Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

Book Description

A vibrant collection of essays on the cosmos from the nation's best-known astrophysicist.

Loyal readers of the monthly "Universe" essays in Natural History magazine have long recognized Neil deGrasse Tyson's talent for guiding them through the mysteries of the cosmos with stunning clarity and almost childlike enthusiasm. Here, Tyson compiles his favorite essays across a myriad of cosmic topics. The title essay introduces readers to the physics of black holes by explaining the gory details of what would happen to your body if you fell into one. "Holy Wars" examines the needless friction between science and religion in the context of historical conflicts. "The Search for Life in the Universe" explores astral life from the frontiers of astrobiology. And "Hollywood Nights" assails the movie industry's feeble efforts to get its night skies right.

Known for his ability to blend content, accessibility, and humor, Tyson is a natural teacher who simplifies some of the most complex concepts in astrophysics while simultaneously sharing his infectious excitement about our universe.

Customer Reviews:

Educational and entertaining.......2007-10-02

I have long known Tyson to be an excellent speaker and purveyor of scientific ideas with a Saganesque ability to convey the excitement of scientific findings with a bit more hipness and swagger to his talks than Sagan. This book is an excellent read through and through. I couldn't beat the feeling as I sat on the roof of a 14 story building in Curitiba, Brazil watching the sunset alone on the summer solstice (their winter solstice) while reading the section on Stick-In-The-Mud-Science and watching the long shadows creep across the sky and have Tyson explain to me all the celestial happenings around me (this really happened). Quite a magical read. The author presents complex scientific ideas in short, readable, cohesively-themed articles. Each article is on a topic familiar to us, upon which he expands towards scientific ideas which may be unfamiliar to us. There is enough overlap in the independent sections that the read feels like one is being 'taught' rather than just reading information. And Tyson is first and foremost a great educator. Although I did find myself trying to remember something from a previous chapter and flipping back through, I feel like I have learned a great deal about astrophysics from a book that was downright entertaining.

An enjoyable read for those with an interest in science and astronomy.......2007-09-27

The qualities that make Neil deGrasse Tyson so annoying on Nova Science Now are absolute positives when it comes to the written word. He is an intelligent and entertaining writer with an uncanny ability to reduce complex scientific concepts to bite sized chunks even I could (mostly) understand.

Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.......2007-09-19

An astrophysicist for the American Museum of Natural History, director of the world famous Hayden Planetarium, and columnist for Natural History magazine, Neil DeGrasse Tyson brings to the non-scientific world the ideal book for those fascinated with space, the cosmos, black holes, and all the questions and wonders therein. Death by Black Hole is the perfect book for the reader who wants answers to questions about the universe in a simple and clearly defined way so that even if they know next to nothing about science and it's jargon, Tyson makes it easily understandable.

While I was hoping for something a little more in depth in the style of Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos or Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics, Death by Black Hole nevertheless provides quick and simple answers to many questions everyday readers without a science background have about physics, the universe, space, and most matters dealing with the cosmos. The book is a selection of his columns in Natural History that are organized in a somewhat textbook fashion. Tyson starts with the idea of science and nature in its basic form, how humanity views Earth, the solar system, the universe. Along with this discussion, Tyson also gives minor history lessons on the development of different ideas in physics and astronomy, what people came up with what big ideas and how the progression led to the development of the big theories of our current time with string theory and relativity. Going on from here, Death by Black Hole address the crucial steps that led to the formation of the universe and its development over the many billions and billions of years, again explaining how it is that scientists know what they do and what instruments were used, as well as the history of who invented and used said instruments.

It is then that Tyson finally turns to the subject matter of the title of the book in the section "When the Universe Turns Bad: All the Ways the Cosmos Wants to Kill Us." Here he addresses the complex and still relatively unknown subjects of chaos theory, dark matter (which constitutes over 90% of all matter in the universe, while we still know next to nothing about it), and finally black holes. Tyson takes the reader on a hypothetical journey with what would happen if one were to be sucked into a black hole and how as they approached the event horizon, they would become stretched until the elasticity point of their skin was surpassed and the body would be torn into thousands then millions of little pieces.

With many questions now answered, in the next section Tyson discusses how science is viewed by the media, Hollywood, and people around the world in general. The final section addresses the concept of science and religion, again taking the reader on a historic journey through the development of first religion, then science, and the struggle that has ensued for centuries. It is the perfect end to a book on science, as Tyson lectures the importance of supporting fact and reality in a time when there are many who believe more in faith, even when all the evidence is to the contrary.

For more book reviews, and other writings, go to www.alexctelander.com

Conversational Cosmology 101 - Superb!.......2007-09-19

New York Planetarium director and astrophysicist Tyson has been writing a column for "Natural History" magazine for some 11 years - that makes about 132 short essays. Tyson says this monthly chore is "one of the most exhausting and exhilarating things I do." Forty-two of these essays appear in this volume, "mildly edited for continuity and to reflect emergent trends in science."

He divides these essays into seven sections:

1. THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE - The challenges of knowing what is knowable in the universe.
2. THE KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE - The challenges of discovering the contents of the cosmos.
3. WAYS AND MEANS OF NATURE - How nature presents herself to the inquiring mind.
4. THE MEANING OF LIFE - The challenges and triumphs of knowing how we got here.
5. WHEN THE UNIVERSE TURNS BAD - All the ways the cosmos wants to kill us.
6. SCIENCE AND CULTURE - The ruffled interface between cosmic discovery and the public's reaction to it.
7. SCIENCE AND GOD - When ways of knowing collide.

"Natural History" is the same magazine Stephen J. Gould wrote 300 essays for, overlapping with Tyson for seven years. In both cases, the authors excelled in making their respective fields (evolutionary biology and cosmology) easily readable for the general public, adding to their already impressive credentials.

From page 33: "This universality of physical laws tells us that if we land on another planet with a thriving alien civilization, they will be running on the same laws that we have discovered and tested here on Earth - even if the aliens harbor different social and political beliefs. Furthermore, if you wanted to talk to the aliens, you can bet they don't speak English or French or even Mandarin Chinese. You don't even know whether shaking their hands - if indeed they have hands to shake - would be considered an act of war or of peace. Your best hope is to find a way to communicate using the language of science."

The format provides for benign redundancy as the Big Bang, formation of galaxies, creation of the chemicals in the periodic chart, and predictable physics versus chaos of interactions are looked at over and over from differing perspectives. This book is highly entertaining and I recommend it for anyone who wants to buff up their knowledge of astronomy (cosmology, astrophysics...) or for the confirmed science nut like me. First rate!

Heavy & light reading all in one.......2007-09-14

Anything by this author is worth reading. I like the way he starts off explaining things in a very simple way and winds up getting deep into the end result. "A professional con job with very educational results".

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

Average customer rating:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers
Pants on fire?
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
Very Interesting
History as Science Fiction

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies

ASIN: 2913621058

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.

Average customer rating:

Well worth the wait ! ! ! ! !
Very good
A Masterpiece Sequel To The Pillars Of The Earth!

World Without End
Ken Follett
Manufacturer: Dutton Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Pillars of the Earth
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ASIN: 0525950079
Release Date: 2007-10-09

Book Description

Ken Follett has 90 million readers worldwide. The Pillars of the Earth is his bestselling book of all time. Now, eighteen years after the publication of The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett has written the most-anticipated sequel of the year—World Without End.

In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmed—“it will hold you, fascinate you, surround you” (Chicago Tribune)—and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel.

World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas— about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race—the Black Death.

Three years in the writing, and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End breathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.

Customer Reviews:

Well worth the wait ! ! ! ! ! .......2007-10-10

I am a big fan of Ken Follett, and admire that he moves in a seemingly effortless manner between genres. However, his best work is found in the "great historical novel", and he has delivered handsomely with this latest effort.

This is being touted as a sequel to "The Pillars of the Earth" which is true enough, but it is also a little misleading, as it is set 200 years after the tales told in that magnificent novel, and as such can definitely be read as a stand alone novel.

Knowledge of this wonderful earlier work will be helpful, as there is reference to characters from that time and being familiar with their adventures certainly gives you some insight into what is happening at the time, but if you are new to Follett's work, please don't let this put you off. He mentions enough of the earlier characters (without being boring to those readers who know the book SO well)for any new reader to have an idea of what has happened before.

The tale seems simple enough - 4 very different young people witness a fight in the forrest which leads to death and the hiding of a great secret, and this reverberates through their lives for years to come. What is not simple enough is the detail that goes in to these character's lives - they are all wonderful in their own different ways, and we can all feel that we can see the world they live in, taste their food, smell the odours of their environment and rejoice and mourn as they do.

Follett is also the master of understanding how humans think; how they plot and scheme, and how the whims of fate can change a life that seems completely planned and organised. And all of this in a magnificent medieval setting with court intrigue, pious devotion, illness and the whims of nature! What more could you want?

If you like a good hefty historical novel with a great plot, detailed environment and well drawn and very engaging characters, you will NOT be disappointed. It is wonderful and I recommend it highly.

Very good.......2007-10-09

I am a big fan of Ken Follett's work, but know that most authors have occasional "duds", and at over 1000 pages (the British version I bought), I was concerned this would be a bloated, rambling disappointment. I also loved "Pillars of the Earth" when I read it many years ago but had forgotten all but being fascinated by learning cathedral construction techniques, so I was hesitant to read a "sequel" in case this book was dependent on remembering the first one. Still, because I read that this was a well researched and competent book, I decided to take a chance on it.

I am happy to report that my concerns were unfounded. The book is long, but it has a lot going on and is not at all bloated. There are several stories being told, but they all interweave and the elimination of one would be a loss. Although it is set in the same location and refers back to some of the original characters, reading or remembering "Pillars" is not required. I enjoy learning about the construction and medical theories of the day and wish this aspect had been further expanded, but if a reader does not, there is not so much of it that it would be detrimental.

All in all, if you like historical fiction with plenty of death, love and destruction, this book is highly recommended. The length of the book will dissuade some from trying it, but those who have longer attention spans will not be disappointed.

A Masterpiece Sequel To The Pillars Of The Earth!.......2007-10-09

The Pillars of the Earth has been one of my all-time favorite books, and so I was a little skeptical about how good its sequel could be. My concern was totally unnecessary. World Without End, which takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge almost 200 years later and has the cathedral as its backdrop, is an excellent book and I expect that in time it will also be considered to be a masterpiece. Not having read The Pillars of the Earth will not deter you in any way from enjoying World Without End, as other than the common thread mentioned above, it reads like a stand-alone. Follet 'packs it all' in this 992 page book -- love, greed, pride, ambition and revenge. Do yourself a favor and be one of the first on line to get yourself a copy of this very entertaining and memorable book. But be aware that your enjoyment won't come cheap -- the retail price of World Without End is $35. I think you'll find, however, that it is worth every penny.

Average customer rating:

Ten stars
Narrated by Anthony Heald, an actor best known for his role in "The Silence of the Lambs"
Serfs and Aliens
A mashup ambitious in scope but disappointing in execution
Tedious though haunting.

Eifelheim
Michael Flynn
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0765300966
Release Date: 2006-10-17

Book Description

In 1349, one small town in Germany disappeared and has never been resettled. Tom, a contemporary historian, and his theoretical physicist girlfriend Sharon, become interested. Tom indeed becomes obsessed. By all logic, the town should have survived, but it didn't and that violates everything Tom knows about history. What's was special about Eifelheim that it utterly disappeared more than 600 years ago? Father Deitrich is the village priest of Oberhochwald, the village that will soon gain the name of Teufelheim, in later years corrupted to Eifelheim, in the year 1348, when the Black Death is gathering strength across Europe but is still not nearby. Deitrich is an educated man, knows science and philosophy, and to his astonishment becomes the first contact between humanity and an alien race from a distant star when their interstellar ship crashes in the nearby forest. It is a time of wonders, in the shadow of the plague.Tom and Sharon, and Father Deitrich, have a strange and intertwined destiny of tragedy and triumph in this brilliant SF novel by the winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award.

Customer Reviews:

Ten stars.......2007-09-19

This is an amazing book that deserves to be in the top ten of the Best Sellers. The story is fascinating, original, and told with accuracy of detail.
It has two time periods, the present with Tom and Sharon, who is a physicist studying the possible variability of the speed of light. The discussions will bend your mind. Tom is a cliologist, an archeologist of sorts who studies time periods. He has a mystery on this hands - why a German village of 1348 called Eifelheim is referred to as cursed by the devil and though long abandoned, has never been resettled after centuries. A research librarian named Judy helps him, pointing out that the village was originally called Oberhockwald. Most of the story takes place there and is told with exacting authenticity. The central event of the book is the arrival of aliens. They have somewhat of the appearance of large grasshoppers but they are entirely intelligent and more advanced than the locals. At first taken to be demons, the parish priest investigates and by a device is able to talk to them. The discussions that ensue are fascinating, especially those about religion and astronomy. The portrait of medieval life is authentic and moving - especially when the Black Death, the Pest, they call it, moves ever closer and finally enters the village. The conclusion is profound and the only one possible. Do not miss this incredible book.

Narrated by Anthony Heald, an actor best known for his role in "The Silence of the Lambs".......2007-09-03

Nominated for a Hugo award, Eifelheim is a science fiction audiobook by award-winning author Anthony Heald. As a pair of present-day scientists research the mystery of the disappearance of a small town in Germany in 1349 - just as the Black Death was raging. They uncover clues to what Father Deitrich, a priest of the 1300's village that would one day be called Eifelheim, discovered when an interstellar ship crashed in the forest near his home city. A vivid story of first contact between an advanced civilization and the people of a much more limited era, weaving tragedy, humanity, hope and despair into a tautly created epic. Narrated by Anthony Heald, an actor best known for his role in "The Silence of the Lambs", Eifelheim is a science fiction masterpiece and enthusiastically recommended. 14 CDs, 17 1/2 hours, tracks every three minutes for easy bookmarking.

Serfs and Aliens.......2007-08-16

A pastor in a medieval village; lost alien space travelers; modern day scientists exploring history and the cosmos. They sound like an interesting mix.

Eifelheim is the parallel stories of a fourteenth century medieval village and of a modern historian trying to explain what happened that caused the disappearance of that medieval village. The fourteenth century story is the main focus, recounting what happens when space aliens crash near the village, as told from the point of view of the intellectual and emotionally troubled pastor of the local church, who is an escapee from the more sophisticated world of the university. The story examines not just medieval life, but how humans react upon contact with outsiders who differ not only in the way they look and communicate, but also in their social structure. The contrast between humans and aliens, as well as between the simple village folks and their more sophisticated pastor illuminates human nature. Even though fiction, the historical gloss provides us with insights into the lives of our forbearers, including some of the horrors of living in the time period, as well as the rigidity and ambiguity of the era.

Unfortunately, although the medieval lives are examined carefully, and the groundwork is laid for character development, I was never able to develop empathy for these characters, so that I felt like I was reading a well written history book. This may have been due to the character of the pastor who is far more intellectual than emotional. The occasional surprise revelation about the aliens momentarily enlivened the proceedings. But readers familiar with common life in the Middle Ages are unlikely to be surprised by the human activity.

The wrap-around story of the modern people, which might be expected to illuminate the medieval story by contrast, failed to add anything to our understanding except to suggest to us that something mysterious was coming. Yet the scientists, who are lovers, are so absorbed in their work that they have little time for each other. It's obvious from the start that their separate research, so apparently different (one's a historian, the other a physicist), will eventually come together. The author tells us that the modern story was an effort to expand on an earlier novella by the author but it did not seem worth the effort.

The author writes well, although at first I was put off a bit by the fact that he tried to follow the cadences and sentence structure of the old German which the medieval folks were presumably speaking. Eventually I found this device added to the feeling of reading about a time long since past. On the other hand, the technique of lapsing into lyrical description of the landscape just before jarring us with a revelation soon began to telegraph events.

Finally, I was disappointed that the great mystery which starts the historian on his quest was never fully resolved.

A mashup ambitious in scope but disappointing in execution.......2007-08-14

Aliens visit a medieval German village? Sci-fi meets historical fiction, my two favorite genres? How could I pass this one up?

Unfortunately, mashing together two completely different books works better in theory than in execution. It's like the time on 'Friends' when Rachel made the trifle - you know, lady fingers, yum, shepherd's pie, yum, together? Gag. "Eifelheim" isn't exactly bad, but it's not really very good, either.

The action is intercut between the present, during which passive-turning-aggressive couple Tom (historian) and Sharon (physicist) complain and aggravate each other over the frustrations in their respective research fields, only to discover that they each hold the key to solving the other's problems (and let's hear a cheer for having the hard-scientist in the couple be the woman, for once!), and the fourteenth century, where the priest of a small German village finds his faith tested by the arrival of strange beings from beyond the stars. The 'now' portions of the book constitute only about a fifth, with the remaining 80% focusing on the drama taking place in Oberhochwald, which will eventually be abandoned and renamed "Teufelheim," or "Devil's Home," before being corrupted into the titular "Eifelheim."

The aliens themselves remain enigmatic throughout; we learn very little about them or where they come from. That's partly because, with the exception of Father Dietrich, few of the villagers they come in contact with particularly care about where the aliens come from - besides Hell, of course. Most are convinced - and can you blame them? - that the aliens are demons, and the only controversy is whether they present a danger to the village, or a chance at salvation. This being the mid-1300s, history buffs know what comes next, and it ain't pretty. (Hint: It's black, and it's deadly.) Are the aliens to blame? Will they save themselves, or commit the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of their new friends? And is the plague the best literary inspiration ever, or what?

Some of the best parts set in Oberhochwald come in the bizarre, lost-in-translation conversations between Dietrich and the alien he names Hans. The alien tries to talk quantum physics, Dietrich can only understand and reply in the context of theology and natural science - and many of their conversations make a weird, trippy, mind-blowing kind of sense. At other times, you can sense the huge wall that stands between these two - the aliens have little concept of metaphor, and that's pretty much all Dietrich has to work with, which makes a far greater bar to mutual understanding than the discrepancies between their respective technological sophistication.

Flynn does a great job giving us a feel for life in medieval Germany; unfortunately it's often at the expense of story and character. The less said about Tom and Sharon, the modern couple, the better. These two haven't gotten around to realizing they can't stand each other, and the great revelation of their supposed collaboration comes more through mutual nagging than anything else. Moreover, parts of their story felt remarkably incomplete. For instance, the narrator, who is apparently a friend of theirs but about whom we learn next to nothing. Flynn never manages to give us a convincing explanation of Sharon's "Nagy Space" which supposedly makes interstellar travel possible; meanwhile Tom's purported research skills are so inept it's laughable (although it does provide an excuse for a shout-out to every historian's best friend, the research librarian).

"Eifelheim" is wildly uneven, and not just because of its two vastly different genres. It teeters back and forth between engaging and tedious, complex and incomprehensible. It's one of those books you like when you're finished, but which can be a chore to actually read.

Tedious though haunting........2007-08-06

I was thinking as I plodded through this that it should have been a short story or a novella and when I got to the end I read that it was a novella from 1986. The novel is too long. Bits of 14th century history are haphazardly woven into the story making for an overly long narration that has nothing to do with the story line, giving the impression of a lot of research done but too many facts jumbled together with no cohesion or depth. It's not the esoteric, stiff narration that I refer to here which is sometimes difficult to get through, since it's probably somewhat necessary to portray the time period--even the aliens begin to speak this way as they learn the language! Here and there there are moments of clarity and focus, such as at the end when The Plague reaches the town. The aliens themselves are shadowy and undeveloped and are simply worked into the 14th century narration. I wondered if the author was trying to show how something so eventful as aliens landing on earth may go unnoticed in a small 14th century town during a time when belief in mythological creatures and demons was strong and then how they disappear into history but for a few hints that might be teased out by a historian if he happened to notice something unusual about the area. Hints of Eco's The Name of the Rose here and there, but not as interesting.

The narration switches back and forth between 1348-1349 and the present but there's one short chapter for the present to 3 or 4 long chapters for 1348-1349. None of the characters are developed well and remain out of reach. There's some excitement when our present day character, Tom, researches the town, Eifelheim, that reminded me of Katherine Neville's The Eight, but since there's very little of it, it's not sustained, though it's picked up again at the end, but again, is too short.

I do love the haunting feeling of a mysterious secret in a small village lost in time and somewhat rediscovered that the story has left me with...

Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death

Average customer rating:

Eco-Imperialism Will Enrage You
Greenpeace: The Eco-Barbarians at the Gates
Dont believe the hype (of this book that is...)
Mixes truth with falsehoods
Useful account of environmental movement

Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death
Paul Driessen
Manufacturer: Merril Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)
The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media
Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy

ASIN: 0939571234

Book Description

Reveals a dark secret of the ideological environmental movement. The movement imposes the views of mostly wealthy, comfortable Americans and Europeans on mostly poor, desperate Africans, Asians and Latin Americans. It violates these people's most basic human rights, denying them economic opportunities, the chance for better lives, the right to rid their countries of diseases that were vanquished long ago in Europe and the United States.

Customer Reviews:

Eco-Imperialism Will Enrage You.......2007-04-05

Paul Driessen convincingly argues that eco-imperialism is responsible for the widespread hunger and deaths of millions. The world's poor truly pay the ultimate price tag for their nonsense. Malaria should be a minor problem. The disgraceful banning of DDT alone results in countless deaths. Eco-imperialists normally live extravagantly and it is very fair to describe them as hypocrites. One has every moral right to demand that they wear hair shirts and eat uncooked grass. There is one thing, however, that Driessen should have stressed. He overlooked the sad fact that most people are self centered and really don't care about Third World poverty. Driessen needs to remind them that the extremist also hurt them. We all pay a steep financial price tag. Our own lifestyles are negatively impacted.

The author even takes to task a number of large corporations who have jumped onto this bandwagon. They do so, if for no other reason, then to earn billions of dollars from their investments in so-called green technologies. This is why they often seem so willing to partner with those dedicated to destroying capitalism. Driessen points out that the environmental crazies have no problem with funding. The big bucks only go to causes such as global warming hysteria. Government bureaucracies and the larger non-profits have often been captured by left-wing ideologues. They dictate policy and punish those daring to oppose them. I strongly encourage you to read Eco-Imperialism. You might even want to purchase copies for your friends and relatives.

Greenpeace: The Eco-Barbarians at the Gates.......2007-02-25

Rabid environmentalists have blood on their hands.

Through their quasi-religious promotion of theoretical eco-catastrophes, they have forced a virulent agenda that has resulted in the deaths of millions of people in poor, developing nations. Forced to follow the unquestioned shibboleths of "sustainability" and "social responsibility", poor nations (notably in Africa) are prevented from developing infrastructure that the first world enjoys and indeed seems to take for granted - instead, inefficient power sources like wind and solar are promoted, food imports are regulated and even banned, and ultimately, people are prevented from rising out of poverty. Note: even in the developed world, solar and wind power account for less than 1% of the total energy produced. Access to cheap electricity and clean water are crucial steps in development. Without it, these developing nations will remain forever mired in this tragic cycle of poverty. Preventing access to coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric power - the very foundation of the first world's energy infrastructure - is pure hypocrisy.

What is most disturbing is that people (read: environmental organizations) with NO STAKE in these developing nations are actually dictating policy. We have no business telling people in other nations how they can develop, especially when our intervention only makes their lot in life worse. The banning of DDT, the prevention of imported GM crops, as well as the ridiculous obsession with wind and solar power, have only resulted in more disease, starvation, and death. Folks, this is misanthropy cloaked in the clever disguise of magnanimity. Is it any surprise, then, that Greenpeace's own founder abandoned the organization because it had become so politically shrill and unreasonable? Greenpeace's loss of perspective is exactly what happens when you have large groups of people with strong feelings but weak minds, and a very limited cultural and historical frame of reference. Their practice of GM crop slashing, vandalism, and other forms of hooliganism makes them fundamentally no different than barbarians.

My hope is that future environmentalists will have a more rational and humanistic approach to solving the world's problems. As it stands now, the environmentalist movement, for the most part, is fundamentally misanthropic. They are more concerned about the theoretical effects of global warming and other prefabricated bogeymen than the very real suffering that is occurring around them right now. Their ideology interferes with their analytical skills and ability to discern the likely consequences of their policies.

This is a very short but excellent book. If you are grounded in reality, many of the facts presented here may upset you deeply. I recommend it wholeheartedly, however, because it fully exposes the misguided and immoral nature of many of these eco-organizations.

"The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality, and humanity."

- Patrick Moore, Greenpeace founder

"Why do Europe's developed countries impose their environmental ethics on poor countries that are simply trying to pass through a stage they themselves went through?"

- James Shikwati, director of Kenya's Inter-Regional Economic Network

"Developing countries need to be free to make their own decisions about how to improve their people's lives."

- CS Prakash, professor, Tuskegee University

Dont believe the hype (of this book that is...).......2006-09-08

Firstly, i want to make clear that i have a degree in geography and am very familiar with the topics 'discussed' in this book. Paul Driessen is obviously well-educated and knows how to write, therefore it must be assumed that he has purposefully neglected the facts in order to contrive an argument that will appeal only to people with no prior knowledge of the topic...

For example,

He advocates the continued use of fossil fuels by declaring that there is no proof carbon emmisions are responsible for climate change. Regardless of climate change, the excessive air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels is indeed responsible for chronic respirotory illnesses worldwide (inc in the third world), and also catastrophic 'acid rain'...

This one example is indicative of basically every chapter in this book (this is why it was published by a small company and wasn't found in my university library). Without prior knowledge of the subject, one could easily be led astray.

As a geographer i found this book interesting. However, its profound inadequacies serve only to strengthen the integrity of the environmental movement.

I do fear though, that too many people have believed the rhetoric they have digested in this very short book with a catchy cover and title.

Mixes truth with falsehoods.......2006-07-17

Paul Driessen, the author of this book, is a PR specialist who works for two business lobbyist think tanks, Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. The purpose of organizations such as these is to spread right-wing and anti-environmentalist propaganda. As such, the message of this book should be taken with a grain of salt. One reviewer said that if DDT was used widely malaria would be wiped out. Well, the pesticide companies want you to believe that, but biologists have found out that mosquitoes quickly develop resistance to it, making that statement untrue.

Like most pro-business PR, it mixes scientific and economic facts with falsehood. The purpose is to make environmentalists who get in the way of their profits look like monsters, apparently this book has succeeded.

Useful account of environmental movement.......2004-11-23

The issue of global warming is scaremongering, a massive red herring to make workers take their eyes off the tasks facing us - stopping deindustrialisation, unemployment, the destruction of our services, the European Union's destruction of our nation Britain. Scare stories about global warming, melting ice caps and glaciers, intensifying storms and droughts, a `Day After Tomorrow'-style ice age, overpopulation, mass extinctions, imminent famines, nuclear proliferation and energy shortages are grounded not in reason but in false science and a fear of progress. They are kin to medieval fears of apocalypse. We need to denounce the doom-mongers who portray us as helpless victims, at the mercy of events beyond our control as a nation.
The facts are that Antarctica has been cooling and its glaciers thickening for the past 30 years. Global fertility rates are falling dramatically, and with advanced technology, farmers are producing more food using fewer resources than ever before. Environmental pollution accounts for at most 2% of all cancer cases versus 30% caused by tobacco use. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world's forests covered 40.24 million square kilometres in 1950, and 43.04 million in 1994. 80% of the world's original rainforest is still intact. Sea levels in the region of the Pacific around the island nation of Tuvalu have been falling.
Some see all problems as supranational, requiring supranational solutions, worldwide action through intrusive international agreements like Kyoto, with cartoon cries to `save the world' through pre-emptive actions. They revive the anarchist slogan `No states, no borders' mirroring the capitalist agenda of `globalisation'.
Human innovation is the ultimate resource. Workers are wonderfully creative. The Greens, with their contempt for productive forces, line up with the anti-industry parson Malthus against the pro-industry Marx. The working class cannot conduct its present policy on the basis of scares about a possible future ice age in 50,000 years.

In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made

Average customer rating:

Poor writing, poor research
Don't waste your money on buying this book
Where oh where was the editor?
A plague upon your book, sir!
A question

In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made
Norman Cantor
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060014342
Release Date: 2002-04-16

Amazon.com

One-third of Western Europe's population died between 1348 and 1350, victims of the Black Death. Noted medievalist Norman Cantor tells the story of the pandemic and its widespread effects in In the Wake of the Plague.

After giving an overview, Cantor describes various theories about the medical crisis, from contemporary fears of a Jewish conspiracy to poison the water (and the resulting atrocities against European Jews) to a growing belief among modern historians that both bubonic plague and anthrax caused the spiraling death rates. Cantor also details ways in which the Black Death changed history, at both the personal level (family lines dying out) and the political (the Plantagenet kings may well have been able to hold onto France had their resources not been so diminished).

Cantor veers from topic to topic, from dynastic worries to the Dance of Death, and from peasants' rights to Perpendicular Gothic. This makes for amusing reading, though those seeking an orderly narrative may be frustrated. He also seems overly concerned with rumors of homosexual behavior, and his attempt to link the savage method of Edward II's murder to a cooling in global weather is a bit farfetched.

Cantor wears his considerable scholarship lightly, but includes a very useful critical biography for further reading. While not an entry-level text on the Black Death, In the Wake of the Plague will interest readers looking for a broader interpretation of its consequences. --Sunny Delaney

Book Description

The Black Death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, takingmillion lives. And yet, most of what we know about it is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren -- the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the awful end by respiratory failure -- are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was and how it made history remain shrouded in a haze of myths.

Now, Norman Cantor, the premier historian of the Middle Ages, draws together the most recent scientific discoveries and groundbreaking historical research to pierce the mist and tell the story of the Black Death as a gripping, intimate narrative.

Customer Reviews:

Poor writing, poor research.......2007-10-05

This book is sufficiently weak to raise doubts in my mind about the rest of Cantor's work.

"In the Wake of the Plague" reads like an extended version of the class notes for a freshman course. Cantor rambles, offers "insights" that more nearly resemble anecdotes and lets slip his own biases (arguably bigotries) frequently.

Moreover, he routinely fails to offer context which might tend to undermine his own sweeping assertions.

All of the sources are secondary. There is no footnoting. The intended audience is clearly the general public. Fine. But don't show contempt for your readers by writing thinly supported meanderings like this.

Don't waste your money on buying this book .......2007-08-29

Norma Cantor may be the Emeritus Professor of History, Sociology and Comparative Literature at New York University, but he cannot write serious prose about a serious subject. His writing is infantile; it has numerous editorial errors, frequent repetitions and idiotic references (such as the Plague "threatened the stability and viability of civilization. It was as if a neutron bomb had been detonated". Plain crass.

Bottom Line: Don't waste your money on buying this book

Where oh where was the editor?.......2007-08-24

The book was a somewhat enjoyable read, but I think the unedited version must have gone to the printers. I thought perhaps that a high school student wrote this so poor was the writing / grammar. NYTimes Bestseller - well, people will buy anything.

I found the editorializing comments towards religious people of the time to be condescending and distracting.

A plague upon your book, sir!.......2007-06-12

Professor Cantor is supposed to be a gentleman of academic standing, and, one supposes, learning. That he wrote a book of such ridiculously infantile proportions is a disgrace both to him, and to the company that saw fit to publish it. Neither seems to have any respect for the reader whatsoever. I pass over the juvenile summarisation of the history of England's Plantagent Kings (although one wonders whether Prof. Cantor has ever bothered to read primary accounts of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket), the insulting references to medieval religious attitudes, and the allegedly humourous asides that would produce sycophantic laughter only from students who need a decent grade. What had this reader throwing the book across the room before being half way through it, and being glad I had only borrowed it from the library not actually given over any money for it, was the learned medivialist's assertion that the largest gothic church in the world is in New York City. Um, that would be a gothic-style church, or perhaps even neo-gothic, what with the whole point of the new world being that it wasn't medival europe...

A question.......2007-06-08

Is ther any actual proof that there are more Eurpoean people who are immune to the HIV virus (or the 'AIDS disease' as Cantor puts it), because their ancestors had natural immunity to, or (obviously) survived, the plague? Can plague, which is bacterial, have any baring on peoples' immunity to a virus? I've never heard this before? Presumably it's being posited as a reason Europe is not as badly afflicted as Asia and Africa?

Death Row: The Trilogy (Ellora's Cave Presents)

Average customer rating:

The best so far...
Pretty good story....occasional huge jumps in plot line
Death Row: The Trilogy
Erotic Futuristic Tale That Is Truly Out Of This World. Bravo, Ms. Black!
Jaid Black Delivers With This One

Death Row: The Trilogy (Ellora's Cave Presents)
Jaid Black
Manufacturer: Ellora's Cave
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1843606585

Customer Reviews:

The best so far..........2007-07-09

This book is the best that I have read so far....
Really hot steamy scenes...Jaid Black really knows what women's fantacies are about! It's a book that would make you want to read it again and again..
Great job Ms. Black...I'll be waiting for your next book..hopefully No Way Out : Jana's Story will be out soon.

Pretty good story....occasional huge jumps in plot line.......2006-10-05

The first two stories in the trilogy stayed pretty much on course. However the last story made some pretty large jumps in logic/plot line that did not quite make sense. I did enjoy the stories enough to continue reading other works by Black.

Death Row: The Trilogy.......2006-07-21

Kerrick Riley is a hardened man in the year2249. Imprisoned for fifteen years on death row, his time finally came to escape on the day he was to be executed. Kerrick has been biding his time and planning secretly for this moment since his incarceration. His plan succeeds and he takes with him his fellow inmates Elijah and Xavier and escape into the jungle. He finds himself in the facility where Dr. Nellie Kan works and once he sees her, he knows she belongs to him. Kerrick takes what he wants, and right now, he wants Nellie.

Dr. Nellie Kan lives in a world where women are sold to the highest bidder in marriage and are worth nothing. She has defied odds and has become a renowned scientist searching for a cure that will save mankind from the disease that's attacking their men and women. A disease that changes them into savage beasts. There is only one problem...someone doesn't want her to find that cure and will do anything to stop her. Nellie must escape and find the legendary underground location that she knows exists and find others that will help her.

Jaid Black is such a talented author and after reading Death Row: The Trilogy my opinion has not changed. This is a story filled with vengeance, violence and with unexpected love and understanding. Jaid Black drew me in from the first word and didn't let me go until the last word. She has a way with words that will have you seeing clearly what these savage beasts look like. There are juicy episodes that will get your heart pumping, however be aware that there are some violent scenes in this trilogy but it adds to the realism of this story. Death Row: The Trilogy will bring out every emotion into the surface. Prepare to enjoy yourself and beg for more. This reader recommends this story for those who are not of the faint of heart!

Idalmi
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Erotic Futuristic Tale That Is Truly Out Of This World. Bravo, Ms. Black!.......2006-07-15

In a world where women are not individuals, but the chattel of men that own them-- brand them. They are there for their owner's pleasure, subservient and dutiful. Welcome to the future!

It is the day of Kerick Riley's execution on Death Row, but he has outsmarted them, escaping after fifteen years of hell. He has planned for this day and he need answers, which he hopes to find.

Scientist Nellie Kan has been given something very important. It could hold the key to a cure for a horrible disease that is infectious, and is devastating to those left behind.

Nellie will be kidnapped by Kerick, as his possession--his prize. In a world were women are more precious than diamonds and gold.

DEATH ROW: TRILOGY is by authoress Jaid Black. This book is a combination of three of Ms. Black's stories, but if it were not for the titles telling this reviewer were each one started and stopped, she would not have known the different. They blended seamlessly.

Ms. Black is an erotic illusionist. Creating feelings and emotions that were not there until you read her written words. Her savvy crafting will transport you into the realm she summons, letting all your senses experience those of the characters. Giving you an immediate and binding connection to them as they journey through this futuristic tale of mastering, savage sexuality, emotional bonding, and the hope of mankind.

Nellie's life has not been an easy one, but she manages to not just become someone's wife, instead she becomes a scientist that could change the world around her, as she sees it. Helping to cure mankind of a dreaded disease.

Kerick is a hardened killer that goes by the name of the Grim Reaper. When he gets a glimpse of her when sneaking into her domain, the place she works and lives, he knows she will be his possession--his slave to his every desire. He will alter and twist Nellie's plans when he kidnaps her, but could he be her saving grace or be her destruction?

Do you want a futuristic read that every five seconds you will not have to stop to pronounce the words? How about one that keeps you in the dark until the author clues you in on the mysteries she has spun? Want to read sex scenes that will leave you more than hot around the collar? Then this reviewer has the book for you! DEATH ROW: TRILOGY by Jaid Black. It is only available through the number one publisher of romantica worldwide - Ellora's Cave.

A word of caution: there is one scene that is violently graphic--gory. If that kind of content bothers you, then this book may not be for you.

Reviewed by Janalee Ruschhaupt, 2006
Courtesy of Love Romances

Jaid Black Delivers With This One.......2006-01-17

Sci-fi elements, often scorching erotic scenes and a very interesting plot combine to create a superb read in the series "Death Row" by Jaid Black. The book is comprised of the first three novellas in the series (The fugitive, The Hunter and The Avenger), which I am assuming were originally published seperately via e-book format. Thank goodness readers can get the stories in this one volume because having to wait for each installment would have been plain torture.

Nellie Kan is a scientist in her home bioshpere, a rarity among women in in her time, where for the most part they are seen as mere sexual chattel to be mastered, basically enslaved by men. About thirty years ago, in a race to creat perfectly engineered children, free of diseases or even plain features, parents were choosing boys over girls. Genetics adjusted to this preference and for a long period of time, no females were born, resulting years later in a world that barely had enough females to help keep the human race going. Nellie is lucky enough to gain the patronage of an older scientist at the age of eighteen and by the age of thirty or so she is close to perfecting a serum to treat a deadly disease that plagues their race. Sub-humans run rampant in the jungles surrounding the protected biospheres, remnants of what used to be humans - humans that were experimented on. On the eve of her close discovery, Nellie runs into a mysterious stranger, Kerick Riley (an escaped convict from Kong) and she is later kidnapped by the man and taken as his wife. Desperate to finish the serum and help hundreds of infected people, Nellie must find a way to fulfill her destiny and make a relationship with Kerrick all while trying to stay alive. Someone wants her dead before she can find a cure to the sub-human dilemma.

This book never slows down from the moment it starts and there are several other subplots in addition to Nellie and Kerrick's. Several strong secondary characters come into play, adding a nice variety of personalities. Some may be turned off by the way women in general are treated, as I said before, literally as slaves to the men who capture/buy and claim them. This type of male/female relationship is typical of a Jaid Black book though, but the attitude varies slightly from her Trek Mi Q'an Tales series, where there is obvious romantic feelings abound in the males towards their women. In Death Row, where women are the most rare objects around, the mens attitudes are almost primordially archaic. Still, such attitudes do add a rather delicious spice to the book, kicking up the intimate scenes to just the right level. Nellie is a strong heroine with the grit and determination to see a dangerous mission to the end. Kerrick is a hardened convict determined to reclaim his place in an unstable and often violent world. From the sub-human infested jungles to the rigid patriarchal society of the biospheres, Death Row by Jaid black is a good solid sci-fi erotica read. One more novella continues the story after these, entitles Death Row: The Mastering and it can be found in the anthology "Enchained". Readers may want a copy if only to find out what happens to a secondary character from the first three novellas.

Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row

Average customer rating:

Very Moving
Interesting peek into San Quentin
Escaping from our own prisons
Changes lives of my students every year
Spirituality At Its Best

Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row
Jarvis Jay Masters
Manufacturer: Padma Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 188184708X

Book Description

Finding Freedom is a collection of prison stories - sometimes shocking, sometimes sad, often funny, always immediate-told against a background of extreme violence and aggression, written by a prisoner on death row who has become a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism.

Customer Reviews:

Very Moving.......2007-09-10

I first spotted this book when I had half an hour up my sleeve on the way to a visit at Bunbury Prison. It moved me big time.

In my working capacity over the years as a teacher and facilitator within the Western Australian Prison system I have often used chapters of this book as a pivotal point in my classes.

I am sure Jarvis would be pleased to know that this book has moved the lives of many - including that of many prisoners. To demonstrate how freedom can be found under circumstances of incarceration until death with stories that prisoners can truly relate to is an awesome feat.

The story about the 4th of July really provoked much deep and meaningful discussion.

'Scars', and 'My Sisters' really got them thinking too.

But this book is not only of great benefit to prisoners; it's messages are universal to us all.

Interesting peek into San Quentin.......2007-01-12

This book was an easy read, and gave me a good sense of what it was like for Masters to go from angry to peaceful in prison. It's not professionally written, but one wouldn't expect it to be. I think it would be interesting to people who study prison psychology, violence, Buddhism and meditation, and/or personal growth and transformation.

Escaping from our own prisons.......2006-09-18

This book was deeply moving on many levels, but I was especially struck by how Jarvis Masters was able to find freedom possibly the worst situation one could be in, while many of us, with relatively good lives, never question our own imprisionment. We're all in one sort of prison or another. Jarvis was shown a path to his own freedom, and in the true Boddhisatva tradition, he makes that path clear to the rest of us. Jarvis is an inspiration and one hopes that his message will be read by all.

Changes lives of my students every year.......2005-05-10

Since I began using this book in my 11th grade American Literature/Contemporary Composition classes a few years ago, students have consistently remarked that it has changed the way they view life, the world, and themselves. They consistently say that it is the most meaningful literature we read all year. From Jarvis, they learn life lessons and how to go beyond self-pity and anger. Jarvis is a beautful man and I recomend this book heartily to anyone wishing to open their heart.

Spirituality At Its Best.......2004-01-30

I recommend that anyone who is seeking to be spiritual read this book. Jarvis Masters provides a shining example of compassion in action in cirumstances where it is very difficult to be a holy human being.

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time (P.S.)

Average customer rating:

Much More Entertaining than you would Expect it to be
Grotesque and fascinating tale to entertain
Historical errors raise concerns about the author
Too choppy to keep interest
Fasacinating, but choppy in places

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time (P.S.)
John Kelly
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060006935
Release Date: 2006-01-31

Amazon.com

A book chronicling one of the worst human disasters in recorded history really has no business being entertaining. But John Kelly's The Great Mortality is a page-turner despite its grim subject matter and graphic detail. Credit Kelly's animated prose and uncanny ability to drop his reader smack in the middle of the 14th century, as a heretofore unknown menace stalks Eurasia from "from the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal [producing] suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing." Take Kelly's vivid description of London in the fall of 1348: "A nighttime walk across Medieval London would probably take only twenty minutes or so, but traversing the daytime city was a different matter.... Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road." Yikes, and that's before just about everything with a pulse starts dying and piling up in the streets, reducing the population of Europe by anywhere from a third to 60 percent in a few short years. In addition to taking readers on a walking tour through plague-ravaged Europe, Kelly heaps on the ancillary information and every last bit of it is captivating. We get a thorough breakdown of the three types of plagues that prey on humans; a detailed account of how the plague traveled from nation to nation (initially by boat via flea-infested rats); how floods (and the appalling hygiene of medieval people) made Europe so susceptible to the disease; how the plague triggered a new social hierarchy favoring women and the proletariat but also sparked vicious anti-Semitism; and especially, how the plague forever changed the way people viewed the church. Engrossing, accessible, and brimming with first-hand accounts drawn from the Middle Ages, The Great Mortality illuminates and inspires. History just doesn't get better than that. --Kim Hughes

Book Description

La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history -- a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.

Customer Reviews:

Much More Entertaining than you would Expect it to be.......2007-08-10

It takes a certain personality to write about death and disease, but it takes an altogether odd personality to write about a pandemic and make it interesting. Kelly has done a whole lot of research about the pandemic and it's progress from the Steppes of central asia until it finally peters out after four years of obliterating up to half of the population of Europe.

Like any one, you would ask the traditional who, what, where, when and why? Kelly does a superb job of blending the answers together in an easily readable and knowledgeable way. He start where the disease begins, and then goes into explaining the different theories of it's causes that have been postulated over the years. He gives his own opinion as to whose theories he believes and then explains why he doesn't agree with others.

His description of how the disease began and how it was able to have such an overall effect on Europe. More than anything, he explains how the years preceding the outbreak had set-up the conditions for it's maximized effect. Prior years heavy rains and poor harvests had led to starvation and people living on the edge. In poor physical condition to begin with, and many having lingering effects from a famine in their childhoods, large numbers of Europeans had no ability to fight off the disease.

In addition, the unsanitary nature of European cities, with garbage and fecal matter mixing in the streets with animal carcases and the detritus of butchers just thrown in the street created a paradise for the rats that carried the disease vectors (fleas) with them. Add to this mess, the idea that bathing was unnecessary and probably dangerous and you have the makings of a paradise for the disease.

But why were men of science and logic unable to see what the base cause was? Mostly because they were stuck in the paradigms of the times and no one could think their way out of the box they had all put themselves in. The only major organization that could have helped by crossing over political lines was the Catholic Church. And the Church as much as anyone spent a lot of time running away from the problem while losing many of their brightest people to the disease. Those who were left were overwhelmed by the enormity of death and destruction the disease caused.

If your first thought is that this is a payment from God for ungodliness then you've already stopped yourself dead in the water. How do you stop something that is the wrath of an omnipotent deity? You don't. You cower in your little hovel and hope he misses you because you are too insignificant to be worth bothering with.

Or you look for someone to blame it on. Lunatics, Lepers, Jews? Yes that's the answer, this is a conspiracy of the Jews. So lets kill them (torture confessions out of them first) and at the same time we can also steal all their gold and possessions. They killed Christ and they are probably trying to kill all of the Christians too. Give credit to Pope Clement VI who sent out many papal bulls denouncing the destruction of the Jews and asking the local priests to protect them. It did no good but it's more that a lot of other Popes (Pius XII) have done.

In the end, the explanation as to why this pandemic was so destructive as compared to others where the death toll was never above 15%, is yet to be undiscovered. There are lots of theories and counter-theories but no one can say for sure.

Grotesque and fascinating tale to entertain.......2007-03-19

"The Great Mortality" succeeds as entertaining popular history; it is not entirely accurate biology and epidemiology. Nor is it a comparative analysis of differences in the many areas savaged by the Plague.

Other works by Norman Cantor and by Robert S. Gottfried are also of value. Kelly is more fun to read which appears to be its purpose. Along with something of the historical and social context he includes lively stories and experiences of those living - and dying - at the time.

More case studies in other locations and cultures that have differing medical and social responses potentially could reveal much. There is an older interesting study of Egypt and perhaps others of China (?), perhaps even of India (?) but no comparative analysis that could be fascinating and revealing.

Historical errors raise concerns about the author.......2007-02-28

While this is a brisk read, as a good popular history should be, I am concerned by errors in the text. One example suffices. In Chapter 2, Kelly describes the infamous Fourth Crusade thusly: "Venetian authorities offered a group of French Crusaders free passage to the Holy Land, then rerouted the Crusaders east to capture Constantinople." Wrong on virtually every count. Then as now, Venetians gave nothing away free. The Doge and the leaders of the Crusade agreed on a (healthy) price for transport by sea to Egypt (not Palestine). When the troops arrived at the port, however, the Crusaders proved to be short of funds, and were unable to raise the balance. Only then were they diverted to the sack of Zara and then of Constantinople as a means of paying their debt to Venice. See Norwich, "A History of Venice" for the details.

Now, if Kelly can get an episode as well-known and well-documented as the Fourth Crusade so wrong, how can one trust his judgment on other issues? Especially on such issues as epidemiology, which few readers (myself included) are likely to know much about?

I also note that the author apparently personally responded to one of the negative reviews posted here. I would rather that he respond to the one that accuses him of plagiarism. I do hope it's unfounded.

Too choppy to keep interest.......2007-01-08

This book started out interesting, I was drawn in after reading possibly the most graphic paragraph I'd ever encountered, but the author skips around so much that you can't find a thread of narrative to follow. It makes the book confusing and hard to remain interested in.

Fasacinating, but choppy in places.......2007-01-02

Europe - and eurasia - suffered a devastating pestilence in the mid-14th century, with an estimated 25% of its population dying. The spread of the buboic plague from Caffa to Moscow is graphically recounted in Kelly's _The Great Mortality_.

The book follows the course of the plague chronologically, city by city, citing sources while giving the reader a feel for the time period. The book is at its strongest when it discusses the vectors, spread and effects of the disease on European society. Relating the individual stories of plague sufferers and survivors is also a strength, and gives a personalizes the losses inflicted by the disease.

It is at its weakest, however, when the author literally gives "voice" to the deceased, straying from the historical record. This was most apparent in the sections dealing with the plague in Britain, curious, as this was in the latter part of the book. The controversey about the nature of the plague also detracted from the narrative - an addendum or afterword would have been a more apporpriate place to discuss historical semantics.

I do recommend it - the historical scholarship is first rate, and on the whole it reads more like a novel than a history.

Average customer rating:

reasonably interesting but i have doubt about author's research
Educational but not fascinating
Ring Around the Rosey. Pocket Full of Posey, Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down
History as it ought to be presented!
Memories of Disaster.

The Black Death
Robert S. Gottfried
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0029123704

Book Description

A fascinating work of detective history, The Black Death traces the causes and far-reaching consequences of this infamous outbreak of plague that spread across the continent of Europe from 1347 to 1351. Drawing on sources as diverse as monastic manuscripts and dendrochronological studies (which measure growth rings in trees), historian Robert S. Gottfried demonstrates how a bacillus transmitted by rat fleas brought on an ecological reign of terror -- killing one European in three, wiping out entire villages and towns, and rocking the foundation of medieval society and civilization.

Customer Reviews:

reasonably interesting but i have doubt about author's research.......2007-05-20

it appears that the author is definitely english speaking. he appears to find english record of black death more detailed. whereas he keeps saying in the book that other non-english speaking country have bad record of the black death. i would like to question perhaps he couldnt find the record because he couldnt speak their languages?

i think it more prudent to say instead. the author didnt find the record instead of the record does not exist. more scientific approach dont you think?

Educational but not fascinating.......2007-03-08

After reading the reviews for this book, I purchased it and impatiently awaited the delivery. I tore into this book like a salivating dog eating a first meal in three days.
Introduction... okay.... I thought, this will get more readible. First chapter... not getting better, but I am an intelligent individual so I knew I could certainly read this and understand the horrible and hellish experience that was this Black Death.
While I learned more than I ever thought possible concerning the Black Death, I longed for this book to give more personal accounts by revealing writings of those that lived through this period. I understand now, that not very much was written in a personal account of this time period. Hence the name "Dark Ages" ha ha ha
I also longed for more story telling, causing me to curdle in fear and disbelief.
The author is a historian and a very good one at that. I read this book, not all at once, but in chapter segments. This may have added to my inability to really sink my teeth in to this book. But I think it had mostly to do with the fact that I needed a dictionary to look up many words and I should have had a history teacher available to explain the references made by Gottfried of certain time periods.
I am not afraid to disagree with the other reviewers. All my respect to them, however, this book was tedious and read like a long winded professor that enjoyed lecturing to a class that has long ago fallen asleep.

Ring Around the Rosey. Pocket Full of Posey, Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down.......2007-01-18

In 1347, the boat drifted into Messina Harbor in Sicily with all hands aboard, dead. The ship was taken as a prize, brought to harbor, and the rats jumped ship. So starts the narrative of the greatest pestilence in history.

Gottfried writes in the style of a docudrama that adds to the dread of what you know will occur. Three forms of plague destroyed between one third to two fifths of the world's population. The first was the bubonic strain, the second was pneumonic, and the third was septacemic plague. The second was more virulent than the first, and the third was the deadliest of all, killing its host within 24 hours. Such a quick demise however, also meant it was the least likely to spread and ravage a larger population.

The author tells us of communities that rose to the occasion by quaranteening themselves, those who thought the disease was caused by the position of the stars, or the wrath of God bringing judgment day. Many reacted dysfunctionally by penitent, self-flagellation making germ contamination faster, and reaching a larger population as they moved from town to town. Delirious people did the St. Vitus dance to exhaustion. Other towns used perfume and sanitation to combat the evil.

This plague resurfaced every twenty-five years or so thereafter, bringing lasting changes. Whole families and estates had been wiped out or abandoned. Universities sprung up to better understand the nature of disease, and some municipalities introduced sanitation measures on a regular basis. Ships placed discs around their lines to prevent the arrival or departure of ship rats.

The plague is no longer the danger it once was thanks to antibiotics, but its effects linger in the familiar kindergarten song that kids still sing: "Ring around the rosey, pocket full of posey. Ashes, ashes, all fall down."

This may be one of the best books about the black death you will ever read.

History as it ought to be presented!.......2005-03-17

This book is a long time favorite: history as it ought to be taught and presented. Gottfried has a lucid style that is easy to read, understand and remember. The book reads more interestingly than much fiction, and presents everything from a history of disease and epidemics to examples of historical detective work: what was the mortality rate in an area? Well, how many people paid taxes one year, and how many paid the next year?

This is a book that I pick up and re-read when I can't think what else I'm in the mood for. It's still fascinating after three or four readings and at least as many browsings and scannings. Highly recommended.

Memories of Disaster. .......2004-08-15

There is no subject as "The Black Death" that has aroused so many chilling stories around it. From Bocaccio's "Decameron" to Stephen King's "The Stand" thru Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and Stewart's "Earth Abides", innumerable literary works had grown from these memories. It has left an inextinguishable fear of sudden death and extinction by the appearance of a deadly pestilence.

Professor Gottfried has written a very comprehensive study, examining different aspects as climate, sanitary status, and medical knowledge at those times, in order to establish a solid background to his investigation.
In a comparatively short text, he is able to give the reader, a very complete picture of the dreadful events occurred in Europe between 1347 and 1351.
The book starts with a study of the different plagues occurred in the Ancient World comparing their evolution and effects on the Mediterranean populations.
It follows with a description of Europe between years 1050 till 1347 taking into account: population, political system, agriculture, religion and commerce.
Finally describes what happens from the initial appearance of the pestilence at the port of Messina and its vertiginous spread all over Europe.
Mortality is estimated in 25% of the total population, with peaks of 50% in certain cities. Chaos and under population affected the region for at least two centuries.

Professor Gottfried extracts lots of information from contemporary texts, giving a very attractive rhythm to the narration, without omitting references to more complex sources.
At the end of the book a very detailed bibliography is given, so the reader interested in the subject may expand the research for himself.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

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