Book Description
Hacker extraordinaire Kevin Mitnick delivers the explosive encore to his bestselling The Art of Deception
Kevin Mitnick, the world's most celebrated hacker, now devotes his life to helping businesses and governments combat data thieves, cybervandals, and other malicious computer intruders. In his bestselling The Art of Deception, Mitnick presented fictionalized case studies that illustrated how savvy computer crackers use "social engineering" to compromise even the most technically secure computer systems. Now, in his new book, Mitnick goes one step further, offering hair-raising stories of real-life computer break-ins-and showing how the victims could have prevented them. Mitnick's reputation within the hacker community gave him unique credibility with the perpetrators of these crimes, who freely shared their stories with him-and whose exploits Mitnick now reveals in detail for the first time, including:
- A group of friends who won nearly a million dollars in Las Vegas by reverse-engineering slot machines
- Two teenagers who were persuaded by terrorists to hack into the Lockheed Martin computer systems
- Two convicts who joined forces to become hackers inside a Texas prison
- A "Robin Hood" hacker who penetrated the computer systems of many prominent companies-andthen told them how he gained access
With riveting "you are there" descriptions of real computer break-ins, indispensable tips on countermeasures security professionals need to implement now, and Mitnick's own acerbic commentary on the crimes he describes, this book is sure to reach a wide audience-and attract the attention of both law enforcement agencies and the media.
Download Description
Hacker extraordinaire Kevin Mitnick delivers the explosive encore to his bestselling The Art of Deception Kevin Mitnick, the world's most celebrated hacker, now devotes his life to helping businesses and governments combat data thieves, cybervandals, and other malicious computer intruders. In his bestselling The Art of Deception, Mitnick presented fictionalized case studies that illustrated how savvy computer crackers use "social engineering" to compromise even the most technically secure computer systems. Now, in his new book, Mitnick goes one step further, offering hair-raising stories of real-life computer break-ins-and showing how the victims could have prevented them. Mitnick's reputation within the hacker community gave him unique credibility with the perpetrators of these crimes, who freely shared their stories with him-and whose exploits Mitnick now reveals in detail for the first time, including: * A group of friends who won nearly a million dollars in Las Vegas by reverse-engineering slot machines * Two teenagers who were persuaded by terrorists to hack into the Lockheed Martin computer systems * Two convicts who joined forces to become hackers inside a Texas prison * A "Robin Hood" hacker who penetrated the computer systems of many prominent companies-andthen told them how he gained access With riveting "you are there" descriptions of real computer break-ins, indispensable tips on countermeasures security professionals need to implement now, and Mitnick's own acerbic commentary on the crimes he describes, this book is sure to reach a wide audience-and attract the attention of both law enforcement agencies and the media.
Customer Reviews:
Riveting, Informative, Challenging. A must for any Network Administrator.......2007-05-19
Kevin Mitnick is a legend among computer hackers - and his unique position as a former world class computer hacker turned security consultant lends him credibility to the hacker community. Because of this, he has the trust of the most skilled computer hackers in the world (many who have not yet been caught) - giving him access to these stories.
I am a network administrator and I have learned much from this book. It is basically a compilation of stories of different particularly elaborate hacks. Each chapter includes a story of how a particular individual beat the system. At the end, he analyzes the failures and includes suggestions on how to prevent a similar exploit in your company. I particularly liked the Casino hack, in which a group of techies crack the code to particular slot machine and use it to predict when the next winning hand would come.
I never knew what was possible til after I read this book!.......2007-01-09
The stories in this book are amazing. It's unbelievable to think of the way these geniouses accomplished their goals. Whenever they hit a wall, they always keep searching until they find a way around it, and in the end it could mean millions for them.
Great book, if your into hacking and security intrusion, this will be heaven.
A great hacking book!.......2006-11-30
I picked up this book on a whim, I wanted to learn more about hacking and Kevin Mitnick. It wasn't all about him, but it was still quite good. The stories in this book are very good, I enjoyed reading, and I've passed it on to other people.
mitnick.......2006-11-06
I could not manage to get through the whole of this book, and in fact gave it away, because Mitnick is so pompous as to make a subject that is so thoroughly interesting so painful to get through. Seriously, he must have none of his over-inflated personality left because I think it all dripped out of my book.
Interesting if you can get past the horrible writing...........2006-10-19
This guy is definitely a geek and NOT an English major. The stories are interesting and frightening if you can get past the constant run on sentences and poor grammar. Good luck.
Book Description
Among the more sensational espionage cases of the Cold War were those of Moscow’s three British spies—Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess. In this riveting book, S. J. Hamrick draws on documentary evidence concealed for almost half a century in reconstructing the complex series of 1947–1951 events that led British intelligence to identify all three as Soviet agents.
Basing his argument primarily on the Venona archive of broken Soviet codes released in 1995–1996 as well as on complementary Moscow and London sources, Hamrick refutes the myth of MI5’s identification of Maclean as a Soviet agent in the spring of 1951. British intelligence knew far earlier that Maclean was Moscow’s agent and concealed that knowledge in a 1949–1951 counterespionage operation that deceived Philby and Burgess. Hamrick also introduces compelling evidence of a 1949–1950 British disinformation initiative using Philby to mislead Moscow on Anglo-American retaliatory military capability in the event of Soviet aggression in Western Europe.
Engagingly written and impressively documented, Deceiving the Deceivers breaks new ground in reinterpreting the final espionage years of three infamous spies and in clarifying fifty years of conjecture, confusion, and error in Anglo-American intelligence history.
Customer Reviews:
A mess, but what a mess!.......2007-06-27
First off, I would have to agree with a couple of the other reviewers. This book was not very well organised. On the whole, I thought the author might have made a more convincing case if he had organised his material in a more stream-lined manner, and not keep being diverted by a thread of discussion, shooting off to tangent that did not seem to ever come back to the main discussion.
However, I must also say that the author made a rather compelling case. On closer examination, there does seem to be many curious and inexplicable aspects of the careers of the Cambridge spy rings. Not least of which was the fact that Kim Philby seemed to have been promoted at least twice to senior positions, despite not having done much to prove himself, not having run field operations or even having successfully pulled off any intelligence coup. This was often explained half-heartedly as being because of the 'old boys network' or the 'old school tie', yet a gaping hole remains, particularly if we consider that Philby was in fairly minor jobs in MI6 before his sudden elevation in 1944, just after VENONA produced results.
The other inexplicable part of the Philby story was his tenure as MI6 liaison to the CIA in 1948. Yet, in spite of minor successes, the Soviets remained remarkably ill-informed about truly important strategic issues that Philby ought to have been in a position to inform them about. Of particular importance was the number of atomic bombs the US actually had and the deployment of B-29 to the UK. Of equal importance was the anticipated response of the west to the Berlin Blockade. To put it simply, the Soviets miscalculated on those issues.
A third inexplicable part of the story was how Burgess and Maclean in 1951, and then Philby in 1963 managed to slip the close survillance of MI5 and other intelligence services, in spite of the proven track record of those agencies. The net just suddenly seemed to open to allow the spies to escape. Again, this had never been satisfactorily explained.
The author's theory at least had the advantage of giving explanation to these inexplicable episodes within a single framework.
And if his account was true, it certainly would not have been unprecedented. The British, after all, ran one of the most sophisticated deception operation during WW2 in Operation Fortitude. And recent information had surfaced that the British intelligence services were not above sacrificing Dutch agents to deceive the German intellingece services in 'the English Game'.
An operation as described by the author would be completely in character and within the proven competence of the British intelligence services.
And as another reviewer had said, even if it were not true, it's a jolly good yarn!:)
A shapeless mess, but sweeps all before it.......2007-04-28
Good material and critical thinking, poorly arranged. The author has one basic point, which he reiterates in each chapter as either conclusion or thesis (sometimes both). And that point is, the British security services succeeded brilliantly for a half-century in misleading the public about the Burgess-Maclean-Philby case. To break it down to its most salient arguments:
1) Burgess and Maclean did not "jump" when they took that night boat to St-Malo in May 1951. They were "pushed"--by MI5. MI5 had been watching them for years, playing with Maclean as a cat plays with a mouse, delaying overt investigation while gradually inciting a sense of panic throughout the spy ring.
2) Kim Philby was neither head boy nor master spy. He was a bibulous blowhard, a second-rater whose utility to the Soviets expired long before 1951. When he was stationed at the embassy in Washington, DC in 1949-51, he did not even have a regular Soviet contact. (When he finally ended up in Moscow, the KGB had no use for him: he was under constant surveillance and suspicion.) Philby was mainly useful to the British security services, first as a useful fool whose contacts could be monitored, later as a straw-man who could be portrayed as a sort of Prof. Moriarty of espionage, thereby allowing the security services to hide how they much they actually knew about the Soviet apparatus.
The arguments are based on the author's review of the so-called Venona transcripts, decryptions and counterintelligence documents that accumulated in the American security services from the 1940s and 50s. This book serves as a sort of bibliographic introduction to what can be pulled out of those files, but it is itself too confused and sprawling to be the final word itself. The thing is just difficult to read. It needed an editor and proofreader, to give it clarity and shape, and to catch the author's more obvious errors. At least twice Hamrick speaks of Heath being Prime Minister in 1963, and I can't tell whether he really means Macmillan or Lord Home, or means minister Heath in the cabinet.
HEROIC SOVIET SPIES OR BRITISH DUPES?.......2007-04-21
I like a James Bond spy thriller replete with the latest technology as well as the next guy. Le Carre's Cold War-inspired George Smiley series. Even better. So when I expected to get the real `scoop' on the actions of the Kim Philby-led Ring of Five in England that performed heroic spy service for the Soviet Union I found instead mostly skimpy historical conjecture by Mr. Hamrick. The central premise of his book that the Ring of Five was led by the rings in their noses by Western intelligence made me long for one of Mr. le Carre's books. Apparently the only virtue of the opening of Cold War archives has been not to bring some clarity about the period but to create a cottage industry of conjecture and coincidence that rival the Lee Harvey Oswald industry. Interestingly, the New York Review of Books (April 26, 2007) in its review of Mr. Hamrick's book brought in the big guns. The review by Phillip Knightley, who actually has done some heavy work sorting out the Philby case, politely, too politely, dismisses the claims as so much smoke. No disagreement there from these quarters.
Fiction.......2005-12-31
If the British Intelligence had indeed set a trap for the Cambridge Spies, then the deceiving plan was poorly managed that eventually led to disasters.
It is highly unlikely that Philby would be promoted to such a high position to post at Washington DC as a liaison between SIS (MI6), CIA and FBI had his true identity as a Soviet agent been exposed to the MI5. The success of such a bold counter-intelligence plan need at least
(1) a highly motivated and efficient British security service. MI5's inexcusable incompetence in the Klaus Fuchs' investigation during the same time period showed the exact contrary,
(2) complicated and delicate co-operations among the three giants which unfortunately history has proved non-existence even between CIA and FBI in 1950s.
The reality is cryptically simple, Philby compromised many of the three agencies' intelligence or counter-intelligence operations whether domestic or international, Albanian Operation for example, and possibly the sensitive Venona Secrets. Philby successfully deceived the three powerful giants, not the other way as the author expected. Even worse, Philby involuntarily created a long-term mistrust between American and British intelligence communities.
This book has unusually larger amount of comments and imaginations than necessary supporting facts.
A New Twist to an Old Story?.......2005-08-04
For those who would be interested, my review of this book was published by H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews (H-Diplo@h-net.msu.edu) in February 2005. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=170151117221847
Book Description
In the world of Isavalta the empire of Hastinapura dominates neighboring realms, demanding tribute and obedience from all within their power. Natharie of Sindhu, the eldest princess of her realm, is given as tribute to the Imperial throne and becomes a pawn in the power struggle between her homeland and Hastinapura. Though the empires Prince Samudra recognizes her intelligence and character, he cant protect her from the plotting of his lands priesthood and from his brother the emperors designs. As his fate and Natharies become ever more intimately entwined, they risk not only their own lives, but the fate of both realms. With this masterful tapestry woven from a world of colorful societies, Machiavellian conspiracies, subtle magics and romantic liaison, Sarah Zettel conjures a spellbinding tale that will enthrall fantasy readers. Her skillful blending of folk traditions of Russia, India, and China is a compelling fantasy tour de force.
Customer Reviews:
Captivating storytelling!.......2007-07-13
I've been a fan of Zettel for years, and her writing just keeps getting better. This novel continues the trend.
Set as a prequel to Zettel's other Isavalta novels, "Sword of the Deceiver" tells the story of Natharie, a "willing" tribute from her people to their rulers in Isavalta. Once in the Palace of the Pearl Throne, Natharie finds herself in the middle of court intrigues and deceptions where she's never sure who to trust or what their underlying motives might be -- except that she herself is beginning to have feelings for Prince Samudra who, depending which rumors one believes, may be plotting to take over the throne.
This is an incredible novel full of intrigue, adventure, romance, and magic. While the first 100 pages are a little slow setting up all the different plot lines (and there are MANY plot lines through every deception), once all the players are in place, the novel takes off. By halfway through, I stayed up all night to finish it.
The book leaves open every possibility for a direct sequel, and I hope Zettel writes one instead of hopping around in time as she's done through the rest of the Isavalta novels. (I had hoped the same thing of the first Isavalta novel, "A Sorcerer's Treason," but alas, no sequel yet.) Natharie is a wonderfully complex and determined character, and Prince Samudra is truly heroic. These characters deserve many more tales.
Wonderfully entertaining fantasy!.......2007-06-12
Sarah Zettel's writing has improved progressively over the course of her "Isavalta" series, and the latest "Sword of the Deceiver" is by far the best yet. It is a charming, and at times gripping, tale of love, power, and the clash of cultures and religions. Although set in the same universe as the rest of the "Isavalta" series, the events in "Sword" precede the events in the other books, and because the focus is on the kingdom of Hastinapura, it stands well on its own; readers need not have read the other books in the series to enjoy this one.
The story follows two main characters: Natharie, Princess of Sindhu, and Samudra, Prince of Hastinapura. Samudra, brother to the Emperor, is sent on a year-long mission to receive oaths of alleigance and tributes from Hastinapura's subject kingdoms. It is on this mission that he comes to Sindhu, where, having demanded a hostage from the royal family, he meets Natharie, who is the eldest daughter of the king and who has offered herself to save the younger members of her family. During her forced stay at Hastinapura, Natharie quickly learns that there is much more to Samudra than meets the eye, and the two develop a tenuous bond. But Natharie is also the target of Hastinapura's High Priest, whose religious fervor has caused him to single her out, as the people of Sindhu worship the Awakened One, and the people of Hastinapura worship the Mothers. And amidst all of this are the political power plays present in any court, and into which Natharie finds herself inextricably drawn.
There are also several other side characters whose actions and decisions help shape the outcome of the plot, and this was one of the things that I liked about the development of the story in "Sword". Events did not seem contrived, but rather were the natural outcomes of perfectly reasonable decisions made by half-a-dozen different characters, all of which converged into an explosive ending. All characters were fleshed out well, and even the "villains" had their points that the reader had to respect. The plot unfolded at a good pace, and it was easy to sympathize with Natharie and Samudra as they worked through their respective struggles.
The writing was very fluid, descriptive, and often beautiful to read. There were a few references to Indian myth in this novel, which I thought were aptly applied; some of the philosophical discourses were interesting to read as well.
The only complaint I really had about this novel was the way the ending played out; I didn't feel like the central characters had much part it in, and considering that most of what happened was in direct response to them, it made it seem a bit disjointed. Also, some of the actions the characters take at the end didn't seem very believable, which was a departure from the way they were written earlier in the novel. But despite this, it was still a satisfying ending, and a read I would highly recommend.
excellent epic political fantasy.......2007-03-24
The Hastinapura Empire has been the superpower ruling Isavalta with its military might and has forced its neighbors to pay tribute for five centuries. While celebrating her womanhood rite with her family before she royally marries, Sindhu Princess Natharie learns that the Empire demands her parents King Kiet and Queen Sitara send a regal human tribute. Father and daughter conclude the only reasonable person that would be acceptable as a hostage to Pearl Throne Emperor Chandra is her as why else would he time his demand as the rite of passage begins. Thus on what should have been a most joyous occasion, Natharie instead start a dangerous journey.
At the Hastinapura court, everyone ignores the teenage barbarian from the south as being beneath them, This enables Natharie to learn that her host and his followers worship the Mothers, whose gory abusive High Priest, Divakesh has begun a campaign to bring his religion to the outer nations including Sindhu. Her only hope to save her family and her people from a massacre resides with Chandra's brother Prince Samudra, but he just returned home after a one year diplomatic mission and his influence has been superseded exponentially by Divakesh.
Fans of romance and epic political fantasies will cherish this terrific Isavalta saga that can stand alone yet also adds to the lore of the previous tales (see THE FIREBIRD'S VENGEANCE). The action is fast and furious as the countdown for a blitzkrieg backed by religious fervor is nearing the doomsday second with only two people trying to prevent a bloody ethnic cleansing even as their love for one another blossoms but takes a back seat to saving the lives of innocent people. Sarah Zettel shows she is a superior fantasist.
Harriet Klausner
Average customer rating:
- First-rate stories of espionage
- Probably the greatest two espionage novellas ever written.
- Secrets of a spy.
- Gorby's Early Retirement Plan
- great Cold War espionage
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The Deceiver
Frederick Forsyth
Manufacturer: Bantam
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ASIN: 0553297422
Release Date: 1992-06-01 |
Customer Reviews:
First-rate stories of espionage.......2007-06-12
"The Deceiver" consists of four first-rate stories dealing with Cold War era espionage. While the characters (other than historical figures) and the incidents are presumably fictional, these stories have the usual Forsyth air of authenticity.
These stories are uniformly excellent. Forsyth artfully uses the format of an administrative hearing for a superlative British Cold War intelligence officer to tell the four separate stories that make up this collection. It works. These stories involve the old Soviet Union, the IRA, the Libyans, international criminals, and the Cubans. All well-told.
Highly recommended.
Probably the greatest two espionage novellas ever written........2007-05-02
The first two stories in this compilation of episodes from the colorful career of one Sam Mcready a.k.a "The Deceiver" are worth their weight in gold. The first one deals with a thrilling infiltration into East Germany with a variety of twists and turns. The second story details the defection of a senior KGB officer who creates a rift between the British MI6 and the CIA. The final two stories are more run-of-the-mill, but Forsyth fans will not be disappointed.
Secrets of a spy........2005-08-04
The Deceiver by Frederick Forsyth is a collection of four novellas all featuring Sam McCready, a veteran agent for the British Secret Intelligence Service. It's the waning days of the cold war and the SIS has made the decision to scale down its field operations. Consequently, McCready is targeted for early retirement. As a colleague argues before the powers-that-be to allow Sam to stay on as an active operative, four of his most interesting cases are reviewed one by one.
Pride and Extreme Prejudice takes place in 1981. Sam is handed the task of obtaining a top secret volume of classified military information from a high ranking Soviet army officer who is cooperating with the CIA. The turnover is to be made in East Germany. There's just one problem. The West German agent Sam has hired to make the pick up is a desperate man who will surely bring the mission to a disasterous end. A smartly told, suspenseful and satisfying tale of cold war intrigue.
The Price of the Bride also unfolds against the backdrop of the cold war. A colonel in the KGB defects to the CIA choosing to do so on British soil. As the compelling narative unfolds, doubts are raised as to the Russian's veracity. Sam McCready is there to skillfully ferret out the truth while the plot twists and turns almost to the breaking point. An intricate chess game of a story.
Novella number three is entitled A Casualty of War and takes place mostly on Cyprus. It revolves around a sinister collaboration between Libya's Colonel Qaddafi and the IRA. A series of terrorist attacks are to be carried out in England and McCready must act swiftly to prevent them from happening. The detailed descriptions of how terrorists and counterterrorists ply their respective trades are quite fascinating.
And lastly, A Little Bit of Sunshine has McCready visiting a tiny British colonial outpost in the Carribean. This novella differs from the other three in that it unfolds more as a whodunit with comic undertones than as a conventional spy story.
All in all, The Deceiver rates 4 stars. Fans of international thrillers will doubtlessly derive considerable enjoyment from reading it.
Gorby's Early Retirement Plan.......2004-11-21
Frederick Forsyth has penned a most unusual collection of spy tales here. In fact four episodes from the colorful career of Sam McCready, British spy master, are provided and well-crafted. The four tales cover about 10 years and every terrorist and criminal hub in the world, including Libya, Cuba, USSR, the IRA, and East Germany.
McCready has been deemed expendable, due to his unorthodox and outrageous tactics, in a post Cold War era by very high level political and civil service leaders.
The typical story line for a prehistoric cold war operative runs like this: Operate a high level Russian spy for many years in an uneasy collaboration with the CIA. Send an overweight, aged, hard drinking West German spy into East Germany to collect a package. With the help of retired smugglers, go yourself into East Germany to retrieve the package when the West German suffers a complete break-down. Of course this needs to be done without any official sanction from the British or West German, while the KGB is also on the trail of the Russian general. Clearly these tactics have no place in the post cold war 1990's, a time of seeming safety and tranquility at least until Iraq invades Kuwait in August 1990.
The fundamental premise here is that McCready has a legal right to a deparmental hearing as a sort of protest of his forced retirement. In the hearing the four spy tales are told. This is a very unusual construct and may not appeal to all. The tales are all good, but not good enough to stand alone as Forsyth novels, and are strangely unrelated, other than that they are four cases successfully solved by our hero. This is also a book for those like me, who love the technical minutae and operational details of the covert trade.
great Cold War espionage.......2003-07-09
Frederick Forsyth delivers thrilling tales of Cold War espionage in The Deceiver. The book is a collection of novellas that revolve around the career of one of British intelligence's most effective operatives. Unfortunately for that operative, he is being sent by the new administration into quiet retirement on the eve of the end of the Cold War. Using a committee review of that operative's career to link the individual episodes, Forsyth provides another entertaining character in thrilling spy tales.
Book Description
The nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented increase in art forgery, caused both by the advent of national museums and by a rapidly growing bourgeois interest in collecting objects from the past. This rise had profound repercussions on notions of selfhood and national identity within and outside the realm of art. Although art critics denounced forgery for its affront to artistic traditions, they were fascinated by its power to shape the human and object worlds and adopted a language of art forgery to articulate a link between the making of fakes and the making of selves. The Deceivers explores the intersections between artistic crime, literary narrative, and the definition of identity.
Literary texts joined more specialized artistic discourses in describing the various identities associated with art forgery: the forger, the copyist, the art expert, the dealer, the restorer. Built into new characters were assumptions about gender, sexuality, race, and nationality that themselves would come to be presented in a language of artistic authenticity. Aviva Briefel places special emphasis on the gendered distinction between male forgers and female copyists. "Copying," a benign occupation when undertaken by a woman, became "forgery," laden with criminal intent, when performed by men. Those who could successfully produce, handle, or detect spurious things and selves were distinguished from others who were incapable of distinguishing the authentic from the artistic and human forgeries.
Through close reading of literary narratives such as Trilby and The Marble Faun as well as newspaper accounts of forgery scandals, The Deceivers reveals the identities—both authentic and fake—that emerged from the Victorian culture of forgery.
Amazon.com
After sucking in the reader with a thrilling anthropomorphic account of an ant slave raid, Thieves, Deceivers and Killers relates tales of beetles, flowers, mussels, bacteria, and other organisms that eavesdrop on the chemical messages other species use to communicate. Not only do they eavesdrop on each other, they subvert the intercepted messages for their own ends, often killing the sender.
In contrast to Dr. Agosta's previous books on chemical messengers, wherein the material was organized by complexity or function, here he presents anecdotes demonstrating a particular biological interaction. There is the story of hawk moths, the only pollinators of western-prairie fringed orchids because their eyes are spaced just so; the one about ant-decapitating flies, who lay their eggs between an ant's head and abdomen (the decapitating occurs when the egg hatches into a maggot, which eats the ant's brain); and the case of parasitic wasps that can detect, from above ground, caterpillars hiding in ants' nests--although the ants themselves cannot detect the disguised caterpillars.
These episodes are followed by a glossary, so they are accessible to everyone. And though the anecdotes may seem to be very obscure or to involve overly exotic (and gross) creatures, Dr. Agosta amply demonstrates their relevance to human endeavors. Most notable are advances in the realms of pharmaceuticals (the discovery of new antibiotics in ants) and agriculture (the use of a fungus to control wild oats). Thieves, Deceivers and Killers ends with areas of active research and some unanswered questions, leaving us waiting eagerly for the sequel this title deserves. --Diana Gitig
Book Description
The tobacco plant synthesizes nicotine to protect itself from herbivores. The female moth broadcasts sex pheromones to attract a mate, while a soldier ant deploys an alarm pheromone to call for help. The carbon dioxide on a mammal's breath beckons hungry ticks and mosquitoes, while a flower's fragrance speaks to the honey bee. Indeed, much of the communication that occurs within and between various species of organisms is done not by sight, sound, or touch, but with chemicals. From mating to parenting, foraging to self-defense, plant and animal activities are accomplished largely by the secretion or exchange of organic chemicals. The fascinating and fast-developing science that encompasses these diverse phenomena is introduced here, by William Agosta, in a series of remarkable stories absolutely accessible to the general reader yet revelatory to chemists and biologists.
Among Agosta's characters are the organisms that steal, counterfeit, or interpret the chemical signals of other species for their own ends. We learn of seeds that mimic ant odors to facilitate their own dispersion and flies that follow the scent of truffles to lay their eggs. We read about pit vipers that react in terror when their flicking tongues detect a king snake, and slave-making ants incapable of finding their own food. And we meet ice-age people who ate birch fungus to relieve whipworms and early human hunters who used the urine of wolves to maneuver deer to favorable sites.
Agosta also chronicles the rapid development of the applied science that makes use of chemical ecology. As researchers deepen our understanding of the biological world, they are making economically significant discoveries (such as enzymes that remain stable in extreme heat), finding ways to reduce our reliance on manufactured pesticides, identifying new uses for traditional medicines, and developing sophisticated new pharmaceuticals effective in treating malaria and several cancers. On the horizon are antiviral agents derived from the chemical defenses of marine species.
From the exploits of flies to the high-stakes effort to cure human disease, Agosta's tour of chemical ecology grants any reader entrance to the invisible realm where chemistry determines life and death.
Customer Reviews:
Tantalizing view of a wild world that surrounds us .......2005-10-24
Very interesting Wish for more chemical structures and references would make it easier to follow up on. Certainly makes the worl of chemical sensing come alive o
great insight into insects, ants and other fascinating creatures.......2005-10-01
Protos, Prof. William Agosta's opening chapter explains, have kept Lept slaves from time immemorial. The slaves raise their young, gather food for them and keep their homes clean. The Protos excel only at capturing the Lepts, who are remarkably loyal to their Proto masters, even becoming ferocious participants in slave-raids on their own kind. Both the Protos and Lepts are tiny ants, who live out their inter dependent lives in a world no bigger than a dinner table. They are only one of the many mysteries of nature this fascinating book brings to our attention.
Whereas stick insects use ants to disperse their eggs, the scuttle fly lays its eggs in the heads of the unfortunate ants it preys on. Some wasps lay their eggs within the eggs of stick insects while others fool ants into believing that their offspring are ants. The South American crab spider fools carpenter ants by carrying a dead ant in such a way that it walks, smells and looks like an ant. This neat trick allows the spider ant to capture and kill another dumb ant and repeat its bizarre ritual.
Because some 289,000 species of insects act as pollinators of flowering plan, Agosta's fine book shows how and why a lot of deals are cut for self-survival reasons. A single pound of honey, for example, represents the nectar from about 17,000 foraging trips and entails 7,000 bee-hours of labor. The flowers must have all kinds of sophisticated strategies to ensure the busy bees spread their seed. The rhizanthella gardneri, an Australian orchid, must have a peculiarly singular strategy; this is because it blooms underground and depends on scuttle flies to pollinate it. Chimpanzees and parrots, meanwhile, eat special plants when they are sick and some bacteria contain particles that act as compasses.
Life is strange - especially, as Agosta explains, for flower mites, which hitch rides with migrating hummingbirds, spending their summers on the California coast and winter in west-central Mexico. They do this by climbing into the bird's nostrils and alighting at the right flower to survive. They have less than 5 seconds to alight and achieve their "Mission Impossible". Older female mice, meanwhile, trick younger ones into not procreating, a case perhaps of brains over beauty!
As well as discussing a fascinating number of such examples, Agosta ventures further to show how history has been influenced by the lowliest of creatures. Although we generally loathe flies as disgusting creatures, without them, the author shows how our destiny would have been vastly different. Their diseases decimated Napoleon's Haitian army, forced him to sell Louisiana for a pittance to the United States and to abandon the Americas almost entirely. Malaria caused five times more casualties in the Pacific war than did the combatants. Because it is so lethal to humans and their domesticated animals, the tsetse fly keeps large swathes of Africa relatively underdeveloped. However, we are now using cattle urine to trap and exterminate them.
This is not as novel as it sounds. Agosta explains how our ancestors used the urine of wolves and dogs to trap deer. Prof. Agosta also gives us details of a company that sells over the Internet "100% predator urine" to repel raccoon, deer and other unwanted animals.
We live in a beautiful, complex but delicate ecology, where, as the author maintains, mutually beneficial bargains are done to ensure mutual survival. We have upset this balance immeasurably and, as Prof. Agosta's excellent book makes plain, we better make amends if we want the beautiful paradise of nature we have inherited to continue.
Tales of Chemistry in Nature.......2002-05-07
This book is an information feast, digestible in small bites but too rich to be downed in a single gulp. It's an incredible collection of stories bound together by the thread of `chemistry in nature.' In fact, one of the stories concerns threads---the ancient Romans used to weave a sheer fabric called `linen mist' from the byssal threads of a large mollusk known as the noble pen shell (`Pinna nobilis').
Many of the lessons in chemical ecology concern ants and their sophisticated use of biochemicals to take slaves, grow crops, and manufacture antibiotics. In another chapter called "Real-World Complexities," the author maps the annual fluctuation of Lyme disease as dependent on the interaction of deer, bacteria-carrying deer ticks, mice, oaks, and gypsy moths. If only we could learn from these chemical interactions, before we destroy their ecology.
The author gives tantalizing glimpses at antibiotics, extremophile enzymes that don't break down when used as catalysts, fishing nets that are made out of spider webs, and many other ways we could capitalize on ecology if we took the time to learn from it.
There are many good science project ideas in "Tales of Chemistry in Nature." The book can be profitably read by adults and young adults. For adults already advancing down their chosen career paths, this book is a fascinating look at what the biochemists and ecologists may be learning from nature.
Better living through chemistry?.......2001-11-27
The central message of this gracefully written, highly informative, and refreshingly modest book by Rockefeller University Professor Emeritus William Agosta is that there is a wealth of chemicals produced in nature that humans can effectively use to fight disease, control pests, and facilitate chemical reactions--if only we can find, understand and harvest them.
Agosta begins with a tale about a species of ant that enslaves members of another species using a variety of chemicals. He ends the book with the idea that we might find desperately needed new antibiotics by examining the chemicals made by animals "that form herds or flocks, as well as those that live in organized societies, such as the social insects..." (p. 212) Agosta's rationale is that other social creatures face the same danger that humans face, that of pathogens that rapidly spread in a crowd. Surely they have come up with some chemical defenses we might discover and employ ourselves. He cites ants as a particularly likely prospect for study and gives the example of the bulldog ants of Australia who, when injected with the common human intestinal bacterium, Escherichia coli, manufacture an antibiotic that promptly kills it.
In between the bookend chapters, Agosta spins tales about how microbes and insects, plants and sea creatures, fungi and arachnids attract, repeal, steal from, deceive, enslave, parasitize and kill one another, mainly with chemicals. The world he depicts is largely a world where eyes and ears are secondary to the sense of smell, a bizarre fairy land of complicated arrangements among species and delicate ecologies. A case in point is the in-door farm of the leaf-cutting ant which involves not only the ants and the trees they get the leaves from and the fungus they grow, but also the use of a species of streptomyces to produce an antibiotic to kill a fungal pest in their gardens. In other words, not only are ants farmers, they use pesticides!
Agosta emphasizes that we must understand the interactions of species to appreciate their use of chemicals. He uses the phenomenon of Lyme disease as an example, and how it is affected by the mass fruiting cycle of oak tree acorns which influence the numbers of mice and deer on which the ticks that harbor the Lyme disease parasites live. Two years after a bumper crop of acorns there is a concomitant rise in the number of people who get Lyme disease.
In particular, these are tales of parasite and host. I was startled to learn on page 223 that ticks and mites are so prevalent that they have "parasitized almost every organism larger than themselves." Indeed, something similar can be said of the nematodes (roundworms) who "have parasitized virtually every species larger than themselves." (p. 224) When one thinks about the countless viruses and bacteria that prey on humans and all the other animals and plants, one realizes that we live in a world of parasites.
However, the single most startling and mind-expanding thing I read in this book is the story in Chapter 11, "Real-World Complexity," of a wasp that uses a virus to help it subdue the hornworm caterpillars it deposits its eggs in. This opens up the possibility that we can use viruses to invade and kill microbes and cure disease. Perhaps this is already being done in laboratories somewhere, or at least is in the experimental stage.
All this information is interesting, even exciting, and potentially of great use by humans, but if we are to benefit from the chemical knowledge of microbes, plants and animals, we need to preserve what wild life we have left in the world, in particular that of the rain forests where there is such an incredible variety of life. These myriad creatures have, over the vast eons of time, learned to create and manufacture chemicals that we could never discover on our own. It would be a shame to throw away all this knowledge for a few trillion hamburgers....
I recall some years ago that a major corporation had as its advertising slogan: "Better living through chemistry." I used to always think when I heard that, "but life IS chemistry." This book strongly supports that idea.
Amazon.com
Way back in the 1950s, Alfred Bester established himself as one of the greats of SF with a number of dazzling short stories and two major novels: The Demolished Man (1953) and The Stars My Destination (1956, also known as Tiger! Tiger!), both much reprinted. The Deceivers, his final SF novel, appeared in 1981.
It's a colorful, whimsical romp that plays entertainingly with themes from Bester's peak years, though without his old driving, compelling savagery. Hero Rogue Winter is a "Synergist," acutely sensitive to the world's patterns: in one set-piece sequence he follows an intuitive trail from 12 drummers drumming in a street parade to the goal of a (metaphorical) partridge in a pear tree. Winter is also heir-apparent to the Maori Mafia, which controls much of the Solar System's crime, but he must single-handedly battle the dread mammoths of Ganymede to earn his crown. Meanwhile, he has fallen helplessly in love with a sexy nonhuman shapeshifter from Titan, making him vulnerable to minions of the insidious Manchu Duke of Death, who plans to smash the syndicate that's smuggling the priceless miracle fuel Meta from the heavily defended mines of Saturn's Chinese/Japanese-dominated moon Triton.
Bester crams this wild farrago of a narrative with wisecracks, junk science, circus glamor, odd catch phrases, bits of self-conscious cleverness and excess, Chinese esoterica like the Mirror-and-Listen Mystery, and his trademark typographic tricks. Amusing candyfloss nonsense; quite readable, but definitely not in the same league as his 1950s classics. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
Rogue Winter is King of the Maori Commandos. His lover is the beautiful Demi Jeroux, who has been kidnapped by the villainous, demonic Manchu Duke of Death. Rogue must search the entire solar system to find Demi, from the Paradise of Carnal Pleasures to the bloody torture chambers of Triton. Rogue's final confrontation with the Duke will determine not only the fate of his beloved, but the future of the system and its freedom from the evil Manchu Empire.
Download Description
In The Deceivers, Bester reinvented the space opera for the late 20th century. The hero is Rogue Winter - King of the Maori Commandos … His lover is the beautiful Demi Jeroux, who has been kidnapped by … The villainous, demonic Manchu Duke of Death. Rogue must search the entire solar system to find the missing Demi Jeroux, from the Paradise of Carnal Pleasures to the bloody torture chambers of Triton. It is in the subterranean chambers beneath the surface of Triton that the key to the whole adventure lies. Buried here is the sole source of the newly discovered Meta-crystals, which hold the secret to unlimited energy for all mankind.
Customer Reviews:
fun pulp.......2004-08-03
Although not the caliber of his early works such as "The Demolished Man", or "The Stars my Destination", this makes for an enjoyable summertime read, perhaps in the "Pulp" variety ... a little sex, and lots of action. There are a few of the old Bester touches, such as spacing of text on the page, and an animal called an "Astroboar" that was breed for no fat, but escaped and evolved into a mammoth like creature. As a plot it may not be very compelling, but there a few humorous twists such as a circus street parade, and a pet cat that reads people's psychic dots. The occasional illustrations add to the pulp appeal (and Bester began in the 1940's writing for comics).
Over-written and self-indulgent.......2003-02-28
I've previously read a few of Bester's stories. THE STARS MY DESTINATION, THE DEMOLISHED MAN, and some of the shorter pieces...I thoroughly enjoyed them all, with STARS probably being my overall favorite.
THE DECEIVERS was written later in his career, and it's my belief that THE DECEIVERS is one long in-joke, filled with cryptic goodies and extremes which probably only Bester and his closest supporters took any real enjoyment in. My feeling is THE DECEIVERS was much less written for the audience at large, and much more written for an aged author who was trying to keep himself entertained.
On one level, the text seems to be written with great ease and intricacy, but at what expense? It's a campy, oblique love story set in an elaborately expanded solar system, with tricky gibberish and painful future slang tossed in. I feel like Bester must've had an absolute blast writing this book. And in the process, I think he alienated the more casual reader.
I read it. I finished it. I can't say that I enjoyed it. In fact, there were a few moments where I asked myself, "Why am I reading this?" Libraries were invented for books like this one.
THE DECEIVERS is a very deliberate work of fiction, but more valuable as a performed effort of an accomplished afficianado than as accessible entertainment for the masses.
A homage to pulp sci-fi that went to far.......2001-11-18
Rouge Winter, hair to the Maori crown, battles the minions of the evil Duke of Manchoo across the solar system. Sounds campy? intentionally so. But Bester has succeeded too much and this book became more than a homage to the pulp days - it IS pulp.
Nothing new, but the old is damn good.......2001-04-09
I don't have too much to say about this book, except that it is deffinately worth reading. I've seen most of the concepts preseted in this book (chemically altered super genius, shapeshifting aliens, human/alien marriages, etc.) but everything a new twist, a special touch that makes this a fun and interesting read. It only took me a day to read, so one doesn't have to commit much time or effort to this book. For that reason, I'd recommend this book to anyone, not just fans of Bester or sci-fi in general.
Only for Bester's completists.......2001-02-06
I agree with most of the other reviews: it is a fun Bester book (not as depressing as "Golem 1000", for example) but it is not in the same league as "The Demolished Man" or "Tiger, Tiger". Why 4 stars, you ask? Well, considering the quality of Bester's works, even his worst is still better then most of the pure-fun SF you can read from other authors.
Customer Reviews:
From Back Cover.......2004-07-09
Her name was Cindy, and she was his neighbor's wife - the woman next door in kind of cuburbia that didn't make headlines. No cheep scandals here - no wife-swapping, no key games. These were real people, nice people like Cindy and Carl who fought with the desperation of damned to keep from wanting each other.
Average customer rating:
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The Deceivers
John Masters
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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