about him that couldn't be summarized using one terse sentence at the beginning of the next novel.

The end of the story adds a little to the arc (can you say "technology indistinguishable from magic", I knew you could), but it's likely a pointless addition as it's clear that there is nothing added that Flinx will be able to use in the next story. At the end of the book ADF uses an unsubtle "look over there, the next book" thread, with barely comprehensible logic by Flinx, based on one word from a character that was both introduced and dies in this book; that word is "Gestalt." (His web site already says the next books are "Patrimony" and "Flinx Transcendent" and mentions "Gestalt" in the timeline.)

Also annoying is that there were many more typo errors in this volume (hardback) than I have come to expect from modern books. For example, especially in the current computer publishing age, you would think that a sentence with "of" instead of "or" would be caught automatically, of one where a doubled word is doubled showing an obvious edit point. Considering the plethora of uncommon and made-up words in the lexicon of this book the typos significantly effected my reading enjoyment.

The bottom line is that if you are waiting for the next Flinx book to move the "void" and Tar-Aiym weapon system story lines forward, you are still waiting because this is not it. However, if you are looking for an enjoyable, quick read, throwaway Flinx story, this is it. Only you can decide if that is worth paying the hardback price. I can say that it really won't matter if you read this book now or in 2 years, because it won't make a difference to the next book (always assuming the next book moves the story along).

Average customer rating:

Great stuff, though you need some background
Being an immortal cyborg is not a fulltime party
Wonderful, as always!
great!
Every one of these stories is a winner

Gods and Pawns (The Company)
Kage Baker
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0765315521
Release Date: 2007-01-23

Book Description

In the Company, youre either a God or a Pawn, but sometimes you have to be both. These eight stories, reprinted for the first time, delve further into the history and exploits of the Company and its operatives, including Mendoza, Lewis, and Alec. The book opens with the novella, To the Land Beyond the Sunset, starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. Their ability to grow a small tropical paradise in the middle of the desert certainly seems godlike, and its Mendozas job to figure out their secret. Standing in His Light features Van Drouten and her role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. The story illustrates how, with a little help from the Company, lost masterpieces can be found (or created) easily. Other stories include the original novelette, Hellfire at Twilight, that concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in the England of the eighteenth century. This book is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts.

Customer Reviews:

Great stuff, though you need some background.......2007-08-18

The most recent couple of novels in the "Company" universe have been a little bit disappointing to me - in fact, in my review of one of them, I stated that it would have been a better book had it been short stories. Well, in this book, Baker proves she is still really good at the stories! I was much happier with these than I had been with the "Machine" books.

The stories in this one mostly involve Lewis. There are references in the stories to things that have happened in the earlier novels; the stories are best enjoyed if you've already read "In the Garden of Iden" although you don't have to have read the rest of the novels - that one will provide enough background. That's not to say you shouldn't read the rest of the earlier novels - all four of the first four Company novels are great!

The first story, "To the Land Beyond the Sunset," contains allusions to a particular disaster that happened to Lewis in another book. The indigenes in this story are very funny. (The dust jacket illustration is probably supposed to refer to this story, but it's not accurate.)

The third story, "Angel in the Darkness," is the one that will provide you with some background about how the Company universe works and who are these cyborgs, anyway?, if you haven't read the novels.

The last story, "Hellfire at Twilight," may particularly appeal to readers of Georgian and Regency romances, who will be familiar with the idea of Hellfire clubs.

Several of the stories have already appeared in magazines, particularly Asimov's, but I didn't mind; I enjoyed re-reading them.

All in all, her best in a while!

Being an immortal cyborg is not a fulltime party.......2007-05-15

The beauty of the universe created by Baker is that the characters may appear in any place and any time (after their own birth). In these seven stories we see Literary Preservationist Lewis, Botanist Mendoza, Facilitator Joseph and others in a range of times and locales. A recurring theme is that they carry out the will of the Company without always knowing the reasons for the assignments and often with any particular joy. Such is the life of these immortal cyborgs, serving the entity that created them.

Personally, I think the short form is Kage's strongest area and this is some of her best.

To The Land Beyond The Sunset.
Mendoza and Lewis in the New World of the seventeenth century

The Catch
Concerning the Company's early and imperfect efforts to create an immortal

The Angel In The Darkness
Set in 1990s Los Angeles - a cyborg watches over family members

Standing In His Light
The life of the painter Vermeer - and the desires of a cyborg for something different

A Night On The Barbary Coast
Set in early San Francisco Joseph and Mendoza on an errand for the company

Welcome To Olympus, Mr. Hearst
Set in 1933 at Hearst Castle. Joseph and Lewis on an errand for the company

Hellfire At Twilight
Lewis on an errand for the company

Does it sound like the cyborgs spend a lot of time running errands for the Company? You are correct.

Wonderful, as always!.......2007-05-09

For those of you who read "The Company" novels, but avoid "The Company" short story collections because you dislike short stories, I highly recommend that you read ALL of the books. The short stories have many important clues that flesh out the many sub-plots, characters, their backstories and motivations in the novels. Without the short stories, you are missing out on a much richer experience.

For instance, in this last collection, I wonder about Mr. Hearst! (Intriguing, isn't it?)

As always, I can't wait for the next installment!

great!.......2007-05-07

While it didn't further the main plot of Mendoza and Alec, I still enjoyed this book, and it fits in well. I loved reading it. :)

Every one of these stories is a winner.......2007-04-15

I dare say that you found this collection of stories (mostly novellas and long short stories) because you -- like me -- discovered Kage Baker's marvelous universe of The Company, in which cyborgs serve a huge corporation of the future. If you haven't yet read the series, I strenuously recommend that you begin with In The Garden of Iden. You can probably follow each of the stories if you start with this collection (the author does a brief arm-wave in each one to tell you the basics), but your experience will be vastly enhanced if you read these in a larger context. (You don't have to read EVERY one of the full novels, but I think you need the character understanding from the first one or two.)

I tend to be uncomfortable reading most short story collections, because there are predictably a few really excellent tales, a couple that are pretty good, and the rest... ho-hum or worse. I'm happy to say that Gods & Pawns is a remarkable exception. Every one of these stories is excellent, shows an aspect of history (through the eyes of Dr Zeus Inc.), and lets us vicarously enjoy the experiences of characters we've grown to love (Mendoza, Lewis, and Joseph). They're funny, thoughtful, surprising... everything I want from short fiction.

If you like Kage Baker's "Company" universe, this is definitely worth your time and money. If you haven't yet discovered this marvelous author, then you should read her stuff... but please don't cheat yourself. Read In the Garden of Iden first, so you can appreciate the depth she brings to even a short story.

Average customer rating:

too many dei ex machina can spoil the broth
Fascinating tale
The story of Mendoza and her fellow cyborgs comes to a splendid finale.
A superb finale
I wanted to love it--and I did, for a good part of the book

The Sons of Heaven (The Company)
Kage Baker
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 076531746X
Release Date: 2007-07-10

Book Description

This is the Kage Baker novel everyone has been waiting for: the conclusion to the story of Mendoza and The Company.

In The Sons of Heaven, the forces gathering to seize power finally move on the Company. The immortal Lewis wakes to find himself blinded, crippled, and left with no weapons but his voice, his memory, and the friendship of one extraordinary little girl. Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, resurrected Victorian superman, plans for world domination. The immortal Mendoza makes a desperate bargain to delay him. Enforcer Budu, assisted by Joseph, enlists an unexpected ally in his plans to free his old warriors and bring judgment on his former masters.

Executive Facilitator Suleyman uses his intelligence operation to uncover the secret of Alpha-Omega, vital to the mortals’ survival. The mortal masters of the Company, terrified of a coup, invest in a plan they believe will terminate their immortal servants. And they awaken a powerful AI whom they call Dr Zeus.

This web of a story is filled with great climaxes, wonderful surprises, and gripping characters many readers have grown to love or hate. It's a triumph of SF!

Customer Reviews:

too many dei ex machina can spoil the broth.......2007-10-02

As the conclusion to the Company series, of course everyone who is following the series has to read this book, and it wouldn't matter how many stars I did or didn't give it; you'd be reading it anyway. That said, I feel obliged to warn you that it is NOT a perfect ending to the series. (And, I should point out, it's not necessarily the last book ever to be written within the series - only the last events to be written about.)

A few too many people develop godlike powers here, powers that there really aren't sufficient bases for. Budu and his enforcers flawlessly revived and with all their old skills and nobility, William Randolph Hearst being more all-knowing than ever, Alec, Nicholas, and Edward all turning into omnipotent beings... it's a mess. Oh, and an AI who *is* Dr. Zeus turns up, with a total lack of logic and continuity. And Mendoza remains the simpering moron she turned into, with an overlay of maudlin traditional mother staying at home and minding the kids, which is totally ridiculous. It's not Mendoza anymore; Baker should have just invented a new character for this, two books ago.

There are several new characters, by the way, of whom my favorite is Princess Tiara Parakeet. Don't laugh; she's a true heroine.

But the book does tie up most of the loose ends, and ties up some of them with great style. The dinner party thrown by Victor, to which Labienus and Aegeus are invited, is an absolutely superb section. And it contains one of my favorite little asides in the book - there are many references to bits of culture throughout the ages, especially music. Earlier in the book, there's a point where Edward asks the Captain to play some music, and the Captain selects something from "Edward's two-hundred-and-ten volume set of the best of the Black Dyke Mills Band" which will be unfamiliar to most of you, but to those of us who have been playing band instruments and going to band competitions for years, that's a great line - and my spouse sat up and said, "Hey, I want that set!" Anyway, Victor's dinner party has music on the theme of death, starting with Mozart's "Requiem" and going on to Liszt's "Totentanz," and then,
"With the salad course came the second movement of the 'Discworld Symphony' by Brophy with its outrageous flatting bassoons for Death's recitative..."
That made me laugh out loud.

If you haven't read the previous books in the series, then all the above references to various characters make no sense. And indeed, the whole book will make no sense - you've got to have read the rest of the series first. All of it. If you've skipped anything, you'll miss part of what's going on here, and if you've skipped the previous two books, which had flaws and moments of incoherence, then you'll be even more befuddled, so, flaws and all, go back and read them first.

Okay, so I didn't like how Edward and Mendoza turned out, but I do like how Victor, Lewis, and Joseph turned out. I enjoyed the book more than not, hence 4 stars. I guess what annoyed me most was that the mortals who were smart enough to set up Dr Zeus Inc were stupid in unlikely ways - yes, I know smart people can have their blind spots, but the complete incomprehension of the mentality of the cyborgs, by the people who created them, just isn't likely and nothing Baker says here makes it feel likely. The plot device that's supposed to kill the cyborgs is a really stupid plot device. And I agree with other reviewers that the epilogue is unnecessary and pointless. I did like that the peculiar blind spots of the hill people did make sense and had continuity with what we knew about them before. And if I had to choose the hero I liked best, I'd choose not Alec/Nick/Ed, but good old Preserver Lewis, blind Homer reciting poetry as he awaits his fate.

My recommendation: put on a selection of classical music that features the Dies Irae and pour yourself a glass of Black Elysium, to best enjoy the book.

Fascinating tale.......2007-09-20

I had never read any of the books in The Company series, so I entered this last book with a clean slate, so to speak. The numerous characters are well designed with interesting personalities. The countless conflicts and interactions flow seamlessly with the overall plot of the story. I was concerned that the time shift between Paradise (500,000 BCE) and The Silence (9 July 2355) was going to be ridiculous or comical, but it was executed flawlessly. I noticed that the lower right corner of the jacket indicated this was a "Sci Fi" essential book, and I presume there may be some television series or mini-series developed and rightfully so. It would be difficult to surmise the entire saga into one mini-series, but a television series would be quite unique and set itself apart. The mix of Victorian fashion, style, and music with cyborgs added a certain flair to the story that sounds comical at first but once you finish the book, it makes perfect sense.

The story of Mendoza and her fellow cyborgs comes to a splendid finale........2007-08-02

I still remember reading "In Garden of Iden" for the first time. Little did I know that it would take 10 years to reach the end of the story. Along the way, there have been ups and downs, of course, some novels and stories being superior to others, Kage being a human and not a cyborg, after all. But at last we reach the end, 9 July 2355.

Mendoza, Nicholas, Alec, The Captain, Joseph, Lewis, Budu, Labienus and the rest are all on a collision course with the Zeus Corporation. These immortal cyborgs have been waiting for this day, 9 July 2355, since their creation. Will their masters destroy them or will it be the other way around? There are plots within plots and everyone is scheming.

Having read The Sons of Heaven, I must say that Kage has done a splendid job of ending the series. She masterfully pulled the loose threads together and wove them into a satisfying story.

If you are new to this series, do not read this book until you've read the others. Period. It will not make sense.

A superb finale.......2007-08-02

In this final novel of the Company we not only see wicked "Dr Zeus" receive its comeuppance, but we also learn child cyborg care, as Mendoza regains her wits and is coping with the triad Nicholas/Edward/Alec in a very unexpected manner (unexpected especially for two members of the triad). We see one of the most clumsiest attempts at multiple murder and, also, Kage Baker's black humour at its most luxuriant in the final banquet before the silence attended by Labienus, Nennius, Aegeus and other less than savoury cyborgs; we'll see miserable Bugleg cringing before the Pale people and poor Lewis having his wounds healed. A feast of the imagination!

I wanted to love it--and I did, for a good part of the book.......2007-07-30

Let's start with the epilogue, shall we? Look, the last line stinks to high Heaven. It's about as bad as my pun. Worse, really. The whole page is trite, unnecessary, and too predictable to be anything but just plain bad.

God, I hate saying that. I absolutely loved Baker's Company Novels. It's just that--well, I threw the book after reading the final line.

But, hey, you see four stars beside this review, yeah? So it's not all bad, okay? You have to have read the rest of the novels to really appreciate this one-but if you have, you will laugh, cry, and scream about what the cyborgs do and go through. Amazon describes the book as "convoluted," but I really don't think that that is fair. Kage Baker has been developing a short story voice for her series for some time now, and it all works to drive the story quite well.

I thought that a couple of the side-plots (they're not so much side-plots as they are logitudinal plots leading up to a single point) dragged on a little long, and there were a couple of unnecessary author-to-reader quips, but all in all each story line was engaging and--in the end--logically played out.

Back to the ending, but before the epilogue. At first, when I realized the direction it was headed, I rolled my eyes. But it actually plays out quite well. Everything ties together, and the last two chapters were very satisfying.

A couple of notes on another's review:
I disagree that the "bad guys" were two-dimensional. If anything, they were as conflicted and hypocritical as the "good guys." Further, even though they are all ultimately held to the same degree of accountability, there was a tiered approach to their motivations and level of immorality. Plus, given the several story approach of the entire novel, all the characters were a little flat.
As for "the little people," you must be forgetting the previous novels. It's pretty clear how they came about--without spoiling anything, I'll just say that the people in the Hill start out like every other competing "human" at the beginning of time, and that the Company had its hands in their development just as much as anything else.

All in all, Sons of Heaven was a very good book, but with a very bad last page. Save yourself thirty seconds by not reading the Epilogue, and you'll close the series with a very satisfied feeling.

**potential spoiler (not really, but kind of)**

But, hey, anyone else get the feeling that this may be the end of the Company Novels, but that the story could easily go on?

Silenced: The Wrath of God Descends (Underground Zealot)

Average customer rating:

First in a winning series of three
Great cliff hanger
Enjoyable Reading!
That same amazing style
Soon and Silenced

Silenced: The Wrath of God Descends (Underground Zealot)
Jerry B. Jenkins
Manufacturer: Tyndale House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0842384103

Book Description

Enter the continuing story of double agent Paul Stepola as he works to protect his fellow believers from the government that is trying to eliminate Christians. The underground church is in mortal peril following the apocalyptic events in Los Angeles, which have only cast further suspicion upon Christians. Meanwhile, Paul struggles with how to tell his family about his newfound faith without raising the suspicions of his ruthless father-in-law. A gripping, futuristic thriller that will keep you glued to the page.

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Customer Reviews:

First in a winning series of three.......2007-05-14

Mr. Jenkins has taken a topic that is current and turned it into a "What if" series making you think about the current state of affairs between Religion and politics. The characters are interesting, and the topic hits home.

Great cliff hanger.......2006-07-26

Silenced continued where Soon left off. It immediately pulled me back into the story. The ending was done in great cliff hanging style and I was pleased that I had already purchased the next and last book in this series. Aside from the fictional plot, the storyline gives way to self examination and evaluation.

Enjoyable Reading!.......2006-03-06

I loved this book! The suspense was great and the willingness to portray God as a prayer answering God is just worthy to be praised. He really does hear and answer prayer and this book is one of those rare reminders that sometimes we ask for BIG stuff and because He's able to, He ANSWERS us!

That same amazing style.......2006-01-28

For me, Tim LaHaye provided the research, but Jerry Jenkins really put heart into the left behind series. Any doubt that I had was erased with Soon and,especially Silenced. His same amazing literary voice is loud and clear in this book, and I had a really tough time choosing between The Regime and Shadowed, but I'm buying the Regime in the next 2 weeks anyway.

Soon and Silenced.......2005-09-27

This is a new series by Jerry Jenkins. If you like the Left Behind series you will enjoy this equally as well.

Average customer rating:

2355 is not far away. It's all about to hit the fan.
Tiresome
Nw avenues in plot and writing
One of the better novels of the Company series
This should have been short stories rather than being a novel

The Machine's Child (The Company)
Kage Baker
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0765315513
Release Date: 2006-09-19

Book Description

Kage Baker's trademark series of SF adventure continues now in a direct sequel to The Life of the World to Come. Mendoza was banishednbsp;long ago, to a prison lost in time where rebellious immortals are "dealt with." Now her past lovers: Alec, Nicholas, and Bell-Fairfax,nbsp;are determined to rescue her, but first they must learn how to live together, because all three happen to be sharing Alec's body. What they find when they discover Mendoza is even worse than what they could imagined, and enough for them to decide to finally fight back against the Company.

Customer Reviews:

2355 is not far away. It's all about to hit the fan........2007-05-25

In this, the next to the last of the novels of the Company, Baker brings us closer to the end, the year 2355, after which the record of history given to the cyborgs ends. This has always been a source of concern for the immortals. Will the company try to kill them all? Do they revolt against their masters? What happens?

We are given a few clues. Several forces are in motion.

Enforcer Budu and Facilitator Joseph. Budu is angry about the `retirement' of the ancient enforcers. What is he planning? After lying in a vat for years and years, he is back in action and his `son', Joseph, who is acting rather oddly, is supporting him.

Alec (plus two other personalities), the Captain, and Mendoza. Their plans are pretty clear but complications and uncertainties regarding the Captain and Edward are getting in the way.

Labienius. Oddly quiet in this story. But he is still out there and has been planning for millennia.

Executive Facilitator Suleyman has his operatives in action.

What is Alpha-Omega?

It's been 10 years since the 1st book in this series arrived. And, although it's been a good ride, I'm glad we are reaching the end. We are not immortal, after all.

If you have not read preceding novels in this series, do NOT start here but go to the beginning, In The Garden of Iden.

Tiresome.......2007-03-30

This book is little more than an interlocutory novel before the final book. Alec saves Mendoza, some startling revelations, but after that it goes nowhere, whilst all the bickerings between Alec-Edward-Nicholas gets really annoying and pointless, till mercifully the book ends. Waiting for the final volume.

Nw avenues in plot and writing.......2007-03-08

I had just completed "Gods and Pawns", a really remarkable book of short stories and novelettes. It is true that this could have been presented as a series of short stories but I think Ms Baker had another plan. She was trying, with all the jumping around in time, to sharpen the focus tighter and tighter toward the eventual ending. (I wish the series could go on forever and it just might if Dr Zeus would ever land in OUR time and give Ms. Baker all those little doohickies making her immortal.)

Although it was slightly confusing at first, the idea of the three Alecs (or Edwards or Nichlases) working together in the same body was brilliant. Nothing could match, though, the rebirth of my favorite gal pal, Mendoza, and her rapturous love for her Trinity love. The action was fast and furious and the revelations came from all directions as the fatefull year in which history ends approaches - Joseph figured prominently, rescuing his "Father" Budu, trying to rescue Mendoza from Alec in what was a case of plain old mortal jealousy, running around behind the Company's back. Joseph and Alec are unaware that each of them are fighting Dr Zeus. All the while Alec is furtively making plans for the future while Mendoza sends them to times unknown with each wild bout of lovemaking. And what about the lonely and arguably insane David trapped in the far past?

Sensual, bitter, humorous, informative - all the hallmarks of another fantastic entry from the incomparable Ms. Baker.

One of the better novels of the Company series.......2007-03-03

I have read all the company novels and short stories. This book, along with "The Life of the World to Come" and the "Graveyard Game" are my favorites. Although the novel does not resolve anything, the writing style, settings and dialogue make you overlook this fact. I am certain that the final novel coming out in July will answer all our questions. I do agree with other reviewers that Mendoza as a sex-starved, clingy girlfriend is a bit hard to swallow after following her in the previous novels. However this will change in the final novel I am sure..

This should have been short stories rather than being a novel.......2007-02-04

I've been reading this series since day 1, and of course we all are anxious to find out what happens next. But this book won't tell you.

First, let me say that if you haven't read the rest of the series, this book would be totally incomprehensible; if the title popped up on your recommended list or you saw it and thought it looked interesting, but you haven't read the previous books, you would find it a complete jumble with unexplained characters, and the plot would have no detectable beginning or end. That said, if you are someone who HAS been following the series, you would still find it almost that jumbled!

I finally decided, after a few chapters, to regard this as a set of short stories that happen to be interleaved; that way, I could read and enjoy some of the brilliant scenes, and the humor, without being annoyed at the way some characters have changed personality, and without being annoyed at the way we don't actually reach the end.

Some of the things I did like about this volume:
*Joseph's enjoyment of being a Rogue Cyborg (which he thinks of complete with those capital letters).
*The very strange David Reed, and his very strange office.
*The scene where Nicolas breaks into Latin, at seeing Mendoza; as someone old enough to remember when Catholic prayers were in Latin, I recognized what he was saying, and I will tell you that if you try to translate it merely as words, you won't get the full emotional impact of that scene. What he is saying is an extremely well-known and powerful prayer usually addressed to the Virgin Mary.
*Suleyman and Latif, who at this point seem to be the only cyborgs still working for the good of humanity (that's not giving away much, since if you read the previous couple of volumes you already know that.)

Some of the things that I didn't like one bit:
*Mendoza as a besotted idiot.
*The improbable, difficult-to-accept-even-with-suspension-of-disbelief, threefold nature of Alec's personality with Nicolas and Edward; I didn't like the way this was shaping up when it first appeared, two books ago, and I like it even less now.
*The way the ending leaves us nowhere, pretty much where we were at the beginning, like watching Wagner's Ring Cycle for 20 hours only to find ourselves back in the River Rhine with a lump of gold. We jump back and forth in time, we get up to 2352, but we're actually no closer to 2355 than we were at the end of the plot in the previous book. Far too much is left unresolved.

In short: if you're following the series, you sorta have to read this one - but read it in small doses, and be prepared for being left unsatisfied. Enjoy the humor where it occurs, and then turn your brain off the book until there's another one, 'cause there's no particular food for thought here.

Faculty Productivity: Facts, Fictions and Issues (Garland Reference Library of Social Science)

Average customer rating:

Faculty Productivity: Facts, Fictions and Issues (Garland Reference Library of Social Science)
W. Tierney
Manufacturer: RoutledgeFalmer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0815332203

Book Description

Academic life at the beginning of the 21st century will bring changes to the role of the professorate, how they are rewarded and what their responsibilities are. This book focuses on key topics that pertain to the reform of faculty work. Its goal is not to provide a single solution, but to offer disparate opinions on the nature of faculty work and inform the reader regarding the extent and diversity of this issue.

Running from the Deity: A Pip & Flinx Adventure (Adventures of Pip and Flinx)

Average customer rating:

A diversion but a good read
Pip and Flinx
ADF does it again!
Failed to advance the story
Barely worth reading...

Running from the Deity: A Pip & Flinx Adventure (Adventures of Pip and Flinx)
Alan Dean Foster
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0345461592
Release Date: 2005-10-25

Book Description

From science fiction legend Alan Dean Foster comes a thrilling new Pip and Flinx adventure, wherein a certain red-haired, green-eyed young man blessed (or cursed) with strange powers finds himself and his mini-dragon sidekick on a top-secret mission concerning deep space, alien worlds . . . and a primordial horror intent on devouring all of it.

In the outer depths of the universe lies the Great Emptiness, where something dreadful lurks, hidden behind a great gravitational lens of dark matter. Something horrific that howls and writhes and rages across three hundred million light-years of space–and is now heading straight for the Commonwealth and moving faster all the time.

One slim chance exists to avert catastrophe, and only Flinx can take it. Roaming the galaxy is a conscious planet-size weapons system, the legacy of a long-extinct race. As Flinx is the only one who has ever experienced mental contact with the machine, it is his job to find the powerful alien artifact and coax it into joining the battle against the behemoth from beyond.

So Pip and Flinx valiantly sail into the unknown aboard their little spaceship, which is immediately forced down for emergency repairs on planet Arrawd, home to less advanced sentients and therefore off-limits to space travelers. But what with Arrawd being very beautiful, and Flinx being Flinx, this particular rule doesn’t stand a chance.

Now, Flinx is no stranger to murderous attacks and stalking assassins–evading them occupies most of his waking hours–but to be besieged by hordes bent on worshipping him as a god? Worse still, escaping this fate is going to be as impossible as fulfilling his dire mission. What’s a deity to do?

Customer Reviews:

A diversion but a good read.......2007-09-19

While RUNNING FROM THE DEITY may diverge from the central story line of the series, it does add more depth to the universe of Flinx. As in BLOODHYPE, which I came to enjoy due to the way Flinx is introduced and has somewhat limited "screen time", RFTD is another view into Flinx's life away from trying to save us all. Remember: These are the "adventures" of Flinx and Pip and as the adventure continues so does Flinx's maturation.

Pip and Flinx.......2007-06-08

Whenever I read a Pip and Flinx book, I have such fun I hope A.D. Foster had half of much fun writing it. If you're looking for something profound, find something else. This is escapism and just plain enjoyable.
Claudene

ADF does it again!.......2007-01-09

Mr. Foster has a great style in writing which is both accessible to the new reader and entertaining for the veteran. In this latest installment we were not disappointed.
The story takes Pip and Flinx on another side road from the main "save the universe" stroyline. The Aann are a race which brook no humor or mery, or is this truly the case. Every group (race) has their rebels. Flinx discovers what (cultural) rebels do in the context of the Aann race. I found this to be a refreshing study of one of the major racial players in the ADF universe.
The disappointment was small in this installment: I wished we had seen more of the action we saw in the Tar-Aiym Krang (arguably the best of the series). However, there is plenty of intrigue and excitement to go around.
It will be great to see Pip & Flinx meet back up with Bran Tse Mallory and Truzenzuzex...

Failed to advance the story.......2006-07-25

I reviewed this when it first came out and it looks like my review and some others I recall were "lost". This story stunk. I love this series but the last several installments were very lame. Save your money until he gets back to telling the story we all fell in love with. Tell me about the galactic threat, his growing abilities, his sometime girlfriend...come on man.

Barely worth reading..........2006-06-23

This book and the one that preceeded it 'Sliding Scales' appear to be nothing but filler in the Pip & Flinx story arc. They add next to nothing to the story we've been reading for a couple decades now. When I saw them sitting next to each other on the library shelf I was beside myself with glee, new Flinx! Sad to say I was sorely disapponted by what I got. Mr. Foster's writing style has changed in just the last couple years, the humor, the characters to care about, the continuing story line that started in Tar-Ayim all seem to have been lost. I read the book, I didn't really enjoy it. On with the story, Mr. Foster! Enough filler and books that go nowhere!

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Somebody Get This Book Some Ritalin (tm)
Another Company title
Wandering Aimlessly
Savour it slowly
look at Baker's Amazing review of "Intolerance"

Mendoza in Hollywood (The Company)
Kage Baker
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0765315300
Release Date: 2006-05-02

Amazon.com

Ah, pity poor Mendoza. She's a botanist stuck in dusty southern California in 1862, with a broken heart, bizarre companions, lousy food (frijoles and steak again, anyone?), and no plants to study. On top of all that, she's immortal--a cyborg created and maintained by Dr. Zeus, also known as the Company. From its 24th-century headquarters, the Company sends orders back in time to Mendoza and her fellow cyborgs, who collect stuff from the past and send it ahead through time machines for inscrutable uses. But things go from bad to worse for our heroine when drought and smallpox decimate the region, leaving her with nothing to do but pine for her three-centuries-lost mortal love, the martyred Nicholas Harpole. But what's this? Along comes a British agent--the spitting image of Nicholas--hell-bent on upsetting the Union in its hour of need. Mendoza must decide whether to help him in his plot to ensure British rule of the Americas, thereby directly disobeying her Company mandates. She finds herself in a weird race against time itself in this story of science fiction adventure, mystery, and comedy, with not a few reverential in-jokes about SoCal culture thrown in for good measure.

Kage Baker's style and wit make her novels among the best reads in science fiction today. Mendoza in Hollywood, the third book in the Company series (10 are planned) is simply delightful, with the focus back on dear, tragic Mendoza, and tantalizing hints of mysterious conspiracies aplenty. Lots of questions remain unanswered, but Baker weaves such a delicious tale, it's a pleasure to be teased. The series began with In the Garden of Iden and Sky Coyote. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

This is the third novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary SF, now back in print from Tor. In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of lifefor profit, of course. It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company, Dr. Zeus. One of these is Mendoza the botanist. The death of her lover has been followed by centuries of heartbreak. She spends a period of time in early twentieth-century Hollywood in the days of D. W. Griffith. Then Mendoza, in the midst of the Civil War, and runs into a man disturbingly similar to her lost love. She is about to find love again, and be in more trouble than she could ever have imagined.

Customer Reviews:

Somebody Get This Book Some Ritalin (tm).......2007-09-02

_____I could've sworn I wrote up a full and decent review of this bland blathering book some time ago... Well, whatever: With some minutes before dinner, I'll just recap my thoughts on this text. It truly was boring for one thing. For another thing, the book was tangental--always and again popping from one branching plot development to another. Top it all off with how this book reads more like an anthology with a short attention span, and it does not even qualify as a novel. Having MENDOZA IN HOLLYWOOD published as a novel is something like labeling oatmeal a sweet and putting it on the candy-store shelf: a deceptive thing to do.
_____The deception begins when we get to meet a truly awesome set of characters--awesome a great selection of ways. The main protatonists are cyborgs. Meaning, they have computer-enhanced brains with access to remote knowledge, have bodies endowed with super powers, and they are immortal. One would expect a mighty assemblage of immortal cyborgs to be put to some amazing and appropriate test of abilties. One would therefore expect rip-roaring science fiction. So you are led to believe, ladies and gentlemen, so you are led to believe...
_____OF COURSE YOU