Book Description
New secrets, old flames, and hidden agendas are about to send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most outrageous adventure yet! MISTAKE #1Dickie OrrStephanie was married to him for about fifteen minutes before she caught him cheating on her with her archnemesis, Joyce Barnhardt. Another fifteen minutes after that, Stephanie filed for divorce, hoping never to see either one of them again. MISTAKE #2Doing favors for super bounty hunter Carlos Manoso (aka Ranger) Ranger needs Stephanie to meet with Dickie and find out if he's doing something shady. Turns out, he is. Turns out, Dickie's also back to doing Joyce Barnhardt. And it turns out Ranger's favors always come with a price. . . .MISTAKE #3Going completely nutso while doing the favor for Ranger, and trying to apply bodily injury to Dickie in front of the entire officeNow Dickie has disappeared, and Stephanie is the natural suspect in his disappearance. Is Dickie dead? Can he be found? And can Stephanie Plum stay one step ahead in this new, dangerous game? Joe Morelli, the hottest cop in Trenton, New Jersey, is also keeping Stephanie on her toes---and he may know more than he's saying about many things in Stephanie's life. It's a cat-and-mouse game for Stephanie Plum wherein the ultimate prize might be her life.With Janet Evanovich's flair for hilarious situations, breathtaking action, and unforgettable characters, Lean Mean Thirteen shows why no one can beat Evanovich for blockbuster entertainment.
Customer Reviews:
Love Triangle is Getting Tired--Put it to rest.......2007-10-08
The love triangle aspect of these stories is getting tired in my opinion. The humor is not as sharp anymore and with 13 books already published, I begin to wonder how fresh and witty the characters can remain over time? I hate to say this, but I think it's time to put the Stephanie Plum series to rest. The author needs to move on and begin something new and different.
same ole story.......2007-10-07
I confess I have been a cupcake since book one. So as Janet has put Morelli on the back burner, domesticated him, emasculated him and increased Ranger's mystique, wealth etc. I have been very disappointed. This love triangle is boring plus dishonest. Stephanie was less of a s...(rhymes with "butt") in this one. But she professes love for Morelli while having an emotional and sometimes physical affair with Ranger. I have no respect for Stephanie plus she's incompetent. The jokes are old, the situations are old, the series is tired and needs to end. I've heard that Janet will end the series with two books: one for the cupcakes and one for the babes. I cannot imagine more of the same. Ugh. The first 6 books were the best.
A Winner for the Plum Series!.......2007-10-05
I thought that "Lean Mean Thirteen" by Janet Evanovich was just a super winner for the Plumb series. She is one of my favorite writers and she has never disappointed me. Yes, there were some weak stories in the series, but overall Janet has been a real consistent writer and this book for me is no exception. The characters come alive in this story and the invigorating Stephanie keeps giving me one stimulating action packed adventure that is mixed with humor and intrigue. There are numerous excellent reviews, so I won't go into anymore detail about the story except to tell you that Ranger and Joe made the cut. A great read for the series.
Looking for a stunning Women's Fiction then check out Gathering of Cans by Robert L. Saunders. Zoie Baker, 55 is the heroine, and she feels right down to her bones that can build a swimming pool for her town by gathering aluminum cans. On this quest she stumbles on unique, cans. i.e., Nehi, Mountain Dew, etc., that sends the reader on a wondrous journey into Zoie's life. The Gold Bud can travels back to 1944 during World War II and Zoie meets Nat at the USO club. Each can delivers a fascinating story and all the characters return for a triumphal ending. Believe me this author delivers a spellbinding story with his silky and smooth prose. A fantastic story, believe me you won't be disappointed! Bye.
lean,mean 13.......2007-10-03
Great book, as always. One of those you want to go on and on and never end.
I don't get tired of the Stephanie Plum books. I always look forward to lunch time so I can read more of the book.
For Pete's sake.......2007-10-01
Can we please stop the love triangle already? Even though Stephanie is less of a s___ (rhymes with "butt") in this one, it still is a bit too "romantic novel" to me.
I gave two stars (and would have given .5 more) for the introduction of the taxidermist.
What really chaps my hide is that she has made Morelli into a lapdog and I think she did it only so she could justify Stephanie's obsession with Ranger. I think Ms Evanovich should create a nice female character for Morelli that he can marry and boot Stephanie to the curb.
The plot was thin and the characters old and stale.
Although it was better than #12. I will give her that.
Ms Evanovich, I don't mind waiting awhile for a GOOD book if you need the time to write it.
Book Description
Charles Frazier’s
Thirteen Moons is the story of one man’s remarkable life, spanning a century of relentless change. At the age of twelve, an orphan named Will Cooper is given a horse, a key, and a map and is sent on a journey through the wilderness to the edge of the Cherokee Nation, the uncharted white space on the map. Will is a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading post. As he fulfills his lonesome duty, Will finds a father in Bear, a Cherokee chief, and is adopted by him and his people, developing relationships that ultimately forge Will’s character. All the while, his love of Claire, the enigmatic and captivating charge of volatile and powerful Featherstone, will forever rule Will’s heart.
In a distinct voice filled with both humor and yearning, Will tells of a lifelong search for home, the hunger for fortune and adventure, the rebuilding of a trampled culture, and above all an enduring pursuit of passion. As he comes to realize, “When all else is lost and gone forever, there is yearning. One of the few welcome lessons age teaches is that only desire trumps time."
Will Cooper, in the hands of Charles Frazier, becomes a classic American soul: a man devoted to a place and its people, a woman, and a way of life, all of which are forever just beyond his reach.
Thirteen Moons takes us from the uncharted wilderness of an unspoiled continent, across the South, up and down the Mississippi, and to the urban clamor of a raw Washington City. Throughout, Will is swept along as the wild beauty of the nineteenth century gives way to the telephones, automobiles, and encroaching railways of the twentieth. Steeped in history, rich in insight, and filled with moments of sudden beauty,
Thirteen Moons is an unforgettable work of fiction by an American master.
PRAISE FOR THIRTEEN MOONS
“Genius.”
–Time
“Gorgeous…Thirteen Moons calls Cold Mountain to mind in its wonder at the natural world; its pacificist undercurrents; its dismay at the dismantling of what matters, and its convication that one love, no matter how tortured and inexplicable, can be life-defining…fascinating…vivid and alive.”
–Newsweek
“Thirteen Moons is rare in many ways and occupies a literary plane of such height that reviewing it is not really salient….Thirteen Moons has the power to inspire great performances from succeeding generations of writers….For those who simply value the literary experience, Thirteen Moons will provide the immense satisfaction of taking a literary journey of magnitude. Whether on a plane, in an office or curled in a window seat, readers who absorb Will's story will find their own lives enriched….Thirteen Moons belongs to the ages.”
–Los Angeles Times
“Thirteen Moons brings this vanished world thrillingly to life…
One of the great Native American, and American stories, and a great gift to all of us, from one of our very best writers.”
« –Kirkus Reviews, starred review «
“There are things so masterful words can’t do them justice. Frazier’s writing falls in that category…With Thirteen Moons, he’s doing important work fillnig in the gaps, helping restore the roots, of our knowledge of our own history.”
–Asheville Citizen-Times
“Fascinating…Reading Thirteen Moons is an intoxicating experience…This is 21st-century literary fiction at its very best.”
–BookPage
“Thirteen Moons is rare in many ways and occupies a literary plane of such height that reviewing it is not really salient….Thirteen Moons has the power to inspire great performances from succeeding generations of writers….For those who simply value the literary experience, Thirteen Moons will provide the immense satisfaction of taking a literary journey of magnitude. Whether on a plane, in an office or curled in a window seat, readers who absorb Will's story will find their own lives enriched….Thirteen Moons belongs to the ages.”
–Los Angeles Times
“Once again, we are in the hands of an assured writer who knows how to bring history to life…Gorgeous.”
–New Orleans Times Picayune
“Magical…the history lesson in Thirteen Moons is fascinating and moving…You will find much to admire and savor in Thirteen Moons.”
–USA Today
“Incredibly powerful.”
–Melissa Block on NPR All Things Considered
“Verdict: A powerhouse second act….a brilliant success…Frazier's second act should convince everyone that he's here to stay. It is a powerful, dramatic, often surprising and memorable novel.”
–Atlanta Journal Constitution
“Thirteen Moons is a boisterous, confident novel that draws from the epic tradition... Frazier is a natural storyteller, and throughout his picaresque tale are grand themes and eulogies”
–Boston Globe
“Warm hearted…Frazier is a remarkably meticulous and tasteful writer… Thirteen Moons is a worthy successor to the first novel
and a highly readable book.”
–Seattle Times
“Fiction of the highest order…Another indelible character. Charles Frazier has a knack for them.”
–Charlotte Observer
“Splendidly written.”
–New York Daily News
“What a story!... Frazier's creation, Will Cooper, is utterly charismatic….Frazier's genius lies in his ability to convey emotions that feel pure and genuine…It was worth the wait.”
–Dayton Daily News
“To Charles Frazier, words are playthings. Like very few other contemporary American novelists, he puts them together in such a way that they can transform an otherwise mundane moment, scene or conversation into one that is transcendent….No sophomore jinx here. Reading a Frazier novel is like listening to a fine symphony. He's a maestro whose pen is his baton, beckoning the best that each sentence has to offer. And just as you wouldn't rush a conductor, you should take the time to savor Frazier’s work, to take in each thought, to relish the turn of phrase or the imagery of a craftsman.”
–Denver Post
“Two for two…Here is a book brimming with vivid, adventurous incident…Charles Frazier set himself a daunting challenge with this book. He set out to write a historical novel that was retrospective and meditative, yet still vibrant and immediate with life. Thirteen Moons succeeds in classy fashion.”
–Raleigh News & Observer
“If current fiction is anything to go by, it’s hard for a novelist to make Santayana's puzzle pieces - lyricism, comedy, tragedy - fit together, as they do in real life and real history. Frazier has done it…Thirteen Moons makes you feel that change that happened so long before our own time, and makes you mourn it.”
–Newsday
“[Thirteen Moons] is superbly entertaining, and it packs enough emotional heft to measure up to most readers’ high expectations.”
–Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Thirteen Moons is a fitting successor to Cold Mountain…fans of Frazier's debut will be cheered to discover that the new book is another compulsively readable work of historical fiction.”
–St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“If there is any doubt that Frazier is an incredibly gifted storyteller - and not just a lucky name or a one-hit wonder - it will be put to rest with the publication of Thirteen Moons. Within 10 pages, this long-awaited new novel bears the reader swiftly out of the waking world into its own imagined universe like nothing else published this year.”
–Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Achingly beautiful descriptions of nature…It’s rich, it’s beautiful.”
–Columbia State
“Forget the sophomore jinx. Frazier demonstrates that Cold Mountain was no one-hit wonder with this fully realized historical novel again set in the South….Again, Frazier shows himself a master of landscape and language, both often fresh and surprising in his telling.
–Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Thirteen Moons contains achingly beautiful passages of snowfalls, fog-wrapped rivers and moonlit forests. There are ribald and hilarious events, too, including a description of the Cherokee Booger Dance that is a masterpiece of satire. The love affair between Cooper and Claire threads its way through this pseudo-historic epic like a brilliant, scarlet ribbon. There is also a melancholy refrain that celebrates a wondrous time and place that is gone and will never return.”
–Smoky Mountain News
“Once again, we are in the hands of an assured writer who knows how to bring history to life…Gorgeous.”
–New Orleans Times Picayune
“Magical…the history lesson in Thirteen Moons is fascinating and moving…You will find much to admire and savor in Thirteen Moons.”
–USA Today
“Verdict: A powerhouse second act….a brilliant success…Frazier's second act should convince everyone that he's here to stay. It is a powerful, dramatic, often surprising and memorable novel.”
–Atlanta Journal Constitution
“Thirteen Moons is a boisterous, confident novel that draws from the epic tradition... Frazier is a natural ...
Customer Reviews:
Starts off good, but..........2007-10-05
The first half of "Thirteen Moons" soars; the second half sinks. As I got into the story and its lovely language, I was prepared to give it a rating of 8.5 or higher. But it eventually fades into dissolution, ending with a whimper, not a bang. Rob's rating: 8.0 of 10.
See http://www.bluecorncomics.com/13moons.htm for a longer review.
Dull and flat characters.......2007-09-24
I started this book because our book group is reading it. The character is flat and self-absorbed. You get to the point that you don't care what happens to the character because he is so dull. I don't finish it because there was nothing of interest to keep me going.......You feel nothing for the characters... so why read?
The Abridged version is confusing.......2007-09-23
I bought this book as an audio book, abridged.
It was confusing. Stick to the unabridged.
Faulkner, McCarthy, Frazier.......2007-09-19
Thirteen Moons is a pure Masterpiece. I think it should be getting more credit for being one of the greatest American novels ever written. I cannot believe how rounded Will Cooper is as a character. I have never read a book that has a character as real as this. Everything about his life and times, reactions, words, feelings, inner thoughts are absolutely real and consistent. Bear, Featherstone, Claire all come to life so perfectly. I was amazed that anyone found reason to criticize this novel. The metaphors, details and knowledge of the region makes Frazier seem supernatural to me. He was there. It's just weird how well he knows this tale and how real it all is. Perfect writing.
I dunno, maybe it needs more moons..........2007-08-10
Remember when you first picked up Cold Mountain, how the first few pages were, well, boring? Yeah, yeah. Lying around the hospital bed, blind neighbor, looking out the window. It was only a few pages, but it made me put the book down for about 3 months and wonder what the heck everyone was so excited about. Then I picked up the book again, and at last, there was the magic. Inman was on his amazing journey. Ada was surviving, having located Ruby, and their various adventures were compelling and moving and the book flew away with me. Well, Thirteen Moons is that first part of Cold Mountain. The boring part. It never takes off, it never flies, it just stumps forward. One or two interesting passages are lost in a reptitive scenery, lesser journeys, and characters who are either cardboard or cliched. So if you loved this book, go hate me. I'd hate you if you didn't love Cold Mountain. (Gratuitous advice: Forget the Cold Mountain movie. Ada as played by Nicole Kidmann is inane to the point of disability; Ruby, that stalwart little plug of a woman, is played by Renee Zellwegger, who acts as though squinting her eyes is character development; Inman was morphed into a latter-day teenage superhero. Utter
+disappointment.
Average customer rating:
- Maybe the most misunderstood novel of all time
- A Dystopian Vision
- Chilling, Yet Moving In Places
- A must for any library...
- In a time of accelerating technology, are we prepared for the inevitable?
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1984 (Signet Classics)
George Orwell
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Catch-22
ASIN: 0451524934 |
Amazon.com
"Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere."
The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One.
Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant "correction" of such records. "'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime--in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance. --Daniel Hintzsche
Book Description
George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision of "Negative Utopia" is timelier than ever-and its warnings more powerful.
Customer Reviews:
Maybe the most misunderstood novel of all time.......2007-10-11
This is a great book. However, it is not so much a political novel as so many people seem to think, as It is one of the great existentialist novels right up there with Notes From the Underground and Nausea.
Like Smith reading Goldstein's book, you don't learn anything new about political systems if you are even modestly well read, but you do learn much about human happiness in face of such systems.
The chief irony that seems to be widely overlooked is that Insoc did successfully create a society, in Oceania, of true equality. Despite the fixed class system, everybody was the same non entity in the eyes of the state, which after all were the only eyes that really existed. Winston didn't really exist, but neither did O'Brain; only Big Brother truly existed. It was a state where the collective oligarchy weren't enticed by luxury or comfort, so that the relative greater comforts of the Inner Party compared to the Outer Party, and the Outer Party compared to the Proles was not as relevant as the fact that the state existed for the sole purpose of perpetrating it's own power. Everybody in every stratum of society was the same nonentity in relationship to that power.
We might readily think of 1984 as presenting us with a dystopia, but so far as we define a utopia by the standards of equality, justice and happiness, Oceania is decidedly an Utopia. And this presents us first and foremost with the existential dilemma that the perfect state is a monstrosity to which we insticntively recoil.
A Dystopian Vision.......2007-10-07
"1984" may well be the poster child for the genre of dystopian literature. Personally, I thought Orwell was most successful when it came to describing the society around Winston or the psychological struggle during the interogations. The love story was a weaker part of the book (for me).
Unlike Huxley's "Brave New World", Orwell dosen't try to go for dark humor but instead uses the society of fear to convey his views on totalitarinism to the audience. Personally I thought Orwell's characters weren't as interesting as those in Huxley's or Lewis's dystopian novels (C.S. Lewis wrote "That Hideous Strenght"). The concept for Room 101 was imaginative but almost seemed to give the Ocenaian officials an unrealistic advantage (personally, I feel some people could have overcome even fear). Perhaps I shouldn't get on to Orwell too much over this; after all Lewis's villans tried to overcome human nature in their own ways as well.
Overall, Orwell wrote an interesting work. It is even more interesting when one compares the totalitarianism of Oceania to that of the U.S.S.R. (notice that Big Brother and Goldstein have some resemblances to Stalin and Trotsky). I am currently reading a book far more chilling than Orwell's fiction. "The Gulag Archipelago" would make a very good companion to "1984" as it gives a picture of actual totalitarianism at the time when Orwell wrote his fictional masterpiece.
Chilling, Yet Moving In Places.......2007-09-26
This book relates the experiences of one Winston Smith in a world where all people belong to one of three totalitarian superpowers. In this dystopian novel, the state requires nothing less than the complete submission of individuals' inner thoughts. "The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about." There is no escape ("Nobody ever escaped detection, and nobody ever failed to confess.") and no practical hope for a free future where human rights would exist once more.
The story is beautiful in parts--such as in the places where it deals with a forbidden love and an individual's struggle to maintain his identity--and incredibly hopeless in others. Orwell is an amazing writer and I spent a lot of time underlining different phrases and sentences. This book is frightening. As Erich Fromm writes in the afterword, "...it would be most unfortunate if the reader smugly interpreted 1984 as another description of Stalinist barbarism, and if he does not see that it means us, too." I recommend this book to all.
A must for any library..........2007-09-15
"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
My definition of a truly classic novel is one that is so talked about and referenced that you can know all about the book and it's message without having ever actually read it. 1984 is one of the most glaring examples of this, as terms such as "Big Brother" and "Doublespeak" are now mainstream concepts that no longer require explanation.
The book itself gained its popularity, however, by successfully reaching a broad audience by exaggerating and reducing the complicated debate of the illusion of free will and freedom of thought in any kind of government structure that strives to control and manipulate the populace for its own benefit in an almost unbelievable science fiction setting. The extremes that are reached in 1984's may seem only possible in a work of fiction, yet there is a truth beneath the pulp novel trappings that most readers can not avoid recognizing.
Note: For those who have already read this, I have a suggestion. Read 1984 again, only assume that the book actually takes place in our modern times, and that the narrator is a paranoid schizophrenic.
In a time of accelerating technology, are we prepared for the inevitable?.......2007-09-14
George Orwell's 1984 is no longer a thing of the future.
The Internet is everywhere--including your wireless cameraphone.
Digital technology makes surveillance push-button easy. Those in power cannot resist. And we even do it to ourselves using social networks like Facebook and Myspace. Soon, every phone will incorporate GPS location technology.
Are we prepared for the inevitable?
In a time when the pace of technology continues to accelerate, Orwell's classic has never been more relevant.
Book Description
A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation’s highest court and continue to shape our daily lives
The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.
In this compelling work of character-driven history, Jeffrey Rosen recounts the history of the Court through the personal and philosophical rivalries on the bench that transformed the law—and by extension, our lives. The story begins with the great Chief Justice John Marshall and President Thomas Jefferson, cousins from the Virginia elite whose differing visions of America set the tone for the Court’s first hundred years. The tale continues after the Civil War with Justices John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who clashed over the limits of majority rule. Rosen then examines the Warren Court era through the lens of the liberal icons Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, for whom personality loomed larger than ideology. He concludes with a pairing from our own era, the conservatives William H. Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia, only one of whom was able to build majorities in support of his views.
Through these four rivalries, Rosen brings to life the perennial conflict that has animated the Court—between those justices guided by strong ideology and those who forge coalitions and adjust to new realities. He illuminates the relationship between judicial temperament and judicial success or failure. The stakes are nothing less than the future of American jurisprudence.
Customer Reviews:
A Concise History of Politics vs Law.......2007-10-06
Recently there have been many good books available about the Supreme Court. For a quick, no-nonsense straight to the heart of the matter history of Supreme Court, this is the book. A history of the Supreme Court derived from its major decisions and its major dissenters. The author shows that often justices that may be on the dissenting side of Supreme Court decisions are sometimes justices that are ahead of their time. Their lonely decisions often become basics to the American way of life in a later era. The Author, Jeff Rosen also relays a life's lesson to Supreme Court Justices, that in the interplay between majority vs. dissenters decisions, no matter how dedicated, wise, or oracle-like a justice appears, history bears out that the justices that "play ball", fraternizes, cajoles, and displays a good nature seem to win out. In other words the Law is not just the Law, the decisions cannot be divorced from the political impetus that brought them to the court and the most successful Justices are the most political Justices. Nothing underscores this more than the chapter on Justice Holmes and Justice Harlan. Justice Holmes was an ivory tower type justice and his reputation is somewhat revered today. Justice Harlan is lesser known, but the track record shows that modern American life revolves around decisions he made and that Holmes has been surpassed in almost all his major decisions.
A very rewarding book, that will make the reader feel that in one book you can gain an understanding of what make the supreme court tick, and some of the twists ands turns it has taken in its history
How the Court Works.......2007-06-18
Jeffrey Rosen's accessible and engaging companion book to the PBS series offers not only a fine introduction to the U.S. Supreme Court (and many of the most important cases it's decided in its history) but also a perspective from which to understand the Court as an institution. This perspective is tantamount to Rosen's thesis: that "judicial temperament" is a quality possessed by the Court's most distinguished justices, those who subordinate their ideological leanings to the deliberative and practical process of establishing legal consensus.
Rosen illustrates his thesis with four case studies: Marshall and Jefferson (not a justice); Harlan and Holmes; Black and Douglas; Rehnquist and Scalia. In each case one justice is seen as embracing judicial temperament while the other (or Jefferson, in the first chapter) is cast as something of an ideological maverick, a flamboyant but ultimately less influential constitutional thinker. Like one reviewer here, I found the questions raised by such pairings to be productive rather than reductive: Rosen is making a legal-historical argument here, and so reading his history of the Supreme Court is necessarily an exercise in critical interpretation.
The chapters on the twentieth-century Court are excellent, with Rosen showing how the liberal-leaning Hugo Black and the conservative-leaning William Rehnquist had more in common with each other (in terms of judicial temperament) than with their respective colleagues: William O. Douglas and Antonin Scalia. Here Rosen parses the legacies of Black and Rehnquist by showing how their restrained judicial character helped them produce well-crafted decisions that advanced the Court's legitimacy in the public eye.
Douglas and Scalia, on the other hand, were/are so committed to the purity of their ideological beliefs that, whatever one thinks of their individual decisions (and I am decidedly aligned with Douglas over Scalia in this regard), one has to come to terms with the fact that their jurisprudence will not have a lasting influence on the law of the land. Douglas and Scalia are seen as larger-than-life personalities, self-aggrandizing justices who rarely spoke for the Court as such.
Again, you might agree or disagree with the specifics of Rosen's argument and framing of his historical examples. But the survey presented here is a solid, general introduction to Supreme Court history. And with judicial temperament Rosen gives us a lens through which we might view that history, and understand better exactly how the Court works.
Good History - Not Enough Catch.......2007-05-24
For a look into some of the most well known figures in the Supreme Court, this book does a fantastic job. From in-depth analysis of their personalities to little anecdotes on each Justice, the Author clearly knows his history.
It's a tad short, and I think the specific cases could have been covered in greater detail. While it was informative, it didn't have that something special that had me anxious to keep reading. At times, I felt like I was reading a history book.
If you're someone looking to get some background into the Supreme Court and some of the characters that shaped it, this is a good book to start with. You may not feel completely entertained, but you will feel smarter after reading this book.
The real Justice League of America.......2007-05-14
It's one of the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution that the three branches of government are more-or-less equal, with checks and balances assuring that no branch takes over. The reality, of course, is different: at times - particularly in the 1800s - the Congress was the more powerful branch, while at other times -especially recently - the Presidency has taken the reins. The judicial branch, however, has always been in third place; although it makes a difference at times, it rarely is more visible than its "coequals". Nonetheless, there are times that the judicial branch - and in particular, the Supreme Court - has assumed a critical role in history.
Jeffrey Rosen's The Supreme Court is not so much a history of the institution as a study as to how certain personalities affected the Court. He focuses on four such rivalries that dictated not only the direction of the Court but also the direction of the country. The first rivalry (and the only one featuring a non-Court figure) is Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall. These two embodies the two principal political philosophies of the early United States: Republicanism and Federalism. Unlike previous Chief Justices, Marshall really defined the Court and made it an important part of the government, most notably with the Marbury v. Madison decision. Since Marshall differed with Jefferson on many issues, this set the two branches at odds with one another.
The next rivalry is John Marshall Harlan and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a pairing that is probably the most obscure to the modern reader. Holmes, with his nickname "The Great Dissenter" earned a reputation based on his dissents in some free speech cases, but often had much less sympathetic rulings, such as his opposition to civil rights and his support of eugenics. Harlan, on the other hand, was more forward-thinking, and notably dissented on Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court decision that - after Dred Scott - is probably the darkest mark on the institution's history.
The third section deals with Hugo Black and William Douglas. Unlike the previous pairings, these two were politically of a similar bent, but they still had different judicial philosophies, with Black being the sounder reasoner and Douglas being somewhat more free-wheeling. Douglas's presidential ambitions, which never really amounted to much, also affected his decision-making. Similarly, the fourth section deals with two Justices with similar politics yet different philosophies: William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia. While Rehnquist would often try for consensus, Scalia is more absolute in his beliefs and doesn't really seem to care who he rankles.
In each pairing, Rosen casts one person as hero (Marshall, Harlan, Black and Rehnquist) and one as villain (Jefferson, Holmes, Douglas and Scalia). Of course, things are not really that simple and Rosen recognizes flaws in the heroes and virtues in the villains; perhaps it is better not to use the heroes-and-villains analogy at all, but it is clear Rosen favors one in each rivalry. This has less to do with politics than with technique: Rosen favors Justices who can promote harmony within the Court and can create rulings with real potency to them. Rulings that go 5-4 are not nearly as strong as those decided unanimously, and are more likely to be eventually reversed.
In the final section, Rosen offers an early analysis of new Chief Justice John Roberts, one that is generally positive. Roberts, Rosen believes, seems to have learned from the better Chief Justices (a group in which Rosen would include Marshall, Warren and Rehnquist) as to how to run the Supreme Court. Rosen's writing is insightful, clear and reasonably objective (in the sense that he doesn't seem to favor either the political right or left). This book is a good, alternative way at looking at the history and structure of the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court.......2007-05-07
An excellent book. If I were still teaching Constitutional Law at the college level, I would use some or all of it in class to show that law is interpreted by "real people." I think anybody would find it interesting, but lawyers and law students should find it fascinating.
Book Description
Cynthia Moss has studied the elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park for over twenty-seven years. Her long-term research has revealed much of what we now know about these complex and intelligent animals. Here she chronicles the lives of the members of the T families led by matriarchs Teresia, Slit Ear, Torn Ear, Tania, and Tuskless. With a new afterword catching up on the families and covering current conservation issues, Moss's story will continue to fascinate animal lovers.
"One is soon swept away by this 'Babar' for adults. By the end, one even begins to feel an aversion for people. One wants to curse human civilization and cry out, 'Now God stand up for the elephants!'"—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times
"Moss speaks to the general reader, with charm as well as scientific authority. . . . [An] elegantly written and ingeniously structured account." —Raymond Sokolov, Wall Street Journal
"Moss tells the story in a style so conversational . . . that I felt like a privileged visitor riding beside her in her rickety Land-Rover as she showed me around the park." —Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, New York Times Book Review
"A prose-poem celebrating a species from which we could learn some moral as well as zoological lessons." —Chicago Tribune
Customer Reviews:
Captivating Elephant Saga.......2006-12-21
Moss takes you on an incredible journey into the lives of African elephants and allows you to take a bird's eye view of the research she has done. The book, while captivating, can seem a little discombobulated to some, however. The book divides itself into the different years Moss is writing about, each chapter being a different year. This set up, however, is a bit confusing as the chapters do not limit themselves to that particular year, but instead discussed a myriad of years all while focusing on a particular topic. That said, you do see progression in the timeline as the book reads on.
The only downside I saw to this book was the fictional retelling of circumstances that she was not witness to. She describes the deaths of a few elephants as well as some mishaps involving the elephants in near poetic detail, though she never actually saw what happened, or she only witnessed the very end of the circumstance. She does not note where the fictionalization begins, and you only understand what parts are ficionalized after reading on and seeing where she says "I don't know what happened." These are merely assumptions made on the part of the author and though they could have very real merit, it can hurt the integrity of the book when read by someone who is looking for a purely factual account of African elephants. While Moss does warn that she does make assumptions, it would have been better if she noted right before each fictionalized story that it was an assumption. That said, the stories do involve true elephant behavior and shows the audience how elephants may react in certain situations.
There is an incredible amount of insight in this book. You become attached to certain elephants, feel joy over new births, celebrate victory over hardship, and mourn the deaths of these creatures. It teaches the reader about their behaviors, environment, and most of all, the conservation of these majestic animals.
HOW WONDERFUL ELEPHANTS ARE.......2006-07-05
IT IS AMAZING TO ME THAT MAN DOESNT KNOW OR CHOOSES NOT TO ACKNOWLEDGE HOW INTELLEGENT AND WONDERFUL THESE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES OF GOD ARE AND THIS BOOK MAKES IT REAL CLEAR.
The lives of elephants revealed.......2002-01-18
This is a wonderful book. Cynthia Moss takes the reader deep into the intricate social lives of Africa elephans in Amboseli National Park (Kenya), and leaves a profound impression. How very sensitive these animals are, and how endearing. It is entirely clear how these creatures have suffered at the hands of humans, but also nobody can read this book and not feel the urge to conserve this fantastic species. Also it may inspire some to travel to Amboseli to see the elephants 'in person' - an experience that you will never forget!
Intriguing.......2002-01-05
This is an excellent book. At first, the book seems confusing as the author continuously refers to the individual elephants on a first name basis when one has no idea of who these "people" are. As the names become more familiar and the individual stories develop, the strange names develop into a wonderful, although at times anthropomorphic story on the natural history of these gentle animals. As she warns us, the author takes the liberty of adding unwitnessed, fictional pieces to most stories, which can be confusing and at times blur the objective observations that she makes with subjective, although probably real, assumptions.
But this book is not a hard core technical text, despite glimpses of it being so in the beginning. The book is about remembering the wonderful social and behavioral characteristics of individuals that make up a population. From matriarchs to lonely males, from birth to death during periods of drought or at the hands of Masai warriors, this book gives a comprehensive insight into relevant issues affecting the survival of the African elephant. The author comes across as a human being, with emotions that go beyond the hard-core science. Although her prose is dry at times, this book is very enjoyable and opens a magnificent window into the world of the Amboseli elephants.
Thorough and moving study of elephants!.......2001-01-11
This book covers thirteen years of Cynthia Moss' research on elephants at Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Several of the elephant families residing at Amboseli are featured in this book. Cynthia Moss learned to distinguish each individual elephant by such characteristics as the shape of their ears, ear markings or the size and shape of the tusks. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of elephant life like mating, draught etc. Together with fellow researcher Joyce Poole Cynthia Moss discovered that the bulls like their Asian cousins go into musth too (the period they are the most attractive to the cows). Thus a longstanding mystery was solved. But through it all shines Cynthia Moss' deep love for the elephants, she found with them so much to recommend. Learning from them. She certainly succeeds in sharing the joy of studying and living with elephants. I warmly recommend Ian and Oria Douglas-Hamilton and Joyce Poole's books too. Indeed Cynthia Moss has found new insights but this is still the book to read on elephants in the first place.
Average customer rating:
- Wrong author-good book
- VERY Disappointing
- A PLEASING MISTAKE TO MAKE
- Great book about college and Greek life.
- NOT THE SAME JAMES PATTERSON...
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The Thirteen
James Patterson
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ASIN: 1585004782 |
Customer Reviews:
Wrong author-good book.......2005-08-17
I, too, purchased this thinking it was by THE James Patterson but I have not been disappointed. A 60's graduate of Miami University (Ohio), sorority member and resident of Oxford, Ohio, I am familiar with Ohio University and Greek life. The story makes me smile as I remember some of the same experiences. I would recommend it to any Ohio collegiate, graduate or Greek member.
VERY Disappointing.......2005-01-13
I was very disappointed to receive the book and find the author - James Patterson - was not who I expected, but decided to take a chance anyway. The story was interesting, but I must admit, I was so unnerved by the poor job of editing that I became distracted easily. The book is published by an Online Library that apparently does not proofread before printing. The pages are filled with typographical errors and misuse of words and I found myself wanting to reach for a red pencil to circle all the mistakes rather than concentrating on the author's intent. I spent nearly $30 to receive a poor quality paperback book that will definitely find its way to the back my bookshelves - maybe into the "bad book box" in the corner of my laundry room.
A PLEASING MISTAKE TO MAKE.......2003-09-13
I ordered this book for my wife thinking it was written by the slightly more famous James Patterson who's books she devours avidly. As an Englishman living and working around Athens Ohio, I found this novel really interesting as it provides a great insight into both the area and College life in the US. In addition I also found The Thirteen to be an entertaining and grippingly realistic story, something I cannot always say about the authors alter ego. This book cleverly combines the journey of our freshman hero Five Lowry as he discovers the great mysteries of life, namely beer, women and commerce with a murder mystery. No mean feat in my opinion! My wife was somewhat grieved by my mistake, personally I was rather pleased and hope all my future errors turn out as happily.
Great book about college and Greek life........2002-08-22
My mother handed me this book to read about a year ago. I put it off at first but picked it up and once started...I had to finish. I recommend this for anyone who ever experienced Greek life on campus or wondered about it; For anyone who ever attended Ohio University, lived in Athens or intends to do so; and anyone who simply enjoys a good novel about college life.
I've written a review for my own fraternity web page advising them to read it, alumni and actives. It was an excellent book but I think it will strike a very special cord for anyone who ever went to Ohio University or experienced Greek life in the last 50 years, and anyone who intends to do so.
Patterson graduated from OU in 1958 and although this was all set twenty years before my time I know or have heard often of those places, which were no longer around when I started college. They were still here when I was young and my grandmother worked as the night manager at the burger joint (The Begorra) which plays a prominent role in the book. This was like reliving history for me and I'm sure for my mother who gave me the book filled with footnotes of her remembrances about the places and the people.
You'll recognize in this book much that you knew about OU, Athens and Greek Life, or any small college town. Many of the people you knew and the experiences you had in college. I certainly did. Most of the characters in the story I could put real names and faces to and move the time setting by 20 years to about 1975 or another 25 years to 2000.
Yes, I am back in Athens and my wife and I both work with those fraternity and sorority men and women. I intend to send a short thank you to the author telling him just how much I enjoyed his book and a little of why. I hope you'll read and enjoy it as much as I did.
For those young people who are Greek or considering going Greek, I believe this will give you a very strong sense of insight into the campus and experiences of those who where here before you and some awareness of just how much alike we all are from generation to generation. I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I did.
NOT THE SAME JAMES PATTERSON..........2002-08-01
this book is written by a different James Patterson then the one who wrote kiss the girls, the beach house, along came a spider, etc... this book was not that good and i couldn't even finish reading it. DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE AUTHORS NAME!!!! YOU WILL BE DISSAPOINTED
Book Description
Over an extraordinary twenty-year career, Jane Smiley has written all kinds of novels: mystery, comedy, historical fiction, epic. “Is there anything Jane Smiley cannot do?” raves Time magazine. But in the wake of 9/11, Smiley faltered in her hitherto unflagging impulse to write and decided to approach novels from a different angle: she read one hundred of them, from classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genji to recent fiction by Zadie Smith, Nicholson Baker, and Alice Munro.
Smiley explores–as no novelist has before her–the unparalleled intimacy of reading, why a novel succeeds (or doesn’t), and how the novel has changed over time. She describes a novelist as “right on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing,” yet whose “job and ambition is to develop a theory of how it feels to be alive.”
In her inimitable style–exuberant, candid, opinionated–Smiley invites us behind the scenes of novel-writing, sharing her own habits and spilling the secrets of her craft. She walks us step-by-step through the publication of her most recent novel, Good Faith, and, in two vital chapters on how to write “a novel of your own,” offers priceless advice to aspiring authors.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel may amount to a peculiar form of autobiography. We see Smiley reading in bed with a chocolate bar; mulling over plot twists while cooking dinner for her family; even, at the age of twelve, devouring Sherlock Holmes mysteries, which she later realized were among her earliest literary models for plot and character.
And in an exhilarating conclusion, Smiley considers individually the one hundred books she read, from Don Quixote to Lolita to Atonement, presenting her own insights and often controversial opinions. In its scope and gleeful eclecticism, her reading list is one of the most compelling–and surprising–ever assembled.
Engaging, wise, sometimes irreverent, Thirteen Ways is essential reading for anyone who has ever escaped into the pages of a novel or, for that matter, wanted to write one. In Smiley’s own words, ones she found herself turning to over the course of her journey: “Read this. I bet you’ll like it.”
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant, idiosyncratic........2007-07-04
This book is excellent and will repay close reading, but I am of two minds. On one hand, Smiley has examined the development and significance of the novel as only a practicing novelist of depth and talent could. On the strength of her treatment I've resolved to try her novels. Any description I might give of her discussion would not do it justice.
On the other hand, she clearly has a political axe to grind and this comes out most one-sidedly in her descriptions of novels. First, her history of the novel begins with Murasaki Shikibu's "Tale of Genji," leaps to Bocaccio's "Decameron" as a precursor to the novel in its western form, and then holds a steady course through Cervantes, Defoe, Austen, Dickens, and James into the twentieth century. Perhaps because she has identified as a major concern of the novel the question of "what a woman is for" (her words), Smiley ignores Twain, Hemingway, and modern novelists whose work is not animated by that question. She does not claim completeness for her 100 novels and writes more than once that she is not trying to compile a `Best 100' list, but she does claim a certain disinterestedness that is belied by her choices. She (usually) likes European novelists (nothing wrong with that) and woman novelists (ditto) who pursue her favorite question. Novelists who have nothing to say on the question either leave her cold or don't make the list at all. Hence, she claims not to be able to remember her experience of "Moby Dick" and Joyce's "Ulysses" strikes her as a lot of art devoted to a not very interesting premise. About her contemporaries Pynchon, Delillo, and Wolfe she has nothing to say at all.
Second, the idea that failure to read novels caused the badness of our politicians is nonsense. Lincoln wasn't a great reader of novels, nor was Washington. I don't deny that people well-read in good novels might as a result develop empathy but Smiley seems not to believe there are other routes to the same destination. Furthermore, plenty of very good leaders, not to mention good people in general, claim that daily contact with the Bible helps them to love their neighbors as themselves. GWB's treatment of Iraq doesn't strike Smiley as loving enough (one might say "Christian enough"): fine, but this is not grounds for blaming the Bible and Bush's poor education. Where should we believe Mother Theresa or Dietrich Boenhoeffer learned their love of humanity?
Third, J.S.'s history of the novel, though accurate as far as it goes, doesn't make sense given her concerns. She includes "The Tale of Genji," which had zero influence on the novel's early development in the West, but excludes medieval saints' lives, which I expect influenced the "Decameron" and are sources for the reader's experience of interior truth she believes is a defining characteristic of the novel. She will claim she had to start somewhere but why not consider the source of the novel's interiority, since she places so much emphasis on that quality? The primary source of western interiority is the idea that the soul has to answer to God in conscience. This fearful relationship between self and deity was illustrated in hundreds of saints lives. A frequent element in the stories of female saints is the refusal to do the socially expected thing--marry a man--in favor of maintaining chastity. Tales like this dramatize the sense of self against other that grew as Christianity spread. This crisis deepened during the Protestant Reformation and it should not surprise us that the novel's development began as Luther and Calvin were claiming that the soul's isolation was even more absolute than Christians had previously believed.
Finally, had she looked she would have found several long, plotted, prose works that predate "The Tale of Genji" by several centuries: the novel has perfectly fine ancient roots in the Greek romance and other long prose works of antiquity, such as Apuleius' "Metamorphosis" and Petronius' "Satyricon."
So, brilliant and idiosyncratic, just as I believe Smiley wanted it. Buy the book.
Such promise, such disappointment.......2007-03-21
I read the first few chapters and thought this was not a bad book. The author often has to stretch to tie her point to her examples but was keeping my interest. And then it happened! What so many of today's "accomplished" writers can't avoid.
A completely useless and bombastic attack on the Bush administration stuck in the middle of the book. Whatever your political views, these pages are confused and embarassing. A nice 3-4 star book of criticism and advice destroyed because our author could not contain her hatred and bile. My reading group (2 conservatives, 2 moderates and 3 liberals) voted 7-0 to stop discussing this book after hitting this passage. Leave political commentary to the hundreds of hacks across the spectrum.
A couldn't-put-it-down book of criticism!.......2007-03-02
I guess it is well known that Smiley is a witty, intelligent, and congenial writer but this book nevertheless surprised me. I didn't want it to end! I found myself hoarding the pages of the penultimate essay the same way I do with the closing chapters of a novel I am enjoying. I will now have to re-read to figure out how she accomplished this (can it be simply a matter of voice?), but in the meantime want to recommend it to all comers. Just delightful.
Three studies within one cover.......2006-02-26
This compendium falls into three parts, more or less. The first section offers Smiley's survey of how the novel evolved. Here, she emphasizes the importance of Bocaccio's Decameron and Marguerite de Naverre's Heptameron, two collections of stories grouped around a tale-telling symposium, more or less. The first stresses the humanism and the joy of human relationships; the second cautions humans about the danger of such relationships. Here, Smiley finds the tension that characterizes the subsequent four centuries of what becomes, with the rise of literacy and the spread of affordable books, the novel as we know it.
Her 22 years spent teaching university in Iowa show in her analysis. Some readers may be lulled off to sleep by her rather academic considerations; as a literature lecturer myself for about the same amount of time that she taught, I found these introductory chapters a bit too longwinded--she continues as the pages pile up to elaborate points already made, and at times I felt like she had to stretch her material to fit, well, 13 chapters no matter what. Still, it taught me a lot that I had not learned in the classroom myself, and it's useful for any reader as an overview or summation. Despite the rather too-professorial pace, she does come up with a few memorable remarks in these first 200 pages.
For instance, that Don Quixote, shown to conveniently nod off whenever the talk turned to amours, began a tendency for the novel (for much of its evolution) to avoid explicit depictions of sex. That the English novel tends to lead up to marriage, while the French equivalent starts off with marriage--or its stagnation after the honeymoon's faded. How drama inflates its protagonist while novels deflate their main character's pretensions or aspirations. Or, in her opinion with which I disagree, why Ulysses and what she critiques as too-mannered a fictional rendering distances fatally the novel from its natural milieu where the reader--and the writer--belong.
I never have read a Smiley novel, so that puts me in either an uninformed or fresh reception for her next section. She takes the making of her novel "Good Faith," and shows how she took an anecdote told her from real life and worked it into a novel. I admit that while I have no interest in reading GF after encountering her account of its construction, the process described was told--being from the inside rather than via a critic after the fact--in an informative and insightful manner. But it's still a bit clumsy; if you have not read GF, then the coyness with which she gives some details and withholds others (so as not to spoil the plot) does prove awkward, as this novel's not exactly as familiar for most of us as many of the others she peruses in the 101 listed in the final section. I did find her reactions to reviews, her book tour experiences, and her struggles with knowing when to stop writing informative, however. This led into a chapter in which she addresses the reader as if he/she seeks advice on how to write a novel, too. This chapter felt as if imported from a previous article; it aroused for me absolutely no interest in writing one, and its place in this otherwise reader-oriented collection seemed precarious. But others will no doubt be invigorated by it.
For the final section, the second half roughly in length of the book, the 101 novels she lists and summarizes rather briskly--as she points out, often overlapping with the previous chapters that were written after she had drafted the notes on the 101 novels as she read them, offers far less enticement than I'd have expected. I thought I'd find many novels that I'd never heard of, or always had wondered if I should read but hadn't known enough about to sample. She did get me to search out Gogol's novella "Taras Bulba," one I'd never encountered. But many of her titles are already familiar, standard-issue for reading groups, English majors, or the "common reader" that Virginia Woolf could once expect to find out in the educated public. This is not meant as a put-down, but there were fewer rare and previously hidden or neglected finds in her list than I'd have liked.
Contrast this to the increasingly middlebrow types of novels that populate her list as it moves into the latter 20c. This on the one hand is unsurprising; this is the same category that Smiley herself writes for--the respectable popular "trade paperback" by the classier imprints from usually mass-market publishers. But I found really no new books in the more recent decades to seek out after reading her reviews. She too often does not show the faults of what she reads--such as Ian McEwan's "Atonement" being a refreshing and too rare inclusion of why she did not think a novel "worked"--and her generally sunny acceptance of the stack she plowed through does speak for her optimism and good-natured encouragement of her fellow writers. Again, I tend towards the more difficult novel than most of the people reading this book would, so I admit my snobbish prejudice!
Smiley does enhoy the benefits of much more leisure than most of us, riding horses in Carmel Valley, reading to her heart's delight, and taking the Course in Miracles--a paragraph early on praising this for her own recent transformation still seems baffling to me, alas. For we busier folk, her own foray through a few years of reading her way through the big bedside stack we bibliophiles all dream of having does show her commonsense and accessible approach to explicating how novels are made, why they work, and which ones worked best for her. While each of our stacks would differ from hers, she does provide in this hefty volume (a good value for the price) enough for any reader to learn and debate with her from the comfort of our own armchair or pillow.
A lterary tour.......2006-01-30
A great tour of the novel landscape, with Smiley's typical insight and deft use of language. And a nice list of novels everyone should read with thumbnail summaries.
Customer Reviews:
Kalas at his best........2006-01-14
Whether you are interested in the aspostles, Kalas' writing or looking for a good solid Sunday School lesson, then you have found the book for you. I actually met Kalas several years a go and if you are at all familar with any of his writings, than let me say he is the person you read in his writings.
This book focuses on the disciples and Kalas uses his typical style of hitting the subject matter from a unique angle that surely engages and causes one to think "out-side the box".
If you are looking for a deep rooted, long winded study on all the disciples, then you may find yourself disappointed. If you are looking for a quick grasp and overview of the disciples or a great Sunday School lesson material, then you've found EXACTLY what you're looking for.
And if Sunday School material is what you're after and you are unfamilar with Kalas, take time to read ANY of his books. They are truly in every sense of the word...GREAT! I use his books often in group studies and they never fail to open eyes and create much discussion.
Book Description
The future isn’t what it used to be since Richard K. Morgan arrived on the scene. He unleashed Takeshi Kovacs–private eye, soldier of fortune, and all-purpose antihero–into the body-swapping, hard-boiled, urban jungle of tomorrow in Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies, winning the Philip K. Dick Award in the process. In Market Forces, he launched corporate gladiator Chris Faulkner into the brave new business of war-for-profit. Now, in Thirteen, Morgan radically reshapes and recharges science fiction yet again, with a new and unforgettable hero in Carl Marsalis: hybrid, hired gun, and a man without a country . . . or a planet.
Marsalis is one of a new breed. Literally. Genetically engineered by the U.S. government to embody the naked aggression and primal survival skills that centuries of civilization have erased from humankind, Thirteens were intended to be the ultimate military fighting force. The project was scuttled, however, when a fearful public branded the supersoldiers dangerous mutants, dooming the Thirteens to forced exile on Earth’s distant, desolate Mars colony. But Marsalis found a way to slip back–and into a lucrative living as a bounty hunter and hit man before a police sting landed him in prison–a fate worse than Mars, and much more dangerous.
Luckily, his “enhanced” life also seems to be a charmed one. A new chance at freedom beckons, courtesy of the government. All Marsalis has to do is use his superior skills to bring in another fugitive. But this one is no common criminal. He’s another Thirteen–one who’s already shanghaied a space shuttle, butchered its crew, and left a trail of bodies in his wake on a bloody cross-country spree. And like his pursuer, he was bred to fight to the death. Still, there’s no question Marsalis will take the job. Though it will draw him deep into violence, treachery, corruption, and painful confrontation with himself, anything is better than remaining a prisoner. The real question is: can he remain sane–and alive–long enough to succeed?
Customer Reviews:
Bravo, more of the same Richard.........2007-10-03
I've read Altered Carbon, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't so good that
I immediately wanted to read the sequels. Somewhat later I read Market
Forces, while it strained credulity, it was a really fun read... Mad
Max meets Wall Street, LOL. I can't wait to see the movie they will
eventually make of that :)
Thirteen had some interesting topics so I decided to get it in hardback,
and all I can say is WOW, best sf/cyberpunk read I've had in some time.
The book is sort of a cross between a crime/detective drama and something
like Predator and maybe even a little of a Spy Thriller.
Bloat? I guess if your attention span won't take over a couple
hundred pages you might say that, but I saw no fat in the plot,
in fact I was really sorry to turn that last page. This book
has the potential to be an awesome film, look forward to that.
More like this one please Richard :) and thanks for a great book.
Good but overly-long.......2007-09-30
I have enjoyed Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels, which are interesting, well-written and tautly-written. "Thirteen," while still interesting and entertaining, is more flabby, weighing in at over 500 pages. Although the story is well-thought-out, it is too thin to support the weight of that much paper. Sadly, this problem occurs with virtually every SF writer as he or she gains popularity and the concurrent ability to evade the hard editing that really needs to be done to bring story length under control.
Nevertheless, if you like Morgan's other works, you will still enjoy this one; it is a good novel, even if overly long. Your library probably has a copy, and you may want to check it out rather than buy this blind. If you are new to Morgan, I would suggest reading "Altered Carbon" first.
Eventually, the ideas gelled........2007-09-28
My first impression was that the story was almost a complete rip-off (not merely an homage) of Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. My second impression was that the story was awfully dull for one that was filled with wall-to-wall sex and violence. The characters barely had time to speak, they were so busy fighting, fleeing, or fornicating, and yet I had to force myself to slog through the first hundred pages or so. I still don't know how the author managed to make sex and violence so boring.
It was only when I started to get a grasp on the interesting underlying concepts, which were either original or just new to me, that the sex and violence started to become compelling and meaningful. When I began to sort out who was dying and why they were dying, then the action propelled the story along. The author's comentary on evolution, and on how we tamper with it one way or the other, became a framework to hang the story on, and the action started to have a purpose. After all, our current state of evolution is built on an infinite progression of sex and death. Marsalis eventually becomes a memorable character, and I'm glad I struggled through the first hundred pages while the story came together.
A new anti-hero.......2007-09-24
Gideon's Fall: When You Dont Have a Prayer, Only a Miracle Will Do I didn't want to like it. I could have easily read another two or three envoy novels. But, morgan did a solid job, the whole thirteen premise was interesting. loved the jesusland concept. And as always tight,concise prose w/t great plot lines.
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-24
Soldiers really do need aggro.
The background is that the USA was losing wars by literally becoming too girly. This in fact causes a secession in the country, with the fundamentalist friendly states splitting from the Rim States to form different countries, eventually. So, they came up with the Thirteen genetic variation to make a warrior breed that had the aggro back, with the ability to boost reflexes, and be more resistant, as well as be more charismatic. It also happens to make them paranoid loners.
Mutants like this scare everyone, so were heavily regulated. The protagonist of the piece is getting sick of his existence, and after getting into trouble gets hired to track a rogue thirteen, who has done a spot of killing and eating.
Said guy manages to make a friend, and find out a few secrets, while utilising his special talents.
If you liked Altered Carbon, not too much doubt you will like this book, too.
Customer Reviews:
getting past writer's block.......2007-02-19
This is an excellent idea book for the writer who is having difficulty with productivity or inspiration. The different ways to inspire yourself or find a poem will have you writing. An excellent resource book for the writing class. I refer to it for unique or novel ways of looking at the world.
Delightful Sophistication.......2003-09-25
This textbook could be used by college creative writing students just beginning the study of writing poetry as well as advanced students, honing voice, craft, and expressive forms of poetry. Wendy Bishop writes a friendly, well-organized textbook that makes learning sophisticated poetic techniques enjoyable. This trade paperback is a fairly big book 9.09 x 6.28 x 0.83, with 437 pages, presenting a wealth of material in an interesting and accessible manner. Chapters are organized by "forms," broadly conceived as patterns of sound, rhythm, and meaning. Such forms include free verse, metered lines, rhymed and unrhymed couplets, elegies and aubades, ghazals and pantoums, haiku and haiku-like sequences, listing and repetitions, odes and praise songs, prose poems, quatrains, sestinas, sonnets, tercets, terza rima, triplets, and villanelles. Each chapter begins with a clear discussion of professional examples of the form. Next model poems are considered to move from "Reading into Writing." Then an extensive and expansive series of "Invention Exercises" appear, containing drafts of poems by students based on the exercises with additional professional examples. I give my highest recommendation to this text for students of poetry.
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