Adam

I feel my impression of this book is different enough to warrant writing a review. I actually quite enjoyed this book. Many of the other reviewers are certainly on point with saying this book is poorly organized. I feel that is very true, I also feel that Aczel attempts to cram too many topics into a single book to its detriment.

If you work in the Mathematical field at all, it's likely you've come across the name Bourbaki at some point, even if you're a more modern mathematician. Famous for being the name of a group that wrote as a single individual, they are considered one of Mathematics' power house groups. I think Aczel did a good job in giving us a sort of inside look into the group for the lay reader. I found the story of Alexandre Grothendiek absolutely enthralling and I probably could have just read a biography on him. I had heard of him before this book, naturally, but I didn't realize he had such an incredible background story. I truly enjoyed reading about the mathematicians prior to World War II, which prompted the creation of the group and their struggles through the war. I feel like that's one of the more overarching points behind the book, to give Bourbaki's story and relay it's overarching goals in mathematics. I really liked reading about the interrelations of the Artists, Philosophers, and Mathematicians involved in Paris' Café scene and I felt that, very much, worked into the spirit of Bourbaki. I loved seeing how the Art and Philosophy influenced the mathematics and vice versa.

Unfortunately, I feel like the book gets pretty side tracked when it starts talking about Linguistics and Anthropology with Levi-Strauss. I feel like that sort of got forced into the narrative and broke the story up a bit too much for me. At a certain level I understand why it was inserted before Grothendiek's chapter covering his post-Bourbaki narrative and Bourbaki's demise, but I felt like it was too much to me and I didn't find the topic as interesting.

I realize some of the narrative is written for “dramatic effect”, which is usually okay, but when it covers Weil's story at the beginning and ends with a cliff hanger... then doesn't continue until more than halfway through the book is kind of a bit much. This made it feel even more erratic and I can understand why some readers would mark this down.

Amidst this disorganization is a really good story about the famous mathematician Alexandre Grothendiek and the super group Bourbaki. I found both of these aspects very memorable and if you can focus on that excellent material, it really makes this book worthwhile.

We're finally almost at the release of Alien 3 in my journey through the Aliens time line... probably the great disruption of the alternate time line to a degree. Where, I believe, Dark Horse started writing more general adventures in the Alien(s) universe rather than trying to advance the time line on their own. Next up we have the novelization of the comic book series [b:Aliens: Genocide 438269 Aliens Genocide John Arcudi https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174772819l/438269.SY75.jpg 427129]. This is the first novel out of the hands of the Perry's, which given how good [b:Aliens: The Female War 343283 Aliens The Female War Steve Perry https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403174792l/343283.SY75.jpg 333630] wound up being, I was a bit sad to see since the improvement. However, let's give Bischoff a chance to tackle John Arcudi's comic series, which is also the first non Verheiden driven story.If you haven't had the pleasure of reading the original comic series then this story sort of picks up a bit after where “Female War” left off. Humanity has been rebuilding after the Alien infestation and there's a solid amount of clean up of the last remaining nests. This all feels entirely abrupt and the thread about the Ancient Engineer alien from the first story is entirely lost. I was somewhat surprised that this novelization, as part of it's fleshing out tale, did not include the bridge in the story presented in [b:Dark Horse Presents: Aliens - Platinum Edition 20734072 Dark Horse Presents Aliens - Platinum Edition Mark Verheiden https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1443222016l/20734072.SY75.jpg 40062082], where we are told why the Earth is suddenly still inhabitable. Lot's of crucial stuff happened in there, but I guess in terms of the Dark Horse commission, they wanted Bischoff to stay strictly within the bounds of the original Genocide story.So, with Earth rebuilding and science marching on to study the Alien organism in great detail a number of pharmaceutical firms are working on research. This is the story of Daniel Grant, CEO of Neopharm, and it's invention of a stimulant called Xeno Zip. There is a problem in the manufacture of Xeno Zip in that it requires the ingredient Royal Jelly only found with Alien Queens. With the eradication of the infestation on Earth they need to be looking elsewhere for more. Grant goes to the military to see if he can work out a deal on a joint mission to the Alien homeworld, which they call Hive World here. The one major leap, for me, story wise, was the idea that they were guaranteed to find more usable Royal Jelly at this location, even after Ripley removed the first super queen years prior. It sort of seems like a ridiculously silly idea given the situation... they lucked out in the end, sort of.One of the major selling points of this arc was that when our “heroes” make it to Hive World they are greeted with a sort of Alien civil war between two different strains of Aliens. Basically, living up that ant analogy presented in Aliens sort of. In any event, this was entirely unexpected and it might be too much for our intrepid force to take on given that there are now thousands of Aliens fighting each other and, presumably, they'd be just as happy fighting the humans.The story has a lot of staples of the Aliens series and touches on threads of corporate espionage and the like. It's something we've come to expect from the Aliens franchise, but sometimes it's not entirely predictable. I think Genocide did a good job of hiding who wasn't on the up and up for the majority of the story, something I definitely appreciated.Overall, I thought Bischoff did a fine job fleshing out Arcudi's original ideas. I remember a lot of letters at the end of the comics exclaiming Daniel Grant was like Donald Trump, but Bischoff went full tilt on that and made it so much more obvious. I do find this line of work fascinating, because I was probably too young at the time when these comics were made to really understand much of the problems surrounding that real life character, which spawned this kind of disdain. In any event, if you thought Daniel Grant felt unredeemable in the comics, he's amped up and even more odious. There was one scene from the comics that I really liked, but Bischoff changed it. I think Bischoff's change is reasonable given the situation, but I still liked the original rendition in the comic. When Grant first meets Kozlowski in the comic he mistakes Henriksen for her, because his sexism wouldn't allow the thought that a woman would be in charge of the mission. Bischoff made up for this in other ways, but I always liked that particular scene.Ultimately, I did enjoy this longer form of the original Genocide story. I think Bischoff did a pretty solid job on expanding on Arcudi's original idea and adding more depth to his characters. So, even if you've read the original comics this was a pretty fun rendition of that tale. So, even though we might be switching up authors in future novels, I'm confident Dark Horse will make pretty good choices in picking them.

I very much wanted to give this five stars, but I feel like the story strayed away from Paul Erdős after a while. The book also seems to be slightly scattered at times as well, as if there were so many stories about Erdős that Hoffman just didn't really know where to begin. So the book sort of jumps around through Erdős life story. After you get used to this way of telling the story it becomes a bit easier to read and is still very enjoyable.

The real reason this lost a star is that this book goes on long drawn out tangents that seemingly don't have much to do with Erdős. If I remember correctly chapter 4 deviated quite a bit with stories of other mathematicians. I understand that math is just rife with amazing and interesting biographies, but I feel too much was put into this book. He tells stories of Fermat, Wiles, Gauss, and all kinds of other people. I realize these people are fascinating, but he did not tie them with Erdős very well in my opinion other than the fact that these people did interesting math, some of which Erdős was interested in as well.

Interviewing Erdős' friends like Graham makes sense in the context of the story and those tangents were perfectly fine, but what was a bit out there were the mathematical tangents. Hoffman is not a mathematician, so I can understand to some degree as to why he would go on these tangents when he discovered all kinds of curiosities. It's one of the more endearing aspects of mathematics, once you delve into that world you do want to get a little taste of it. I am not saying that what Hoffman wrote was wrong, I am merely saying that it didn't seem to have very much to do with the Erdős story. Once in a while Hoffman would maybe realize this and in the midst of a mathematical explanation quote some tidbit Erdős said about the mathematics being discussed. These mathematical excursions mainly happen in chapters 5 and I think they make the story harder for the lay person to grasp. So if you are not well in tune with mathematics or only care about the Erdős story you can easily skip these chapters to some degree.

At that juncture I was getting a bit worried about the book and wondered if it would get back to Erdős. Chapter 7 gives a great in memoriam tale after Erdős' death and this was a wonderful read. So, in the end the book ended on a high note. Overall this was a fascinating story and I could hardly put the book down. Erdős was an impressive mathematical mind and the world is lessened now that he is no longer here. For those curious about his life and eccentricities, then I would recommend this book.

This book is absolutely beautiful. It has excellent art and it has beautiful pages. They tried to make it look like an ancient text “hand written” by Decard Cane himself. It is certainly unrealistic to think they would do this completely, for example the type is printed like any other normal book, it is not hand written as it would have actually been in real life.

This book goes over some of the details of the lore in Diablo. It makes reference to a lot of the novels that have been written prior to it, so it's pretty cool to see those tied into this. It adds a little more details into things, so if you've read all the novels don't think there is no new material here.

If you're pretty into the Diablo universe, I definitely recommend picking this up. It's a beautiful hardcover book and it's definitely worth seeing.

Let me preface this review by saying that I have enjoyed all the prior Harry Potter novels. I, however, did not get into this one. I understand developing the world a lot more and a lot of people could get into it. But I felt like this story dragged so much in the beginning and this is one of the few cases where I thought the movie was better than the book.

For starters it felt like this book dragged for the first half before any real action started to take off. I don't need constant action, I can enjoy books with mainly dramatic tension, but I just found this more annoying in Harry Potter than anything else. I understand what Rowling was aiming for, she wanted the reader to experience the anger and loneliness Harry was feeling. In some respects, I just don't think I wanted to experience it as much as she forced us to. I found Harry's anger rather frustrating to deal with, because his decision making process was so idiotic. Harry has never been good at this, but I feel like this book took it to a whole other level.

On aspect of Rowling's writing that I am getting really sick of is the constant blame on Snape. Even Hermoine points out that they've never been right about this assumption. But rather than consider she has a good point, they just ignore it, especially Ron. This is just so frustratingly stupid to me, that I just spent most of the time being mad about these foolish decisions.

Once the major parts of the book start going it becomes a great book though. One thing I liked in the movie more than the book was the room of requirement. I like how the movie had the room changing the locations where they got out.

Overall, I thought the book ended well, but just getting through it was so daunting that I had to rate this quite a bit lower than the others. I hope my complaints have made some sense, I realize many people enjoyed this book, but I was just not able to get into it like all the others.

While I totally understand trying to overcome the stereotype of a D&D player and widening the audience, I gave this book a low rating for a reason people might find odd, so let me try to explain. First I'll applaud the merits of the book though.

This book is written for a very niche audience as far as I can tell: the girly girls who believe all the stereotypes about D&D players. Albeit the girls who enjoy shopping, looking gorgeous and so on are not the only ones that hold low opinions or are biased towards D&D. It is nice to see someone that is trying to overcome those stereotypes. I do applaud her effort in trying to make the game accessible and showing how simple D&D is to play. Hopefully this book will find its way into the right hands and other girls will not have to get a job at Wizards of the Coast (or a random game store) in order to be exposed to this type of game. Albeit in some respects I think the author would enjoy D20 Modern a little more, since in that game you could potentially go shopping at Nordstroms! Anyway, I do hope this book bridges the gap for some people and is just not being read by other D&D fans like myself.

One part I did find very fun to read was her recounting of being a DM with her friends. She tried to introduce them to the game, because none of them had ever played and most had major biases towards it based on hearsay. So in the spirit of tearing down stereotypes she decided to have them try out the game. While it seemed like her friends had fun (though I would have conjured a Troll rather than a vampire... since vampires aren't as ugly/sinister anymore) I don't know if they ever tried to play again. That's one aspect of her story that I am missing. I want to know if her attempts at introducing the game to that group of women were something that got them into gaming.

All that being said, I have to downgrade this book rather heavily. I will admit that I am extremely biased in this regard, but it is a massive problem. I really do not like the author's derisive comments about math or her lack of doing math (i.e. having Teddy do the math). I am sick and tired of the “pretty girls don't do math” or “girls don't do math” in general or “girls are bad at math”. None of that is even remotely true! Girls are just as good as anyone else is at doing math. There are guys out there that are outright horrible at the subject. In the Calculus I class that I am teaching the best students in the class are girls. There are guys doing very well, of course, but I have a couple students that just do things so perfectly and logically well and they both happen to be women! So stop with the girls and math don't mix crap because none of it's true.

Despite all that, there is very little real math in D&D. D&D rarely involves high level math. Most of the stuff is arithmetic. The most complicated thing you do is deal with probabilities, but you'll never see someone calculate expected values by integrated over the Schrodinger equation! No, D&D is mostly about calculating as in adding, subtracting and multiplying, while these operations are used in mathematics they have entirely too many numbers in them for real math. When you start solving for the slope of a quintic equation by doing calculus then finding the slope at the zero points, then I'll say you're doing math. But until then, you are not building mathematical models to represent a situation, you are adding up some numbers to see if it's greater than another number! I don't have a calculator brain, so I usually have someone who does have a calculator brain (like my girlfriend) calculate on the fly for me. Here's the real kicker, she's an artist and I'm a mathematician! You do NOT need to calculate to do math.

Ok, rant over.

This book was a slight improvement over that of the “Peacekeepers”, which I found to be a rather tedious adventure. As we progress into the Star Trek books I feel the characters are getting a little stronger in their actual representation. It seems this author may have actually seen an episode rather than just read a script or two. However, there are still some things that are seriously wrong with the character portrayal compared with the show.

The biggest issue was with Wesley. While I feel Wesley's portrayal was well done, Carmen Carter was very liberal with Wesley's duties. Now you have to remember in the first season Wesley is only an acting ensign, he's not even a full ensign! Despite this it appears he can do whatever he wants to do. Picard is letting him sit in on classified meetings that have the highest level of secrecy and argues that Wesley is part of his bridge crew and therefore allowed to be in the meeting. This is utterly ridiculous.

Another issue was with the technology in some cases. This may have more to do with lack of information at the time the author wrote this book. Maybe this comment is more in hindsight, but it just felt ridiculous when reading this. First off Wesley needed to get a book for someone, so he was printing one from a printing station on the bridge. This just seemed silly to me. In another instance Beverly had information on a tape cassette drive. There's no way those would still exist, I can't understand why the author thought that would be the pinnacle of data storage even in the late 80's when this was published.

Finally, despite really nailing Data's character in this book unlike the previous two, Picard's character was a little off. He was a little too mean and way too impulsive it seemed. It was strange because it never felt like he really weighed his decisions very carefully and he had multiple explosions of anger in this book. This just doesn't mesh with the stoic captain we see on television. I suppose this irrational personality makes sense for her writing that Picard was convinced Data had emotions, which clearly isn't true and it's obvious he doesn't believe such a thing in the show.

Regardless of those weird things the overall story was okay. The Enterprise stumbles into a situation where the highest levels of Starfleet Security take a major role. Amidst all this secrecy they try to solve an old mystery involving missing children. Their original mission was to transport some back woods farmer type people that have decided to reject technology (despite their travelling in a star ship to another planet... go figure). Basically they're Amish. Anyway, I could have done without the farmer people, but their role makes a bit more sense in the very end, not sure if it was worth the effort of having them there frankly. My one other gripe is the religious references to ancient human religions, such as Christianity, this doesn't get mentioned at all in the show. So Beverly's name for a child as Moses is pretty foolish in my opinion. The human race in the Star Trek universe is supposed to have grown beyond such trappings and certainly not show favoritism in ones historical knowledge. Maybe it made sense... I don't know... I just felt like it didn't belong in this “world”, if you know what I mean.

In the end 2.5 stars.

I thought this was a much more interesting read than the “Endangered Species”. I decided to skip right to the third book because it was a by a different author, but I'll go back and read the second later. The stories are entirely independent of each other anyway.

It's somewhat amazing to me that such a mysterious and mindful show doesn't work “in print” very well. Whereas I thought the books written for the 24 television series would be awful because it relies on so much action... yet the first novel in that series I loved. But the Lost books I don't really care for very much. Perhaps it is the lack of insight the books give us to the actual mystery of the island. Instead they craft new characters that only somewhat interact with the main characters despite having pictures of the main characters on the covers... very misleading.

Anyway, this is a story about an artist named Nick Hadley. It really doesn't go much beyond Nick Hadley as the artist or Nick Hadley the user of woman. The “background” sections are about him as a professor and him falling for a student. But he's always kind of done things that way and leaves a lot of women as his life has progressed. The island “helps” him come to terms with his past, if you will, in the only way the island knows how. So it's pretty dark and sinister and there is a bit of a mystery around the new dark paintings Nick is drawing, but it really lacks that impact the show has. The mystery just isn't interesting enough nor is Nick interesting enough. The readers have very little vested interest in this character.

Oh well, I can understand the network wanting all kinds of restrictions on the writings and a novel series would have been better served if the authors could do whatever they wanted. Perhaps they should have planned this kind of thing for when the TV show was ended rather than after the first season or so.

Anyway, 2.5 stars.

This was a very disappointing novel, probably one of the more disappointing I've come across. However, the reason is a very sad one, because the story was actually very good. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, Faith Eden attempted to tell this story in a very strange format. I can't really figure out what possessed her to present the story in this way, but it has effectively ruined the tale for me.

I will try to explain this format and why it ruined the story for me. The book is broken up into four chapters and the first chapter is around 70 pages long. This is completely absurd for a book of only 250 pages, so it became clear to me that there was something amiss with this book.

The problem goes deeper than that also, rather than have a normal chapter setup to cover one part of the story it is all thrown together. So if she wants to start a thread about Corinna and Savatch, that might continue for a page or two at most, then it suddenly switches to something about Fulgrim, which is unrelated to Corinna at the moment. You fully expect all the stories to be brought together in the end, and they are, but the jumping around makes the story feel so incredibly disjointed. You barely have time to sink your teeth into a particular section of the book, before she transports you to some other location! This might not be so bad if we only had to worry about a couple parts only, but there are multiple sections in vastly different areas! Maybe the strategy was to leave the reader “frustrated” in a “hot and bothered” sense... but it had the exact opposite effect.

The format made the book so difficult to get into, and that's a shame because the story is even better than the first! It is much to my dismay that I flipped through the third novel to see it's written in this same awful format. Luckily I checked out her other novels under the name Jennifer Jane Pope, and those appear to be quite normal.

I suppose I should review the story a bit... Well this is definitely a far more well crafted tale than the first one. Rather than just sticking with a general erotic fantasy, you experience some serious hardships and some characters even are killed off, like a true medieval fantasy would involve. This is different from her first novel, where this kind of thing wasn't addressed very much. Most characters that were “unwilling” found they really loved the bondage things, this is not entirely true for this novel. This isn't just some kinky romance, people are made to do things they wouldn't normally agree to! So yes, there is a degree of rape throughout this novel, which isn't entirely far fetched in a medieval setting.

In the first book Savatch and Corinna first met and in this book they explore their relationship a lot more. So they want to play out a rather involved fantasy that leaves Corinna bound and beaten, but moaning with pleasure every second! But can their little game be kept up? Or will someone ruin their fun? Also, we were left off with the evil Lord Fulgrim being in Lady Dorothea's charge, but Fulgrim is very cunning and he is trying to find his way out of their clutches. If he succeeds he will exact a terrible revenge on Dorothea and Agana.

That basically sets the stage for the conflicts throughout the story. I feel like writing more would give away too much of the story. “The Bridle Path” definitely leaves on a cliff hanger and makes me want to read the third novel even more, even though I dislike the format immensely. If it wasn't for the format, I would highly recommend this.

Mostly a 2.5, but hits 3.5 at times (but they are few)This was one of the first BattleTech books I ever read, mainly due to a massive misunderstanding of which book comes first. The BattleTech books were not organized into a cohesive series on Goodreads back then and Sarna.net was something I didn't even know about it. That being said, this is the first BattleTech novel published by Roc, but it is NOT the first BattleTech book. This is the 13th BattleTech book! The way Roc advertises this makes it seem like it's the first and it's really not and if you read this first, it's rather confusing. The sad part is, now that I've read it during the correct spot, it still really wasn't any better.Way of the Clans introduces us to a new author for BattleTech, Robert Thurston and compared to the likes of [a:William H. Keith Jr. 20444 William H. Keith Jr. https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1343233912p2/20444.jpg], [a:Michael Stackpole 19077986 Michael Stackpole https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], or [a:Robert N. Charrette 201555 Robert N. Charrette https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], he can't really compete. On the heels of the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy by Michael Stackpole, Way of the Clans really is kind of a let down for me. It felt so dry compared to the other novels I had read.I think the main point of this trilogy was to introduce deeper into the world of the Clans. We got a taste of their ideas with the Wolf Clan and Clan Jade Falcon was there for the Inner Sphere invasion, but they are not a large player in the main stories of that first trilogy Blood of Kerensky. So, here Thurston will introduce us in much more detail to the world of Jade Falcon. One thing he does is basically start at the beginning with a sibko reporting for Warrior training. A lot of the words used during Stackpole's novels are given much deeper meaning as their explanation shows up in this novel. The sad part is, it's a little dry for the most part, to the point where the sourcebooks of the game can come off as a bit more exciting. In reading this it seemed like it was a blending of Soviet and Indian societal structures. There's a really involved caste system that made me think of the structures in Indian hierarchical society, but everything else felt patently Russian in nature. The sibko, which are the genetically designed children, are expected to become part of the highest class of society, the warrior caste. You follow them through all the grueling training and get great insight into how the warrior caste develops its superiority complex. They're kind of like Klingons in the sense that it seems their entire society is dedicated to creating war. If they can't achieve the rank of warrior then they are put elsewhere. Sometimes they die in the training process. The lab bred recruits will still hold themselves above others as being “trueborns” while others are just “freebirths”. To the point where they use the word “freebirth” as a swear. It was all very interesting information, even down to discussing the different ways varying castes used language. Within this sibko we are primarily concerned with the story of Cadet Aiden, so you get to see the world through his eyes. He's a bit unusual because he takes the time to reflect and think about things a little bit deeper, this is considered unclanlike for a warrior. While the information about the training methods and society were interesting, I just felt like the novel never really picked up, until the final training sequence. After that this novel quickly took off, but now we're over halfway through page count wise, and I can't write about it because it will give too much away. I merely warn other readers that if you choose to read this book it may not start immediately with the action or intrigue someone might want. This is not uncommon with the start of a trilogy, so the second novel may delve right into the action and I might find that one a faster read. Character development certainly isn't a bad thing, but it felt a little dry from time to time and I've read some books that spent hundreds of pages on development, but it was just masterfully written. In any event this is a novel to stick with, because it makes it well worth the wait!Merged review:Mostly a 2.5, but hits 3.5 at times (but they are few)This was one of the first BattleTech books I ever read, mainly due to a massive misunderstanding of which book comes first. The BattleTech books were not organized into a cohesive series on Goodreads back then and Sarna.net was something I didn't even know about it. That being said, this is the first BattleTech novel published by Roc, but it is NOT the first BattleTech book. This is the 13th BattleTech book! The way Roc advertises this makes it seem like it's the first and it's really not and if you read this first, it's rather confusing. The sad part is, now that I've read it during the correct spot, it still really wasn't any better.Way of the Clans introduces us to a new author for BattleTech, Robert Thurston and compared to the likes of [a:William H. Keith Jr. 20444 William H. Keith Jr. https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1343233912p2/20444.jpg], [a:Michael Stackpole 19077986 Michael Stackpole https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], or [a:Robert N. Charrette 201555 Robert N. Charrette https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], he can't really compete. On the heels of the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy by Michael Stackpole, Way of the Clans really is kind of a let down for me. It felt so dry compared to the other novels I had read.I think the main point of this trilogy was to introduce deeper into the world of the Clans. We got a taste of their ideas with the Wolf Clan and Clan Jade Falcon was there for the Inner Sphere invasion, but they are not a large player in the main stories of that first trilogy Blood of Kerensky. So, here Thurston will introduce us in much more detail to the world of Jade Falcon. One thing he does is basically start at the beginning with a sibko reporting for Warrior training. A lot of the words used during Stackpole's novels are given much deeper meaning as their explanation shows up in this novel. The sad part is, it's a little dry for the most part, to the point where the sourcebooks of the game can come off as a bit more exciting. In reading this it seemed like it was a blending of Soviet and Indian societal structures. There's a really involved caste system that made me think of the structures in Indian hierarchical society, but everything else felt patently Russian in nature. The sibko, which are the genetically designed children, are expected to become part of the highest class of society, the warrior caste. You follow them through all the grueling training and get great insight into how the warrior caste develops its superiority complex. They're kind of like Klingons in the sense that it seems their entire society is dedicated to creating war. If they can't achieve the rank of warrior then they are put elsewhere. Sometimes they die in the training process. The lab bred recruits will still hold themselves above others as being “trueborns” while others are just “freebirths”. To the point where they use the word “freebirth” as a swear. It was all very interesting information, even down to discussing the different ways varying castes used language. Within this sibko we are primarily concerned with the story of Cadet Aiden, so you get to see the world through his eyes. He's a bit unusual because he takes the time to reflect and think about things a little bit deeper, this is considered unclanlike for a warrior. While the information about the training methods and society were interesting, I just felt like the novel never really picked up, until the final training sequence. After that this novel quickly took off, but now we're over halfway through page count wise, and I can't write about it because it will give too much away. I merely warn other readers that if you choose to read this book it may not start immediately with the action or intrigue someone might want. This is not uncommon with the start of a trilogy, so the second novel may delve right into the action and I might find that one a faster read. Character development certainly isn't a bad thing, but it felt a little dry from time to time and I've read some books that spent hundreds of pages on development, but it was just masterfully written. In any event this is a novel to stick with, because it makes it well worth the wait!

I thought this was a very interesting book to read. As a mathematician I certainly saw the faculty at my university abuzz over the solution of the Poincare Conjecturé. Then some odd circumstances happened and the author of the proof started to decline awards and accolades. This probably drew even more attention to him as he was trying to get away from world. It is somewhat of an unfortunate story in some respects, because it appears he has decided to leave the mathematical field altogether. Who could tell what else he could solve if he was just left to his own devices?

The book does suffer from no firsthand accounts, but every reader should expect that going in. It was written after Mr. Perelman stopped talking to the media, so Gessen was unable to ever interview her subject. This must have been quite a challenging biography. Instead she had to go and speak with colleagues and friends to attempt to craft Perelman's story. One of the most interesting parts of this story wasn't in the discussion of Perelman's solution, but the historical background of mathematics being done in the Soviet Union. During the Cold War the Soviet Union appears to have been a strange place, even in which to conduct mathematical research. I felt this book gave a rather penetrating account of the hardships these instructors and students endured as they tried to work in a field they were very passionate about.

After Mr. Perelman provided his solution to the Poincaré Conjecture he did come to the U.S. to give some talks on the topic. According to Gessen he had odd habits, but as someone who has worked in the world of math and higher education, this is certainly not unusual to me. Even I have some very strange and what people would consider relatively strict habits. The only point that sort of bothered me in the book is her attempt to seemingly diagnose his weirdness. I am not sure if she was fully trying to do this, or just giving information to others about the nature of something like Aspergers, but I got the impression she was trying to explain him through a disorder.

In any event, I did find it an incredibly fascinating read and I would highly recommend anyone read this. You certainly don't have to be a mathematician to read it as the biography is quite well crafted. I walk away feeling as if Gessen achieved her goal of writing a biography without ever having to speak to the individual.

P.S. And as a side note... I have to wonder if the graphic designer who made the cover was aware that the integral sign is an S. So I when I look at this book all I can see is “Persect Rigor”.

After reading the first book I was really hoping the second would turn things around for the characters. It sort of succeeded on this front, because I didn't feel as outraged by the characters as the first book. So whatever attempt the author made to simulate the characters they did a semi decent job. Data still feels a bit off, but I went back and watched the first season and I feel like his character changed a bit between the first and second seasons. Since these novels are based around the first season, I see where the authors would get their ideas about Data. The unfortunate part is that the story actually isn't as good as the first book. The first book at least had an interesting plot to keep me reading, but this one became rather dry and dull over the course of the book.

This story is mainly focused on the adventures of Data and Geordi. The Enterprise has been given information about an ancient derelict from the Ferengi and they have chosen to investigate it. So Picard sends out an away team and they run into booby traps, so Picard brings them back immediately. The real problem was the leaking radiation on the station, so what did Picard do? He immediately sent another away team out there! I didn't feel like the characters had tried to solve the problem any further and then Picard is just sending away teams. It didn't seem like the usual thing he would. Anyway, while Geordi and Data are on the derelict something goes wrong, as is expected, and they get transported off to some other craft many light years away. As usual with the show this leaves the cast with two problems to solve at once.

Unfortunately this is where the story got boring for me. Geordi and Data got transported to some place orbiting another planet and they were treated as if they were the great creators of the craft. It was sort of like having God like status, which I found rather cliché at this point in my reading career. The planet's history was no different than your basic Cold War scenario where nations were at a standstill on the brink of mutually assured destruction. So basically the place was just like Earth, only called something else. Anyway, one of the people there saved his planet by using the ancient technology and then basically set himself up as a leader. So now Geordi and Data are stuck in a situation with all kinds of political intrigue and the problem of getting back to the Enterprise.

As a novel it was ho hum, very average. The plot was entirely contrived and done to death. Maybe I have just run into this story format too many times already, but this particular incarnation of it didn't bring me anything new, in my opinion. This is probably a novel to be missed and I am still holding out for when the novels get better. I see the ratings by other readers improve on the later novels... so I will keep reading!

I am a pretty big fan of Sherlock Holmes. I've read all the stories and even loved the series starring Jeremy Brett. Therefore I received this as a gift shortly after it came out. I certainly wanted to like this book a lot; it seemingly had everything I would like, lots of Sherlock references and even a period type of story. Alas, I did not find it as enjoyable as I would have thought.

The book has two stories going on at once. One takes place in modern times and the other takes place during the early 1900's with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The modern story is about a group of people called the Baker Street Irregulars, which is sort of a Sherlock Holmes fan club. This starts with a typical mystery story, a murder in the modern era. There is a major mystery surrounding a missing diary of Doyle's and one thing I liked was that while the modern era is searching for the diary the readers get insight during Doyle's time. Doyle's story has its own mystery, but I feel like this entire arc was a missed opportunity. Moore really should have set this up like an authentic Sherlock mystery. In some respects he probably tried to do that, but I just didn't feel like it had the same kind of atmosphere as an authentic Doyle story. In the end, the Doyle mystery was far superior to the search for the diary and murderer in the modern story. I felt the characters were a little dry and I didn't really love any of them.

This seems to be compared a bit to a Dan Brown style work, but Dan Brown's work was so much more exciting to me. I really felt like his stories are crafted in a much smarter fashion. Unfortunately “The Sherlockian” didn't really do a lot and as a result it was just a mediocre read.

This is the second book in the story of Alice Brown and her adventures in Underland. As with the previous novel this is a further play on “Alice in Wonderland”, but with a much more sexually sadistic twist.

It turns out that Alice is in desperate need to return to Underland, because on her last visit she didn't take enough of the potion that transformed her back into a human from a bird. Certainly she can't let her parents find out! So, she must go to Underland to find a solution to this sticky problem. Naturally, she gets into all kinds of sticky situations resulting in her being bound, raped, beaten and outright used by the animals and people of Underland. This is all basically the same type of stuff found in the first book, such as the animals having an anthropomorphic bent, but that doesn't decrease the level of it basically being bestiality. Since Alice received training as a Girling in the first novel, she is swiftly enslaved upon her arrival and there are quite a few non-consensual situations that she winds up in. None of that stuff bothers me much, but if you're not into that, then steer clear of this book. Alice being a slave girl means there is also a lot of F/F action between her and other slave girls.

Overall, I felt this story was much better than the first. I felt like there was far more of a purpose to her being in Underland, rather than to just satisfy her sexual interests from the first one. The latter is fine motivation, but “Alice in Chains” has real good conflict between characters and a mission. Basically Alice immediately runs into the Red Queen upon her arrival and the Red Queen wants to continue playing a high stakes chess game (which encompasses an entire territory called Boardland), however, the other players have decided not to play anymore so Boardland has become overgrown. Alice needs to find an artifact that the Red Queen thinks will enable her to continue the game. The ending of the story is well thought out and the adventure is actually rather engrossing. So, if you're interested in rather bizarre erotica this might peak your interest.

This is an excellent introductory book to LabView. I had to learn how to use LabView for programming mathematical models at work, so I picked this book up first, read through it, and did all the practice problems. This book has a few issues here and there, but overall I thought it was a good book.

This book is written for people that have never even seen or heard of LabView before, basically people like me. If you already have experience with the program I would recommend staying away from this book and get something that is the next level up, otherwise you may find the book painfully tedious to read.

This book brings you through all the basics, open files, creating new programs, how to develop the Front Panel and the Block Diagram. It covers sections on Loops, Math Formula Nodes, Case Structures, SubVI's, and Boolean aspects. It has a section on hooking up devices to LabView, but doesn't have a lot on building drivers or anything more advanced like that. Each chapter has practice examples, where the book basically walks you through developing your own VI while you read.

The one flaw I see with this book is that the problem sections have something called Design Problems, which are much more advanced. I was able to do a bunch of these, but I felt very unprepared to do all of them. The book does not develop the reader to a level where all of these problems are clear. Maybe this is geared towards people who have a lot of programming experience already, but I have very little as I have only dealt with C programming, prior to this. However, just by reading this book you should be able to get through all the Exercises, for that anyone should be quite well prepared.

This book also leaves out one of the most important shortcuts you could ever learn about. Space bar. It only tells you about tab for switching through the other tools. Space bar allows you to switch through the wiring tool and the pointer in the Block Diagram only! It's wonderful, you don't have to tab through a bunch of other functions and those are the most readily used functions in the Block Diagram. It similarly works on the Front Panel, switching between the hand and pointer tool.

Overall a great book for beginners and I would recommend to anyone wanting to learn LabView from scratch.

I thought this was simply a wonderful book. This is the first book I've ready by Clifford Pickover and seeing that he has written many others I think I will go track some of those down. This book basically covers the history of Mathematics in a very concise, but thoughtful way.

Although the book is not a complete history, then again 500 pages would be barely enough to cover a complete history, but “The Math Book” covers some essential points. Pickover tried to do a couple of things when he wrote this book. Give the readers a good overview of Mathematics history and he also wanted to include Mathematical problems that interested him. In that regard the book can touch upon some little known historical elements in the field of Mathematics, which I think many will appreciate. Everyone hears the stories of Archimedes and his discovery of displacement, but there are lesser known problems and people as well and that's where I think this book manages to get a little interesting. In the past one hundred years the field of mathematics has completely exploded and a great portion of this book deals with properties found in more modern times, which I think is great because most history books I've read don't put it into the perspective of what's going on in the field now.

If you're not totally math savvy, don't worry. Pickover has written this book for the layman, so even the least experienced can gain an appreciation for the world and history of mathematics. One aspect of the book that really drew me to purchase this was each entry has one page of text describing the historical nature and the page opposite is a picture. Sometimes this is a picture of the person who discovered the property, but a lot of times it is an illustration of a mathematical object, which I think people will appreciate rather than just reading a mathematical narrative trying to describe an abstract object. Working with programs like Mathematica have surely enabled Pickover to bring some of these more complex geometries to life for everyone to see. I think this is one of the aspects that sets it apart from other books.

I would highly recommend this to any math enthusiast regardless of background. However, if you are looking for a very detailed history of mathematics I would recommend you seek out other books. “The Math Book” is much lighter and designed to engage readers quickly, rather than get into the real details of the history.

“The Debutante” was a decent book. It is probably fairly cliché in the collection of Nexus titles, but overall it wasn't the worst thing from this publisher.

Basically this plays on a twisted version of a Debutante ball. Instead of the girls being paraded to find future husbands, they are being shown off to potential buyers. This is another girl auction type of tale.

In this case we journey with Angela Carstairs as she is trained for her future role as a slave to a wealthy aristocrat. It's mostly what you would expect from this kind of book. Angela is trained in sexual arts and serving. If she does not perform up to the expected standards she is whipped and beaten. This is all good fun, certainly, and I didn't find the book to be overly boring or anything nor did anything overly stupid happen.

Even if this may not sound like a super exciting review, the book was just okay. The book is basically just as I expected it to be. I wanted to read about young girls being enslaved, beaten, and have lavish sex scenes. This book certainly delivers that.

I am really hard pressed to refer to this as “erotica” as I didn't find this even remotely erotic. Normally I can at least reason out why someone would find this erotic, but this one has me incredibly confused. I suppose someone could, but this rates up there with the tentacle monsters in Hentai. I just don't understand that stuff. Luckily this has no such monsters. In any event, the whole reason I picked this up was because I am a major fan of science fiction. Most other erotica I've read has been set in modern times or around the 1700/1800's. So, being the sci-fi fan I am, I decided to see how this measures up.

Frankly, this book didn't do well for me. It's not because of the torturous aspects, because I've read Sade and loved that. I think it has more to do with the fact that basically no one is attractive and the story feels overly ridiculous. Basically Space Captive seems to derive its major influences from Star Trek. I'm not sure which iteration of Star Trek, but this totally feels like a Star Trek derivation. The name of the starship is even called the “Explorer”. I've only really spent time watching “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, but it has familiar elements of not letting the enemies get their hands on the starship because of its advanced technology. “Space Captive” seems to be centered on a conflict between Earth and a separatist group that is living in the Megellan sector.

Basically the Explorer is captured by these pirates and the entire crew is taken hostage. As I'm sure anyone can guess, the crew needs to be interrogated and since this novel is classified as “erotica” you can expect the method of extracting this information is through sexual torture. Well sort of. The second in command is a beautiful woman named Elizabeth Hartley and we basically journey with her through her misadventures. The pirates seem supremely focused on her rather than the captain, though they use her as leverage to get the captain to cooperate. Anyway, she's put through all sorts of sexual trials that involve bondage, being whipped, rape (from males and females), and even this bizarre maze thing they make her go through that involves being naked, freezing water, and rats. I was more perplexed while I was reading the latter, because I didn't find that erotic at all, nor did I find it a logical “final punishment” by the pirates. It was just goofy, in my opinion.

Now, the more mind boggling aspect of this novel is based on the fact that very few of the pirates are attractive. So just picture a bunch of ugly people committing sexual acts with someone beautiful. I guess some people might find this “hot”, but I found it confusing how a whole community was like this. They had one beautiful woman in this one area, but all she did was fight with Elizabeth. The worst were the dwarves. These aren't the ones we encounter in real life, these are apparently mutated and strange, they are more trolls than dwarves. Apparently they were originally bred to work on the engines of starships, because those areas of a starship were too small for normal people, but now that the technology is better they don't need them. So a huge exodus of dwarves went to the Magellan sector because they couldn't find work on Earth anymore. I felt like this was a stupid idea. Anyway, these creatures get to have “fun” with the captives and what not. None of this was erotic.

I'm not entirely sure who would find this a good book. The excuses related to the sexual abuse and rapes are tiresome, because Elizabeth always responded favorable and secretly “liked it”. I think that's absurd, frankly. Some of the bondage setups weren't bad, and there was one scene that I genuinely liked with one of her own crew members (again forced), where he took advantage of her chest and made her quite messy. But the “secretly liking it” thing got annoying after a while and typically ruined everything at how illogical it all was. There was also one scene where the male captain is pleasured by another man, but this was brief and quite mild in content, but as you can expect this is a pretty “liberal” community sexually. There were also a few scenes with Elizabeth and another woman, but the other woman was old and ugly, so that didn't work for me.

In the end the erotic science fiction did not work out so well in this book. There are vastly more creative things you can do in the realms of science fiction and erotica. I'll keep looking, maybe at some point I'll find a decent book that makes sense to some degree. Ultimately I can't say I recommend this.

I remember reading various Sherlock Holmes tales when I was a child and I had fond memories of the stories. I was not very interested in the genre of “mystery” as a child and the same is true now, except for Doyle's work. As an adult, though, I have never delved deeply into the material, thus I went to my local books store and picked up the complete works in an inexpensive leather bound edition. Now anyone who is a bibliophile will know that those “leather” editions they make of the classics in the major chain stores are nothing compared to a hand bound leather book. However, for a relatively low price this is a beautiful edition to pick up, as it only cost me twenty dollars. For over eleven hundred pages worth of stories, I would say that's quite a bargain.

The complete works appears to be quite a daunting task. And it is, I am not a fast reader and it took me months to finish this. Doyle's material feels so much fuller to read as an adult than as a child. So if you ever grew up with the Young Adult versions of any of Doyle's then I highly recommend you delve into the full text. The stories have a much fuller feel than the ones I remember as a child. It is interesting to reflect that one of my favorites when I was younger was “The Hound of the Baskerville's”. Upon reading the story in full, I found I didn't like it as much. In fact I wasn't as taken by Doyle's full novels very much. I think he sets them up in a strange way from what I'm used to. Basically each novel is setup into two parts. The first part has Sherlock trying to solve some mystery. By the end of this first section you usually find the culprit, but the second section is all the background past of the culprit. It's an interesting setup, but I found my interest wane without having Sherlock around. This is unfortunate, because the stories weren't bad, but they weren't what I wanted. At least that's the best I can explain.

For me Doyle shined in the form of short stories. These were by far my favorite throughout the book and I simply couldn't get enough of them. Based on the fact that Doyle kept having to revive the Holmes character throughout his writing career, it would appear the general public was little different from myself. It's interesting to read these late 19th century stories and see them discuss things like science and realize how far things have come. For example it is constantly remarked that the size of ones head would determine a person's intelligence. This is totally false, but clearly seemed logical back then. In the 21st century it does wind up sounding quite amusing. One thing I must commend Doyle for is keeping superstitious nonsense or religious explanations out of any of the solutions. I think that's one of the reasons I liked a lot of the stories, they try to stick to logic and scientific reasoning (minus the ape serum story). It actually makes me wonder how much influence this type of work had on things like CSI.

There is one flaw with this particular edition of the book. I found the editing to be extremely lazy. Now, I don't expect to get an eleven hundred page book and have it be typo free. Usually I'll come across one or two in any book I have. However, the nature of the typos in this edition, I feel, are quite inexcusable. For example when reading certain sections I will find the word “let”. But that is not what is printed. Instead the symbol for British Pounds currency is displayed followed by the letter “t”. This British Pounds symbol showed up numerous times, and not just in “let”. The first time it was merely comical, the next four were quite annoying. These aren't the only typos I found and the typos are more numerous towards the end of the book. It is as if the book was edited for the first half only. I wouldn't say it was the worst editing I've ever seen, but it was frustrating whenever I ran into the problems, and no one likes their reading disrupted.

Despite the typos, I still love this book. I like the edition and the attempt at an old world publication aesthetic. I think this really adds to the atmosphere of the text and its setting. Overall, I would recommend this edition, but beware of some frustrating typos here and there. They are decently easy to get over, since the content is so superb.

Whether you're a beginner or a veteran looking for new ideas I think this book is a very worthwhile thing to peruse. It lays out some of the finer points of painting and is very easy to understand. It covers very basic priming points all the way to more complex shading techniques using dry brushing.

The choice in format for the book is a little interesting and probably not the best in my opinion. The techniques are setup in alphabetical order rather than bringing you through a step by step painting example. This is obviously best as a reference book. There are a few example parts where it goes over what colors to lay down for specific models, but there's nothing that brings you start to finish on a highly detailed and complex model. I think spending another five or so pages with highly detailed pictures would have been a great benefit for people looking for more intermediate painting techniques.

However, if you really need a reference book on specific techniques with pictures displaying the differences then this is definitely a book to pick up. Even though it wasn't perfect for a beginner painter I still found this a worthwhile book to read and when I'm ready to tackle the more intermediate painting techniques I will be consulting this book for their pointers to successfully execute a well painted model.

As with most Games Workshop products this text is lavishly filled with wonderful full color photos from their various miniatures lines. Warhammer 40,000 seemed to play the favorite, but we do see pictures from the Warhammer fantasy line and Lord of the Rings as well. At the end we even get to see pictures of miniatures that have won the Golden Demon award. If you want to see something to aspire to when it comes to painting, these miniatures will inspire and impress anyone with their amazing detail.

I've recently decided to go back to school for a degree in Applied Mathematics, so while my girlfriend was looking over the math section at a used book store she came upon this book. It is certainly a quick read as other reviewers have stated and I must say I found it an enjoyable one. I believe the intended audience of this book is for anyone in general. If you are interested in what mathematicians do, how they contribute to the world, or a glimpse into what they think about, then this is a good book to read through. I must emphasize that it is extremely general, which is what maintains its level of readership.

“Letters to a Young Mathematician” is series of letters written to a fictitious niece interested in pursuing a career in mathematics. This book takes you from her childhood when she is first encountering the world of integers all the way up to getting a teaching position at a university. The book covers basic things, such as what mathematicians do and even covers elements of office politics. One of the points I found very interesting was the way Stewart differentiates (no pun intended) between the way mathematicians argue and how other disciplines argue (his example was Art professors). A major difference he points out is that the Art professors will argue till they are blue in the face with little conclusion, but the mathematicians will argue until one eventually figures something out and realizes the error they were making. I may have found this more amusing because my girlfriend is an Art major and she confirmed that those types of arguments between faculty do happen.

This book serves as a bit of an advice for prospective students/workers in the field of math. It also serves as a sneak peak into the world of mathematicians, which I feel is a world not often publicized to the general public very much. From what I can tell a lot of people think we're off manipulating arcane equations in a back room or we're human calculators that solve incredible arithmetical problems. I don't think either is very true, well maybe the first one could have some element of truth... but I digress. I think this is a great book to read through and get a quick glimpse at some of the fields mathematicians actually have the options of working in. Becoming a teacher is not the only option as many seem to assume, as that is the most coming question I get asked when I tell others about my major.

One of my favorite parts in this book is the advice for prospective math teachers/professors. You will get chalk all over the place. It brings me fond memories of my Linear Algebra teacher who really took this to heart, going to such lengths of erasing mistakes with his fist. The sheer volume of chalk this man went through and had on his hands, shirt, and face by the end of lecture was impressive.

I am not hugely well versed in the world of zombie stories and this is really the second book I've read with such a theme. I was intrigued by the fact that it was written in journal format. I really enjoyed the way “World War Z” was setup, and that kind of made me interested in other ways of presenting literature, so I snatched this up considering all the praise in the reviews.

I tore through this book very quickly. I simply couldn't put it down. It really does feel like you're reading through a first hand account of the zombie apocalypse. Here we join the story of Jon a member of the military trying to make his way in a zombie infested world. Jon brings us on a journey starting right before the zombie invasion begins. He brings us through the rumor infested beginnings to precarious survival after it reaches epidemic proportions.

For me, this book kept me on edge always wanting to find out more about what happened. I really like the format the book is published in. It actually looks and feels like a journal. Though not hand written, there are pictures of photographs posted throughout the book. There are also hand drawn diagrams to give the reader a better sense of the area. I felt this added an air of authenticity and gave the book a more unique feel.

J.L. Bourne has definitely shown me that he has some serious literary talent for constructing a story around this scenario. I simply can't wait for the next installment. For my first few steps into this genre, I am greatly pleased.

I felt one of my greatest deficiencies in the study of mathematics was Geometry. I had an atrocious experience with it in High School and have simply avoided it ever since. So in looking around for books I didn't want ultra formal Geometry where it was heavily steeped in the study of proofs. My mom, being a math teacher, happened to have this book on her shelf, so I decided to give it a read.

This could have been an exceptional book, let me say that much. The concepts were incredibly easy to understand and I did like the “exploration” sections of the book that encouraged students to do it. However, there is one major downfall to this particular text, which renders it virtually useless. Like many text books from the late 80's and early 90's (from what I've noticed) the book is heavily dependent on technology. It's like the academic community of mathematics became enthralled with the fact you can use graphing calculators and computer programs to represent more complex mathematics. “Informal Geometry” appears to have been written in conjunction with a program called the “Geometric Supposer”. I'm sure this is a fine and dandy program, but the problem is the book doesn't explain or show examples outside of those you, the reader, are supposed to produce.

In most mathematical text books you'll be given a series of examples that are done out for the reader. In “Informal Geometry” you produce the example in your program or you physically draw it out. However, the actual image of the example is not present in the text most of the time, so you have to take it on faith that you produced the correct example in order to understand the postulates and corollaries drawn from your exploration activity. I think getting people to try the examples themselves is a benefit, but without being able to check your work against the text book's accurate answer, I feel is a detriment to the text.

Having already taken Geometry and been exposed to many of the topics already, this book basically met my needs. Unfortunately if you are delving into this subject for the first time I would absolutely avoid this book. This was a decent book to garner a quick review of the subject and you are able to go through the exercises in that capacity. Overall the text was okay, but I must seriously rate it down because of its heavy dependence on the computer program to render the examples in the text.

I picked this book up because I also purchased the “Imperial Sector” box set so I wanted to see if this book had any helpful hints on setting things up. That's not really what I got, but what I did get was a book that will help me out when I really want to build a lot of complex detail into my “City Fight” campaigns!

I think this book is meant to be read after “How to Make Wargames Terrain”. “Cities of Death” is written with the approach that you already know how to do a lot of basic terrain creations. Even though it feels like I probably read this book out of order, I can't deny the potential of this quality book. If you're looking for some inspiration on spicing up your wargames terrain then this is a must have book, especially if you want it focused on an urban setting.

As usual with the Games Workshop books there are so many beautiful pictures you'll want to re-create everything for your own games. It gives you some interesting pointers on how to construct different buildings using their already available miniatures. Just because you buy the “Manufactorum” model, doesn't mean you can't combine it with a different set to make a different building entirely. This book gives you some details and pointers on some of these different creations. For a basic but wonderful addition, I really liked the suggestion of using different elements to make street signs to give it a much more realistic feel. I thought this was an awesome and simple enough modification that I will soon have these on my streets.

Even if you've already come up with plenty ideas on how to add more depth to your city campaigns this book may just have that extra something to give it even more of a kick. I already had a lot of terrain ideas for my gaming table, but this book has even managed to add onto those. “Cities of Death” helps to give your miniatures the most realistic world in which to fight.

As I started studying Calculus more and more it made me a lot more curious about the nature of infinity. We take these limits of functions to get the derivation process, we look at area with integration by summing infinitely small pieces under a curve, and then we look at the divergence and convergence of a series with limits to see what these things do at infinity. Then, to top it off, I had my mind further blown by discussing infinite dimensions in Linear Algebra. Needless to say, I had infinity on my mind. However, I wanted a more informal book to read to pass the time. Studying the formal texts is fun, but can get tedious.

Barrow's book “The Infinite Book” is exactly what I was looking for. Don't worry, if you're not a mathematician you can still grasp the general concepts discussed in this book. One of the great aspects of this book is that Barrow brings through a bit of the history of infinity. With that in mind you take a walk through the history of infinity and how it touches human curiosity. Natural he makes reference to Zeno's Paradox. (I'm actually getting sick of reading about this, it feels like just about every math book I read discusses Zeno. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely relevant.) Anyway, some of the more interesting stuff comes when he gets to discussing Cantor's history. I found this utterly fascinating and Cantor did some impressive work with infinity.

Naturally Barrow ups the ante as the history gets to more modern day applications. Cosmology being a major one, but he also brings us through some of the more “pop culture” elements (if I dare call them that). Such as strange movies that involve things like an infinite game, which are now movies I intend to track down and watch. Some of this material may be beyond some readers, it was a little beyond me at times, but I wouldn't say it was so overwhelming I got totally lost in what was being discussed.

If you're at all curious about the nature of infinity, then I highly recommend this book. I would even rank this as a rather exhilarating read. Barrow approaches the subject in an excellent way and not in a way where I think non-mathematicians will feel put aback by the arcane discussions. After reading this I am definitely interested in reading other books by Barrow and I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested.