Average customer rating:
- Interesting tale
- (In italian) Wouk, e la necessita' della documentazione per l'autore
- Should have used a pen name!
- A Different Wouk
- Did Herman Wouk really need money this bad.
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A Hole in Texas: A Novel
Herman Wouk
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0316000728 |
Book Description
Guy Carpenter is a physicist with a quiet, settled life: a prestigious job at NASA, a devoted wife and new baby, and a troublemaking cat. But he is about to get mixed up in an international scandal of enormous proportions. Years ago, Guy worked on the Superconducting Super Collider, a giant scientific project dedicated to detecting a tiny, elusive particle, the Higgs Boson. Wrangling in Congress shut the project down before it could fulfill its objective, but now the Chinese claim to have found the Boson-a discovery that sends the nation into a panic. How did the Chinese surpass American science? What about the horrific military implications of a Boson Bomb? Is it time to start casting Hollywood's first Boson blockbuster? An expert is needed to assess the new threat to national security. Before he knows it, Carpenter is propelled into the center of the media blitz, his old love with a Chinese female physicist resurfaces, a new romance with a beautiful Congresswoman beckons, and the breakup of his happy marriage threatens. In the meantime, Congress holds urgent hearings, Hollywood comes courting, and an unctuous reporter dogs his every step. It's going to be anything but a typical few weeks. Once again, Herman Wouk exercises his deep insight and considerable comic powers to give us a witty and keen satire about Washington, the media, and science, and what happens when these three great forces of American culture clash.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting tale.......2007-02-14
Perhaps I am influenced by being a resident of Texas, but I enjoyed this tale and its characters. Had to wonder what kernels of truth might have been hidden in the workings of politicians. More than a few laughs in this book which is a quick read.
(In italian) Wouk, e la necessita' della documentazione per l'autore.......2007-01-09
Wouk e' un vecchio lupo di mare della narrativa, avendo anche un Premio Pulitzer nel palmares. Che io sappia non ha nessuna conoscenza scientifica specifica, e nessuno dei suoi molti romanzi precedenti e' di tema scientifico. Eppure, e' abbastanza evidente che per scrivere questo romanzo si e' documentato, ed e' davvero difficile coglierlo in castagna.
L'intero romanzo gira attorno alla vicenda (vera) dello SSC, il Superconducting SuperCollider che avrebbe dovuto essere il piu' potente acceleratore di particelle al mondo, e la cui costruzione fu sospesa nel 1993 dopo il 20% dei lavori. Il protagonista, un fisico di mezza eta' reduce da quella esperienza, si ritrova a dover spiegare a vari personaggi, in termini semplici, cosa siano il bosone di Higgs, i principi base di funzionamento dello SSC, e svariati altri dettagli di contorno come i raggi cosmici; e in tutto questo e' egregio. Spiega anche i motivi che hanno portato alla chiusura del progetto, e su quelli non so quasi nulla, ma quel poco che so combacia con cio' che lui racconta (anche se li' probabilmente si devia necessariamente dalla solidita' dei fatti per entrare nel campo delle impressioni, trattandosi piu' di politica della scienza che di scienza).
La storia e' ambientata ai giorni nostri, e parte da una sconvolgente pubblicazione cinese sulla scoperta, in Cina, del bosone di Higgs. E ogni volta che il lettore informato ghigna tra se' e se' dicendosi "ma questo non e' possibile", volta pagina e legge uno dei personaggi che se la ghigna pensando "ma questo non e' possibile", per farsi poi rispondere qualche paragrafo o capitolo dopo con una spiegazione piu' o meno plausibile.
La descrizione della psicosi anti-cinese dei vertici della societa' americana e' piuttosto godibile e verosimile, come anche l'ossessione dei politici per sapere se il bosone di Higgs puo' avere applicazioni belliche (non tanto per sapere se poterne fare uso, ma per capire se ne puo' fare uso l'infida Cina).
Should have used a pen name!.......2006-12-22
I sit here and wonder not what mister Wouk was thinking when he took on the challenge of making a superconductor and it's scientist interesting but what the negative reviewers would have written had he published under the pen name Pug Henry and not revealed his true identity till a year or two later. I got the feeling while reading the reviews that the majority of negative reviews were so not because it's a bad book it's not it's not war and peace but neither are the last 4 books I read it's a decent little light piece of literature written by a 90 yo genius who has earned the right to write one and should be judged on it's own merits and not as a contrast and comparison of all of his works.
A Different Wouk.......2006-04-24
When reading through the negative reviews, one thing is apparent. Those who disliked the book were hoping for another sweeping war drama.
"A Hole in Texas" is a different style than his historical fiction, but it is still excellently written and dynamic. Who else could make particle physics entertaining?
Did Herman Wouk really need money this bad........2005-08-05
What a lousy book from such an outstanding author.....
Average customer rating:
- A fun cowboy read
- Late history of the Texas Panhandle
- A fun and pleasurable read
- The Unexceptional Made Exceptional
- Wild in Wooly(bucket)
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That Old Ace in the Hole : A Novel
Annie Proulx
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0684813076
Release Date: 2002-12-10 |
Amazon.com
Bob Dollar is a reluctant land swindler. When the 25-year-old protagonist in Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole signs on as a location scout for Global Pork Rind, an industrial hog farming corporation, he has no idea what kind of moral quandaries he's in for. Well, maybe he does. His assignment, after all, is to infiltrate a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle and find a tract of land his employer can turn into an industrial hog farm. Bob tells the locals he's scouting for luxury home developers ("They feel there is potential here"), but as a cover story it's less than clever. Only a fool would build mansions in the godforsaken Panhandle country, a place of light soil, bad wind, killing drought, and end-of-world thunder. "To live here," one Panhandler tells Bob, "it sure helps if you are half cow and half mesquite and all crazy." The narrative follows Bob's hapless quest to ink a deal, but Proulx's mission is bigger than that. She's out to tell the story of the Panhandle itself, to write an entirely new literary territory into existence. With the help of a menagerie of eccentric characters set down in "the most complicated part of North America," Proulx succeeds admirably. --Claire Dederer
Book Description
In That Old Ace in the Hole, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Annie Proulx has written an exhilarating story brimming with language, history, landscape, music, and love. The novel, Proulx's fourth, is told through the eyes of Bob Dollar, a young Denver man trying to make good in a bad world. Dollar is out of college but aimless, and he takes a job with Global Pork Rind -- his task to locate big spreads of land in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles that can be purchased by the corporation and converted to hog farms.
Dollar finds himself in a Texas town called Woolybucket, whose idiosyncratic inhabitants have ridden out all manner of seismic shifts in panhandle country. These are tough men and women who survived tornadoes and dust storms, and witnessed firsthand the demise of the great cattle ranches. Now it's feed lots, hog farms, and ever-expanding drylands.
Dollar settles into LaVon Fronk's old bunkhouse for fifty dollars a month, helps out at Cy Frease's Old Dog Café, targets Ace and Tater Crouch's ranch for Global Pork, and learns the hard way how vigorously the old owners will hold on to their land, even though their children want no part of it.
Robust, often bawdy, strikingly original and intimate, That Old Ace in the Hole tracks the vast waves of change that have shaped the American landscape and character over the past century -- and in Bob Dollar, Proulx has created one of the most irresistible characters in contemporary fiction.
Customer Reviews:
A fun cowboy read.......2007-06-20
The things that caught my attention in this novel were the personification of landscape, role of landscape, use of back-story, use of story within the story, and use of stereotype.
Although I did not find the book particularly compelling, and I imagine that it is not among Proux's best, the novel nonetheless moves quickly and gives a view of a landscape and a culture not often explored in literature--the dry ranch life of rural Texas.
Proux opens the novel with a long, ambling description of landscape. She describes the history of the land, the naming of the land, the impact of people on the land. The land is at once beautiful and ruined.
The novel ends with the idea of a land revitalized by the people through a more sustainable form of ranching. The community foils a plot to bring large-scale hog farming to the land, an operation that would spoil the land with lakes of hog poo. As I think about it, this is the true movement of the novel--this change in the way in which people interact with this landscape. There is also a change in the protagonist--Bob Dollar.
Bob Dollar is a wounded man, abandoned by his parents on the doorstep of his gay uncle's junk shop. The uncle and his partner did a fine job raising Bob, but he can never really get over his sense of abandonment and he has a misguided sense of duty. Dollar works for the hog company that is trying to buy up land.
It feels as though Bob is only a necessity to the telling of the story. I do not find his sense of abandonment all that compelling and as Proux moves back to it in an effort to give justification for his action, it feels contrived, forced to fit where it perhaps should not.
The characters that live on the land, the ranchers and business owners, save the book. They are far more interesting than Bob Dollar. And I could not help but wish the story were about one of them--the Cowboy Monk, the obsessive compulsive sheriff, the dozen or so women, young and old, who carry the stories of that particular community.
The book has at its core the desire to make a particular political statement about the people of the rural west. It presents the reader with stereotypes and then quickly breaks apart those stereotypes--and those are the moments when the book really shines. It also speaks to the idea of sustainable farming practices and value added commodities in Western agriculture--which all felt somewhat tired to me out here in Oregon, land of value added everything. But perhaps it is new information to people living in the East. I would have much preferred hearing more of the stories of those old ranch women.
Proux does not shy away from back-story. She uses objects (shoes, cheap plastic jewelry) to dive into her character's history. And these stories are always engaging.
I wonder about the value of having an outsider, Bob Dollar, tell the story of this place. The book is populated with other, far more interesting characters. And I constantly wanted to hear more of them.
Late history of the Texas Panhandle.......2007-02-05
The story drags as it informs. Hard to continue it, hard to quit it. One learns partly where the settlers came from, Germany, but not where the others came from and where the Panhandle got its religion: Puritans and Fundies. The sense of place and characters is incredible, as if one were there. I think, if you want to understand the mentality of a bedrock Bush supporter, then simply read this book. One should in addition read Larry McMurtry's "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen", which tells more of the earlier story of the settlement of the Texas Highlands (we rarely drove through there in winter without facing an ice storm, and the remaining grasslands in that season are incredible to see). In particular, McMurtry explains why women of the earlier generations of the Panhandle 'did not talk'. By the time Proulx got there, they couldn't stop talking.
Ok, ok, 5 stars!
A fun and pleasurable read.......2007-02-02
Another well-executed profile from Annie Proulx of a rudderless clod who fumblingly finds his small measure of grace in life. As in the Shipping News, the main character is gradually prodded towards a new level of awareness by the subtle native beauty of an unfamiliar landscape, its rich buried history, and the colorful characters that help him unravel it.
Not as haunting as Shipping News, but nearly as funny. Fantastic characters and dialog, and interesting tidbits of history, too. At times this book looses its focus, and its plot does tend to drift along a bit and takes a few dead-end turnoffs -- but still, That Old Ace in the Hole is a highly pleasurable and frequently charming read. Proulx is a helluva talented writer in full command of her powers.
The Unexceptional Made Exceptional.......2006-12-30
Proulx has once again given us a captivating story about the most mundane and unexceptional set of circumstances imaginable.
In this story we have Bob Dollar, a young man who has lived much of his life without purpose, suddenly hired by Global Pork Rind to scout out possible hog farm locations in the Texas Panhandle. Though he doesn't care one iota about the hog farming industry and he personally thinks that hog farms ruin the quality of life wherever they spring up, he is determined to complete his job because so many people in his past have left things unfinished. Little did he know that in investigating the lands and people he hopes will sell out, he would build relationships with both not easily set aside.
Though Proulx gives us a story devoid of any major action or catastrophe, she nails every aspect of what it means to be a human with inexplicable emotions and passions, and I can only imagine that if I were to visit the Texas Panhandle, the people from this novel would likely be who I would meet.
Her usual aptitude for ingenuous dialogue, wit, and charm exude from the pages of this work. Her characters, as easy to imagine as your next-door neighbor, grow on you despite all their quirks and shortcomings (perhaps also like your next-door neighbor). I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel and suspect that you will as well.
Wild in Wooly(bucket) .......2006-11-29
I just finished a weeklong trip to Paris, about 4 hours of which were spent whipping through this thoroughly entertaining comic novel by Annie Proulx, whom I knew before only as the author of the story upon which the wonderful film "Brokeback Mountain" (anything but comic) was based. Proulx out-McMurtrys the master of Panhandle literature as she takes us to Woolybucket, TX through the eyes of young Bob Dollar, a recent college graduate trying to find his place in the corporate world. Dollar (known also to the locals as Dime and Nickel) is dispatched to the Texas panhandle as a site scout for Global Pork Rind, a pork processing conglomerate, which thinks of pigs not as animals, but as pork units. What a way Proulx has with names and cultures--Bob, who works for Ribeye Cluke, lives with his Uncle Tam and his junk business partner "Bromo" Redpoll, and meets LaVon Kronk and her son Coolbroth, 90-year-old town matriarch Freda Beautyrooms, bedwetting and sister-loving sheriff Hugh Dough, and rancher/adulterer Francis Scott Keister (and his wife "Taz") among others. They all swirl in a duststorm of a story about who decides how to use the land--even such apparently godforsaken land as Woolybucket County. A few of the oddball characters seemed placed purely for comic effect, but the overall impact is still a rollicking and delightful read.
Average customer rating:
- Loved the Thomas McClairen Character-- nice wrap up to the trilogy
- It's a good romance, but doesn't quite live up to its potential
- Not the best one of the series, but still very good.
- Nonstop Fireworks
- The Worst of the Three
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McClairen's Isle: The Ravishing One (McClairens Isle)
Connie Brockway
Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer
ASIN: 0440226309
Release Date: 2000-07-11 |
Book Description
His desire for her turned abduction into seduction....
She is the toast of London society. But Fia Merrick gives her heart to no one, for love is a weakness she cannot afford. Once she would have given her soul to Thomas McClairen, until he shattered her innocent dreams. Now he is back, a convict returned to England in disguise to abduct Fia to Scotland, to McClairen's Isle. There, as Fia seeks her revenge in seduction, a passion is ignited that defies the past and cannot be denied....
Customer Reviews:
Loved the Thomas McClairen Character-- nice wrap up to the trilogy.......2007-01-08
I enjoyed this book mostly because of the Thomas McClairen character. Instead of the sterotypical alpha male typically served up in these types of novels, Ms. Brockway has created a complex, sensitive, vulnerable yet strong and masculine character who deeply loves the heroine. Thomas McClairen is one of my favorite romantic heroes of all time.
I was sometimes frustrated with Fia to the extent that I wanted to shake her. She had a wonderful man in love with her, yet rejected him because she thought she wasn't good enough for him. Yet he knew her whole history and that was his decision to make. He accepted her as she was and loved her anyway.
This is a very satisfying ending to the trilogy in which the evil Carr gets his just deserts and the island is returned to McClairen ownership, as it should be.
Enjoyed it immensely. Very romantic and sensual.
It's a good romance, but doesn't quite live up to its potential.......2006-03-20
This is one of those romances where the first half is good and the second half is not so good.
In the first half, Fia and Thomas are dancing around one another, full of mingled desire, admiration, disgust, fear, suspicion...a heady mix of emotions. They're bound by secret identities, and secret promises, and secret obligations.
Then, in the second half, Fia...well, I thought that the changes in her character worked very well. She blooms, develops a little bit of simplicity and innocence and sweetness. It fits in with her past, like the child she never got to be peeks out in the woman she is.
Fia is a great character, really. She's very complex, very human, and Brockway manages to work in a "boy, it sucks to be beautiful" plot where I sympathized, and I really saw how much Fia's beauty hurt her, rather than just rolling my eyes.
Thomas, on the other hand, turns into a sort of bland, cheerful paragon and that sort of bummed me out. And once Fia is girlish and Thomas is a cheerful paragon, and they're glutted on pastoral pleasures...oh well, what can I say? I like the darker aspects of the McClairen's Isle series. I like the tension and the danger. So when those things dissipated, I was less enthralled.
I will say that I liked the ending. I thought that Fia's final dilemma was perfect, and her behavior believable. It was a satisfying vindication.
Not the best one of the series, but still very good........2004-01-04
The main problem that I had with this book was how long it took for things to start happening. What should have been the introduction, actually took half of the book. Up until Thomas "abducts" Fia nothing really had happened, and I was already tired of reading about Fia and Thomas day to day lives.
However, after the abduction, (or more accurately, the trip, since Thomas really didn't abduct Fia, she decided to go along with him), the pace of the novel increases and I could barely put down the book.
After reading other reviews that say there was an unexpected twist at the end that involved Gunna and Carr, I started thinking
what would that be, and I'm happy to say it was what I thought. I also liked reading what was going on in Ash and Raine lives, and to see the reunion of the siblings.
However, since so much time had been wasted on the first part of the novel, where nothing happened, the sencond half was kind of rushed. I would have liked that more time was dedicated to the romance between Fia and Thomas. I somewhat felt that this book did not have the same poignant quality that characterized the previous ones of this series.
Maybe I had set too high expectations for this book and that is why I'm a little dissapointed, but in reality it was pretty good. However, my favorite is still "The Passionate One"
Nonstop Fireworks.......2003-08-25
The Ravishing One is the excellent, fiery conclusion to Connie Brockway's wonderfully dark and complex McClairen's Isle trilogy.
Fia Merrick is a fascinating heroine--so stunningly beautiful, precociously worldly yet innocent and deeply damaged by her past. She doesn't realize that Thomas Donne, the man she's secretly loved for half a dozen years, is a McClairen and her family's bitterest enemy.
Their romance is a pager turner of nonstop fireworks not to be missed! Fia's journey toward self-discovery and freedom from her evil father's ironclad rule is also a delight. This novel is full of unexpected plot twists and has a stunning surprise ending I never expected. Don't miss this entertaining series that delves deeply into the nature of love, passion and evil!
The Worst of the Three.......2002-12-13
Let me begin by saying that I absolutely loved The Passionate One (the drunken May Day celebration scene alone worth the read) and the romance hinted between Thomas and Fia in that book intrigued me and made me impatient for The Ravishing One.
It turns out I could have waited...UGH...Of the three books in the McClairen saga this is the worst. Thomas is so mannerly/honourable that it eventually makes him seem as if he hasn't got a backbone to speak of....I guess I like my men to be men...he was, well...a wimp that ran around insulting her and not doing much else.
Fia was okay as a heroine (I really liked how strong she was and that she was capable of change) but she really had nothing to play off with a hero so weakly realized. She had little respect for him (evidence the scene where he comes to abduct her and she takes control and mocks him) and eventually so did I. I also got tired very quickly of being hit over the head with how 'wicked' she was...PLEEZE. Okay...we get it ...everybody thinks she's a bad girl and she's not..move on.
That said...I actually think Connie Brockaway is a great writer and the first book in this series is one of my all time favorites...and you can't please everyone with every story...but if you like your heros to be MEN...hmmm, well then I would say you should buy this book used.
Product Description
multiple books ship as one item. save on shipping/handling charges.
Average customer rating:
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The Ravishing One (Brockway, Connie. Mcclairen's Isle.)
Connie Brockway
Manufacturer: Center Point Large Print
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
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ASIN: 1585473030 |
Book Description
Text by W. Haden Blackman
All new
full color illustrations by Ian Fullwood
From the beat-up landspeeders that whisk travelers between desert towns on Tatooine to Jabba the Hutt’s luxurious sail barge and the elegant Naboo Royal Starship, the vehicles and vessels in the Star Wars universe have captivated millions of delighted fans.
In light of the ever-expanding saga, the
New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels features completely updated entries that cover more than 150 ships, along with brand new,
full-color illustrations by dazzling artist Ian Fullwood. This new volume encompasses craft from all five movies, the bestselling novels of the New Jedi Order, comics, TV specials, and games. Inside you will find:
• Detailed profiles and vital statistics for each vessel, including data covering the vehicle’s construction, size, maximum speed, and its role in Star Wars history
• A revealing Layman’s Guide to Technology, covering common terms applied to each class of vehicle
• An outline of engine technologies that drive the craft across the Star Wars galaxy, and of the unique weapons they boast
• Schematics for each vehicle, providing the reader with instant visual reference
Discover the modifications Han Solo and Chewbacca made on the Millennium Falcon to make it one of the fastest vessels in the galaxy; the secrets of the Imperial All Terrain Armored Transport Walker, possibly the most formidable military vehicle ever assembled; the reasons the Tribubble Bongo Sub is the chosen way to navigate the watery depths of Naboo; and the unique and lethal properties of the Yuuzhan Vong’s living starship, the Coralskipper.
Skiffs, cargo haulers, shuttles, podracers, gunships, sandcrawlers– if it flies, glides, drives, or speeds in the Star Wars galaxy, you’ll find it in The New Essential Guide to Vehicle and Vessels!
Ballantine Books/Science Fiction
Visit the official Star Wars Web site at www.starwars.com
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Customer Reviews:
Very, very nice book with awsome pictures.......2007-06-11
"Must have" for Star Wars fans, especially does who are into spacecrafts and modelling.
just what i ordered.......2007-03-11
Deliverd quickly and in exactly the same shape it was sold to me as. Perfect.
A Solid Reference.......2007-03-01
This book is a well deserved updated edition. The huge colorful illustrations, the comparisons of speed, weapons, manueverability, the history of design and purpose... all make for a well composed reference book.
My only complaint is that several of the older designs were relegated to the back of the book, with less impressive pictures and information, and a few vehicles of less importance were left out all together. So while this is a good reference for any Star Wars fan, it is not what I would call a complete reference. Still, a positive addition to any collection and useful when trying to make sure that the SW authors got their facts straight.
Not the best reference. .......2007-01-26
This book isn't comprehensive enough to be really valuable to a Star Wars fan. It's interesting, but the vast majority of the entries are things that you don't really want or need to know or see.
I want to be able to see what a Katana fleet Dreadnaught looks like, or find out about a Carrack-class cruiser, but no. The only valuable entries were specific people's personal ships, like the Lady Luck or the Wild Kaarde. Everything else was vague, and sometimes just wrong.
Also, some of the positioning and angling of pictures was just plain bad.
Something for every Star Wars fan!.......2007-01-15
I bought this book for my son, who is a HUGE Star Wars fan. He pours over this book, and is fascinated with the stories that accompany the pictures of SW vehicles. This book has been a huge hit with all the fans in our house, including my husband! A great book with great pictures!
Amazon.com
Every Star Wars fan knows that Slave I is Boba Fett's tricked-out bounty-hunting ride. But how many know about its short-lived successor, Slave II? And what average fan has ever laid eyes on an Imperial MT-AT walker? (Imagine a huge, arachnid AT-AT.) Heck, most SW buffs will even try to tell you that Vader's Super Star Destroyer is the biggest bad-boy this side of the Battle of Endor. Not likely: Emperor Palpatine's probably got bigger shuttlecraft on his 17.5-kilometer-long Eclipse-class ship.
Bill Smith's illustrated Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels--a veritable blue book for the Star Wars universe--lets you kick the tires on all these ships and more. Researching not just the movies, but also Star Wars novels, comics, computer games, et al., Smith tirelessly details 100 different ways to get around--and dish out destruction--in the land of sandcrawlers and speeders. Descriptions of familiar vehicles ("That's no moon... it's a space station!") blend seamlessly with the more obscure (can you name six kinds of TIE fighters?). This is one showroom-floor tour you won't want to miss out on. --Paul Hughes
Book Description
"THAT'S NO MOON! IT'S A SPACE STATION."
But it wasn't just any space station--it was the most famous battle station in movie history, the Death Star, just one of the dozens of high-tech marvels that are found in the movies, the books, the comics, the games, and everywhere the Star Wars epic continues.
STAR WARS(c): THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO VEHICLES AND VESSELS
* Features detailed data on the most important spaceships, vehicles, and
battle machines in the Star Wars universe.
* Describes the development and historical importance of each vehicle.
* Includes detailed illustrations with each entry for instant visual reference.
* Brings you up-to-date on the latest starcraft technology used by the New
Republic, its allies, and its enemies.
THESE ARE THE SHIPS USED TO TRAVEL, EXPLORE, AND CONQUER THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE STAR WARS GALAXY.
Customer Reviews:
great illustrations.......2007-01-02
This has great illustrations and information on Star Wars vehicles.
My son loves this.
Wait!!.......2005-06-08
Okay. Before the prequels this was a fantastic book that gave you a ton of information on the ships of the Star Wars universe. Not just the movie trilogy, but also the books. The problem is now this reference book is made obsolete by not only the prequels, but other books.
These books do not have any details from the prequel movies. No Naboo fighters, no Jedi starfighters, no clone army arsenal. So if you want that information you either have to wait for the latest of the latest books or get the revised version (which doesn't include vehicles from Revenge of the Sith).
Another thing I have noticed is that not all of the details in this book coincide with other books like the Incredible Cross Sections and Visual Dictionaries. Which is more accurate? Your guess is as good as mine.
Still take all that away and look at how much this book is going for you are getting a ton of useful and interesting details about these vehicles. If you love getting into the technical side of things this book will suit you in at least a limited capacity. If you really want techinical hit up on the Incredible Cross Sections books. Although you only get a fraction of the ships covered here.
If you want a complete listing wait. If you are happy with just the trilogy stuff and what's from the books before this was published you are in for a treat.
A fun book, but not essential........2004-10-01
I am a huge fan of star wars, and so I decided to read some of the novels. I hated how there were so many ships that I didn't recognize. This book helped alot in visualizing the ships. It's also great if you're obsessed with details like I am. Beyond that though, I don't know if it's essential, as it focuses more on the novels thn the movies. Even then it's still lacking several ships from the novels, so all in all it's fun, but not essential for someone who is just a casual fan.
An essential purchase for any Star Wars reader.......2003-11-24
The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels is a key reference book for the casual Star Wars fan or avid reader keen to know what their galaxy is flying and driving. Combining fun and informative knowledge makes this a great treat, and with the newer edition now out, there's no better time to acquire this when the price is low and many entries don't appear in the second guide.
Each ship or vehicle is rendered with an outline schematic and pencilled illustration. Though colourless, depth and detail are more than sufficient to give you an exact idea what they are. Key systems and functions are labelled, telling you the placement of guns and other technical stuff, which is useful, though some tags are no more than just telling you this a support struts, that an engine nacelle.
Pictures are brought to life by description, and the description for entries varied considerably. It's certainly informative for a casual reader, but many fans will find it light in detail too many places, specifics too vague at times. These guides should provide the basic specs of a ship: like manufacturer, length, number and types of guns, fighter complement, speed, and perhaps cargo capacity. While the Imperial Star Destroyer had extensive stats, the Ubrikkian space cruiser didn't even have a length, while the sandcrawler's height is only given, not its length. Both guides say only the Super Star Destroyer has "over a thousand weapons", but don't provide an extra sentence or two to say its composition.
A considerable percentage of entries came from the Dark Empire comics, whose ships and vehicles have rarely been used outside those three comics. While the World Devastator and various starfighters within are of interest, who would care for the Amphibion water tank, TIE crawler tank or Hutt Caravel, that weren't even important in their respective comics?
The EGVV features many stuff from quaint and obscure sources, like gargantuan insectile Ithullian ore haulers, Star Home, Shieldships, Coral Vanda and private vehicles to name a few. The manufacturer section in the beginning is useful in identifying who makes what.
The errors and consistencies will appear only to the fan well conversant in SW lore. The TIE Defender made no mention of its tractor beam (neither did the NEGVV), the Sun Crusher looks different from its Dark Apprentice book's cover art, Star Home was undergunned from what its book said, are just some of the many but minor tidbits you'll discover.
But it was the excessive redundancy that was the primary failing of this guide. Many important ships were omitted like the Strike Cruiser, Corellian Gunship, Assault Frigate, Floating Fortress and Golan battle stations, all in frequent and popular usage when this was done. Alas, the NEGVV omitted them as well. Yet there are THREE landspeeder entries, THREE Death Stars, TWO swoops and TWO B-wings.
Overall, the EGVV is a great reference guide for those wondering what their SW ships and vehicles look and are, and with most of its contents unseen in the second guide, still have value as a current purchase.
An excellent book for any Star Wars fan.......2003-10-13
When it comes to science fiction, the Star Wars saga is the best. However, the films themselves give very little information regarding the vehicles used by characters in them. This is a shame, because the technology of everyone's favorite galaxy far far away is nothing short of fascinating. Finally, a book entitled Star Wars - The Essential Guide To Vehicles And Vessels was released! Now, fans would be able to learn about the ever-so awesome vehicles characters in the films used! Read on for my review of this book.
PROS:
-If you're a fan of the Star Wars films, and you're interested in reading about the technical aspects of craft like the X-Wing fighter and the Imperial-Class Star Destroyer, this book will have more than enough information to make you happy.
-The book covers the expanded universe! This means the vehicles from Shadows Of The Empire appear here, as do vehicles that show up in later novels, comic books, video games, etc. Even if you're just a fan of the films, the information on the expanded universe will fascinate you.
-This book is readily available in most major bookstores (B. Dalton, Barnes And Noble, Borders, etc.) You shouldn't have any trouble finding it.
-The price for this book is very good, considering all the information it has to offer. This is a worthwhile purchase if you're a Star Wars fan.
CONS:
-The major problem with this book is that it was released circa 1997. This means it came out before 1999, and accordingly the vehicles exclusive to the prequel films, Episode I and Episode II, don't appear in here.
-The only pictures in the book are black-and-white sketches. I would have liked to see some more detailed pictures, preferably in color.
OVERALL:
If you're a Star Wars fan, I guarantee this book will fascinate you. If you're not a fan of the Star Wars series but know somebody who is, this makes a great gift. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Product Description
the illustrated guide to the high-tech craft of the STAR WARS universe. schematics by Troy Vigil
Product Description
This hardcover collects the three books, Characters, Weapons & Technology, and Vehicles & Vessels, into one easy to use reference on the Star Wars universe.
Book Description
In Ministering Cross-Culturally, the authors demonstrate that Jesus needed to learn and understand the culture in which he lived before he could undertake his public ministry. The authors examine how this can help us better understand what it means to establish relationships of grace with those from different cultural and social backgrounds. With more than 70,000 copies of the first edition in print, this incarnational model of ministry has proven successful for many people. Several sections in this second edition have been rewritten, and the entire book has been updated to reflect development in the authors' thinking. Drawing from the authors' rich experience on the mission field, this book will benefit anyone who wants to be salt and light in a multicultural and multiethnic world.
Customer Reviews:
very helpful for those ministering in other cultures.......2007-04-06
I have studied and prepared for overseas mission work in the past, and this book was not on my list. After reading it, i am recommending it for others i know in training. It reviews many of the factors that influence how we relate to others and is quite eye opening.
The classic text, but some problems.......2007-03-23
The objective of Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships, according to the authors' statement on page 124, is "to show that the incarnation of Christ is a model for missionary and other Christian ministry." The book is essentially an interpretation by Sherwood Lingenfelter of Marvin Mayers' model of basic values and the relation of this model to incarnational ministry. On page 14, Lingenfelter states that his goal is to "share some of the conflicts and struggles that [he] experienced and to explore their meaning for the larger issues of cross-cultural living, work, and ministry... [by going] beyond specific personal experiences to the underlying principles of culture and communication," through which interpersonal relationships are maintained. He claims, as a central thesis, the universality of Scripture and the love example of Jesus Christ.
While, for the most part, Lingenfelter's thoughts were well-reasoned and insightful, there were some concepts that were uncomfortably flawed or biased.
The first area of consideration is that of generalizations. Perhaps one of the most obvious examples of this was the conclusion drawn by the author upon finishing a study at the State University of New York College at Brockport. On page 48, Lingenfelter notes that, because those surveyed tended to be event-oriented, "American college students today are not as time-conscious and as highly motivated to keep a schedule as their culture would want them to be." It would seem that the students in one school in the northeastern comer of the United States are hardly a representative sample of American college students as a whole.
While not as glaring as this assertion, there are many other areas where Lingenfelter makes broad generalizations. Throughout the text, he shares some observations about American and Micronesian culture that seem to be more sweeping than research might warrant. Wisely, the author explains on page 48, that "there are individuals in every culture who are at variance with the pattern of the whole." This is an important disclaimer, but, having made it, Lingenfelter proceeds to made statements about culture as a whole. Aside from being statistically uncomfortable, this practice chips away at the thesis he is advancing. If the goal of the missionary is to become incarnate in his host culture, is he to adopt the practices of the majority of the culture, of the individuals with whom he is working most closely or of someone else? To inculcate the attitudes, thought processes and behaviors of a slight majority of a native population may result in isolation from the large minority segments of the culture.
The most disturbing biases, however, were those that Lingenfelter exhibited in drawing his conclusions at the end of each chapter. The perceived goal of this book was to assist the reader in becoming more balanced in his thinking and moving toward the goal of following Christ's example of being a "200 percent" person, fully integrated into both one's home culture and host culture. The assertion is that one is to develop balance, yet Lingenfelter gives very unbalanced presentations relating to each of the matrices of Mayors' model. He assumes that his readers are ingrained in "Western" thought patterns and spends the vast majority of his time celebrating the viewpoints of Yapese culture as being more closely aligned to Biblical teaching, while denying the value of traditional Western attitudes and behaviors.
This bias is practiced throughout the book, but a few striking examples should be noted. On pages 62-64, Lingenfelter gives more than ample space to a discussion of how Jesus and the disciples were holistic rather than dichotomistic in their judgments. He writes: "The Gospel writings suggest that as Jesus taught he utilized right-hemisphere, pictorial, concrete, holistic, and analogic strategies rather than left-hemisphere, verbal, abstract, dichotomistic, and analytic thought." As proof of this point, he cites Christ's use of concrete analogy, parable, current issues and personal case studies in His ministry. In contrast, the author gives only a token mention to Paul, who argued almost entirely from a Greco-Roman perspective and presented the Christian faith in an arena of logic and rationale, a very left-hemisphere, "dichotomistic" pattern. Obviously, the content of the Gospel needs to be communicated in a way that relates to the host culture, but to imply that Jesus' method of communication to the Jews was superior to Paul's method of communication to the Gentiles is to ignore the evidence of Scripture.
The third noted problem was that of strained or questionable analogies. On page 16, Lingenfelter notes that "Jesus came as a helpless infant" and that it is significant that "Jesus was a learner." While Christ gives an excellent example for cross-cultural ministers to follow, it must be understood that it is impossible to become a literal infant in a different culture. This is an advantage that Christ had that is unavailable to the missionary today. The minister can seek to develop a childlike attitude toward learning, but one must realize that he or she cannot fully incarnate himself into a host culture in the way that Jesus did. To draw all direction for cross-cultural ministry from the external practices of Jesus is to limit the way that God can work in non-Jewish cultures. Lingenfelter's assertion, on page 24, that "we are to become incarnate in the cultures to which we are sent" is a valid one, as is his recognition that we will never attain the full balance of incarnation that Christ achieved in His ministry on earth.
On the whole, Lingenfelter presents a valuable tool for self-understanding, but his work should be read carefully and critically and should be balanced with works by authors such as Harriet Hill, who advance the limitations of the incarnational model.
Great resource for any Christian.......2007-02-14
This book is one that I would recommend to any Christian who encounters someone from a different culture (hopefully that means all Christians). This book helps the believer to understand how to be more like Christ, who came to our world as a different culture. It helps the reader to recognize how our own culture is often deterministic of how we view others and how we act, even in things as simple as what time we arrive at a meeting. This is a must read for anyone who will do missions. I read it as a counselor and have recommended it to many people in the church.
Ministering Cross Culturally.......2007-01-19
This is a helpful book to give an introduction to how culture not only shapes others, but our own thinking. Understanding this is critical to thougthfully crossing cultures. The book is not exhaustive in the areas a culture shapes, but is a helpful start.
Good preparation.......2007-01-07
This book was extremely practical and very easy to read and understand.
Even though we were going to a very different culture than that of the Yaps, the principles helped us seek to look at things differently. It opened our minds a bit more to the differences and helped us UN-AMERICANIZE our thinking a bit.
Great book... fast read... very practical.
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- Clock Winder (1st Ballantine Books Trade ed)
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