The Golden Days (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 1)

Customer Reviews:

When the magic stone met the crimson pearl flower..........2005-10-24

The Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone) starts off as an immensely long inscription on a miraculous stone which was copied out by a visiting man and taken down into the world for publication. Volume 1 gives the account of the magic stone's origin, renders the discourse redolent of a supernatural, mystical overtone. Once upon a time a piece of stone that was unworthy to be used for repairing the sky possessed magic power and ended up in the mortal world. The unhappy stone incarnated and lived out the life of a man before finally attaining nirvana and returning to what Buddhist refers as the "other shore."

Jai Baoyu is the incarnation of the stone. The name "bao-yu" means "treasured jewel" and was named after the wonderful incident that the only surviving son of the Jia household was born with a piece of spotless jade in his mouth. Lin Daiyu, Baoyu's teary cousin with a superior intelligence, is the incarnation of the Crimson Pearl Flower, which the unhappy stone once conceived a fancy that he took to watering everyday so the flower was able to shed the form of a plant and became a girl. The consciousness that she owed the stone ensued her to repay him with the tears shed during the whole of a mortal lifetime if they were ever to be reborn as humans in the world beneath. It was no wonder when Daiyu first saw her cousin, who had tyrannized the household, hated studies, and spent most of his time in women's quarters, it was as though she had seen him somewhere before, like a déjà vu.

Aside from the ethereal origin, the first volume of The Dream of the Red Chamber depicts a fairly eventual record of a great Manchu household (Qing Dynasty) under the tutelage of the Imperial family in early 18th century China. It's the picture of daily routines in the life that emerge most vividly from its discourse. The Jia household is genuinely disguised as some highborn aristocrats whose ancestors were ennobled for their military powers. This first installment of five parts, titled Golden Days, captures the Jias at the hi-time in which members of the Rong-guo mansion and the Ning-guo mansion dressed in silk, ate delicately, pampered by a domestic hierarchy of servants and maids, when they were still nested in the protecting shadow of the ancestors and the readily accessible wealth. The family's decline and fall constitute the general background of the novel.

With over 500 characters, thousands of one-hit appearances and a skein of household members and their distant relations of the clan, reading of The Dream of the Red Chamber will be more pleasurable and rewarding with the family genealogy handy. The book has a general flow of daily happenings and inter-family drama, with an emphasis on the relationship between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. Household activities, domestic anecdotes, subbing rivalries, seditious schemes, love affairs, contention between concubines, political intrigues, black magic, witchcraft, and even murder constitute to the pages of this Chinese epic that evokes Remembrance of Things Past and One Hundred Years of Solitude. The heart of the novel is the pre-destined relationship between a semi-ethereal entity and magic stone under the context of the Buddhist understanding that earthly existence is an illusion. This meeting, though is meant to be, is in vain, one that is full of tears.

When the fairy led Baoyu into the land of illusion and showed him his fate, he could scarcely make out of what he saw. Nature might have endowed him an eccentric obtuseness of a simpleton. How does one expect a 13-year-old (scholars deem him to be 13 throughout most of the book) to recognize and seize his destiny? The fairy showed him not only his life cycle but also the romantic passions, love debts, heartbreaks of dust-stained human world. Baoyu was destined to mingle with girls around him. The ancestors thought Baoyu had inherited a perverse, intractable nature that rendered him eccentric and emotionally unstable. Exposure to the worldly illusions of decay might hopefully succeed in enlightening, awakening, and transforming him.

Daiyu seems to know Baoyu more thoroughly than anyone does. She is able to nail his problem despite her occasional tiff with him over trivial matters. Baoyu always complained about people's getting angry with whatever he did, but he never realized how much he had provoked them at the first place. Couplets, poems, and verses in the novel hint at his friendlessness in the mortal world and the incessant debate over the depth of his relation with Daiyu. The roaming back and forth, sink and soar between sorrow and elation between the two incarnated cousins constitute to the understanding that earthly existence is indeed a transience but karma determines the shape of one's life and the life after. This idea of life being a dream from which one eventually awakes is a Buddhist tenet, but the incorporation of it into the novel becomes a poetic gesture to demonstrate that the main character (Baoyu) is indicative to the author.

The Dream of the Red Chamber in Chinese has the connotation of being rich and grand. The title can refer to a dream of the vanished splendor and opulence. The frequent use of dream imagery implies the possibility that the luxurious world of the author's youth, which he attempted to reconstruct, had vanished so utterly at the time of writing. The story of the Jias closely accorded with fortunes of Cao's own family, which attained its height under the reign of Kangxi. But the exact relationship existing between characters of the novel and members of Cao family is uncertain and discreet. Baoyu is assured to be author's self-portrait, whose struggle towards emotional maturity was delineated with an affluence of nuance. Other characters could be compsite of several family members over different generations for the purpose of disguising facts.

Best Chinese novel of all time!.......2003-11-17

Well, in my opinion anyway. David Hawkes has done an amazing job translating this brilliant 18th-century novel into colloquial modern English. I have read all the translations-- this is my favorite novel, and this is by far the best version for an English speaker who just wants a good book. I can imagine that a Chinese reader could pick holes in this translation, as I could nitpick at a translation of Shakespeare-- the wealth of the original is impossible to transfer whole into another language and culture. If you want a word-for-word translation so you can use this as a study guide while you read the Chinese, maybe the wooden Beijing Languages version could help you! But I have a hard time imagining any new translation being more vivid and fun to read than this one. Yes, it is littered with sometimes annoying Britishisms. That is the price of a colloquial translation! It's true that Hawkes does not explain all the references-- that would be another book in itself. And I am sure he made mistakes-- I help a French translator occasionally and even though he is very well-versed in English, it is so easy for him to miss something that only a cultured native speaker could pick up. But this translation is ALIVE. Until that perfect translation comes along one day, Hawkes's is still better than all the others. Be grateful to him! (2003)

A good translation, but..........2003-02-02

The attractions of this translation are numerous -- which is fortunate for a book that, in total, weigns in at 2500 pages. Most people will enjoy the stylish prose and exquisite interjections of poetry, but you is urged to read sample pages before investing the full measure of your time. While entertaining and quite appealing, this translatoin has its flaws -- and they have been pointed out by several native Chinese translators. The prose is here littered wtih Briticisms that seem almost anarchronistic at times. Xueqin's cultural and literary references, which profoundly enrich the book, are passed over without even a footnote (though the introduction is illuminating). The careful reader may even feel that they are missing the context and mood of the original book. If your interest in this masterpiece is for its fundamental merits -- storytelling, characterization, beauty of language -- then you will find this a pleasure, and you need look no further. If you wish a deeper sense of the Chinese mood of the work, then the four-volume translation may be more attractive.

A Remarkable Achievement.......2002-08-19

I spend a lot of time wandering through bookstores. One particular book has caught my eye over the years, and the other day I bought it - Volume 1 of Cao Xueqin's eighteenth century epic, "The Story of the Stone: The Golden Days". As a developing eighteenth century scholar, I was doubly attracted to it. "The Golden Days" absolutely blew me away - used as I am to eighteenth century novels (British, French, American), this is wholly unlike anything I've read from the era. It bears structural similarities to the Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" and "Sentimental Journey," but aside from that bears more in common with ancient Greek novels like Longus's "Daphnis and Chloe" or Heliodorus's "Eithopian Romance," as well as the mysticism of the ancient Egyptian "Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor." And yet, Cao's attention to actual life experiences, and the detail he conveys about tradition and ceremony, along with frank dealings with human relationships and sexuality makes "The Golden Days" much more than any quick summary of style or content can relate.

"The Golden Days" begins in amusing, but sympathetic fashion: the goddess Nü-wa is repairing the sky with 36,501 stones. When she finishes, one remains, which is cast off. Having been touched by a goddess, this stone has magical properties, able to move, change size, and even talk. One day, a Buddhist monk and a Taoist come upon the stone, and promise to let the stone have an adventure - to become human. As the stone waits by a pond, it falls desperately in love with a Crimson Pearl Flower, which is also selected for incarnation by the Fairy Disenchantment. The stone and the flower are incarnated as the novel begins in earnest, as a young minor nobleman named Jia Bao-yu, and a commoner related to the family, a girl named Lin Dai-yu - both unaware of their heavenly origins. "The Golden Days" centers around the daily events and occurrences in the lives of these two teenagers, as they come to grips, as we all must, with human life.

The Rong and Ning branches of the Jia family, on opposite sides of Two Dukes Street, are the centerpieces of the novel's action. Like the "big house" fiction of the English eighteenth century, these ancestral manses provide a locus of activity, as the nobles, their extended families, friends, and servants mingle and interact constantly. Cao marks himself as a remarkable author by the way he handles a massive cast of characters, letting us into the private lives and concerns of all ranks of society, as well as the forms of etiquette that determine their relationships. Another terrific facet of the novel's construction is the almost stream of consciousness style Cao employs - as characters pass in and out of the immediate action of the novel, the narrative seems to choose the person it's most interested in and follow them for pages at a time, before seamlessly passing to the next character. It's really quite amazing, how, in this way, we come to understand the motivations, fears, and hopes of so many individuals. Time, distance, culture, Cao levels distinctions, making historical China accessible to even 21st century readers - he reduces people to their human concerns.

Cao Xueqin's novel is also remarkable for what I can only call it's pro(to)-feminist tone. While we are reminded by certain characters that male lineage is of major importance to the structure of the society, the narrative consistently shows the power, ability, and influence of women. At the novel's beginning, a Taoist named Vanitas finds the stone, and is asked to transcribe its story, but complains initially that it is about a "number of females". The stone obviously insists that the story be written out. Later, Bao-yu, the major male character, says he is more comfortable around women - that they are like water, while men are like mud, castoffs, unclean. One of the main characters of this volume is Wang Xi-feng, a young woman in her early twenties, who for an extended period, manages the affairs of both the Ning and Rong mansions. Cao's respect and admiration for the strong women in Bao-yu's life: Xi-feng, Dai-yu, and two particular servants, Aroma and Caltrop, is quite obvious and important to the novel.

If you are like me, and know tragically little about Chinese literature and culture, Cao takes care of that too - there is a heavy emphasis throughout the novel on the cultural productions of China. The book integrates a wide range of poetry, drama, fiction, folk wisdom, and mythology as a central part of Bao-yu and Dai-yu's upbringing. One can sense Cao's insistence in the novel that education and cultural production is of vital importance, particularly to children. While the Fairy Disenchantment seems to be the guiding spirit of the novel, hinting at the diappointments inevitable in the course of life, this is a novel about youth, and hope for the future, even in the midst of concern about how long prosperity can last. Taken altogether, "The Golden Days" cannot be recommended enough. David Hawkes's translation is first rate, and his introduction, pronunciation notes, and appendices are thorough and very helpful.

Translation is great for English Readers.......2002-02-02

This book was fascination not only for the cultural review of 1700's in Manchu (Qing Dynasty) China and aristocratic households of the day, but also for the introspective look at family dynamics and confucian practices in the time. With the tragic/romantic form of writing one feels a longing to understand how different life was in those times and places. I also got a great feel for what the writers intent was and the criticisms of political changes through the translaters appendixi and annotations. Great reading for thinkers!

The Dreamer Wakes (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 5)

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One of the greatest novels ever written
Mystical-Reality
A Truly Revolutionary Classical Chinese Romantic Work
I think I can't use only "good" to describe such a good book

The Dreamer Wakes (The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Volume 5)
Cao Xuequin , Cao Xueqin , E. Gao , and Gao E
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 014044372X

Customer Reviews:

One of the greatest novels ever written.......2001-01-19

I read the other reviews on this page, and I thought I should add something: this novel is unbelievably beautifully written, and the english translation is absolutely superb.

You cannot find any better example of novel-writing skill in any language.

Mystical-Reality.......2000-09-21

I've read all parts of The Story of the Stone. It starts and ends in a mystical fashion; coming full circle in a traditional ying/yang way. Wonderful five volume story about two wealthy families closely connected to the throne. Although there's not much known about the true author, I suspect that it was written by a maid. There is incredible detail from the perspective of the servents working for their sometimes nutty employers. The family actually built a garden at one point in honor of a visit from a daughter who had been chosen to be a royal concubine. If you want to immerse yourself in the ups and downs, daily life, (warts and all) of 1750's Chinese culture don't miss The Story of the Stone et al.

A Truly Revolutionary Classical Chinese Romantic Work.......1999-03-18

This book was written one year before the French Revolution, in 1788, in Beijing, China by a riches-to -rags nobleman called Cao Xue Quin. It is viewed by many as the greatest classical Chinese romantic novel ever written.

I read the original Chinese version of this book when I was in high school, many years ago. At that time, my impression was that it was a Chinese Romeo and Juliet type tragic love story, in which the main characters Bao-yu and his cousin Dai-yu (Black Jade) suffered the fate of unfulfilled love, and no ever after. There was more to it than that, but I could not figure out what.

Recently, I re-read the book (the current trans- lated version). This time it sounded like the Adven- tures of Tom Jones, in which the teen-aged playboy Bao-yu was dallying in the ranks of the female members of his household (his cousins and maids), longing after many but only truly loving Dai-yu.

It was also a bit similar to Upstairs Downstairs -- a big noble clan with all its ladies, young misses and maids, and their lives of adventures and tears. But something was still missing. There was a theme, a message, which draws me and others to this great work of literature.

I finally figured it out: Almost all the WOMEN in this book were described as elegant, sophisticated, intelligent, graceful, excellent decision makers, and above all, beautiful. Most MEN, however, were described as fools, red-necks, unfaithful, heart-breakers, nogooders, users of prostitutes and abusers of power!

What I am looking at is a book (or one-MAN crusade) of Early Feminism. It is all the more remarkable because in feudal China, women did not have equal status. "marrying for love" seldom existed. It was more like "married by parental arrangement". Poor girls were sold as maids into rich households, or worse, they were sold as second wives or concubines.

The confirmation of my theory came from the author Cao himself. In his introductory book review, he said, "Thus begins this book ... I have hidden the real events and substituted them with fiction ... There were real persons in the inner-chambers, and their stories must be told ..." (Modern translation: I have real women in my household).

This message would make this a truly revolutionary work, not only in feudal China, but even to-day.

Should have first read the book review by the author.

I think I can't use only "good" to describe such a good book.......1998-12-04

The book gives us a complete picture of the feudal societ of China.It exposes the rot of the late Qing Dynasty of China.What makes people moved most is the tragic love story between Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu.Its exquisite style of writing and variegated description do great credit to its success.Some forfather has said that it was an encyclopaedia of the feudal society of China,and I do agree with it.I think that the most valuable point of this book,is that it denounces the cruel percecution which has been done to women by the feudalism--the feudal system,and it embodies the author's thoughts that women should be respecte and be equal to men.In that society,these are rare and valuable.

Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber.

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Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber.
Anthony C. Yu
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691090130

Book Description

The eighteenth-century Hongloumeng, known in English as Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone, is generally considered to be the greatest of Chinese novels--one that masterfully blends realism and romance, psychological motivation and fate, daily life and mythical occurrences, as it narrates the decline of a powerful Chinese family. In this path-breaking study, Anthony Yu goes beyond the customary view of Hongloumeng as a vivid reflection of late imperial Chinese culture by examining the novel as a story about fictive representation. Through a maze of literary devices, the novel challenges the authority of history as well as referential biases in reading. At the heart of Hongloumeng, Yu argues, is the narration of desire. Desire appears in this tale as the defining trait and problem of human beings and at the same time shapes the novel's literary invention and effect. According to Yu, this focalizing treatment of desire may well be Hongloumeng's most distinctive accomplishment.

Through close readings of selected episodes, Yu analyzes principal motifs of the narrative, such as dream, mirror, literature, religious enlightenment, and rhetorical reflexivity in relation to fictive representation. He contextualizes his discussions with a comprehensive genealogy of qing--desire, disposition, sentiment, feeling--a concept of fundamental importance in historical Chinese culture, and shows how the text ingeniously exploits its multiple meanings. Spanning a wide range of comparative literary sources, Yu creates a new conceptual framework in which to reevaluate this masterpiece.

The Story of Stone: Intertextuality, Ancient Chinese Stone Lore, and the Stone Symbolism in Dream of the Red Chamber, Water Margin, and The Journey to the West (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

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It was ok

The Story of Stone: Intertextuality, Ancient Chinese Stone Lore, and the Stone Symbolism in Dream of the Red Chamber, Water Margin, and The Journey to the West (Post-Contemporary Interventions)
Jing Wang
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 082231195X

Book Description

In this pathbreaking study of three of the most familiar texts in the Chinese traditionâall concerning stones endowed with magical propertiesâJing Wang develops a monumental reconstruction of ancient Chinese stone lore. Wang’s thorough and systematic comparison of these classic works illuminates the various tellings of the stone story and provides new insight into major topics in traditional Chinese literature.
Bringing together Chinese myth, religion, folklore, art, and literature, this book is the first in any language to amass the sources of stone myth and stone lore in Chinese culture. Uniting classical Chinese studies with contemporary Western theoretical concerns, Wang examines these stone narratives by analyzing intertextuality within Chinese traditions. She offers revelatory interpretations to long-standing critical issues, such as the paradoxical character of the monkey in The Journey to the West, the circularity of narrative logic in The Dream of the Red Chamber, and the structural necessity of the stone tablet in Water Margin.
By both challenging and incorporating traditional sinological scholarship, Wang’s The Story of Stone reveals the ideological ramifications of these three literary works on Chinese cultural history and makes the past relevant to contemporary intellectual discourse. Specialists in Chinese literature and culture, comparative literature, literary theory, and religious studies will find much of interest in this outstanding work, which is sure to become a standard reference on the subject.

Customer Reviews:

It was ok.......2001-01-26

This book had a magnificent whirl of fun twisted into it, while it still kept the seriousness of jing wang.

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Secrets in Visions and Dreams

Manufacturer: Pathway Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: B000AMEP68

Product Description

This book explores such topics as: the purpose of spiritual dreaming, carnal dreams, the law of dreaming twice, interceding to prevent death, falling into a vision or trance, being in the body and out of the body, and interpreting a spiritual dream. Learn vital insight and learn practical key truths! 88 pages

Lovable, Furry Old Grover's Resting Places (Pictureback(R))

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Lovable, Furry Old Grover's Resting Places (Pictureback(R))
Jon Stone
Manufacturer: Random House Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 039486056X
Release Date: 1984-04-12

Book Description

Illus. in full color. When elbows, thumbs, ears, and even belly buttons get tired, Grover has the perfect solution: a resting place for each part of the body. He invites children to try them out by placing their own elbows, etc., right on the shapes indicated on the pages of this imaginative book.

Julian, Dream Doctor (Stepping Stone, paper)

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Totally awsome book
Hilarious !!

Julian, Dream Doctor (Stepping Stone, paper)
Ann Cameron
Manufacturer: Random House Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679805249
Release Date: 1993-03-09

Book Description

It's Dad's birthday, and Julian wants to get a special present. Something Dad has always dreamed about. But Dad's dream is pretty
unusual, not to mention scary. Now that Julian has figured out what his dad wants, will he, Huey, and Gloria be brave enough to get it?

Customer Reviews:

Totally awsome book.......2006-09-19

Julian Dream Doctor takes place in a modern house with a mom a dad and two children, Julian and Huey. Julian feels as though he should do something extra special for his father's birthday.He goes through all the tricks in the book to get his Dad to tell him what in the world he desires most ,but his dad dodges every punch he throws at him.About a day latter Julians best friend and neighbor comes home from her summer vacation at the beach and joins them for lunch. After lunch Dad decides to go take a nap in the hammock thats when the kids decied to make their move Julian ask "what do you wont most for your birthday?" Dad replies with "2 snakes big one." Julian asks again in shock for his dad has never shown any intrest in snake. Dad answers with " 2 sakes big ones." Later That evening the kids go to the park in search of to snakes. They walk down the parks trail with snake catching sticks, machetti,book on snakes, and old pillow case in hand. In search of the perfect present for dad they run into a huge snak with yellow, black, and red skin with blue fangs. Julian right away that there equiptment wasnt going to be good enough to catch that monster. So they decided to go for the other two small ones in the grass not to far away from the big one. They quickly put both of them in the old pillow case until they got home. About a weak later it was time for dad's party when he gets home they all yell suprise and hand him the box.
Dad begins to ope the box and ...
TO READ MORE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO CHECK IT OUT YOUR SELF !!!!!!!!!

Hilarious !!.......2001-11-28

This book is very funny.When I came to chapter 4,I laughed and laughed until my tears came rolling down my face.Whoever heard of someone telling you the meaning of brainwave is invisible waves in the air.Ha! Ha! Ha! This story is about a child named Julian,his brother and his friend named Gloria.Julian's father's birthday is near and Julian tries to figure what his father wants very much for his birthday.When his father says "Two snakes.Big ones.",they really went to the park and tried to catch two snakes.Ha! Ha! Ha! I wouldn't tell you the whole story.read this book and find out.I bet you'll laugh and laugh.This is one of the funniest books I have ever read.

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inscrutable silence of Stone . . .

Dreams and Stones
Magdalena Tulli , and Bill Johnston
Manufacturer: Archipelago Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0972869263

Book Description

Hailed as one of the most brilliant contributions to the literature of Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of Communism, Dreams and Stones won the prestigious Koscielski Foundation Prize in Poland in 1995. Telling the story of the growth of a great city, Tulli relates its history by entering the lives of the stones from which the buildings and monuments are constructed, as well as the dreams of people and objects interwoven with the city's history. Revealing the inner lives of buildings, mirrors and news-paper -photographs, she explores the design of the city, its growth and its workings. Dismantling the city piece by piece, Tulli reveals a very different metaphysical landscape lying, literally, beneath and around it.

Customer Reviews:

inscrutable silence of Stone . . ........2004-06-01

translated from the Polish to English by Bill Johnston

This slim volume, filled with vivid imagery and metaphor held, for me, a poetic inspiration on nearly every page. It is about the birth, growth and decay of a city, or all cities. At the same time, less about some unnamed city as about human idealism and dreams -- resignation and denial -- and finally the eureka of realization and understanding or the epiphanies a person can
eventually reach. Hauntingly entwined in the whole story is the inscrutable silence of Stone . . . hence the title.

On one level the symbolic language and imagery might be enjoyed for the art of writing itself, but on various other levels, it might be speaking of politics, religion, faith, doubt and
disillusionment. It is a beautiful book. I was about to cite some lines, but no single quotation seems adequate outside the whole. However, since I've been thinking this labor day weekend
about loved ones gone, and some that are suffering, I will share a tiny passage that I liked about "returning home."

". . . Drowning sailors do not remember which port they are headed for. Relinquishing unrealistic goals, they give themselves entirely to the waves and know relief. One way or another all of them -- including those who have already come to rest on the bottom -- will return safely
home." Here one might substitute the "waves" for "God." The book can probably be read by most people in a single sitting, though I took time reading it and putting it down and reading
more later, savoring the whole vision.

Customer Reviews:

doctor who masterpiece.......2004-03-24

I won't give a summary of this book, i will only suggest that you read it. After reading 'citadel of dreams' i have become a dave stone fan. I'm now reading 'the slow empire' which is also quite excellent. But 'citadel of dreams' is very special, its odd to find a really good writer in the world of serial fiction but dave stone is the exception. i personally loved the mad hatter tea party scene, with the doctor camped out under an umbrella behind the tardis...perfectly in character with the sylvester mccoy doctor!!

Cartmel Of Daves.......2004-01-13

It seemed appropriate that Dave Stone's CITADEL OF DREAMS would have a foreword by Andrew Cartmel, as a number of elements in the novella reminded me of the latter's own Doctor Who books. The Seventh Doctor is used quite sparingly, and is only really onscreen for a handful of pages. The book deals with psychic powers, something that Cartmel was fond of employing (in his fiction, I mean). Ace has a house, not totally unlike the dwelling at Allen Road that serves as her base of operations. And, of course, there's the old Cartmel standby: people soiling themselves. Oh dear; maybe some things would be better left unstolen.

But superficial comparisons to Andrew Cartmel's work aside, I really found myself enjoying this. Of the Dave Stone books I've read so far, I would rate this as probably his strongest work. It contains a lot of the sort of thing that we've seen before from Stone, but it feels fresh and not at all tired. I get the impression that the shorter size of the novella format caused Stone to rely on his strengths. And as I'm someone who appreciates those strengths but fears his self-indulgences, I was grateful for that.

The story concerns a city -- a city that we see from two separate time zones. At first, we aren't sure exactly how far apart temporally these two eras are. In one time, labeled "before", we see a run-down, decaying inner city, with random crime and brutal, unfeeling authorities. In the "after" zone, there exists a utopia of sorts. But the people there seem to possess whacking great holes in their knowledge. The reader is lead through the mystery via a character named Joey Quine, who lives in the "before" time and has strange psychic abilities.

I really enjoyed the parts of the story told from Quine's point of view. The sections concerning him coming to terms with and then taking advantage of his own unique mental abilities are told with sensitivity and style. This sort of thing could easily have been hooky and clichéd, but Dave Stone did a really good job, and frankly, I'm surprised; I didn't think he was capable of pulling it off.

It's extremely well paced; I managed to read the entire thing in one sitting while looking to kill some time before (what turned out to be) the final Baltimore Ravens game of the 2003 season (sob!). The plot is not easy to follow, but rewarding when it all comes together at the end. I thought I was clever by spotting the book's Big Surprise by the midway point, but looking at reviews on the 'net, apparently everyone else figured it out too. I should mention that guessing what the twist was didn't diminish anything, as seeing how the story got there was still fun.

Of course, some of Dave Stone's more annoying authorial tendencies are also on display here. He has a habit of throwing italics around with abandon to emphasize particular words, rather than structuring the sentence in such a way that the word is highlighted by the grammar instead of the font. (You know the type of thing I'm talking about. Pg 34: "...it was hard to even *think* about it in terms of description..." Pg 31: "...there were certain obvious things he *could* do..." Pg 77: "...certain things that she *liked* about this world...") Although I find this annoying, repetitive and lazy, I'm not usually bothered by it when used in moderation. But here Stone seems to rely too heavily on this voice, using it sometimes three times a page. And, I swear, if Stone ever again describes an alien as being "too different to describe" or "something which the human brain cannot possibly understand", I'll jump out the window. Okay, so Stone obviously can't describe an "otherness" concept without falling back on the same stock phrases. But can't we create some new stock phrases? Please?

Overall, I enjoyed CITADEL OF DREAMS. It tells a good story quickly. Although the beginning is slow to get started, by the end the plot is bouncing along. It's a great way to spend a few hours; I just hope it brings you better luck than it brought me.

Huh!!!.......2003-01-24

The second Telos book is a poor follow-up to the opening adventure of this range Time and Relative.
I have never been a fan of Dave Stone since I thought his stories are too weird for my taste.
Like Time and Relative, the Doctor hardly appears at all in this book.
While Time and Relative focussed heavily on Susan, Citadel of Dreams does not give the same treatment to Ace.
Citadel of Dreams instead focusses on a character called Joey Quine.
After reading the book I was completely baffled on what the story is about. If you had better luck understanding the story then congratulations.

History: Fiction or Science? Dating methods as offered by mathematical statistics. Eclipses and zodiacs. Chronology Vol.I

Average customer rating:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers
Pants on fire?
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
Very Interesting
History as Science Fiction

History: Fiction or Science? Dating methods as offered by mathematical statistics. Eclipses and zodiacs. Chronology Vol.I
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Delamere Resources
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 2913621074
Release Date: 2007-03-19

Product Description

History: Fiction or Science? is the most explosive tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by solid scientific data. The book is well-illustrated, contains over 446 graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays, which never cease to amaze the reader. Eminent mathematician proves that: Jesus Christ was born in 1153 and crucified in 1186 The Old Testament refers to mediaeval events. Apocalypse was written after 1486. Does this sound uncanny? This version of events is substantiated by hard facts and logic - validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources - to a greater extent than everything you may have read and heard about history before. The dominating historical discourse in its current state was essentially crafted in the XVI century from a rather contradictory jumble of sources such as innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts whose originals had vanished in the Dark Ages and the allegedly irrefutable proof offered by late mediaeval astronomers, resting upon the power of ecclesial authorities. Nearly all of its components are blatantly untrue! For some of us, it shall possibly be quite disturbing to see the magnificent edifice of classical history to turn into an ominous simulacrum brooding over the snake pit of mediaeval politics. Twice so, in fact: the first seeing the legendary millenarian dust on the ancient marble turn into a mere layer of dirt - one that meticulous unprejudiced research can eventually remove. The second, and greater, attack of unease comes with the awareness of just how many areas of human knowledge still trust the three elephants of the consensual chronology to support them. Nothing can remedy that except for an individual chronological revolution happening in the minds of a large enough number of people.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

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