Book Description
This novel is a moving evocation of a time and place — an Appalachian boyhood in the 1940s. The book describes the coming of age of Speer Whitfield, raised by a zany spinster aunt and a family of memorable characters: a sister who is slowly dying, a mother mistreated by various men, a mysterious grandfather.
Customer Reviews:
Snakehunter's Time Has Come Again (or at last).......2001-04-28
Chuck Kinder's Snakehunter is not your typical coming of age fiction and the protagonist, Speer, is anything but your run-of the-mill boy.
After his father's death, Speer and his mother find they must relocate from city-life to rural West Virginia, to the hometown of his mother. Speer is thrust into his strange mountain family; including a pair of overbearing, sometimes well-meaning aunts; an abusive overweight cousin who calls himself Hercules; a goodnatured uncle who serves as a buffer to the family friction; a grandfather whose past, legend has it, included murder; and Speer's beloved intellectual cousin Catherine, a happy-hour-all-day gal with, at least initially, a placid boozer's imagination easily accessable to Speer.
Sounds straightforward enough, huh?
Enter Kinder's manipulation of time and place. He brings the reader back and forth over a twenty year period, without breaking the stories pace or cohesivness. He also uses sociological examples to give the story unique perspective on a wide range of "interesting" tribal traditions.
Kinder's language is beautiful, especially dealing with scenery and nature, which serves as a nessessary backdrop to this well told story.
Snakehunter is a feast of form; it prompts one to wonder: How did Kinder weave this tale together without allowing the seams to show through? Snakehunter's form was possibly ahead of its time in the cynical years surrounding the Nixon administration (1973). Read this novel tomorrow. Appreciate its freshness, its language, its warmth, its grit, its honesty and, most importantly, Kinder's guts.
Average customer rating:
- Fantastic!!
- Tolkien's world and themes but . . .
- His First
- Iron Tower Fan
- Meant to be a sequel not a remake!
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The Iron Tower Omnibus
Dennis L. McKiernan
Manufacturer: Roc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 McKiernan, Dennis | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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Similar Items:
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The Silver Call
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Silver Wolf, Black Falcon (Mithgar)
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The Dragonstone (Mithgar)
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The Eye of the Hunter (Mithgar)
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Into the Forge (Mithgar)
ASIN: 0451458109
Release Date: 2000-12-12 |
Book Description
Dennis L. McKiernan's Mithgar books are among the most beloved in all of fantasy fiction. The Iron Tower includes the first three novels set in the world of Mithgar-collected in a single volume for the first time-with an all-new introduction by the author.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic!!.......2007-08-07
This series is every bit as good as Tolkien.
One of my favorite authors and stories of all time.
All you 'one star' reviewers, get off the sauce, willya? *wink*
Tolkien's world and themes but . . . .......2007-03-04
Of course this series borrows heavily from Tolkien, the Author acknowledges this upfront.
I find that this series has far more warm and humanity than Tolkien has ever shown.
The more work you read from Dennis L. McKiernan, the more you appreciate his talents,
I highly recommend every book that follows these. Try not to be as blind and shallow as the "Tolkein Purists".
His First.......2006-11-04
As always Dennis L. McKeirnan writes a fantastic tale. However this one is heavy based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. So heavily in fact that at many points it seems more like blantant plagrarism.
This book is good, but it is so obviously his first attempt. The world was not completely formed and nor were the rules of the races that filled the world. His later works fully flesh out the world and people within. This book is good, but many of his others are much much better.
Iron Tower Fan.......2006-10-06
I read these novels when they came out in the 80's and a decade before I ever read LOR. I found out later it was intended to be a sequel to LOR. Nevetheless, going into it without any LOR background I had a blast reading this book. So much so that I reread it again after finding out about the LOR sequel and then read the LOR books just prior to the movies coming out.
While I really enjoyed both IT and LOR, I must admit that I prefer The Iron Tower to the LOR books as there is a hell of a lot better handling of large battles.
Meant to be a sequel not a remake!.......2006-06-14
As the title says and as i wanted to make clear to everyone reading here, McKiernan is a huge Tolkien fan. In fact it was his dream to write a sequel to the lord of the rings but sadly once he'd written it, the Tolkien family backed out and he was left with dreams shattered. His agent then decided to try and salvage the books by getting McKiernan to write back-story and change elements. So when you look up this book, remember its meant to be a sequel, not a rip off.
Product Description
This book helps to determine if you are a hobby or a business and how to report this on your tax return. It then gives you step-by-step ways to turn your poker game into a business and your expenses into deductions. It also assists you with reporting to the IRS if you have won money playing poker.
Customer Reviews:
very helpful.......2007-09-22
The book was very informative and helpful. It was an easy read and certainly will help me in preparing my taxes for this year.
GOTTA HAVE THIS !!!.......2007-07-03
For all professional Poker Players who want to save money on preparing your tax return, you must have this book !!! UNLESS YOU WANT ANN MARGARET JOHNSTON TO DO YOUR TAXES which is better !!!! Either way, it is the NUTS !!!!
must have.......2007-03-14
whether you're filing as a professional poker player or just play for fun, this book is a must have for tax purposes. The book is concise and organized. The most helpful thing in the book are the example tax sheets she fills out for both the hobbyist and pro (2 of each case with different situations). Recommended
A Must Have Book For Anyone Who Play's Poker.......2006-04-14
This author has written a easy to understand guide for anyone who play's poker and want's to know how to take every legal deduction available. It help's you figure out if you are truely in a positon to take deduction's as a pro or if you are just playing for fun. Very down to earth and fun book even if it is written by a C.P.A.
Book Description
What started out as an art project in the late nineties is an international cultural and crafting phenomenon in the new millennium: Artists Trading Cards (ATCs). And now Leisure Arts and Banar Designs deal even more players into the game. Lets Play Cards offers 83 ways to turn ordinary 212" x 312" playing cards into collectible works of art using all manner of techniques, papercrafting, and embellishment.
Customer Reviews:
Let's Play Cards: How To Turn Playing Cards Into Art.......2007-03-10
This has some really great ideas and tips, even though I'm not a "beginner" to ATC's - I still enjoyed the ideas and samples in this book.
Let's Play Cards!!!.......2006-11-06
This is a wonderful book because it is unique,; there are no other books like it out there, at least that I have seen! The projects are beautiful and the directions are easily understood, enen if you are artistically challenged like me! I brought to my favorite stamp store and they liked it so much they are thinking of adding it to their stock.
Anyone who likes papercrafting, ATCs etc should have a copy of this book.
Customer Reviews:
Super Reader.......2007-08-01
This Wild Cards installment is a full length novel, not an anthology. The main character is Mark Meadows, an idealistic hippie. He is on the run from law enforcement types from the USA, as well as the odd ace, and is forced from place to place around the world, and finally settles in Vietnam. This country has decided to set itself up as a Wild Card refuge, where all jokers are welcome.
Mark doesn't find everything to his liking, and with the help of Belew, Croyd and others, decides to run some things on his own, or, rather, Moonchild does. When Moonchild falls for someone, will she lose her powers if she has sex?
Don't bother with this one.......2006-05-15
It's odd, that with all of the great SF writers who took part in the Wild Cards series--editor George R.R. Martin, Chris Claremont, Walter Jon Williams, even the late, great Roger Zelazny--the two people who got to write entire books by themselves were the two most irritating writers in the entire series, Victor Milan and Melinda Snodgrass. Both writers are technically accomplished hacks whose characters and themes echo some of the most tired cliches of science fiction and fantasy fan-written stories, aka fanfic.
Milan is one of these people who tries to come off as knowing a lot more about the world and how it works than he really does. He does this mostly by filling his stories with the sort of details that you could find by years of reading Soldier of Fortune magazine--if there is a gun in one of Milan's stories, you not only find out the make and model of the gun, but also which previous guns it was based upon--and assorted other tidbits. He also occasionally comes up with an effective line or two. Unfortunately, it is all in the service of a plot that serves mostly to emphasize the studly studliness of Milan's own personal Mary Sue (look it up on Wikipedia if you're not familiar with the term), J. Robert Belew.
J. Bob is a middle-aged soldier of fortune who makes love to college-age women like they've never been made love to before, tricks his straw-man opponents with a strategic gambit that would make the writers of Scooby-Doo would blush at, and has a plan for winning the Vietnam War, using about as many people as would fit in your living room. The spoiler ban forbids me from giving Milan's ridiculous plot away, but suffice it to say that it's based on the premise that the Vietnamese are a superstitious and cowardly lot. The saddest thing about all of this is that Mark Meadows, the only creation of Milan's that I can halfway stand, becomes a second banana in his own book.
The whole point of the Wild Cards books were to see how comic-book-style superpowers would realistically work in a world like our own, and in turn change that world. Thus, the worst parts of the entire series are those in which the writers' reach far exceed their grasp, with regards to political and social aspects. Thankfully, the mistakes of this book were somewhat corrected in later volumes.
Still good.......2003-10-21
Not the best of the Wild Card books but if you're a lover of the series, it is certainly still worth the read.
hey there, Captain Trips..........2002-11-15
Dr. Mark Meadows (Captain Trips) has always been one of my favorite characters in the WC series, and in this book, he FINALLY gets the full treatment he deserves. If you like Dr. Meadows and/or any/all of his various chemical incarnations, you will thoroughly enjoy this book.
Book Description
Welcome to Lava Landing, population 27,454, a town just this side of Mexico, where Miss Magma reigns and rockabilly and mariachi music are king. Enter our protagonists, Natalie and Consuelo, self-described “like-minded individuals.” They spend their days at The Big Cheese Plant and their nights at The Big Five-Four, the hottest spot in town. But they have long-term projects, foremost among them to cure Consuelo of her unreasonable fear of public transportation and long car rides so they can finally take Natalie’s 1963 Cadillac convertible on the road trip it deserves . . .
Customer Reviews:
Ole!.......2007-09-19
This is not the kind of book I generally read (chick lit) so I was a little uncertain. But what a fun surprise! The best way to describe this book is a zesty salsa. The main characters were colorful and, for the most part, likeable. The town and it's people were just different enough to be real. The writing bounced between English and Spanish so neatly, I almost felt bilingual. The ending was not completely satisfying, but oh well. I'm glad I read it.
Fun times .......2007-01-07
Easy read. Has won awards. I thought it was a great chick book. The book cover is great, as are the other colorful touches that enhance the book pages. Magical realism meets Tom Robbins. It reminded me of "Even Cowgirls get the Blues", but not so radical and with artistic treats.
Hilarious chicano novel newly released in Spanish.......2007-01-04
Caramba, a debut novel by Nina Marie Martínez, is a zany, breezy, often hilarious story filled with the quirky characters who live in fictional Lava Landing, a farming community in California dominated by the Big Cheese factory. The chapters unfold as `turns of the cards' in the Mexican game of chance called `La Lotería.' Illustrations of the cards precede each chapter and hint at what's to come.
The ambiance is pure Chicano. Mexican and American pop cultures blend in a potpourri that makes a culture all its own with Spanglish as its language. Witchcraft and the folkloric wisdom of common Mexican proverbs are perfectly at home alongside yard sales, Tupperware parties, and trendy American fashions and music.
The novel is really a series of vignettes featuring six major characters. Their stories are loosely bound together by plot lines that are not as important as the characters themselves and their dreams of finding true love.
The principal characters are life-long best friends Consuelo Constancia González Contreras (who legally changed her name to Consuelo Sin Vergüenza) and her pal Natalie. Nat and Sway's principal quest is to free Consuelo from her phobia of public transportation and fear of traveling more than 30 miles from her home. The phobias stem from the fact that Sway lost her father, don Pancho Macías Contreras, who, while drunk, passed out on railroad tracks and got clobbered by an oncoming train.
Don Pancho, a womanizer still during his long stay in Purgatory, visits the girls in their nightmares. He pleads for them to round up the citizens of his village in Mexico to pray for him, and thus spring him from Purgatory into his hacienda heaven where, incidentally, only English is spoken.
Then there's Javier, a born again Christian who uses his mariachi band to sing the songs of repentance and salvation. His evangelizing has yet to clinch his sexy mother Lulabell's salvation. She herself is struggling between handing her soul over to the Lord or to the Devil. While singing of salvation at the local jail, Javier becomes enamored of the alluring, drug-dealing prisoner Lucha who turns out to be his half sister. Javier concludes "God is much more complicated than I thought."
True-Dee, a transvestite, runs the local beauty parlor, and is a friend of all the girls. She longs for the true love of one good man.
There is a full cast of secondary characters just as quirky, such as La Señora Linda, a super-psychic, whose powers fail when it comes to her run-down house "in dire need of a new roof and a paint job."
The book is punctuated with illustrations of menus, grocery lists, Lulabell's map of Mexican men, jukebox listings, classifieds, letters to an advice columnist, and cut-outs for Mexican paper dolls.
The improbable--Lulabell's message from Jesus scribbled in the guacamole of her tortilla--is juxtaposed alongside the mundane--La Yarda tag sale.
Binding the vignettes together is the theme best expressed by Lulabell: "Love is a lot of hard work and sufferin, and it don't never end." Yet the suffering is worth it. Don Pancho says Hell is a place where "You will never know love".
The language is wonderful, borrowing from both English and Spanish in getting exactly the right word. Lulabell informs her Alberto, "If you wanna be my mero mero pistolero, then you've gots to do some hoochie coochie conmigo."
And if the exact word doesn't exist in either language, Martínez invents the perfectly appropriate one. For example, Nat and Sway talk of potential "disastrophes" while making their "primperations for the Baile Grande". As Nat says, "English is a live language. It's always changin."
The author has an ear for the sounds of words and pays close attention to the rhythm of her phrases. Entire passages beg to be read aloud.
While someone who speaks only English can enjoy the novel, a bilingual reader will be laughing more, missing none of the innuendos or nuances!
Mamacitas and Mariachis.......2006-08-30
Inspired by La Lotería, a Mexican game of chance not unlike bingo, the novel is a joyous story of mamacitas and mariachis, fiestas and Tupperware parties, rodeos and Miss Magma beauty contests. In Caramba! the American experience emerges in a brilliant new language and landscape, both touching and dazzlingly fresh. (summary by the Latino Recommended Reading List from the Association of American Publishers's * Publishing Latino Voices for America Task Force)
Spicy, saucy with some meat. Like a great mexican meal!.......2006-05-30
Ms. Martinez's book came at the right time for me. I was beyond busy with 2 stressful jobs, about to get on a plane in stormy weather and was needing a laugh badly. The book delivered with a story of love, mariachi, religion, drug dealing, transvestites and a little witchcraft thrown in. Martinez's book blends Mexican and American culture to render a story that ultimately examines what love is- the love of lifelong friends, the love of long-time admirers, the love of god, the love of being bad and the plain need to just be loved. It's not sentimental or mushy. Magic realism peeks in now and again, but doesn't overshadow. I give it 4 stars because it was a great book, but the end left me wanting a bit.
Book Description
(Revised edition) This timely book offers a glossary of legal terms, clarification of recent changes in legislation, and sample contracts and agreements for arbitration and mediation, making it an invaluable resource for every pastor, Christian school administrator, and ministry leader.
Customer Reviews:
This is advice for charlatans, by charlatans.......2006-01-16
The wingnuts of the religious right now have a manual advising them how to push their political agenda under the guise of tax-exempt church. Except the advice tendered by these crackpot authors is dubious at best, and will likely land the reader who follows it in jail. It's unbelievable how little it takes to become an "authority" on anything these days.
Books:
- So Vast the Prison: A Novel
- Some Dance To Remember: A Memoir-novel Of San Francisco, 1970-1982 (Southern Tier Editions)
- Something Gorgeous
- Sugar Cage
- Tenor of Love: A Novel
- The Almost Meeting: And Other Stories
- The Annotated Lost World
- The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers
- The BOOK OF VIRTUES VOLUME II OF AN AUDIO LIBRARY OF GREAT MORAL STORIES: An Audio Library of Great Moral Stories (Book Of Virtues Collection)
- The Border Men: A Novel (The Tennessee Frontier Trilogy #2)
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