Product Description
Paper Kills addresses the most pressing issues in the drive to modernize and improve healthcare through health information technology.Paper Kills guides the reader on a tour of the health information technology landscape, covering topics from protecting privacy and advancing research to building health information exchanges and achieving interoperability. Other chapters explore the role of state governments, health plans, and hospitals in implementing health information technology, as well as the potential of health IT to promote the adoption of best practices in ambulatory care and focus on prevention, wellness, and early detection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Beware of the partisan bias
There is much to be gleaned from this one as it does pull together some leading thinkers on the issue of electornic health records. Note it is a Collection of articles and, as such, lacks the kind of continuity you'd expect in something authored by a single writer.

For me, it stands like a kind of time capsule. When we were tempted to think it visionary to call for widespread use of electronic health records by 2012 and the magical thinking that went along with this thinking: that making information electronic would transform medical care delivery.

I think it's safe to say we all recognize the limitations of that line of reasoning by now.

Also, be a little wary of the partisan bias one might expect from a book to which Newt Gingrich has leant his name.

Well Written for Public Education
I personally work in the Electronic Medical field and this book was well written in laymans terms.It is a good book for the general public to read to become more knowledgeable about the process and guidelines that need to be taken to put a project together.If I am a patient, I would buy this book!

Thanks Newt! ... Read more

Product Description
When the US goes broke, the states break loose and people across the country get caught in the chaos. The Lakota rise up in the north and Texas breaks free in the south. Meanwhile, Steve just wants to get back to Illinois with his love life intact. Mack, an Ozark militia member doesn't want his friend to sign up but knows they can't succeed without him. And a Texas Congressman struggles with his conscience and a manipulative Governor. Can the country stay together? Can the people? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Very Amateurish Plot, But Very Imaginative.
I'm really not sure of what to make of this book. The reason I bought it was that I tend to like fictional books dealing with "The shape of things to come". But this one just couldn't manage to hold my interest at all, most likely because it seemed to fall into the oft-used rut where the U.S. completely collapses, the continent of Europe becomes 1 single country, and the rest of the world just kinda gets some random border changes, simply to show that those areas actually DO exist.

It's just not a good read, plain & simple. I constantly got the feeling, especially when referring to the connected "Back Story" web-site, that I was reading something from the mind of an over-imaginative 14-year old, who was obsessed with the thermonuclear WW-III we all were expecting during the Cold War to actually be on the verge of happening at any moment.

All of the requisite happenings are included. Those such things as the southern U.S. becoming a C.S.A.-type entity again, Texas winding up with 90% of the U.S. military, Canada gaining a couple of the U.S. states, & the "real" U.S. being reduced back to approx. only the original 13 colonies. Basically, there isn't a "U.S.A." left.

Then over in Europe, as mentioned, the entire continent becomes 1 single country. All of the Islamic countries become one. Siberia is split into 3 or 4 countries for some reason, even though not many people live there anyway. Best I could tell, it was simply because Russia was too big of a country on the map to be left whole.

Curiously, the amount of border-redrawing in the southern hemisphere is only a tiny fraction of what happens up north. I guess those areas aren't that important, since no big wars ever happen down there, or none of the countries are really THAT important in the global picture.

If you can completely put reality, truth, & common sense aside, and get lost in a purely fictitious, highly exagerrated, & pretty much impossible scenario, then you MIGHT enjoy this book. But that's just not my style. Even in pure fiction, I like a story that at the least can make you THINK it might could happen that way. This read never could manage to take me on that journey, but rather left me constantly wishing it would just end.

But I can't quit a book or movie half-way through, even if I have to sometimes skip pages or use the fast-forward to get through the very worst parts. That, I'll admit, happened quite often during the time I spent with this book. So I'm not really giving an honest review of 100% of the material included. I COULDN'T do that, because the book never excited me enough to make me really care what was on the next page.

A great story idea, but a bit rushed
I picked this book up simply because of the author - I'm a fan of his podcasts. The story in this book is really good, a "Second American Civil War" of sorts with more than two players, and it's a story well told. However, it's a bit rushed. Not the style of writing itself, but rather the timeline. It's hard to get a grasp of how much time passes during the course of events in the story, but it seems like the dissolution of the US into several smaller countries happens too quickly. It seems like only about a week passes, during which time borders are established, diplomatic processes begun, new wars of aggression started, even new ID's and license plates issued. The beginning of the story is great, and the end of the story is great. It just seems like a year or two was left out of the middle. Despite the fact that there was a lot of "point of view jumping" between the characters in the story, it flowed well and was a pretty decent read. I'd probably buy a sequel. ... Read more

Product Description

The Biology of Small Mammals is the first exploration of the lives of small mammals undertaken in decades. Mammalogist Joseph F. Merritt offers an engaging, in-depth discussion about a diverse array of small mammals, from the rare Kitti's hog-nosed bat of Southeast Asia to the bizarre aye-aye of Madagascar to the familiar woodchuck of North America.

Small mammals include those mammals weighing under five kilograms (approximately eleven pounds). Merritt introduces the various species that fall under this heading, then follows with chapters that cover such topics as behavior, modes of feeding, locomotion, habitat use, reproduction, and coping with heat loss.

Animals of this size face different physiological and ecological challenges than larger mammals. Merritt describes in rich detail how mammals across the globe have adapted to compensate for their small stature, showing how they contribute to and survive in diverse environments in many fascinating ways. For example, arctic foxes, weighing just 3 to 4.3 kilograms, are champion survivors in the cold. They cope with their harsh environs by decreasing activity, seeking shelter in temporary dens and snow burrows, growing a lush winter fur, and undergoing complex physiological changes to insulate themselves from chilling temperatures.

Beautifully illustrated throughout, The Biology of Small Mammals provides a valuable and updated reference on nature's more diminutive creatures.

Customer Reviews (1)

Any college-level natural history library needs this survey
The Biology of Small Mammals represents the first college-level exploration of the lives of small mammals in decades, and comes from a mammalogist who provides discussions of a range of small mammals around the world. In discussing behavior and species, this collection outlines how the size difference provides different physiological and ecological challenges than larger mammals. Any college-level natural history library needs this survey.
... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

The new dawn of science textbooks
This book blends impeccable research with beautiful art and tasteful design for the most innovative and modern of science textbooks. Enjoyable for pleasure reading, even for those with little or no science background. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
This book presents a series of illuminating studies which conclusively demonstrates that the prevailing conception of historical linguistics is deeply flawed. Most linguists today believe that there is no good evidence that the Indo-European family of languages is related to any other language family, or even any other language. In like manner, the New World is deemed to contain hundreds of language families, among which there are no apparent links. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A book for specialists...
If you are not a linguist, this book will probably not be your cup of tea.It is a collection of articles previously published, some of which will strike a non-linguist as utterly baffling.

Be warned!
You must be aware, when you purchase this book, that you are getting a fringe viewpoint.As someone has pointed out, Ruhlen's methodology and conclusions are akin to those of the"Chariots of Gods" infamy, or, I might add, the creationists in biology.They're out there, but they find their audience mostly among laymen and popular TV producers -- those with no patience for the science of it but with eagerness for the catchy conclusions.The scientific community rejects their work, and for good reasons.

This is not to say that this book is entirely without value -- there is a synthesis of a lot of research from various fields, like archealogy and genetics.Creationists also have interesting things to say.But you must be wary when reading zealots -- they are prone to including only the favorable evidence.

The problem, briefly, with the Greenberg method that Ruhlen defends, is that it is too indiscrimating.Thus it will sometimes yield correct results (in essence, this is how Jones arrived at the PIE hypothesis, and Greenberg held this up as a justification for his work), but will also suffer from false positives.Thus Jones went on to propose a relationship between Malay and Arabic, and later linguists have classified Armenian with the Iranian languages.

These failures are due to but one of several flaws of the method:
words may be borrowed from unrelated languages, sometimes wholesale.Others include chance similarity, nursery rhyme similarity, arbitrary standards for establishing similarity, relationships obscured by sound change, etc.Mainstream linguists, therefore, use methods relying on *regularity* of sound correspondences and shared grammatical innovations.This requires meticulous examination of data which is much more careful (and mundane!) than simple eyeballing short lists for what you think are sort of similar items.And because of how language change really works, the results it yields will likely never be as dramatic.

In short, no, this is not a breakthrough, but a vigorous defense of what most experts regard as a hopeless direction.

LINGUISTICS AT ITS MOST EXCITING
In these 13 studies, the author presents compelling evidence for one common origin for all the world's languages. The book is certain to accelerate research towards the ultimate reconstruction of the proto-language and to cast more light on mankind's unknown past, although much needs to be done.

But this is disproved by the global etymologies so thoroughly documented here in the form of a phonetic/semantic gloss followed by current examples from many different language families. It is statistically impossible for this to be the result of chance.

I found chapter 14: Global Etymologies (co-author John D. Bengtson) the most fascinating. Here 27 global etymologies are extensively and soundly documented in the form of a phonetic/semantic gloss followed by examples from many different languages families. For example [KANO = arm] is found in Khoisan, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Indo-European, Uralic, Dravidian, Caucasian, Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic, Amerind and many more. The evidence for monogenesis is overwhelming and I hope that this book accelerates research towards the reconstruction of the mother tongue, Proto-Human.

In this regard the work of Alan Bomhard (Nostratic) and Joseph Greenberg (Eurasiatic)is also of great value. Because this work challenges the current orthodoxy it has elicited much venomous criticism from those linguists who claim that genetic relationship cannot be demonstrated after a certain lapse of time.

When looking at the Nostratic/Eurasiatic or Dene-Sino-Caucasic reconstructions, the correspondences become more and more obvious. In other words, the further back in time one reconstructs, the clearer the similarities become. Recent advances in biological taxonomy (Cavalli-Sforza) serve to confirm this author's classifications of macro-families, and by implication, monogenesis of all languages.

This is a well-written book demonstrating impeccable scholarship and is an exciting read. Readers interested in Ruhlen's work may also want to investigate the title Sprung from Some Common Source: Investigations Into the Prehistory of Languages, edited by Sydney M. Lamb.

GREAT BREAKTHROUGH IN LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION
This book is so poisonously criticized by another reviewer that one questions the motives. When Joseph Greenberg published his research on African languages in the early 60s, in which he identified only four macro-families, it was treated with the same type of scorn as displayed here. Yet his classification is now generally accepted. As for Amerind, there are some very solid supra-liguistic arguments in favour of classifying the American languages into 3 macro-families: (1) Christy Turner's dental studies show 3 distinct shapes of teeth in the native peoples of the Americas, corresponding with Greenberg's classification. (2) Genetic studies of native Americans also indicate the same 3 groups (Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza). (3) Most archaeologists believe that humans entered the Amricas about 12 000 years ago. If this is so, the "splitter" linguists must explain how so many (up to 200 according to them) language families arose in such a short time. Science will speak for itself and does not need self-appointed champions to foolishly charge against anybody who dares to propose a new theory or express a different opinion. Ruhlen's scholarship is impeccable, he's a great writer and there is an extensive bibliography for every chapter. This well-written book presents compelling evidence for a common origin for all the world's language families. It will in time achieve a place of honour in the fields of historical linguistics, history and archaeology.

Interesting, but mainly to specialists and Greenberg fans.
To read this book is to be a witness to the middle of a brawl that started long ago and will long continue -- the battle beween the Lumpers and the Splitters.Of course, the Great Lumper is the brilliant Joseph Greenberg,and the author of this book, Merritt Ruhlen, is one of his keydisciples.

The essays in the book are of varying levels of interest. Halfthe essays are detailed defenses of Greenberg's Amerind hypothesis. Here,Ruhlen is preaching only to the choir, for Greenberg's detractors,incredibly, take great pride in not having read his work.

Greenberg'smethodology is inductive, attempting to discover global truths by comparingword lists from many languages at once. The conventional methodology isdeductive, charting the phonetic differences between related languages andrunning them backwards to reconstruct a parent language.

Languages changeso fast that the conventional methodology does not work beyond about a6000-year horizon. Many linguists therefore refuse to consider earlierstages of language. Greenberg's methods offer a hope of penetrating thisveil -- yet like most inductive methods, they are subjective anderror-prone.

Future generations no doubt will figure this all out. Untilthen, those of us who are not active participants in the battle would bewell advised to stand clear of the stuff that is being thrown.

Ruhlen isa good writer, with interesting ideas, and this book should be better thanit is. Even so, it may be worth a read. ... Read more

Product Description
Why settle for good when your life can be great? We all can create the life we want. If you look around you and do not like what you see--you designed it--now you can redesign it.

In Redesign Your Life: 7 Steps Toward a Better You , Michael Merritt shares about himself, his past, and how he has become who he is today. The seven steps within this book explain the things and ways that you need to know, understand, accept, and follow so that you can begin to Redesign Your Life.

"I am sharing my life so you can find inspiration in it. What I am offering in this book are seven steps that can help you become that person you truly want to be. These steps helped me and I know they can help you to move forward--to a better and more fulfilling future--toward a better you!" Michael Merritt

Memorable Quotes from Redesign Your Life 7 Steps Toward a Better You

The direction in which you want your life to go has nothing to do with where your life has been.

Look in the mirror. What you see there is what true beauty looks like.

If you think you can. . . you will. If you think you can t. . . you probably won't.

You can change the course your life is on.

Together, we can redesign our lives one day at a time. Then once we have redesigned our life, maybe we can inspire others to redesign theirs and then they can do the same and inspire their friends and families, their communities, their country and their world.



Check out my fanpage on Facebook. Search for Redesign Your Life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

You have to read this book !!!!!
This is a very enlightening book. Michael really connects with his readers and understands what they are going through. Very easy to read and extremely helpful. While I was reading it I could see exactly what Michael was talking about. He as made a difference in my life.

This is an amazing book!
This book is amazing.Michael uses his life's journey to help you on your journey to being a better person.Page after page you find what he is saying so insightful.There were many times I found myself saying, " I do that.I feel that way about this or that and never realized that was what was holding me back." It's refreshing to know that there are other people who might have gone through what you did and have made it through, instead of telling you how you should be living your life without having gone through the same things. After reading this book, you don't feel like someone is looking down at your for your mistakes. Rather, you feel like those "mistakes" weren't really mistakes, but lessons learned. The affirmations are easy to do and are so helpful. Take the time to do something for yourself, read this book.By the time you finish this book, you will be on the way to a better you!

Truly genuine and from the heart
Michael's book is a wonderful read as it comes from his heart and soul. When I am reading his book it is as if he is sitting in my living room speaking directly to me. Very comforting and a very comfortable read. His message is very inspiring and uplifting. Follow his 7 Steps and you will feel the healing process begin.

Cannot wait for Michael's next book. This is the first of many books on Michael's journey

A good read
This is a very easy book to read.It is in terms that anyone can understand, you feel very comfortable reading it.I have enjoyed reading the book and have gotten a lot of good information that I will use in my life.

I would recommend this book very highly.

Truly Inspiring!
This book has inspired me like no other book has!It is sooooo easy to read, you will not want to put it down!You will change your attitude about your life and your attitude towards others!Bravo to the author!God has spoken to you to help others!Good luck with your journey! ... Read more

Product Description
In the summer of 1812, as rumours of a looming war become a reality, Susanna, her mother and sister are surviving as best they can while the men are fighting. As news of various battles reaches them, Susanna becomes even more concerned for the safety and well-being of her beloved brother and father. She is also torn between the loyalties of her best friend and her mother -- both Americans living in Upper Canada -- and her father's and brother's allegiance to General Brock and the King. But the night of the Battle of Queenston Heights, Susanna's main concern is for survival. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A nice read.
This is a nice short read. It gets into the daily life of a little girl, with a war going on around her, and how it effects her family.

My Favourite Book Ever!!
I read them all and this one is most exciting novel on the face of Earth! It is about Susanna Merritt's life during the war of 1812. Her father is the Sheriff of an army in Canada in Niagara, so she hardly ever sees her. With her father, brother and pregnant sister not living with her, Susanna only has her Mother, other sister Maria, and maid, Tabitha. One night, while in Niagara visiting, Susanna buckles on Governer Brock's sword before a very, very, very important battle, and if you read this novel, you will find out if the Canadians or Americans won this battle.

The saddening story of young Susanna Meritt.
Susanna Meritt lives near Nigarra in Canada, 1812. A war is whispering around her, and soon troops of Canadians are leaving Canada to fight America, determined to end their war of 'who owns Canada' once and for all. Susanna constantly worries for her family and herself, but mostly for her friend- Abigail Seabrook and her family, who are Americans, and are against the idea of going to war against their home country.

Whispers of War was an amazing book that cleverly told the 'War of 1812' in an intelligent and innocent way, immitating the voice of an innocent young girl as she watches her beautiful home- Canada, die around her.

Whispers of War
This is absolutly one of the best historical books i have EVER READ!
I have read this book about four times, and i never get bored of it. Heres my review - -

This book is about 11 - year - old Susanna Merritt, who lives in Upper Canada (around Ontario..) In 1812. Her family is constantly fearing about war, and talks about how many family members were killed in different wars.
Susanna Merritt lives a peaceful, safe life in the small town of St. Cathrines, with her sister Maria (15), mother, father, brother Hamilton Merritt (age 19) and her many pets. She goes to school, although the teacher is not very good at, well, ... Teaching.

When news comes that there IS going to be a war, Susanna and her family are devestated, as her brother and father must go off and fight.

Susanna also fears her friendship with Abby, who just moved to Canada from America two years ago, will not last.

But through everything, Susanna stays strong, and follows in her brother's footsteps by writting a diary.

Some interesting points in this book are:

- - When Susanna meets General Brock in Niagara.

Sad parts in this book are:

- - When General Brock dies.

- - When Susanna worries that her sister, Caroline, is going to die.


Overall, this is a fantastic book, and i recomend it to anyone that is looking for a fun book to read, that is also educational!

Another wonderful Dear Canada book.
This book is one of the Dear Canada series, which are historical novels, written in diary format, about fictional girls during different periods of Canadian history.

Susanna Merritt is a young girl living near Niagara, Canada in 1812, the youngest in a large family. Susanna fears for her family as the war begins, but she is also very worried about her best friend, Abbie Seabrook. Abbie's family are Americans, who are reluctant to go to war against their home country. In her diary, Susanna describes what happens to her family and friends during the first few months of the War of 1812, and during the battle that takes place near her home.

As an American, I really enjoyed getting a different view of the War of 1812 from Susanna's Canadian perspective. I really liked the setting and the characters came alive in Susanna's diary. I'd recommend this book to readers who enjoyed any of the Dear America or Dear Canada books. ... Read more

Product Description
Explorer John Kenton returns from a lifetime of wanderings and the wreckage of World War I to discover a mysterious block of Babylonian basalt containing a crystal model of an ancient ship - the Ship of Ishtar! The sultry magic of the fabled ship draws Kenton into its dreamworld, where a strange crew plucked from the ages sails in a lushly imagined mystical seascape. At the fore of the ship is Sharane, beautiful, proud, luxurious priestess instilled with the power of Ishtar, goddess of Love, Wrath, and Vengeance. On the prow broods inhuman Klaneth, infused with the essence of Negal, god of the Underworld. Kenton finds himself in a cosmic struggle of wills between them - sixty centuries in the making! Will he claim Sharane and take command of the Ship of Ishtar, or will its mysterious power take command of him? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Creepy, intelligent, and fun
After The Moon Pool, this is probably Merritt's most famous work. Fortunately for us, Paizo has seen to reprint Merritt's definitive edition here for us. All of Merritt's trademarks are here--the achingly beautiful woman, the lush prose, the dreamlike atmosphere, the diabolical villain, the darkness somewhat uncharacteristic of a pulp writer--and all are used to great effect. Strikingly for a pulp novel, Kenton and Sharane come across as somewhat more than just types. Although adhering somewhat to pulp archetypes, their romance is fairly fresh and well developed (predating as it does any number of imitations). In addition, Merritt provides us with a wealth of wonders in the alternate, sea-bound world the Ship exists in. In short, this is a fine book to spend an afternoon reading and savoring and an even better introduction to Merritt's work as a whole.

A gripping, if dated, pulp fantasy adventure
I really enjoyed this book, and loved the myriad details that obviously spawned now classical elements of the fantasy genre.

It took about a third of the book before I couldn't put it down, the shifting of the protagonist from the real world to that of the ship far too frequent for the adventure to grip me. But when it did, I was hooked, and finished the book in a single sitting from that point on.

My only real criticism of The Ship of Ishtar is that it is built around an antiquated misogyny that was unrelentingly distracting from what would otherwise be an exciting adventure. I recognize that the book was written over eighty years ago, but I was nevertheless pulled repeatedly out of the story by the overwhelming portrayal of the few female characters as vengeful, but ultimately submissive objects to be possessed by the dominant men. Merritt may have been a master at weaving descriptive prose and an intricate world of eclectic real-world myths and his own imaginings, but he was far from enlightened when it comes to gender. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the Virgil Finaly illustrations this edition includes, bare breasts and all, so take the above for what it is.

In all, I recommend The Ship of Ishtar and had a great time reading it, despite the problematic elements it contains, which are less the fault of Merritt than they are the time in which he wrote.

A new presentation of a classic tale
This review is of the Paizo "Planet Stories" reprint of The Ship of Ishtar, first published in the 1920's.The format is of a classic pulp magazine, with a two-column layout and 10 full-page pieces of Virgil Finlay artwork.

The Finlay work is beautiful and atmospheric, and a fitting complement to the text.

The story itself is well enough described in earlier reviews: a modern (1924) man, with more than a touch of Indiana Jones about him, is cast into an alternate world where gods do battle, only to be locked in stalemate.Our Hero, John Kenton, breaks the age-old impasse with the help of doughty companions, finds love (and sex!), only to have it all snatched away and require a quest to recover.

The characters are well-rounded and developed, and the tale for the most part moves at a cracking pace.The language however may be a little difficult to overcome.For the modern reader, there seems to be an incredible surfeit of both dashes and exclamation marks.There is no doubt but that this is deliberate, and part of building a rhythm in the narrative, but it was jarring after several pages and did not cease to jar hundreds of pages later.Unfornately, I can't divorce the gripping tale from the telling, and while I enjoyed the book - and hope in a future re-reading it to enjoy it more - it was good but not great.It would make a wonderful movie, I think, without having to struggle under punctuation on the written page.

Adventure!
This book reminded me much of the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs.It borrows heavily from the tradition set forth by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and follows the tradition of Verne and especially Burroughs in conceiving a plot that moves inexorably forward.The primary characters feature some depth, some motive for their actions, and even the secondary characters are more than just flat extras.The dialogue is realistic, and the details paint a vivid picture of the characters and the action.It's a real page turner.

A pulp classic
One of the books that turned me on to heroic fantasy fiction back in the early Seventies.

I've been a fan of Merritt's for a long time. He's little known outside a narrow field these days, but he knew how to drive a plot.

Our protagonist is "sucked" into a sculpure of a boat, finding himself part of the crew and forced to man the oars in a fantasy "Arabian Nights" setting.

That's just the start of a swashbuckling adventure worthy of a Douglas Fairbanks movie. There are sultry maidens, heroic rescues, and black magic, all you'd expect in a fantasy novel of the period.

The writing style seems pulpy and dated these days, but it's a great fast read, and should be on every fantasy reader's bookshelf, just so they can understand the history of the genre.
... Read more

Product Description
Tracy Putnam and H. Houston Merritt co-discovered the effectiveness of Dilantin in controlling epilepsy, a dramatic find that is still invaluable today. Now, in this engaging volume, eminent neurologist Lewis P. Rowland, MD, tells the unique story of these two key figures and their outstanding contributions to science. Rowland reveals that Putnam was a brilliant and imaginative experimentalist, but he clashed with others--including powerful neurosurgeons--and ended up dying in relative obscurity. Merritt was the practical one, an observer, fact-collector and recorder, a practitioner of what is nowcalled "evidence-based medicine". From his early days Merritt was a popular and remarkable diagnostician, and went on to be one of the most influential neurologists in the United States, a man who trained a generation of neurologists. As Dr. Rowland recounts this dual biography, he also sheds light on the origins of modern neurology, drug development, the growth of neuroscience and clinical investigation, academic anti-Semitism, the difficult struggle to translate basic science into clinical practice, the need for controls in therapeutic trials, and many other issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

jfree
Transaction was great. Item arrived promptly, and was actually in better shape tham advertised.
Highly recommend this vendor. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Here's the Storyline, directly from Wikipedia!
The plot concerns an advanced race which has developed within the Earth's core. Eventually their most intelligent members create an offspring. This created entity encompasses both great good and great evil, but it slowly turns away from its creators and towards evil. The entity is called either the Dweller or the Shining One.

Eventually of the race which created it only three are left; these are called the Silent Ones, and they have been 'purged of dross' and can be described as higher, nobler, more angelic beings than are humankind. They have also been sentenced by the good among their race to remain in the world, and not to die, as punishment for their pride which was the source of the calamity called the Dweller, until such time as they destroy their creation--if they still can. And the reason they do not do so is simply that they continue to love it.

The Dweller is in the habit of rising to the surface of the earth and capturing men and women which it holds in an unholy stasis and which in some wise feed it. It increases its knowledge and power constantly, but has a weakness, since it knows nothing of love. The scientist Dr. Goodwin and the half-Irish, half-American pilot Larry O'Keefe, and others, follow it down. Eventually they meet a woman, beautiful and evil, named Yolara, who in essence serves the Shining One, and the 'handmaiden' of the Silent Ones, beautiful and good, named Lakla. Both want O'Keefe and eventually battle over him.

There is also a race of very powerful and handsome 'dwarves' and a race of humanoids whom the Silent Ones developed from a semi-sentient froglike species.

There develops a battle between the forces of good and evil with not only the entire world, but perhaps even the existence of good itself is at stake. But can the forces of good prevail using fear as a weapon? Or will they have to rely upon love expressed by willing sacrifice? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

4th Edition M&C
Updates seem to have all been fixed, the new color pics are great, especially to show trichop case diversity.been a long time coming, this edition...well done!

Aquatic Entomology Essential
This book isn't perfect, but the keys are useful and the ecology information is good.If you are interested in aquatic entomology in North America, you are going to buy this book eventually.

Editors should have paid more attention to details
Unfortunately, Merritt, Cummins and Berg did not pay close enough attention to the details of this 4th edition.There are numerous mistakes and revisions that are not correct.They lifted whole sections from the 3rd edition and put them into new pages without changing the page numbers the keys direct you to. The Coleoptera section has too many changes and uses outdated or incorrect terminology. The best part is the new color photos at the beginning, even though they were not used in the keys themselves.Unfortunately there are mistakes in the labeling of some of the photos. Maybe this edition was put out too soon.Hopefully a correction edition will come out soon.

Nothing else like it
The 4th edition of an Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America is a great upgrade from the 3rd edition. There is nothing else out there that compares to this book. That being said, there are a number of errors in this book. There are couplets that take you to the wrong place. It is especially prevalent in the Hemiptera family key where it sends you to the Odonata section for the genus keys. It seems like the section was lifted from the 3rd edition and pasted in this one without updated the page numbers. All in all a great book, just needed a better review before being released.

A taxonomist's bible
This is the one book for every aquatic insect taxonomist. Any book like this needs constant updating and the editors do this very well. There is no other taxonomic document as comprehensive as this one for North American Insects.The drawings are a real help in the identification of aquatic insects. ... Read more

Product Description
excerpt from CHAPTER I - Suarra
NICHOLAS GRAYDON ran into Starrett in Quito. Rather, Starrett sought him outthere. Graydon had often heard of the big West Coast adventurer, but theirtrails had never crossed. It was with lively curiosity that he opened his doorto his visitor.

Starrett came to the point at once. Graydon had heard the legend of thetreasure train bringing to Pizarro the ransom of the Inca Atahualpa? And thatits leaders, learning of the murder of their monarch by the butcher-boyConquistador, had turned aside and hidden the treasure somewhere in the Andeanwilderness?

Customer Reviews (3)

Free SF Reader
This is a really enjoyable romantic adventure type story.When the aliens, or lost race snake people or women, or whatever you want to call them are more human and nicer than the average blokes running around, the writer has a good thing going.

There is of course a young, attractive female to go with the young bloke good guy adventurer, and an evil Dark Lord, and a battle.Lots of fun if you like that sort of thing.

A BOOK OF REAL MERRITT
Abraham Merritt's "The Face in the Abyss" first appeared as a short story in a 1923 issue of "Argosy" magazine. It would be another seven years before its sequel, "The Snake Mother," appeared in "Argosy," and yet another year before the book-length version combined these two tales, in 1931. It is easy to detect the book's provenance as two shorter stories, as the first third of the novel is pretty straightforward treasure-hunting fare, while the remainder of the book takes a sharp turn into lost-world fantasy, of the kind popularized by H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In this novel we meet Nick Graydon, an American miner, who is searching for lost Incan loot with three of the nastiest compadres you can imagine. In the Peruvian wastes, they come across a mysterious girl, and are led by her toward Yu-Atlanchi, the so-called Hidden Land. Graydon's cohorts suffer a mysterious fate, but Graydon himself goes on to discover Yu-Atlanchi's many wonders. He meets the Snake Mother, one of Merritt's finest creations: a half snake/half girl entity who is countless aeons old and possessed of ancient wisdom. The Snake Mother is similar in nature to the Silent Ones of Merritt's first novel, "The Moon Pool," but is a much more fleshed-out character. It seems that Graydon has stumbled into Yu-Atlanchi just as civil war is about to break out there. Nimir, an evil lord whom the Snake Mother had imprisoned ages ago, has returned, and is intent on using his weapons of mind control and superscience to rule the world. Merritt does ultimately treat us to a nifty battle between the forces of Nimir (aided by his lizard men, dinosaurs and various weapons) and the Snake Mother (aided by her invisible flying lizards and assorted way-out armaments). But before we get to that battle, Merritt also dishes out a dinosaur hunt, a dinosaur race, a tour through the Cavern of Lost Wisdom, a garden of evil, mind control, spirit possession, spider-men (and NOT of the Peter Parker variety!), and some fascinating history of and philosophizing by the Snake Mother. It's all wonderfully pulpy and improbable stuff, but Merritt throws quite a bit into the book to keep the reader well entertained.
On the down side, "The Face in the Abyss" does not feature as much of the wonderful purple prose that made earlier Merritt works such as "The Moon Pool" and "The Metal Monster" so special. This book seems to have been written more quickly and, in some places, almost carelessly. For example, in one scene, the moon is said to be rising from the west! In another, Graydon is said to have only one pistol, under his arm, although the pistol he's had at his waist is never mentioned again. That Cavern of Lost Wisdom seems so easy to come across that it's impossible for the reader to believe that it has been undiscovered for thousands of years. Merritt is also guilty of occasional fuzzy writing in "Face" (such as when he refers to a "three foot parapet"; is that three feet high or three feet wide, or what?), and much of the geography of the incessant tunnel crawling that takes place in the book is hard to follow. But perhaps this is deliberate on Merritt's part. Not all of our questions are concretely answered by the novel's end, and Graydon's theorizing is apparently meant to suffice. But I suppose that this is all nitpicking. What "Face" ultimately does succeed at is in providing action-packed escapism, constant imagination and colorful wonders. What an incredible Hollywood blockbuster this would make! Anyway, as it is, this is yet another fine fantasy from Abraham Merritt.

Not at all what I expected but still a great book
By the title and the chapter names of this book, I expected it to be set in a more Tolkien setting.This book starts out in what I believe to be 20th century South America.When you first read it, you expect a sort of Indiana Jones storyline.Boy does that change in a hurry.I won't spoil the whole story but I will say this, the imagery is fantastic.I was able to picture vividly, so much of what Merritt describes in this book.I will also say that for me, this book went very quicly.Though not a simple book, it is easy to read.What I mean to say is, you can immerse yourself in this title and find yourself finishing it very quickly.I highly recommend it. ... Read more

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This innovative text responds to critiques like the Carnegie Report by giving professors the materials they need to move beyond the case method in upperlevel courses. Instead of edited appellate opinions, this uncasebook gives students focused discussion of the rules, colorful examples based on real cases, excerpts of trial transcripts, and concise analyses. Students report reading the text enthusiastically; they arrive in class ready to deepen their knowledge through practice-based problems, simulations, policy discussions, and other advanced material. A comprehensive teacher?s manual and instructor's website provide sets of these hands on materials for every class. A student-centered website allows students to test their understanding of each chapter. Learning Evidence teaches the Federal Rules of Evidence and introduces sophisticated professional analysis to the basic Evidence course. The book also provides an excellent companion for students using other Evidence texts, as well as those enrolled in clinics or trial practice courses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great text
Really good book; much easier read than most law school casebooks, gets right to the point instead of vague questions!

Wow, great textbook
I never thought I'd leave a review about a casebook or textbook (in fact, I don't think I've ever seen one), but this book is amazingly awesome!If you have the choice to take a professor who teaches from this book, take that professor!
This is not an ordinary casebook: there are very few cases, it reads like a supplement or workbook, and attempts to "teach the basic rules of evidence through textual discussion..."This book has a clear format and includes call-out boxes for Key Concepts, Summaries, Rules, and Cases.The pages are also bright white on strong paper (which I prefer) and has a clean design and font. ... Read more

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In the wilds of the Trans-Himalayan region, a quartet ofadventurers led by Dr. Walter T. Goodwin stumbles upon a tribe ofhuman primitives forgotten since the age of Alexander the Great, andan awesome being of living metal commanded by the exiled Norhala. AsNorhala’s guests, Goodwin and his team witness the mind-bogglingmarvels that are the Metal Monster’s way of life, and the unspeakablehorrors it commits when Norhala takes it to war against herpersecutors.

A. Merritt’s second published novel, TheMetal Monster was first serialized in a pulp fiction magazinein 1920. Its exotic setting and extravagant scientific speculationsmake it a landmark of lost-race fantasy fiction. Dissatisfied with itswriting, Merritt kept his story from book publication until 1946,revising and reshaping it for more than twenty years. This editionreprints for he first time the tale as it was originally published,restoring close to 10,000 words of text Merritt cut from theoriginal. This definitive edition features cover artwork and afrontispiece by famed fantasy artist Virgil Finlay. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Even Merritt was not happy with this book
A. (Abraham) Merritt (1884-1943) is well known to experienced readers of fantasy and science fiction for his eight novels of which the "Metal Monster" was his second.

First published as a serial in a pulp fiction magazine in 1920 author Merritt refused to have it published in book form until 1941. In the introduction to my Hippocampus Press edition the reader is informed that "Merritt was dissatisfied with it's writing and revised and reshaped the story and cut 10,000 words from the text. Undaunted I have read the "restored edition" and I can well appreciate the author's dilemma. After all I was warned, even the author was dissatisfied with the story.


Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, fresh from his adventures in the South Pacific- see Merritt's "The Moon Pool", travels to the Trans-Himalayan region where he discovers "awesome beings of living metal". The author spends over 200 pages attempting to describe these metal beings that suck energy from the sun. The prose is just mind numbing, for example:
"Out from the star shapes was hurled the bolts of emerald and of purple! Out from the crosses whirled and linked saffron and scarlet flame! Forth from the disks flew the blasting globes! The crater was threaded with their lightings- the lightings of the Metal Peoples was broidered with them, was a pit woven with vast and changing patters of electric flames!"

The plot is very basic Dr. Goodwin and his companions are captured by the Metal People, observe and comments upon inexplicable events and escape to tell their story to the world.

One very curious aspect of this story takes place at the very beginning. A. Merritt imports himself into the story as a minor character. He is introduced to Dr. Goodwin as a writer who will chronicle the events of the mysterious journey to the Trans-Himalayan region.

I cannot recommend this book to any but diehard Merritt fans. I found the story uninteresting, difficult to understand and over stuffed with esoteric phrases and description.

Could make a great movie
When Dr. Walter T. Godwin sets out to study a rare flower in Tibet, he has no idea of what adventures await him. Meeting old friends in the secluded Himalayas, he quickly finds himself fleeing from the descendents of a lost Persian Empire city right into the domain of a seemingly omnipotent metal intelligence. This extraterrestrial metal intelligence is made up of a collective composed of living cubes, pyramids and spheres. Even stranger, the intelligence seems to work through a human woman of great beauty, Norhala. This metal intelligence is beyond anything that Godwin and his compatriots can even understand--is humanity about the be replaced as the ruler of the Earth?

OK, this book is a little bit odd at times. He keeps bumping into old friends in the Himalayas, there are descendents of the Persian Empire (a whole city, in fact) that no one knows about, and the ending is something of a deus ex machina. However, for having been written in 1920, this book is quite good! Though the storyline needs a fair amount of suspension of disbelief, it is quite entertaining. Also, when the metal intelligence forms shapes out of its cubes, pyramids and spheres, I couldn't help but think that modern special effects would turn this into quite an excellent movie.

So, overall I do recommend this book.

Futurist poetry
The plot is nonsense even by pulp standards.The ending is extremely unsatisfying.The protagonist is passive and reactive.THe interpersonal drama is wooden and extremely hokey.

But the book is BRILLIANT.Page after page of super-imaginative futuristic poetry -of the highest quality.It reminds me of Untameables.

I would highly recomend this book to painters, artists, and those with an interested in futurism.

A "must own" Lost Race novel for Weird Fiction fans
5.5" x 8.5" softcover book. 237 pages.

Of great important to readers of weird fiction is the first installment in Hippocampus Press' Lovecraft's Library series. Aimed at reprinting texts that H. P. Lovecraft read and admired, the inclusion of Abraham Merritt's The Metal Monster should come as a shock to no one.

Set in the Trans-Himalayan mountains, a group of four explorers uncover a lost-race, their power-crazed leader Norhala, and the metal homunculus Norhala controls. More akin to the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard than to Lovecraft, Merritt's concept of writing a "nexus where scientific theory and occult mystery intersected" seems philosophically aligned with Lovecraft's own aesthetic of the weird. Readers will surely notice certain similarities between Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness and The Metal Monster.

Though The Metal Monster should feel dated, it surprisingly seems as innovative and fresh today as it must have upon first publication. The lesson learned, it would seem, is that a great author is able to create works that transcend time.

ANOTHER WINNING FANTASY BY A. MERRITT
Abraham Merritt's second novel, "The Metal Monster," first saw the light of day in 1920, in "Argosy" magazine. It was not until 1946 that this masterful fantasy creation was printed in book form. In a way, this work is a continuation of Merritt's first novel, "The Moon Pool" (1919), as it is a narrative of America's foremost botanist, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin, narrator of that earlier adventure as well. As Goodwin tells us, he initially set out on this second great adventure to forget the terrible incidents of the first; if anything, however, the events depicted in "The Metal Monster" are at least as mindblowing as those in the earlier tale. While Goodwin had encountered underground civilizations, frogmen, battling priestesses and a living-light entity in the earlier tale, this time around he discovers, in the Trans-Himalayan wastes of Tibet, a surviving Persian city, a half-human priestess, AND an entire civilization made up of living, metallic, geometric forms; an entire city of sentient cubes, globes and tetrahedrons, capable of joining together and forming colossal shapes, and wielding death rays and other armaments of destruction. As in the earlier tale, Goodwin is joined in his epic adventure by a small group of can-do individuals that he meets in the most unlikely, godforsaken areas of the world. This time around, it's a brother-and-sister team of scientists, as well as the son of one of Goodwin's old science buddies.
The sense of awe and wonder so crucial to good adventure fantasy is of a very high order in this book. Goodwin & Co., in one of the book's best set pieces, explore the living city of metal, and witnessthe life forms feeding off the sun, reproducing, and preparing for war. Later on, Merrittt treats us to a titanic battle between the metal folk and the lost Persians, as well as an hallucinatory cataclysm at the novel's end. Indeed, much of the book IS hallucinatory, with the metal shapes coalescing and morphing like crazy Transformers gone wild. A book by A. Merritt would be nothing without his hyperstylized, lush purple prose, and in this tale, his gift for somewhat prolix prose is given full vent. At times these incessant descriptions wear a bit thin, and at others they paradoxically fail to stir up pictures in the reader's mind eye. (I defy anyone, for example, to say that he/she was able to fully visualize Goodwin & Co.'s initial nighttime entry into the city of the metal people.) For the most part, though, these descriptions are amazing. Just take this one small sample. Whereas other writers might simply say that Goodwin entered a chamber with multicolored lights, here's what Merritt gives us:
"...a limitless temple of light. High up in it, strewn manifold, danced and shone soft orbs like tender suns. No pale gilt luminaries of frozen rays were these. Effulgent, jubilant, they flamed--orbs red as wine of rubies that Djinns of Al Shiraz press from his enchanted vineyards of jewels; twin orbs rose white as breasts of pampered Babylonian maids; orbs of pulsing opalescences and orbs of the murmuring green of bursting buds of spring, crocused orbs and orbs of royal coral; suns that throbbed with singing rays of wedded rose and pearl and of sapphires and topazes amorous; orbs born ofcool virginal dawns and of imperial sunsets and orbs that were the tuliped fruit of mating rainbows of fire...."
Almost like prose poetry, isn't it? With writing like this, a well-thought-out plot, exotic settings and some great action sequences, "The Metal Monster" does indeed live up to its rep as a fantasy classic. There ARE some unanswered questions by the book's end, but that only adds to the aura of cosmic mystery that Merritt has built up. The book is a winner, indeed. ... Read more

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Look at testing from a different perspective - for ALL students, for students who operate in different learning styles, for those who already test out of standardized tests, for those who need or surpass classroom and district benchmarks. CD includes all rubrics and customizable rubric. The work is done for you! Includes 134 ready-to-use rubrics in all subject areas plus directions for how-to-write your own quality rubrics. Narrative topics include assessment terms, standardized testing, alternative assessment, standards, and benchmarks. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An introduction to William Merritt Chase
Author Barbara Gallati has compiled a nice biography of one of America's talented impressionist artists.The story is well written but seeing only 44 color illustrations of the 103 shown is disappointing. Presenting the "Blue Kimono" in color on the cover and in black and white is quite a comparison. I kept looking for information on the number of pieces Chase painted in his career but that was not listed. This 143 page book is a little small for my personal taste.

What is presented however are many portraits of the artist's beautiful family members and well known pictures of Central Park in New York and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. There aren't a lot of books available on William Merrit Chase but this one is good. ... Read more

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