The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories

Book Description

In this remarkably wide-ranging anthology, Ilan Stavans has collected the work of more than fifty notable Jewish writers from around the globe, weaving these diverse viewpoints and voices into a rich portrait of Jewish literary tradition. The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories takes us from the mid-1800s right up to the present, encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish writing around the world. The variety of tales captured here is stunning. Readers will find stories such as "A Yom Kippur Scandal" by Sholem Aleichem, the father of Yiddish literature; "Before the Law" by Franz Kafka; "Looking for Mr. Green" by Saul Bellow; "The Spinoza of Market Street" by Isaac Bashevis Singer; and "Midrash on Happiness" by Grace Paley. Stavans has included many pieces by Americans, including such markedly different writers as Cynthia Ozick, Bernard Malamud, Moacyr Seliar, Stanley Elkin, Delmore Schwartz, Dan Jacobson, Francine Prose, Allegra Goodman, and Philip Roth. And here too are pieces from around the globe, by writers no less varied: Isaac Babel, Italo Svevo, Primo Levi, Elias Canetti, Amos Oz, and Danilo Kis. What emerges in the end is proof of an observation by Ba'al Makshoves--that the Jews may have many languages and a dozen echoes in foreign tongues, but only one literature. And it is one of the finest in the world. The many marvelous tales that fill The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories affirm that a shared identity can exist without sterile uniformity--and that writers can engage their religious and cultural heritage without losing touch with those rich, complex ambiguities that inhabit the heart.

Customer Reviews:

A rich collection The great masters are here.......2006-03-20

This is a wonderful collection. The great masters of modern Jewish story-telling are represented here. I could quarrel with some of the selections, and would for instance prefer a different Bellow story. But there are also some of the great , great stories here including one of the masterpieces of the writer who I personally consider the greatest of all modern Jewish storytellers Isaac Bashevis Singer.The selection here is of one of his greatest stories, 'The Spinoza of Market Street.'
Each of the fifty or so selections is briefly and competently introduced.
A truly wonderful anthology.

Fantastic........1999-10-05

I loved this anthology! Highly recommended for people interested in Jews all around the world.

I want this book to be read by my grandchildren........1999-08-25

I was given this anthology as a gift and I read it immediately. It is excellent! Stavans is continuing the work that Irving Howe began. I want my children and grandchildren to read it too.

One of the best anthologies I've ever come across.......1999-07-09

This is a book to cherish. I've given many copies to friends. It is one of the best anthologies, if not the best, I've ever come across. Stavans' introduction and chronology guide the reader intelligently through history and literature. A triumph!

Average customer rating:

The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0965784495

Average customer rating:

Stunning
More Stars, Less Sky, Please
A consitently superb collection!

The Oxford Book of Hebrew Short Stories

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Ribcage (israeli women's fiction)

ASIN: 0192142062

Book Description

It is unusual for a creative literature to be so much younger than its language, and the story of the development of Hebrew fiction is no less fascinating than the stories that embody it in this collection. The extraordinary revival of Hebrew as a spoken language at the turn of the twentieth century led to an explosion of literary activity that eventually drew a clear line of progression from the Jewish writers of Eastern Europe to their modern descendants in present-day Israel. From a narrative whose concerns were predominantly historical and religious, Hebrew fiction has grown to embrace the modern world and to deal with subjects such as daily life in a small Jewish town, intellectual disillusionment, and the huge political changes with which Jewish writers have had to come to terms following the establishment of the State of Israel. War inevitably features often in these stories which reflect, more than the literature of any other country, the social and political dilemmas of a multifarious culture. Alongside the grand themes are more intimate explorations of human relationships, and of individual triumph and anguish within the complexities of twentieth-century life. This anthology demonstrates the astonishing richness and diversity of Hebrew short fiction by including not only established authors of the status of Amos Oz, A. B. Yehoshua, Yehuda Amichai and David Grossman, but also less well-known writers whose stories have not been published in translation before: Orly Castel-Bloom and Savyon Liebrecht among the younger women writers, Yitzhak Oren among the more experimental older generation. Glenda Abramson's informative introduction sets the scene for a powerful literary collection, the definitive anthology of a vibrant modern genre.

Customer Reviews:

Stunning.......2007-05-04

This expansive and inclusive collection of Hebrew short stories in English translation provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of the development of the short story in Hebrew from the early days of Mendele Mokher Sefarim's daring experiments in Hebrew fiction, right down to modern Israeli writers, writing Hebrew in a Jewish State. In between we can view the development not only of writing but of a diverse cultural milieu in the making. As Jews moved from Diaspora dwellers writing in a language recently "dead" but suddenly revived, to Jews living in Palestine in an emerging nation, to Israelis in a Jewish State, we can see the normalcy of life and fiction assert itself. From the rather self conscious attempts by early writers to use Biblical models and idioms to tell their stories, we read writers honing their craft according to European and the American models of literary expression, but with a unique local flair, expressing specifically Hebrew or Israeli concerns. And unlike other, older, collections of Hebrew short fiction, this one includes both "canonical" male figures like Sefarim, Brenner, Amichai, Oz, Yehoushua, but also female writers like Katzir and Liebrecht. All in all, this collection is superb.

More Stars, Less Sky, Please.......2002-08-07

There are many ways of compiling an anthology, and many ways, perhaps, of considering what a collective voice is. Glenda Abramson, in the introduction to her "Oxford Book of Hebrew Short Stories", gives a fairly history-book account of the development of modern Hebrew letters, with the one note that "throughout the development of Hebrew literature writers have been nominated as representative because they exemplify a political consensus or a dominant ideology and many others have been omitted because they are perceived not to have done so." Her own candidate for greatness, Yitzhak Oren, failed to make this roll-call of social realism because while others were drawing the portrait of the new state he was indulging in "Kafka like fantasies". Off-hand, this does not seem such a unique bias. Kafka was hugged into the bossom of European literature in an era of absurdism and, let us never forget, as a dead saint. His meticulously prosaic depictions of the fantastic, the reports of an insurance man, were fine parables for the shook-up faiths of the post-concentration camp dissenters against ideology. Wherever else in the globe such fantasy has sold, such as South America, there was also a political bias toward resistance in the audience. Abramson's man Oren has suffered, like science fiction writers and other writers of "speculative" fiction in the U.S. and other lands of true believers, by not being taken seriously because he saw through the emperor's clothes.

The trouble with making one's only dissent to received opinion one "revived" writer and a handful of stories which "appear for the first time in an anthology in English translation...chosen primarily for their aesthetic quality, their narrative texture and colour" is that by accepting to an extent the burden of the cannon you become damned by failing to adequately represent it. If you will give an account of a literature consisting of its most famous practitioners - the "Usual Suspects" school of anthologizing - you cannot then simply omit a major figure with the note that to the anthologist's "great regret Agnon is not represented..because the Institute of Hebrew Literature was unable to negotiate terms for the reproduction of his story "The Garment". " This won't do - either construct an argument for certain stories or do not have an argument at all - do not presume to represent the firmament and then announce, by the by, that you could not quite get clearance to use Orion.

The translations, provided one assumes by that same institute, are not stunning. Two of the cannonical stories, by Hayim Hazaz and the father of the Hebrew story Mendele Mocher Seforim, are pieces the present author had to parse out word by word at school and for examinations, hence he has views on their potential in this language. Little things, like translating Mendele's town name which is a play on the word beggar as "Beggarsburgh" and all its citizens subsequently as "Beggarsburghers" - now, this is a solution to a problem which situates the language of the translation in neither England nor the U.S., nor, I suspect, any other English speaking province. If the aim of a translator is to reproduce the given text, brick by brick as it were, convincingly in another language, then the new edifice must be located somewhere in the language - if it has slang it must be the slang of a place and time, if it has references it must have references that make sense somehow within the history and geography of the host language. This invention, as an example, does the worst thing possible by attracting attention to itself as a "translation", thereby undermining the credibility of the narrative voice, and still not solving the problem - if the speaker were American it would be "Beggarsville", if English, perhaps, "Beggarsbrough" - a late twentieth century translator of Hebrew into English is probably aiming at an American market (where most of the world's English speaking Jews are) but, effectively, is writing a trans-Atlantic English, and these are the problems which translating into a language while (presumably in Israel) not living in it, can present.

Such matters aside, Abramson's anthology shines with less than ideological pieces such as Dvora Baron's "Sunbeams" - a heartrendingly simple account of the unremitting darkness of humanity, back in the shtetl, where an orphan girl is passed hand to hand by people who do not want to take responsibility for her eating mouth, winding up an outcast, surviving on scraps and odd jobs, with the only remnant warmth "a few words of endearment that came back to her from the mists of her early childhood" and allow her to pet a cow, just calved for the first time and torn from its off-spring, with whom she forms a bond that leads her to prosperity ad some standing in the community before she dies, alone but no longer unseen. In stories such as these humanity outgrows the confines of a nationality and the shtetl could be a place where something, like nothing, happens anywhere.

A consitently superb collection!.......1998-01-20

I am the translator of "Cinema," by Yitzhak Ben-Ner, which appears in this anthology. [A collection of powerful stories by Yithak Ben-Ner, RUSTIC SUNSET, also translated by yours truly, has just been published by Lynne Rienner Publishers and is available from Amazon. Try it: you'll become a Ben-Ner fan, I assure you!] The uniqueness of this new Oxford anthology is its consistently high quality. The works it choses are the best short fiction that modern Hebrew literature has to offer, and the translations are readable and idiomatic. the book covers the breadth of modern Hebrew literature from the 19th century into the 1990's. You'll find pivotal wirters such as Uri Nissan Gnessin, who wrote in stream of consciousness years before Joyce; Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon; Amalia Kahana-Carmon, known as the Israeli Virginia Woolf, whose style has been often described as untranslatable -- our translators in this collection do a superb job, but I'm sure that the compulsive Ms. Carmon drove the the translators crazy!; Dahlia Ravikovitch; Aharon Megged and the late David Shahar (both of whose translated works have been especially celebrated in Europe but scandalously ignored by the American literary establishment); Ruth Almog; and more famliar names such as Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld and David Grossman. By delving into this collection, the English reader will for the first time ever, be able to sample modern Hebrew literature from the same vantage point as that of educated Israelis, who view the writers in this collection as the building blocks of contemporary Israeli culture. Congratulations to the editor of this anothology and to Oxford Books. As we move toward a new century, this volume will surely become for the next two decades the principal survey text for Israeli short fiction in translation. Although an anthology by its nature is stronger in breadth than in depth, the reader of this collection will gain an in-depth view of the modern Israeli intellectual and cultural psyche. Robert Whitehill

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The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories
Ilan; editor Stavans
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KTJIHW

Average customer rating:

The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories
Ilan Stavans
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKL0O6

Amazon.com

Setting: London, Regency period
Sensuality Rating: 7

Award-winning author Amanda Quick weaves a tale of a man and a woman who understand just what it means to be haunted. Artemis Hunt, the mysterious master of a secret society, has been obsessed by the knowledge that he was unable to protect his mistress from a brutal death, and has spent the last five years plotting her revenge. Madeline Reed Deveridge, known as the infamous Wicked Widow by polite society, is rumored to have murdered her husband. But now Madeline is afraid that her dead spouse has returned from beyond the grave to terrorize her. In fear for her life and that of her beloved aunt, Madeline blackmails Artemis into aiding her by threatening to expose his ownership of the Dream Pavilions, London's premier pleasure garden--an association, if revealed, that would destroy his reputation and put his long-held plans of vengeance at serious risk. The two are drawn together at first by necessity, but Artemis soon finds himself intrigued then intoxicated by the confident woman known as the Wicked Widow. Madeline, who is inclined to distrust men after her disastrous marriage, falls prey to the unfamiliar feelings Artemis inspires in her. Their burgeoning passion may save them each from an empty future--if their secrets don't kill them first. Another Quick masterpiece! --Alison Trinkle

Book Description

Madeline Deveridge is aware of the whispers behind her back, the rumors that she dispatched her husband to the next world and concealed her crime. But she has a far more pressing problem than her reputation as the Wicked Widow. It's impossible to believe that her late husband is haunting her and her aunt, but something odd is happening, and Madeline doesn't dare take chances.

Summoning the brilliant, reclusive Artemas Hunt, secret owner of London's favorite pleasure pavilions and master of arcane talents, she blackmails him into providing help. As soon as the bargain is struck, Artemas and Madeline find their arrangement complicated by searing desire, and the frightening recognition that the ghost poses a very real danger. Now they must plunge into a world of intrigue and ancient mysteries, where a calculating killer — and a tantalizing passion — will not be denied.

Customer Reviews:

Why can't she write like she use too?.......2006-12-04

"Wicked Widow" is the lastest book by Amanda Quick that I have read and she keeps getting it wrong. Madeline Deveridge is the "Wicked Widow," a woman may have killed her husband. Artemis Hunt is a man who wants revenge. That join forcus that lead them down a very interesting path.
Ms. Quick is just losing her touch on these book she just want to make these book mysteries and nothing else. I use to be a big fan of her books, but not anymore.

Okay, but not great.......2006-10-16

Madeline Deveridge is known as the Wicked Widow because of rumors that she killed her ex-husband and tried to cover her crime by setting her house, and his body, aflame. Still, the reclusive Artemas Hunt is intrigued when she calls on him at his club and asks him to do her a favor. Together, the two become enthralled in a mystery surrounding whether Madeline's husband is still alive and the secrets of an arcane society focusing on fighting arts, rituals, and meditation.

I liked this book well enough but not as much as some of Quick's previous stories. The whole mystery surrounding the Vanzagarian Society was a bit too much for me particularly considering that the details of the society are never really explicitly stated. I found myself consulting Google and Wikipedia in an effort to figure out what was going on, before learning on Quick's website that such a society doesn't even exist. It would have been helpful to have more detail about the society so that I wasn't in a constant state of confusion about its purposes.

Still, the romance between Artemas and Madeline progressed at a natural rate and I liked both hero and heroine, which is rare for me with some of Quick's works. The focus in this book is on the mystery and not the romance. It reads more like Sherlock Holmes than like a historical romance. While the mystery is an integral part of any Quick novel, I felt that the romance took a backseat in this one, which is my only complaint. I would recommend Mistress or Desire for Amanda Quick readers who want more focus on the relationship.

Wholly contrived and completely vapid - Blah!.......2006-07-25

This is my first and last Amanda Quick novel. What exactly is this book? Is it supposed to be a romance, a mystery, a recruiting tool for a secret society...I couldn't really tell. The story jumps all over the place and everyone behaves so erratically that the whole thing remains just words on a page, it's impossible to feel any of it is real.

The characters are just like all the other characters in all the other romances on the market. Tall, dark, brooding man; misunderstood and manipulative woman; both with a few deep dark secrets. We've met these characters a thousand times. However, at least some of the other romances manage to deliver on the stereotype. In this book, what's-his-name and what's-her-name are drearily bland and uninteresting. They both could have been knocked off by the second chapter and I would have been relieved.

Other readers have complained about all the Vanza/secret society references and they do grow tedious. But in truth, the Vanza stuff is the only thing that gives this book any form or shape at all. The rest of it is just a messy hodgepodge of pretentious narrative, awkward love scenes, and horribly contrived plot points. A pair of servants happen to go into a room and just happen to be gossiping about the one thing the leading man wants to know and he just happens to be hiding behind the curtains at the time? Please. This book also boasts some of the most awful dialogue I've ever read. We're talking eye-rolling, laugh-out-loud (but nothing funny about it), you can't believe someone actually published this, bad dialogue.

What a waste of time, I can't believe this author is a best seller!

Good, but some recycling of past novels.......2006-04-05

This book was pretty decent, but JAK did recycle some plot points from some of her earlier Quick novels. In particular I felt that there were some key elements from both "Dangerous" and "Scandal".

The chemistry between Artemis and Madeline was enjoyable. I felt they were a believable couple. I do wish that JAK hadn't used the name Artemis though since in Greek Mythology Artemis is a female deity. Thus when I would see the character's name in the book I had to force myself to remember that it was a male character.

A fun easy read.......2005-07-31

Amanda Quick is always a delight. The Wicked Widow is another in her Vanzagara series. The heroine Madeline has reason to distrucst all things Vanza but when she fears her husband's ghost is theatening her she needs a Vanza Master to help her. sparks fly as the two discover what true trust and love really is - and solve the mystery at the same time!

Wicked Women: Black Widows, Child Killers, And Other Women In Crime

Average customer rating:

Don't bother
biased
Jumps around more than a Black Widow spider on a hot plate

Wicked Women: Black Widows, Child Killers, And Other Women In Crime
Betty Alt , and Sandra Wells
Manufacturer: Paladin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Criminology | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Murder Most Rare

ASIN: 158160078X

Book Description

The "gentle" sex: mothers, nurturers . . . and sometimes killers. In this look at female criminals, you'll meet wives who poisoned their mates for profit, nurses who hastened their patients' demises and mothers who did the unthinkable. You'll also see how some play their cards right to get lighter sentences than men - or no punishment at all!

Customer Reviews:

Don't bother.......2006-07-11

For many of the criminal cases, I was not sure that I was reading non-fiction. Specifically, I do not know why Alt and Wells refer to many criminals and field experts by their first name and last initial only. We do not refer to Ted Bundy as Ted B. Also, the book has a high concentration of Colorado criminal cases. For example, much of the information about women who commit crimes against men seems the same as information on a particular web site: Domestic Violence Against Men In Colorado - Chapter 15 -- Women Who Have Killed Their Partners In Colorado. I expected a book with a national or global perspective.

The authors annoyingly repeat that so many women habitually make poor choices and that is why they are harmed, battered, end up with alcoholic partners, etc. They also make a point of stating females work the system and obtain light sentences, if any. However, they later contradict themselves by citing numerous cases in which women received much longer sentences than men did - even when the females' crimes were much less severe.

If it weren't for the subject matter, the reading level and the unnecessary summaries would have convinced me that the target audience is considerably younger than adult.

biased.......2006-01-27

I have to agree with the prior review. It very poorly written. You can see the authors bias' from very early on in the book, even though they appear to be trying to do a book on facts. In the work the author draws a picture of abused women as ignorants who had many choices available to them. As a women who has never been in an abusive relationship i still understand that this is not always the case. There are also multiple "facts" in the book that have been disputed by historians as myths. If the author doesn't know whats going on then maybe they shouldn't be writing a book about it and presenting it to the public as truth.

Jumps around more than a Black Widow spider on a hot plate.......2002-12-12

Wicked Women - Black Widows, Child Killers, and Other Women In Crime by Betty Alt and Sandra Wells is poorly written, unfocused and overly researched to the point of tediousness. Long on footnotes, but strangely short on facts and vague on dates and places, this book is almost unreadable. Oddly, Alt and Wells seem to blame men for the wicked turn that women take. You are better off reading Mistresses of Mayhem: The Book of Women Criminals by Francine Hornberger or Look For the Woman by Jay Robert Nash if you want to read a comprehensive book about female criminals. It is a wonder how this book found a publisher.

Wicked Widow (Camfield Novel of Love, No 120)

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Wicked Widow (Camfield Novel of Love, No 120)
Barbara Cartland
Manufacturer: Jove
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Romance | Subjects | Books

Regency | Romance | Subjects | Books
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Walking To Wonderland (Camfield Novel of Love, No 113)

ASIN: 0515111694

Journals of a Wicked Widow (The Orpheus Series)

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Journals of a Wicked Widow (The Orpheus Series)
James Hillman
Manufacturer: Bee-Line Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J3FKEY

Product Description

(For Adult Readers)The intimate details of the love life of a woman of the world.

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The Wicked Widow
Carter Brown
Manufacturer: Tower Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000PBXJHK

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Great Narration

Wicked Widow

Manufacturer: Recorded Books, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: 0788751654

Product Description

With over 25 million books in print, best-selling author Amanda Quick is a favorite of readers who relish historical romances. In her works, including Mistress (RB# 94380), Mischief (RB# 94806), and Affair (RB# 95060), Amanda Quick offers delicious romantic thrillers set in the opulent world of Regency-era London. The widow Madeline Deveridge is both admired and feared by Society. Devastatingly beautiful, she is rumored to have killed her wealthy husband. Artemis Hunt is a handsome gentleman who is also a master of secret arts. His concentration on his own affairs is shattered, however, when Madeline demands his help one fog-shrouded night. Brought together by a mutual bargainand a ghosttheir bond sparks an attraction that will be far more dangerous than either suspects. Noted for her spirited performances of Amanda Quicks novels, narrator Barbara Rosenblat captures each nuance of the two heroes intelligence and passion

Customer Reviews:

Great Narration.......2007-02-09

I usually listen to audiobooks while I drive to and from work everyday. I was enjoying this one so much that I brought it in the house and found reasons to stay at the computer to listen to it. It was wonderful narration and the story was thrilling.

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Wicked Widow
Amanda Quick
Manufacturer: Bantam Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000O7TL72

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The Wicked Widow

Manufacturer: Tower
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000HWEYHG

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Wicked Widow
Carter Brown
Manufacturer: Leisure Books (Mm)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0505516101

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Wicked Widow
Amanda Quick
Manufacturer: Books on Tape, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
ASIN: B000JLZIMK

Book Description

Robert Heinlein called it "possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read." The San Francisco Chronicle declared that "as science fiction, The Mote in God's Eye is one of the most important novels ever published." Now Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, award winning authors of such bestsellers as Footfall and The Legacy of Heorot, return us to the Mote, and to the universe of Kevin Renner and Horace Bury, of Rod Blaine and Sally Fowler.

There, 25 years have passed since humanity quarantined the mysterious aliens known as Moties within the confines of their own solar system. They have spent a quarter century analyzing and agonizing over the deadly threat posed by the only aliens mankind has ever encountered-- a race divided into distinct biological forms, each serving a different function. Master, Mediator, Engineer. Warrior. Each supremely adapted to its task, yet doomed by millions of years of evolution to an inescapable fate. For the Moties must breed-- or die.

And now the fragile wall separating them and the galaxy beyond is beginning to crumble.

Customer Reviews:

enough with the coffee already.......2007-08-04

You know I always loved Niven's other works. I grew up on them, and frequently found them interesting after multiple reads (Ringworld, Destiny's Road, anyone?), but I just don't get this one. Big yawn, too much confusing and endless political wrangling, a sort of fetishization of educational and class status, lower than usual number of dimensions per character, etc. But what the hell. When I write my own 400 page novel, I'll be allowed to criticize these guys.

There is one recurring oddity, and that's this obsession with coffee and other refreshments the characters have. Maybe I'm just missing something or forgetting some bigger joke from TMiGE, but I wonder if Niven and Pournelle themselves found it funny. I imagine they're like Beavis and Butthead laughing about NADS, and just couldn't stop pasting in coffee references. I can't count how many times the same kind of exchange occurs:

"My God, Renner, the ship is under attack by the Khanate. All the cameras have been overloaded by the massive energy beam they are directing at us. I hope we can make the Alderson point before that junk ship catches us."
Bury raised a quizzical eyebrow and silently eyed his fluttering dials.
"And that's not the half of it. I don't know if Bury can take another jump shock," Renner muttered.
"Oh well. Coffee?"
"Yes please, with milk. Make it the Kona."

I mean, come on....

From the Mote in God's Eye to a Pain in my...........2007-03-21

What a tremendous disappointment! I have read "The Mote in God's Eye" perhaps a dozen times over the years. When I recently discovered an old copy of this sequel I was delighted. Until about the fifth page. After that, it just kept going downhill. Gone from this is any concern for character development which so enlivened the first book. Gone are intuitive and creative insights into the minds of the moties (remember how the first novel gave us large sections of their thinking in italics?). Gone is any sense of a coherent plot (whatever happened to Jennifer and her colleague trapped aboard the Khanate mother ships?). Perhaps most sadly, gone is any sense of the danger and mystery of these strange creatures. There is nothing surprising or interesting or frightening about them any more. They are more like a plague of ants than a fearsome race that actually could destroy mankind. It reminded me of the difference between the creature in the movie Alien who was impossible to kill, compared to the way the sequel, Aliens, showed them dying left and right as though they were mere bugs.

What has replaced these wonders from the first book are: more of the authors' juvenile sexual fantasies (yes, again, we see young girls being forced to strip in front of moties, a promiscuous Kevin Renner moving from one meaningless lustful relationship to another, even poor Horace Bury has a concubine/MD/amazon guardian who actually lays on top of him in the final scene!); a boring and really bad "chase sequence" (really dull); incoherent dialogue; tedious allusions to a "gripping hand;" broken plot lines and dropped characters (why introduce Sarah if she's going to just disappear halfway through the novel for no reason?); and endlessly boring Nivenesque discussions of space travel and starship warfare and the mechanics and mathematics thereof.

I actually threw the book across the room when finished. So disappointing.

Pleasing Sequel, But Rather Long-Winded.......2007-01-23

Eighteen years after the release of the hard SF "The Mote In God's Eye" Niven and Pournelle finally produce its much-awaited sequel. Thirty years have passed since humans have blockaded the only Alderson point in the Mote Prime system, essentially sealing the threatening "Moties" in their own solar system.

Two minor players from the first novel are back, this time as members of Naval Intelligence. During a routine investigation, the two hear an innocuous reference to the alien race. The memories that the phrase brings back overwhelms one of the Intelligence investigators, and, driven by fear for the safety of the human race, the investigator embarks on a quest to confirm that the human Empire remains safe from the Moties. Sure enough, knowledge that the Moties may be on the verge of breaking free of the human blockade arises, spawning a new expedition to the Motie system.

The plot is rather straightforward, but the writers are able to build some tension along the way. While this may sound like a great premise for an action-adventure SF tale, and a worthy follow-up to the original, I found this book to be relatively short on action (other than a few space battles). That being said, there is more than enough intrigue, political wrangling, and diplomatic diatribe. Much more insight into the Mote psyche is revealed. A good working knowledge of the plotlines of the first book are a must - in fact, a hundred pages into "Gripping Hand" I put it down, and re-read "Mote" before picking up the sequel again. Worthwhile read, especially if the two books are read consecutively.

A Worthy Sequel.......2006-08-28

I was well pleased with this novel. The Mote in God's Eye was one of the best science fiction novels that I have ever read -
and The Gripping Hand is well plotted, and has the return of some of the most entertaining characters along with interesting insights into life in the empire and the Moties. A Must Read if you liked The Mote in God's Eye as much as I did !

It could have been five star..........2006-06-06

Others have written eloquently about the many problems with this sequel to "The Mote in God's Eye": lack of characterization, things seems to go on and on -- even in a short 412 page novel, but I want to zero in on one thing:

This could have been a five star book, if it hadn't been so confusing! There were too many splinter Motie groups brought into the picture at nearly the same time, (quick now, tell me who the Byzantium were?). Too many interrelationships to keep track of accurately, and too many ships going back and forth and back and forth for unfathomable reasons near the end. Niven and Pournelle did not excel in their Space Opera - War Epic class.

The complexity of the Motie civilization did not also have to be confusing, if the authors would have let the reader learn well about the new group for 30 pages or so before introducing the next splinter group. (Quick now, which group was Victoria with? And where did Pollyanna fit in?)

Maybe someday there will be a third Motie book (1975, 1993, and 2011? following the every-18-year pattern)
If so, I hope they have editors that will detect and disallow 200 pages of confusion.

Average customer rating:

THE GRIPPING HAND
Larry & Pournelle, Jerry Niven
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000P0TR68

Average customer rating:

The Gripping Hand
Larry and Jerry Pournelle Niven
Manufacturer: NY Pocket 1993.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O5MAW2

Average customer rating:

Not Free SF Reader

Gripping Hand -22.00
Larry Niven
Manufacturer: World Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 5550311224

Customer Reviews:

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

The reader her is thrown into the deep end, sociologically. The conflicts both in Motie society and the spooks and political opponents in human society will easily lead to confusion for many readers, me included, to start with.

The Motie blockade has been going on for well over a decade, and the guard is getting lax, and some realise a breakout is probably inevitable.

Average customer rating:

Gripping the Father's Hand

Manufacturer: Matrix Productions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GEW0HG

I Felt The Hand Of God: A Gripping Story of A Shattered Dream

Average customer rating:

I Felt The Hand Of God: A Gripping Story of A Shattered Dream
V D Marshall
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Religious | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1419663615
Release Date: 2007-05-04

Book Description

Victor Marshall's inspiring memoir I Felt the Hand of God is a heartfelt exploration of how life's struggles can really bring us all closer to the kingdom of God. Filled with personal stories and Scriptures, Marshall's luminous book is thought-provoking and life-affirming.

Average customer rating:

The Gripping Hand
Larry & Pournelle, Jerry *SIGNED by author* Niven
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NPH1HW

Average customer rating:

The Gripping Hand
Larry & Jerry Pournelle Niven
Manufacturer: New York: Pocket Books, 1993
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NVDTG8

Book Description

This one-year devotional program offers contemporary Christian women a chance to study the lives and legacies of fifty-two women in Scripture.

Customer Reviews:

Women Of the Bible..........2007-02-07

I have been going to Bible Study for a lot of years, and I am finding that I absolutely LOVE the stories in this book. We read the story, and then the corresponding message from the bible. Then we discuss the story and it is so informative! I love this book!

Women of the Bible: 52 Stories for Prayer and Reflection

Average customer rating:

Women of the Bible: 52 Stories for Prayer and Reflection
Ann Spangler
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Books:

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