Book Description
As Leia must deal with a new threat to the fragile alliance that binds the New Republic, Lando becomes a prisoner aboard a runaway spacecraft of unknown origin. The ship is following an unstoppable path to its homeworld, destroyed by Imperial forces. Luke continues his quest to learn more about his mother among the Fallanassi, where his every belief about the use of the Force is about to be challenged. And while Leia ponders a diplomatic solution to the aggression of the fierce Yevetha race, Han pilots a spy ship into the heart of Yevethan space and finds himself a hostage on one of the vast fleet of warships under the command of a ruthless leader.
Customer Reviews:
Love this series.......2007-06-22
I'm not sure why all the negativity...this is a very well-written yarn. I remember reading it 10 years ago, and enjoying the plot but feeling uncomfortable with the characters...yet reading it again now (at age 38) I love it. The characters have great depth, and the story is intricately interesting. It all felt very realistic to me. Maybe this is just not a story for a younger reader, or a reader who just wants action. But this is a thoughtful story, doesn't deserve the kind of panning that The Crystal Star got, certainly.
Kept making me mad..........2007-05-18
By the time I reached this book, I was half tempted to give up while I was ahead. But I must like punishing myself (or be very obsessed about reading each and every Star Wars book), because I started AND finished this one.
Pretty much nothing of consequence happens in this book. Luke is still off with his newfound girlfriend, still hunting for his mother. Han is kidnapped. Lando is having fun exploring his ship while people are dying. Leia is behaving like a whiny child. And Chewie, well, Chewie is Chewie. He is that character everyone brings into the story and then goes, "Uh, oh. What do I do with him?"
I hated how the book was divided into sections dedicated to each character. Instead of learning a bit about everyone throughout the book, you have to wait to reach each section to learn what happens to each character. Though I really shouldn't have been upset since nothing really happens to anyone, or at least nothing that won't be repaired before the end.
I won't blame the series for sounding too much like the Vong, because technically this came before the Vong. Still, I guess (???) this was better than the continuous "Oh, the Empire developed a new superpower. Luke, grab your lightsaber and help Leia and Han defeat it!"
Have I said yet this is a terrible series? Have I warned you to avoid at all cost? In case it isn't clear, buy the books to complete the set. Just don't open them!
Wow!.......2006-03-18
The book rocked. I like the parts were Luke looked for his mom. It recovered for the bad beginning. Part three on Leia just made it even better.
Better than the first.......2006-01-05
Ok so this one started out a lot better. It continued with lando's adventure, which was a great start. The author had the book devided in three sections. THe first section starts with Lando, the next is Luke's story, and the Last deals with leia. Granted the storyline with luke is still awful and he still doesnt do Luke justice he did manage to pull off a decient leia. so all in all I would say better than the first but still not up there with star wars authors like Zahn.
Horrible. This if for the people who defend this trash.......2004-05-30
This book is lousy. Its pointless and dragged out. If these 3 books were made into 1, it may be decent. But this 2nd book is just horrible.
I seen one person say "I am sorry that your limited intellect cannot stand plot development and intricate story lines"
1st of all, plot development is suppose to lead to a plot right? NOTHING HAPPENS. Lando solves nothing in book 2, Luke figures out nothing in book 2. Nothing happens.
2nd of all whats so intricate about a vessal that was made by a long lost race. Sure its in interesting ship, but it could have been wrapped up in about 50 pages. Not page after page, book after book.
Oh No, a Hitler like character in Nil Spaar. Dont get too intricate on me. Boring story.
Average customer rating:
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Red Arrow, Black Shield
Manufacturer: TSR Hobbies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books | Board Games | Card Games | Crosswords | Fantasy Sports | Gambling | General | Logic & Brain Teasers | Magic | Math Games | Puzzles | Quizzes | Reference | Role Playing & Fantasy | Sudoku | Travel Games | Trivia | Video & Electronic Games | Word Games | Word Search
ASIN: 0880382457 |
Amazon.com
In his earlier work, David Shields came across as a fairly traditional storyteller. Even Dead Languages, his fictional rumination on a stutterer's tongue-tied existence, was essentially a coming-of-age story. But he began to show his true colors with Remote, a fractured, full-body immersion in media culture. This deeply amusing work of nonfiction revealed the author to be a neurotic, navel-gazing cousin of Nicholson Baker. Now comes Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, whose putative topic--professional basketball--would seem to return Shields to his extroverted roots. (His first novel, in fact, revolved around a college basketball player.) Yet this is ultimately as postmodernist a work as its predecessor, and it takes us not only into the author's heart but his boudoir. Black Planet's fusion of public spectacle with private mortification makes it his funniest book to date.
A word of explanation: technically speaking, Black Planet is a chronicle of the Seattle SuperSonics during the 1994-1995 season. Since the team blew its shot at the playoffs, there's no chance for an uplifting grand finale. Yet Shields had a different sort of hoop dream in mind from the very beginning. "The NBA," he writes, "is a place where, without ever acknowledging it--and because it's never acknowledged, it's that much more potent and telling--white fans and black players enact and quietly explode virtually every racial issue and tension in the culture at large. Race, the league's taboo topic, is the league's true subject." It's the author's true subject, too, and he goes at it from every angle--attending games, recording call-in radio shows, and making some abortive attempts to cozy up to the players. Point guard Gary Payton is his true Penelope. Why? Well, his motormouth style does suggest an "indivisibility... of playing and talking, of life and language." But more to the point, he offers a handy tabula rasa for Shields's fantasy life, a trash-talking personification of bad behavior: "Which is why, in Seattle the Good, I so love Gary Payton. He's not really bad, he's only pretend-bad--I know that--but he allows me to fantasize about being bad."
If Shields were simply slapping society on the wrist for its half-submerged racism, Black Planet would wear out its welcome in the first quarter. But he's consistently hardest on himself, so the book becomes not only a social critique but a critique of social critiques, cutting the ground from under itself in an infinite and entertaining loop-the-loop. Shields may not be the first writer to transform a fan's notes into literary gold--Frederick Exley beat him to the punch--but he's the most rigorously intelligent one in a long, long time. Swish! --James Marcus
Book Description
The National Basketball Association is a place where white fans and black players enact virtually every racial issue and tension in U.S. culture. Following the Seattle SuperSonics for an entire season, David Shields explores how, in a predominantly black sport, white fans—including especially himself—think about and talk about black heroes, black scapegoats, and black bodies.
Critically acclaimed and highly controversial, Black Planet was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN USA Award, and was named one of the Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 1999 by Esquire, Newsday, Los Angeles Weekly, and Amazon.com.
Customer Reviews:
I Want My Money Back!.......2006-11-22
I picked up a hardbound version of this book for $0.10 at a library book sale, and would take it back for a refund if I could. It seems to me the author is convinced of his premise, then tries to use peoples' words and actions to justify/prove it, often unsuccessfully. I think one problem is his professorial way of writing: the numerous "Cf.s" were a distraction and contrived.
I tried to finish the book but couldn't take it anymore about halfway through.
Good, journal-style book.......2006-03-02
I read this book several years ago and in retrospect it couldn't have come out at a better time.
Conversations on race is the larger topic of this book which uses the changing landscape of the NBA as a metaphor for the growing indifference & misunderstandings of whites of African-Americans.
The book explores the passing of the grinning, assimilationist & non-threatening generation of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas being supplanted by an increasingly urban-flavored generation not as concerned with making McDonald's commercials and appealing to Middle Class America.
(NOTE: this book is written just before the invasion of the "hip hop generation" led by Allen Iverson whose gangsta, thugged-out image, braids, baggy pants and corn rows rubbed a predominantly white fanbase the wrong way, opening all sorts of new NBA image discussions).
Shields chronicles the Seattle SuperSonics in the mid-1990s, attends games and stays up on every notable on court act or off court run-in and then examines how hoops fans make judgments based upon stereotypes or racial perceptions.
The book's premise is that the overwhelming black, overwhelming rags-to-riches tales of its majority of players combine to create the one forum in the country where whites are the outsiders and thus forced to (and ultimately resist, if you consider the standing of the overwhelmingly white media and white hoops fans) relate to a group of players from the wrong side of the tracks that otherwise had always been forced to assimilate and relate to Middle America (and thus, a juxtaposition of the two roles in the NBA).
For me, this book's topic couldn't be more relevant today given the emergence of an NBA generation that's as polarizing as any the sport's world has ever seen.
It might be a little harder to stomach though if you're a reader not in touch with your own honest racial perceptions.
Fascinating.......2004-04-04
Insightful, observant and brave, David Shields' Black Planet is a thought-provoking look at America's sports culture and, ultimately, America's culture in general. Never afraid to use himself as a subject, the author takes a look at the racial dynamic apparant -but rarely confronted upon- in the NBA.
Even for the non-sports fan, this book will prove to be an enlightening read because basketball only provides the backdrop for the author's exploration of society and self.
It should be noted that the author is not a sports writer. In fact, the author often seems out of place in the various professional basketball environments he roams and inhabits in the book. Such a feeling of disconnect, however, aids the text, I believe; such an outside-looking-in perspective gives the book a voice I suspect many readers will recognize--their own.
A sports book for intellectuals.......2004-03-15
Remote is an intelligent exploration of the deeper meanings of basketball. David Shields follows the Seattle Sonics during the '94-'95 season, commenting not only on the dynamics of play but also on issues of race and our need for the other, for transcendence from our lives through sports fandom.
So compelling is Shield's case for an intellectual take on basketball that I, a nonsportsfan type, began watching basketball games after reading this book. If you're up for delving into the greater meanings of fandom and the catharsis of sports, this is a great book to read. If you're a fan looking for basketball stats and play by play description look elsewhere. This is more than just a book about sports--it's a book about what sports mean to us.
This book is honest.......2003-09-05
This book is courageous in attempting to take an honest look at something we're all tired of talking about, but is still a very real problem facing America: the salience of racism.
What better arena to examine the still lingering remnants of racism in this great country of ours then sports -- and more specifically, the NBA.
In a league dominated by African American players, where the term "minority" is given a new meaning, Shields begins this book by observing and analyzing the very real, but often ignored racial dynamic.
Contrary to popular belief, and as this book shows, racism is a problem in this country -- one that doesn't end just because one steps off the street and onto a basketball court.
BUT THIS BOOK ISN"T ABOUT RACISM, per se, but the power of human perspective.
Shields has a fascination with observing African American players, but documents his very real opinions and emotions as it relates to what he observes.
The twist is he goes back-and-forth analyzing how his opinions, judgments and thoughts are all shaped, in part, by who he is as a middle aged white man (not meant to sound negative, just truthful).
Truth is everybody, black, white or whatever, uses such lenses when viewing society. Sociology supports this theory (but that's another subject).
Shields uses his book to function as somewhat of a microcosm for how whites view blacks in this country by exploring how sport -- specifically here the popularity and racial makeup of the NBA -- exploits, exposes and reveals every racial attitude, myth and misconception some whites have about blacks.
Black Planet is a magnifying glass that flips the script on the mainstream while showing the power of difference and misunderstanding.
I, as an African American sports writer, also find this book humorous just to see the number of white-bread reporters whose attempts to sound more urban, hip & cool when dealing with black athletes are, unbeknowngst to the reporters, igorant, condescending and insulting.
This alone is a bold-faced reflection that books are still judged by their covers.
The astounding part of the issue Black Planet addresses is the fact that White America can pretty much live in ignorance -- involuntarily and unknowingly -- to the great divide in how African Americans experience this country.
But one of the few avenues in which White America is forced to care and at least deal with the difference in experience is sport -- and especially the NBA.
Shields' is honest and I'd say accurate in his assessment of how race does in fact play a critical part in how sports reporters interact with and interpret the actions of black athletes -- something to think about the next time we pick up our papers and read a story about Allen Iverson, Randy Moss (or for that matter, Kobe Bryant).
Book Description
The past two decades have seen a dramatic resurgence of interest in black women writers, as authors such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison have come to dominate the larger Afro-American literary landscape. Yet the works of the writers who founded and nurtured the black women's literary tradition--nineteenth-century Afro-American women--have remained buried in research libraries or in expensive hard-to-find reprints, often inaccessible to twentieth-century readers. Oxford University Press, in collaboration with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, rescued the voice of an entire segment of the black tradition by offering thirty volumes of these compelling and rare works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, biography, essays, and journalism. Responding to the wide recognition this series has received, Oxford now presents four of these volumes in paperback. Each book contains an introduction written by an expert in the field, as well as an overview by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the General Editor. Individually, each of these four works now in paperback--including The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke, Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, Six Women's Slave Narratives, and The Collected Works of Phillis Wheatley--stands as a unique literary contribution in its own right. Collectively providing a rich sampling of the range of works written by black women over the course of more than a century, they pay tribute (now long overdue) to an extraordinary and influential group of Afro-American women. These new editions will enable teachers, students, and general readers of American literature, history, Afro-American culture, and women's studies to hear at last, and learn from, the lost voice of the nineteenth-century black woman writer.
Book Description
In this long-term community study of the freedom movement in rural, majority-black Claiborne County, Mississippi, Emilye Crosby explores the impact of the African American freedom struggle on small communities in general and questions common assumptions that are based on the national movement. The legal successes at the national level in the mid 1960s did not end the movement, Crosby contends, but rather emboldened people across the South to initiate waves of new actions around local issues.
Escalating assertiveness and demands of African Americans--including the reality of armed self-defense--were critical to ensuring meaningful local change to a remarkably resilient system of white supremacy. In Claiborne County, a highly effective boycott eventually led the Supreme Court to affirm the legality of economic boycotts for political protest. NAACP leader Charles Evers (brother of Medgar) managed to earn seemingly contradictory support from the national NAACP, the segregationist Sovereignty Commission, and white liberals. Studying both black activists and the white opposition, Crosby employs traditional sources and more than 100 oral histories to analyze the political and economic issues in the postmovement period, the impact of the movement and the resilience of white supremacy, and the ways these issues are closely connected to competing histories of the community.
Customer Reviews:
Remembering the civil rights movement in Port Gibson.......2006-07-05
Growing up in Port Gibson, Mississippi, during the era of civil rights struggles and the crippling economic boycott of the 1960s, I often wondered if this would ever be objectively chronicled and who would write the story. Emilye Crosby has done an excellent job in her research, and with the exception of a few minor errors (such as contraditory mileage between Port Gibson and Fayette and the implication that no white churches other than the Catholic welcomed blacks to worship in the 1960s when St. James Episcopal church did--though no blacks attended St. James at that time), this is probably the best overall account of the civil rights situation in Claiborne County I have ever read. The lengthy footnotes and bibliography are proof that the author did her homework with accuracy and caution. While it is a story many of us would like to forget and in which some white merchants from the era who are still alive are not portrayed in a flattering way, the fact remains that those things DID happen, and the fact that many of the principals themselves were cooperative and willing to be quoted brings to light some progress made toward racial reconciliation in recent years. While the author could have shown less personal bias against the Main Street program and the author of the Port Gibson bicentennial history in her concluding pages, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in civil rights history and what can happen when merchants of ANY color don't treat their customers or townspeople right. That the U S Supreme Court sanctioned the behavior of the NAACP by ruling in their favor when the case against them launched by the while merchants was decided is both a chilling tale AND a cautionary message about the power of economic boycotts.
highly reccommended.......2006-05-01
Professor Crosby delivers both a gripping narrative on the black freedom struggle in a single county of Mississippi and a nuanced argument that the movement happened locally, even though little acts of protest and boycott could have huge reverberations. Especially valuable is her synthesis of white and black perspectives on local events, and continual analysis of the stakes involved in who tells "the story" of the "stormy" 60s in Mississippi. Highly reccommended to anyone interested in freedom movements, African American history, or studies of race relations.
Book Description
Specifically tailored to the particular needs of black women, this empowering book is filled with the information that will help them find their way in today's work environment. Foreword by Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congressional Delegate.
Customer Reviews:
A Valuable Source of Reference!.......2006-04-10
POSITIVE and ideal for managers, middle managers, entry level employees (highly recommended!!!), recent college grads, career oriented women, entrepreneurs, and job seekers/career changes.
The book explores the dos and dont's of coping with work place adversity - office politics, nepotism, double standards, personal conflicts, the multi-personality boss, busy bodies, goal setting, career advancement, and so much more.
I reference the book for inspiration and professional guidance!
Consider it!
Read this book!.......2002-07-03
I read this book back in 1992 or 93 when I was an administrative assistant. I am now the Chief of Staff for my agency's Chief Information Officer. Yes, this book did guide me to that position and will guide me even further. I made sure to look at myself honestly and take the message seriously. I am now buying this book for my secretary and two of my analysts as part of their development plan. If you read it with an open mind and be honest with yourself you will get so much out of this book. I still have my original copy with many sections in yellow highlight, paper clipped pages, and notes written in the margin. All I can say is READ THIS BOOK!
Don't Go to the Boardroom Without It.......2001-10-20
This IS the book for the black female executive. If you think that life will be different once you climb up into the executive ransk you're correct and wrong too. Work Sister Work guides the reader through the backstabbing, the the bigots and all the obstacles in the aspiring black executive's way. Buy this book the minute you get your promotion.
Kimberley Wilson, author of 11 Things Mama Should Have Told You About Men.
THE BLACK WOMAN'S GUIDE TO SUCCESS.......1996-08-07
This book is a blueprint for African American women who want to crack the executive ceiling. The authors have managed in 286 pages to answer even the most complex of questions regarding the workplace. The biggest selling point is the authors' understanding of how cultural and gender conflict in the workplace can be handled successfully. I ALWAYS WANTED A MENTOR THAT'S AVAILABLE 24 HOURS A DAY AND NOW I HAVE ONE
Average customer rating:
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No Burden to Carry: Narratives of Black Working Women in Ontario 1920's to 1950's
Dionne Brand ,
Immigrant Women's Job Placement , and
Lois De Shield
Manufacturer: Women's Press (CA)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
African-American & Black | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Canadian | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Prairie Provinces | Regional Canada | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Ontario | Regional Canada | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | Canada | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Discrimination & Racism | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Women | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
History | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0889611637 |
Book Description
Through oral histories, Dionne Brand documents the lives of Black women in Ontario, from the 20s through the 50s.
Customer Reviews:
Book 2 Stormlands.......2000-07-16
The sequel to "The Islander" Book One of the Stormlands, was an absolute treasure of fantasy, adventure and a splash of romance mixed together in a wonderful blend of story-telling.John Maddox Roberts did a wonderful job of mixing in the real life learned strengths of Hael (hero) and a touch of a higher power type Colorful, adventureous and a pick up and don't put down kind of book.
Average customer rating:
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The Black Shields
Roger L. Abel
Manufacturer: AuthorHouse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Law Enforcement | Criminal Law | Law | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
African-American Studies | Special Groups | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Law Enforcement | Criminal Law | Law | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
New York | State & Local | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1420844601 |
Book Description
All but ignored, the Black police officer went unseen in a history that has been lost, stolen, and disguised by generations of segregation and discriminatory practices within the New York City Police Department, and city Government. For more than a century, Black police officers walked a lonely beat, and very little was written about their struggled for equality and recognition since the first Black officer entered the Police Department in 1891. The Book the Black Shields, written by an African American Police Detective, is a powerful pictorial history and narrative of the Black police experience that documents the successes and accomplishments shaped by an interconnected series of sociological, political and legal events that continue to take place today.
Product Description
3 mass market paperback. The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy - Before the Storm - Shield of Lies - Tyrant's Test
Books:
- Sky Woman Falling
- Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)
- Snow Drop, Book 1
- Summer of the Sea Serpent (Magic Tree House #31)
- Systems Analysis and Design, Sixth Edition
- Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew
- Tender Warrior: Every Man's Purpose, Every Woman's Dream, Every Child's Hope
- The Annotated Uncle Tom's Cabin
- The Atlantis Blueprint: Unlocking the Ancient Mysteries of a Long-Lost Civilization
- The Biggest Loser Cookbook: More Than 125 Healthy, Delicious Recipes Adapted from NBC's Hit Show
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
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- History: Fiction or Science
- You Shall Know Our Velocity
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- Chemistry: The Molecular Science
- Getting Through the Tough Stuff: It's Always Something!
- American Wooden Chairs: 1895-1908
- A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans
- Agent for the Resistance: A Belgian Saboteur in World War II
Tyrant's Test (Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis, Book 3)
Before the Storm (Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis, Book 1)
The New Rebellion (Star Wars)
The Crystal Star (Star Wars (Random House Paperback))
Showdown at Centerpoint (Star Wars: The Corellian Trilogy)
