Average customer rating:
- a vastly disappointing read
- Flora and Fauna can make a man yawn-a
- Not among his best
- Sometimes a Joy, Sometimes a Chore
- An Aging Man's Mirage
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Toward the End of Time
John Updike
Manufacturer: Knopf
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Binding: Hardcover
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Self-Consciousness
ASIN: 0375400060
Release Date: 1997-09-23 |
Book Description
Ben Turnbull, the hero of John Updike's eighteenth novel, is a sixty-six-year-old retired investment counselor living north of Boston in the year 2020. A recent war between the United States and China has thinned the population and brought social chaos. The dollar has been locally replaced by Massachusetts scrip; instead of taxes, one pays protection money to competing racketeers. Nevertheless, Ben's life, traced by his journal entries over the course of a year, retains many of its accustomed comforts, as supervised by his vibrant wife, Gloria. He plays golf; he pays visits to his five children and ten grandchildren. Something of a science buff, he finds his personal history caught up in the disjunctions and vagaries of the "many-worlds hypothesis derived from the indeterminacy of quantum theory. His identity branches into variants extending back through history and ahead in the evolution of the universe, as both it and his own mortal, nature-enshrouded existence move toward the end of time.
Customer Reviews:
a vastly disappointing read.......2007-09-03
wow... just finished it, and can i just say that this is one of those books i have finished out of spite alone, so i can say the book didn't get the better of me.
i have heard john updike described as "a penis with a thesaurus", and i can tell you this book illustrates that comment perfectly. if you are not averse to reading pages devoted to golf games, or accounts of an aging man doting on his penis for paragraphs on end, read this book because it delivers. there are short bursts of beauty, but it is all so incredibly brief and so quickly disregarded that it is irritating more than engaging. so self-indulgent, so crass - - i have also heard it said about the author, concerning his overexposure in the literary world, that "the new yorker seems to publish everything but his income taxes". i think he pieces together a few things, throws it all into a manuscript and says "here you go", evidenced by the great ideas he presents, and does nothing with. For example, FedEx taking over the government, a moon-sized manned satellite abandoned by the people on earth, the fallout after a "sino-american conflict"... a more competent writer could work absolute wonders with these ideas i feel, and he just seems content to mention them in passing and describe ad nauseam his long-term trist with a foul-mouthed crack whore, or his second wife's flower beds over and over and over and over again. john updike is written proof that if you are a sexist, classist prick with a single influential novel, a big vocabulary and a bit of money, you can turn out endless amounts of crap and people will eat it up.
Flora and Fauna can make a man yawn-a.......2007-09-02
While the book is a brilliant work of sexagenarian introspection and obliquely described dystopian SF and the prose is lyrical, the dense descriptions of flowers, trees, birds, leaf shapes which serve as prologue to each chapter and section are stultifying. After about the 10th round of these long passages of horticultural effervescence, I found myself skimming over them to get to the story.
A similar but milder impatience with all the descriptions of sexual acts and their accompanying odors and effluvia. It all gets a bit boring without some story to propell the book forward. And there is a story, and it's a great story, but the book could have been about 50 pages shorter.
Not among his best.......2007-02-28
Set in the near future (c.2020) in a semi-rural area not too far from Boston in the aftermath of a nuclear war with China, this basically unsatisfying novel is the ruminations of main character Ben Turnbull as he contemplates the world around him - one in which law has just about ceased to exist and extortion has taken its place. His domineering wife has gone away on a trip - or perhaps he's killed her - it's hard to say. Turnbull meanwhile appears barricaded in his house dealing with a gang of extortionists who live in the woods on his property. Not a whole lot happens in the book, though central to the story is Updike's criticisms of a world ruled by technology and a lack of any kind of moral stamina. Turnbull seems trapped between the barren, mechanistic world outside his window and his nostalgic recollections of the pop culture he believes has defined him as a person. It's a sad book, saturated with a feeling of hopelessness and life not worth living. I consider myself a great admirer of the works of John Updike (I believe that 50 years from now his books, especially the Rabbit series, might be the only fiction from our time period still being read), but I find this novel among the least satisfying of his books.
Sometimes a Joy, Sometimes a Chore.......2006-09-04
John Updike's Toward the End Of Time proved a bit of an enigma to me. At times I thoroughly enjoyed it and at other times I seriously thought about putting the book down, never to open its contents again.
In the novel our protagonist goes by the name of Ben Turnbull, a retired finance expert who now haunts his home in the country as his wife obsesses with the garden, her social circles, and a gift shop she helps run. The year is 2020, and a war with the Chinese has all but obliterated the United States as we currently know it. However, New England has been little affected and so life is fairly normal.
Perhaps that is Updike's most astonishing talent. Amongst all the mundane aspects of his tale, he'll sometimes throw in facts about the war, or briefly mention a new life form that has emerged as a result of the war, or slip into metaphysical dissertations about all aspects of science that will virtually boggle your mind. Along with that, at times Ben, our narrator, will slip into . . . something . . . where he is someone totally different living in ancient Egypt or soon after the death of Christ. Perhaps just as flummoxing is the disappearance and reemergence of major characters with little to no explanation.
Amidst all this, however, exist the story of a man aging, a man who feels useless to his wife and to himself more and more with each passing day. He is a man still hot with passion for life and for love, but he finds fulfillment for these passions in the most unusual and sometimes immoral of places.
While this novel presented itself as a constant frustration, one cannot ignore the sheer talent Updike has at imagery. Ben's wife's garden is described in the utmost detail, and there are many, many metaphors as the garden is constantly torn asunder and the local wildlife exterminated in favor of the garden's survival for Ben's slow but sure demise and for his strained relationship with his wife.
If you are a fan of Updike and want to explore more of his interesting styles and techniques, you would probably enjoy this work very much. However, if you are a casual reader looking for a new book, I don't think you would enjoy this particular work.
An Aging Man's Mirage.......2005-09-26
The hero is Ben Turnbull. His wife is named Gloria and he keeps a diary. He refers to his wife, amusingly, as the dynamic Gloria. The Massachusetts unit of currency is now called a welder. John Updike, through Ben, has projected himself and us into the future. It is 2020. Going to Boston to his old firm, Ben finds the city has little use for him now. A deer eating an euonymus hedge has caused Gloria to borrow a friend's shotgun to protect their greenery. Ben senses that in the snow-covered landscape the deer is starving. In Ben's fantasy the deer is a young woman.
The year 2020 is in the postwar era. The war was fought with China, in which, it seems the U.S. suffered substantial damage because the economy collapsed. Ben is sixty six. When Gloria cools the house during the winter, Ben puts on a watch cap to wear to bed. Ben had attended the University of Massachusetts. He and his first wife, Perdita, had five children closely spaced. The children now had stable small families. While Gloria is absent temporarily, Ben takes as a friend a young woman named Deirdre. Law and order have disappeared and Ben pays protection money. Easter Day they go to church since Deirdre claims it would be bad luck not to.
Deirdre leaves while Ben is visiting his grandchildren in Gloucester. He attends Grandparents Day with another grandchild, Kevin, at the Dimmesdale School. Perdita is present also. Later Gloria returns and their life together is resumed. It is late spring, then summer, then fall. After time marriage is a mental game of thrust and parry. Ben thinks he has observed the world poorly. In the chaotic environment existing after the war, FedEx employees have taken over the policing function.
The book has set pieces on history, archaeology, natural science, astronomy, and physics, giving the whole work a richness, a layeredness that it wouldn't have otherwise. In many sections the book is funny and in the over-all framework it is human, all too human. Bravo, John Updike, for excellence in the practice of the writer's craft.
Customer Reviews:
More an Ideological Exercise than Serious Research.......2003-06-23
I was disappointed in the book, the author clearly just picked and chose references from other works on the impact of the Indonesian crisis that suit his purposes. I find it hard to believe that we could apply the findings from his fieldwork in the two rural Java villages in other Indonesian villages like what he had suggested, since Indonesia is an archipelago with 18,000 islands and 300+ tribes/ethnic groups that are very diverse. I also wonder whether he really writes up the report based on the interviews he had with the people in the villages or just filled it up with his own opinions and ideology, since I find that throughout the book that he could not get "satisfactory" and "definite" conclusions from his interviews with the people in the field so he decided to use his judgements to form conclusions about a given problem. Finally, I did not see any quotes from his field notes, a very crucial part in any anthropological research, this clearly left me more to conclude that the book is more based on his ideology than in a well-conducted research. There are a few good points about the book, like on the conditions of Indonesian migrant workers and the failure of the social safety net program (nothing new because other researchers have also concurred on this), this is why I give it a two star instead of just one, but the book is clearly not worth the money I spent on it.
Average customer rating:
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The Last Magic Show : Toward the End of Time ... At About Noon
M. F. Taylor
Manufacturer: Eclipse Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Personal Transformation
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ASIN: 0963153048 |
Book Description
In 1988, the author and his brother talked about life, death, the Magic show (a level of consciousness, and what appears to be some kind of advanced awareness related to the perennial philosophy of being.
The Last Magic Show demonstrates the difficulty of communicating a level of realization that cannot be heard by a level that is simply not yet open to hear, as it is too busy translating its own level of functioning (or defending that level as a state of security or insecurity. Yet, these dialogues focus relentlessly on the process of observation, of seeing how the self is stuck in some illusion.
Russ was never able to understand how his mind locked him into a magic Show which tortured him daily with tricks of misery...how about you? Do you know how the tricks are done? This book is really about you...how you are stuck at some level of consciousness, thinking that is reality, all the while not knowing you are attending a Magic Show and are even part of the Act.
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Franklin Library A beautiful red leather Limited First Edition signed by the author. One of 1,400 limited signed copies. With gold gilt cover designs and page edges, marbled endpapers and bound-in silk bookmark.
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Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?
Turn to "Novels for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: author biography; plot summary; character analysis; an overview of the novel's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.
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Book Description
This digital document is an article from U.S. Catholic, published by Claretian Publications on January 1, 2003. The length of the article is 573 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Time for Vatican III? (Odds & Ends).(Toward a New Catholic Church)(Book Review)
Author: Peter Gilmour
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U.S. Catholic (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2003
Publisher: Claretian Publications
Volume: 68
Issue: 1
Page: 6(1)
Article Type: Book Review
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Average customer rating:
- Super Reader
- the hawk eternal
- Not really about Sigarni, but very underrated...
- Hawk Eternal
- Not his best, but still Gemmell
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The Hawk Eternal (A Novel of the Hawk Queen)
David Gemmell
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Ironhand's Daughter: A Novel of the Hawk Queen
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ASIN: 0345458397
Release Date: 2005-08-30 |
Book Description
While the warlike and merciless Aenir wreak havoc upon the territory outside the mountain stronghold of the clans, Sigarni, the Hawk Queen, arrives in a parallel version of her own universe through a gate in space and time. Taliesen, last of the gatekeepers, has no idea why she has come. But he knows that heroes are needed and grants her passage into the ravaged land.
Only Caswallon–loner, warrior, and thief–realizes the true extent of the danger and the mayhem that his people will come to face. As Taliesen tries to discover Sigarni’s purpose, Caswallon must attempt to unite the clans to overcome their greatest peril.
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“Gemmell’s great reading–the action never lets up. He’s several rungs above the good–right into the fabulous!”
–Anne McCaffrey
“For anyone who appreciates superior heroic fantasy, David Gemmell’s offerings are mandatory.”
–Time Out London
“[Gemmell] does high adventure as it ought to be done.”
–Greg Keyes, author of The Charnel Prince
From the Paperback edition.
Customer Reviews:
Super Reader.......2007-08-26
Gemmell introduces some more of that travel through time thing, as the Hawk Queen goes to aid an alternate version's people in trouble who desperately need a hero.
The man she meets and influence she has will be reflected in her own time in a younger life, if you can work that one out.
Still, Gemmell's Highland times are pretty good.
the hawk eternal.......2006-11-14
Caswallon is a highlands warrior from the Farlain tribe. Skilled with bow and short sword, he's a stealthy hunter and a merciless killer when enemies such as the fearsome aenir threaten the land of his fathers. The aenir enter a new land through a magic portal Which power has faltered over the aeons and no more gate keeper to re-seal it.. A race bent for bloodshed and ruin, they subdue all cities of the newfound realm. As soon as it's done, they turn eyes towards the highlands..
Characters good and bad, in the typical gemmel style, get a thorough description of their personalities you end up
Awed by them all (and ultimately, by their creator). Much research has been done about living in the forest and the book is peppered with details on tracking, making fires Or makeshift weapons. This lends a strong and much appreciated touch of realism to all of Gemmell's stories. Despite the realism of the story's framework, it remains heavily fantastic and supernatural, creating an intensely prosaic chiaroscuro. The sorcery and magic are entrancing, the evil extraordinarily vivid and graphic in its ruthlessness. It is opposed to a counterbalancing force that must at all times prove of a mighty resourcefulness.. the world of Gemmell is of parallel worlds that can interfere with each other through the magic gateways. Time is of no importance in each individual world. What gives it importance is what decisions people make in the worlds they cross. These same people exist in a different parallel world but are making different decisions, leading different lives.. and facing different futures and fates. We're constantly reminded that time is a blind beast we are trying to harness. It takes us wherever we're strong enough to steer it (at least while we're still alive). You'll also discover that gemmell has a knack for anagrams; Morgase, the aenir queen, can be spelled "orgasme" in French (: ,
giving you some help to imagine what this woman must look like, her slim white skinned body sheathed in black satin and lace... fancy a cold shower?...
this is a metaphorical work: the Aenir are us, the human race. we exploit our earth's resources mercilessly and punish the nature which gave us life. whenever a land is depleted of its resources, we move along toward a new land, a typically parasitic behavior.nature (and all creatures/beings who are still connected to Her) will retaliate ruthlessly at her desecrators.
I don't know if david gemmell had a wife or children at the time of his -untimely-passing
But he sure left orphans behind: his heroes and his readers. British fantasy and fantasy literature worldwide, has lost one of its main pillars somewhere in july 2006. he may not be among us anymore, but heroes don't die. Hail!
p.s. i just took a look at the poor ratings this book received... leaves me wondering about the attention span of the reviewers or whether they truly read this book...
Not really about Sigarni, but very underrated..........2006-08-03
This is a companion review to Ironhand's Daughter. Again, I will try to write the review without any spoilers.
The Hawk Eternal is the sequel to the excellent Ironhand's Daughter. Being a sequel, one would expect that the book would again focus on the larger-than-life character of the warrior-Queeen Sigarni. However, this is not the case. Sigarni herself, does not apear until much later in the book, and is really a secondary character. There are two main characters in this novel and both are richly described. One of Gemmell's main strengths is his ability to always make his readers emotionally invested into the fates of his main characters. A clever way he does this is by making his characters flawed and usually seeking some form of spiritual redemption in their opposition to insurmountable and evil odds. We think that we could be these people, or we "wish" we could be one of these people.
The characters of Caswallon and Gaelen are no exception. Both have inner demons to battle. Caswallon has a shameful and selfish past, Gaelen has an abused and unloved childhood. Yet, the destiny of the highland clans is in their hands.
In this book, the evil forces are the Aenir who are clearly "Earth-similar" to the Norse/Goth tribes. The Aenir are a despicable race who live for suffering and war. The Celt-like highlanders are the last free people to stand in their way to total conquest. The Aenir are battle hardened and vastly outnumber the free highlanders. But the highlanders will not go down without a fight...
Like "Ironhand's Daughter", the HawK Eternal features a lot of battles and action scenes, strong characterisation, and the odd bit of interdimensional time-travel thrown in to boot. A worthy sequel (it can actually safely be read as a stand alone novel) that will not disappoint any Gemmell fan, particularly those who liked the Rigante series.
Hawk Eternal.......2006-05-15
I just couldn't really get in into this book. It seemed messy and poorly put together as you go between worlds and such.
There were too many loose ends and the characters would do random, out of character things at times. It just may be me looking in to the book to much, but I felt that when the book was written, the author didn't put enough of himself into the characters. As a result, the characters seemed to have lacked definition.
But, on the bright side, the plot was certainly interesting and unique. Points there.
Not his best, but still Gemmell.......2006-03-26
This one was a bit harder to follow than Iron Hand's Daughter. The first book only touched upon the parallel and alternate timelines, this book wades deep into them. So if you want to follow along and make sense of it, you are going to have to pay attention. Though not as strong as his Drenai works, this novel is typical Gemmell. Great heroes, and even greater battles mixed with a tiny bit of magic and a monster or two. This is some of his earlier work, so if you have been reading them in the order that Del Rey has been putting them out, it may not seem as strong as what you have recently read. That is not the fault of the author, he has continued to grow as a writer. Read Legend first and you will find yourself hooked on Gemmell's work.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Queen's Quarterly, published by Queen's Quarterly on March 22, 2002. The length of the article is 3379 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Film springs eternal.(Nortel Networks Palm Springs International Film Festival )(In the Bedroom)(Black Hawk Down) (movie review)
Author: Maurice Yacowar
Publication:
Queen's Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2002
Publisher: Queen's Quarterly
Volume: 109
Issue: 1
Page: 61(11)
Article Type: Movie Review
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Average customer rating:
- flopped soufflé
- 1992 Nebula Award Nominee
- First-rate anthropological SF
- Where it all started...
- What's All the Hubbubb, Bub?
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A Million Open Doors (Giraut)
John Barnes
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Barnes, John
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Giraut Leones lives in Nou Occitan, a place where young people spend most of their time gossiping, writing poetry, and fighting duels over various insults. Eventually we find that Nou Occitan is just one of humanity's "Thousand Cultures," an artificial colony set up on a terraformed world to bring art, chivalry, and other old-fashioned values to life. Some years ago the springer, a device enabling teleportation travel, was opened, resulting in friction between the traditional dilettantes and Interstellars, youngsters who adopt new ways of life.
Giraut's old friend Aimeric is called back to his home colony of Caledony to aid in the economic recession and cultural explosion that will surely follow the opening of the springer there. When Giraut is betrayed by his entendedora (part mistress, part girlfriend), he seizes the opportunity to go along as an ambassador. A Million Open Doors becomes a coming-of-age tale as Giraut adapts to a culture radically different from his own. Caledony society is colorless, repressed, money-driven; it emphasizes religion and hard work. Bewildered by the discouragement of art or pleasure, Giraut opens a college to teach Occitanian culture to interested Caledonians. The threatened religious and political leaders, of course, look on this as an oddity, if not an outright seed of revolution. During the cultural and political upheavals on Caledony, Giraut and friends learn about life, love, diplomacy, and cross-cultural friendship.
The premise--human colonies flung across the universe evolving on hundreds of different planets now being transformed by instantaneous space travel--has been explored before. But John Barnes's sense of humor and world-building skills make it great fun. --Bonnie Bouman
Book Description
Nou Occitan is a place where duels are fought with equal passion over insults and artistic views alike. Giraut--swordsman, troubador, lover--is a creature of this swashbuckling world, the most isolated of humanity's Thousand Cultures.But the winds of change have come to Nou Occitan. As the invention of the "springer"--instantaneous interstellar travel, at a price--spreads throughout the human galaxy, the stability and purity of no world, no matter how isolated, is safe. Nor can Giraut's life remain untouched. To his wonder, his is about to find himself made an ambassador to a different human world, a place strange beyond his wildest imaginings.
Customer Reviews:
flopped soufflé.......2007-04-14
overhyped. the recipe was sound, the execution poor. enjoyable premises, hence, the generous two stars. Nou Occitan, with its troubador bravura and artifice is a winner. alas, the choppy writing quality, narrative gaps and descriptive flatness are tiresome. an overlong novella fit for speedreading at best. nebula nominee? in future, i won't be suckered by that line again.
1992 Nebula Award Nominee.......2006-08-24
This was a wonderful book to read. As I'm writing this review I'm debating on whether to give it 4 or 4-1/2 stars. Although written in the vein of Heinlein's juvenile series, it's obvious it was written by an adult writing about people in their early 20's and many of the themes touched upon should be universal throughout life: friendship, integrity, compassion, so that should not subtract from it's worth. However, the book was a tad too drawn out, the government obviously oppressive, and the characters just a bit too idealistic, so 4 stars it is, which of course still makes it highly recommendable.
This book is probably not what you expect it to be. On my paperback cover is this very science fiction-y view of what looks like a giant aircraft carrier superstructure on what could be a space station with a huge flat plaza underneath and lines of monochrome people giving a sense of `something's' going to happen. And the title has a sci-fi tone to it. So it's with surprise that much of the story is around a protagonist that can best be described as a trobador, on a culture based on romanticized medieval Europe where grace, style, and honor are paramount. Disregard the few references that they are on other planets and a student of Medieval Literature could find this just as enjoyable as a science fiction reader. However, that should not dissuade science fiction readers from reading this. This book had me laughing out loud on almost every page from it's tongue in cheek humor, which can be best explained IMHO as similar to Terry Pratchett or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The title, A Million Open Doors, refers to the human civilization in the novel that has a Thousand Cultures (not all of which are on separate planets) and an instant teleportation device is discovered called the `springer', and if each springer is considered as a door and if each of the thousand cultures has a door to the other thousand cultures then you have a million doors. Philosophically, Barnes makes a counterpoint to the theme in Dan Simmons first two novels of his Hyperion cantos. There Simmons is stating that instant teleportation is ruining the distinct cultures and/or ecosystems of individual locations. In this novel, Barnes is saying that communication, and because of vast distances between planets even going the speed light isn't sufficient, between cultures is occasionally needed to prevent a culture from going too extreme, as what happens in this novel. And instant teleportation, in addition to allowing cultures to learn tolerance of other cultures, then allows humanity to hopefully form a united front in case of first contact with a sentient alien species.
The protagonist leaves his medieval European culture and is transported to Caledony, an oppressive culture with a cold, raw climate. Even though this culture is described as repressively Christian and capitalistic because of the necessity of monetary tips for services, it really can be considered as similar to the culture of the Soviet Union, where favors replaced tips (I'll trade you hard-to-get chocolate for a lift in your automobile/trakcar/'cat'), and based, instead of on Christianity, on the Soviet System. Barnes may well have been following events of the dissolution of the Soviet Union that occurred in August 1991 when he wrote this book.
One more thing about the protagonist, Barnes makes him realistic in his attitudes from a culture that he is fully representative of to transportation and full immersion into a very different culture. The protagonist realizes there are a quite a few redeemable characteristics of the new culture he first considered bland, and that there are aspects of his previous culture that are somewhat reprehensible, and that as he tries to blend the best aspects of both cultures, he doesn't lose sense of where he came from.
First-rate anthropological SF.......2006-04-20
I'm aware that Barnes has built quite a following and a reputation, but I had begun a couple of his more recent novels and they just weren't my kind of thing. However, a friend whose literary opinions I respect insisted this one was different, and worth the effort. I'm pleased to say he was right. The author has a real ear for what makes a society work. His comparison here between Nou Occitan on the planet Wilson (a sort of Portuguese-Catalan-Renaissance Italian mix, heavy on sexism and dueling, where Art is the most important thing) and Caledony (a Stalinist approach to Presbyterianism overlaid by strict -- and mandatory -- mathematical rationality) invites comparison to LeGuin's The Dispossessed, even though the two styles are entirely different. Giraut Leones, who travels from the first society to the second as part of a diplomatic mission from the Council of Humanity, the semi-governing body of the Thousand Cultures, and who is the lens through which Barnes refracts the two world-views, is a decent human being who gradually realizes his own previous cultural blindness and learns to appreciate the differences in others. I have to say the last few chapters were somewhat rushed in bringing everything together -- the author perhaps should have stretched out and explicated the plot for another fifty pages -- but I definitely enjoyed this. Since it turned out to be the first volume of a trilogy, I know what my next two books are going to be.
Where it all started..........2004-03-21
I just happened to read the book that follows this one, so for me, to read this book was to go backards in time, to see how Giraut and Margaret first met, to see his home world and her home world first hand, to see the merits and flaws of both characters and cultures and maybe gain more understanding of the universe John Barnes has designed. The book brings out the wonder and fear of contact, not between alien races, but human cultures. While the novel was published in 1992, it is very much a valid warning for today's readers. The world is much smaller than before, we can't stop that, but maybe we can limit the damage to ourselves, to our culture and to our souls.
As for the story, once again, it was a wonderful ride. Seeming to go one way, it jerks off the rails and goes another, as if the very characters and the world in which Mr. Barnes has created had a life of its own. A surprise ending, yes, but also a realistic and even sad one.
What's All the Hubbubb, Bub?.......2003-10-30
Even though the book is a fair read, good for a rainy weekend, or putting one to sleep of a night, I don't find it the award winning fair that so many critics' opinions say it is.
If you like a bunch of dandies waltzing about, drinking and wenching, then having the hero throwing himself into an altogether stange, socialistic society in the aftermath of a romantic betayal, this is your book; but I found it lacked enough action to keep the storyline moving, and to hold this reader's attention.
I am waiting to read "Earth Made of Glass", in hope that it is more attention keeping than "A Million Open Doors".
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Wood & Wood Products, published by Vance Publishing Corp. on May 1, 2003. The length of the article is 1929 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Closing a door opens much more for Legere Group: this Avon, CT-based millwork company made a $1 million equipment upgrade to help it replace business lost when it shut down its window and door division.
Author: Greg Landgraf
Publication:
Wood & Wood Products (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2003
Publisher: Vance Publishing Corp.
Volume: 108
Issue: 6
Page: 53(5)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from San Diego Business Journal, published by CBJ, L.P. on July 26, 1999. The length of the article is 753 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Door opens for $20M to builders of Navy homes.(bidding is invited for $20 million US Navy Department homebuilding and renovation project)(Statistical Data Included)
Author: Simone Toth
Publication:
San Diego Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 26, 1999
Publisher: CBJ, L.P.
Volume: 20
Issue: 30
Page: 1(2)
Article Type: Statistical Data Included
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
Good Beginning Study for Small Groups.......2006-11-10
Ordering this book to use as a resource for an in-depth Bible Study for adults, I was pleased to find some great applications. However, the strength of this book really lies more in the realm of beginning Bible students. I think it is a great way to introduce the wisdom of the OT while still maintaining the vital truths of the NT. I've since used the book as a resource to teach Teens from church as we looked at topics in Proverbs, and it was perfect for them. It is best adapted for small group use, and its topical nature lends itself to some great dynamics in discussion. Dee Brestin is always a safe bet!
Supplement with The Complete Guide to the Book of Proverbs........2000-01-05
Overall this is a good fill-in-the-blank workbook for studying Proverbs individually or in groups. Group study suggestions are made and there are leader's notes. Although the copyright is 1975, it was revised in 1993 by Dee Brestin. Most quotes are from the NIV. The 5" x 8" booklet has 96 pages and offers 16 lessons based on selected themes. For a more in-depth commentary on Proverbs as a companion read THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE BOOK OF PROVERBS by Cody Jones. The comments are interesting and very readable and put things into a historical setting. It includes many historical drawings and photos to give you a sense of the culture of the time. There is a topical guide and 6 translations in parallel to aid understanding.
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- With You in Spirit: A Novel
- Witness of St. Ansgar's
- Xicotencatl: An Anonymous Historical Novel About the Events Leading Up to the Conquest of the Aztec Empire (Texas Pan American Series)
- Zora Neale Hurston : Novels and Stories : Jonah's Gourd Vine / Their Eyes Were Watching God / Moses, Man of the Mountain / Seraph on the Suwanee / Selected Stories (Library of America)
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