Customer Reviews (1)

Strongly recommended reading for fans of the genre
Robert Weinberg is one of the most talented authors writing in the horror fantasy genre today. Dial Your Dreams is an impressive and welcome anthology showcasing fourteen of his stories, -- some new, some vintage. Strongly recommended reading for fans of the genre, these timeless tales including Ro Erg; Endure the Night; Three Steps Back; The Midnight El; Terror by Night; The Apocalypse Quatrain; Seven Drops of Blood; The Silent Majority; Unfinished Business; Riverworld Roulette; Wolf Watch; Chant; Elevator Girls; and the title piece, Dial Your Dreams. ... Read more

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Released from three millennia of imprisonment, the spirit of an ancient Egyptian priest seeks to reunite the two halves of his soul--sundered as a punishment for a crime he did not commit--but his plan could kill millions. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Clever Collection of Short Crime Stories
I have the greatest respect for the author's of these short-order detective stories.It's hard enough to craft all the elements of such a tale, setting up a mystery, offering clues, planting red herrings, developing the culprit's character well enough to make us care without giving the story away, and so on.Doing all of this in a short short format is more impressive still.

My favorites from this collection:

Jon L. Breen's "Affirmative Action" tells how new personnel practices are received by an old and very traditional organization.

Jack London's "The Leopard Man's Story" warns us not to sniff at someone who is ripe for revenge.

R. K. Munkittrick's "The Sign of the `400'" takes us on another case with crime-solving veterans Holmes and Watson, who solve the mystery with clever efficiency.

Bret Harte's "The Stolen Cigar-Case" presents another adventure of his oddly-familiar Hemlock Jones detective, who solves a case with the help of an old friend.

Abraham Lincoln's "The Trailor Murder Mystery" shares an odd tale of the disappearance of a Springfield man and the subsequent trial of his accused murderers.

This may not be the very best collection of detective tales, but it contains some good stories.It is worth borrowing from your local library for several nights of reading enjoyment.

GOOD GUYS/GALS VS. THE BAD FOLKS
This is an interesting collection of little, brief detective stories, edited by Weinberg, Dziemianowiz and Greenberg, that include a lot of unknown writers that date back to the 30's and 40's; many of whom wrote for detective and men's magazines.There are some old standbys like Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, Walt Sheldon, Stephen Leacock, Bret Harte, Jack London and even Abraham Lincoln. I found some praiseworthy stories in the collection and better than average writing with some of the authors.This is a great book when you have 5-15 minutes leisurely time, like waiting for the dentist, a short stay on a bus, or taking the place of one of Uncle John's bathroom books.I found the tales entertaining, even some of the stories thought-provoking, and well worth the few bucks.

fun to just pick up and read
"100 Dastardly Little Detective Stories" selected by Robert H. Weinberg, Stefan Dziemianowicz & Martin H. Greenberg, © 1993

There are so many stories in this book I do not know if I read them all.It was fun to just pick up and read for ten or fifteen minutes a story, sit back and think about what happened in it, and read the next one.The pause to think is important because the stories are so good you want to savor the situation, the conclusion, the characters, etc.Some of the stories were a bit confusing, but not so much that you had to reread them to understand what happened, but just enough to make you ponder the story more to make sure you got it right.
I would comment on all the stories, but the number makes that unmanageable.The quality of the stories is superb.Every story has you rooting for the hero and you, sort of, know that the hero will really win through, either killing the bad guys or finding the killer or robber.The oddest author is Abraham Lincoln.The oddest placement is "Anchor the Stiff," page 27,which is way before the story "A Friend of Davy Jones,'" page 218.The arrangement of stories is alphabetical (Anchor is before Friend), but these two stories the second, in the character's time line, should be first.Of course, there a numerous Sherlock Holmes stories or knock offs (Shamrock Jolnes, Thinlock Bones, etc.).The oddest, and one of the confusing stories I mentioned, is "The Stolen Cigar-Case" by Bret Harte(!!?? did he not write westerns), with Hemlock Jones of Brooks Street, as the detective.It makes some fun of the power of deduction and what not that is Sherlock Holmes' peculiar penchant, but in the end you realize that it was all true and you have to stop to reread the ending to realize Mr. Jones was right in his deductions.
There were times when I would pick a story out to read and realize that I had read it once or even twice before, but that was okay, because they were really interesting and worth reading again to find the killer and they are not long stories to read.

Delicious, Dastardly , And Delightful
The 100 stories in this book cover just over 150 years of writing and writing styles.The earliest was written in 1843 by an up and coming young politician.The young mystery writer was named Abraham Lincoln and, I'mafraid, that it was his name, not the quality of his piece of fiction, thatwarranted its inclusion in this anthology.It's not that bad, but it'smore of a story of a near miscarriage of justice than one centering ondetectives or good detection.In Lincoln's favor, however, is that thefact that the genre was still in its infancy, this story having beenwritten only a very few years after Poe, the first writer of the real shortmystery fiction had introduced the first fictional detective, C. AugusteDupin.

I have to admit to being somewhat puzzled by the conclusion drawnby another reviewer of this book who has opined that the book "doesn'tdeliver on its premise."What it promises are short detective storiesof a scope covering the last century and a half which have been written bya number of the better writers of that period.This is exactly what itdelivers.

There are stories written by James M. Barrie (he of "PeterPan" fame), O. Henry (who practically invented the surprise ending andis probably best known for "Gift of the Magi"), Charles Dickens, Jack London, Bret Harte, and on and on.

Writing styles change with timeand the detective genre is no exception.A number of the stories arewritten in the first person, the narrator being the hard-boiled type whorefers to all women as "this dame."In contrast, some of theprotagonists are thoughtful and analytic while others are gentlemanly menof action.

I never like to end a review of an anthology without pickingout at least one selection and telling a little about it.Here goes: "Murder at Rose Cottage" by Edward D. Hoch is a rather genteelBritish murder mystery.Although of rather recent vintage, it has the feelof something written in an earlier era.There is a murder, but it takesplace "off-stage" and there are no gory descriptions ordepictions of acts of violence.The murder is solved by an inspector fromScotland Yard who uses deductive reasoning and common sense to figure out"who dunnit."I was impressed by his attitude when he statedthat "Death threats are always important."In early twenty-firstcentury America, it is my impression that the prevailing police attitude isthat no threat to a common person is worth investigating."If there'sa warm body, we might deign to take a look" seems, to me, to betterdescribe the reaction that one would probably run into.Wouldn't it benice to live in a world, like the one in this story, where authoritiesconsider keeping us common folk alive every bit as important as catchingand prosecuting a suspect in a celebrity crime?

The depiction of thosesimpler days of more caring attitudes is one of the things that gives thisbook its charm.As I've stated about a few other books and movies thatI've reviewed, this book is not for the type of reader who needs blood,gore, and a thrill a minute to keep his or her interest.It is well worthreading as escape literature for someone who appreciates seeing an analyticmind at work and who prefers his crimes in a relatively non-violentsetting.

Doesn't deliver on its premise.
What a disappointment. Many of the stories are from the thirties and forties, and they sound like it. Unless you're really into the pulp classic writing(and I'm not) you've probably never heard of most of the authors. All in all, I found it a waste of time reading this book ... Read more

Product Description
What is postmodernism and is it a useful concept for understanding American art and visual culture of the past 40 years? When and to what extent did modernism wane as a viable force in American art? How have the various liberation movements, from civil rights to feminism, influenced American art and culture and contributed to the rejections of the modernist ethos? How has globalism changed American art and culture? How have the new technologies of the past 50 years--television, personal computers, the Internet--altered the nature of progressive art in the United States? Are any of these changes innately postmodern? These issues and more were debated during the two week online conference The Modern/Postmodern Dialectic: American Art and Culture, 1965-2000, held on the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum website during Octobert 2001. Postmodernism: A Virtual Discussion features the edited proceedings, with contribution from an international group of scholars, artists, and curators, including Dan Cameron, Donna DeSalvo, Wendy Ewald, Chrissie Iles, Catherine Lord, Olu Oguibe, Yvonne Rainer, and Robert Rosenblum.

Edited by Maurice Berger.
Contributionsby Robert Rosenblum, Michelle Wallace, Maxwell Anderson, Catherine Lord, Jonathan Weinberg, Olu Oguibe, Michael Leja, Dan Cameron, Yvonne Rainer, Donna deSalvo, Simon Leung, Chrissie Iles, Jennifer Gonzalez, Wendy Ewald, Kellie Jones, David Ross, and Jerry Saltz. ... Read more

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Twenty-something Judy Carmody is a total hacker, the best in the Internet security business. But even Judy has never seen anything like this--a cyber-heist that instantly vaporizes the assets of a major bank. Penetrating all state-of-the-art defenses in the dead of night, someone is using a mysterious new code to empty accounts, leaving no trail.

The masterminds have thought of everything--including the elimination of every hacker who might be able to stop them. As Judy desperately hurries to crack the deadly code, she uncovers secrets that reach the highest levels of power--secrets that jeopardize the security and privacy of every citizen . . . ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

Thrilling book

This book is a great thriller. My brother and I could not put it down.

Cyber Crime Predicted in Advance by a great Thriller
I could not put this book down.It was full of suspense and predicted cyber crime before people knew that it was possible. I highly recommend it.

This Book Predicted Cyber-Crime Years Before It happened!
I read this book when it came out in 1999 and thought it was an entertaining but unrealistic view of the future of computers.I found it interesting that many of the reveiwers claimed they knew so much about computers and all of them seemed to think that the authors' predictions were way out of line.Several of the reviewers went out of their way to point out how much smarter they were than the two writers who had composed the book. Well, all of those hot-shot reviewers are gone and so is their laughter.During the past several years, this book has become famous as the most accurate account of computer crime ever to appear in a novel.

Recently, the Federal Government released a report stating that over $2 billion had been stolen over the internet by hackers breaking into personal accounts and stealing money from everyday people.That's when I re-read THE TERMINATION NODE and discovered that Gresh and Weinberg had predicted all of the recent problems involving internet robbery five years ago.Though the book never received much coverage in science sections, it should have been on the front pages of newspapers throughout the country.Most citizens still have no idea how vulnerable their bank accounts are to hackers.Maybe it'll take a $50 billion dollar heist like the one in this book to convince everyone that they need to protect their internet investments better. This is a book every person worried about 21st century crime should read!

Good Tech Novel...Keeps you interested
I'm a techie...this is an enjoyable novel for a techie...check it out...

Duh.
If you're reading this review, you've probably read this book before. Just under a different title, and by a different author.

There are at least a half-dozen fairly popular books that have all followed this same formula before, and it's starting to wear a little thin. Brilliant hacker who lives in California (doesn't everyone live in CA?) gets caught up in some kind of major computer-crime incident, inevitably involving all the TLA government spook agencies (FBI, CIA, NSA, etc., although this book goes one better and even invents its own such agency: The ISD, or Internet Security Department), and manages to single-handedly solve everything by breaking into seemingly every computer on the planet.

The Termination Node stands out in my memory, though, as the most tech-heavy of the techno-novels I've read. The authors aren't afraid of showing you command-line entries where they use commands like netstat or ping, which seems kind of refreshing, since it seems to indicate that the authors actually know something about computers. (Actually Lois Gresh is allegedly a real-life computer expert, which is probably what makes the difference.)

But what makes this book so incredibly annoying, so exasperatingly stupid, is how easily the protagonist can crack into systems. She uses a variety of tricks which almost sound sort of plausible because they borrow from some real-world elements, but are just plain dumb when you think about it. A great example of this is the "blue box" which she uses at one point while making a phone call. No, she's not using it to make a 2600 Hz tone; The "blue box" in this book is a device which makes your phone number untraceable, by using loop lines. Huh? How are loop lines (which really do exist, and really are used for testing purposes as the book states) supposed to help you prevent someone from tracing your phone number? If you have any idea what the authors are talking about, this kind of impossibility just makes you want to scream. And if you don't understand the techno-talk, then the book will fly right over your head anyway and you won't enjoy it.

It really illustrates a serious problem authors have when they try to create a book like this: The need to strike a balance between actually sounding technological, and being appealing to a broad audience. I appreciate this difficulty, and the book does try hard to do the impossible. Ultimately it was a fun read, which is why I'm giving it 3 stars. ... Read more

Product Description
When Jack Collins answers an ad asking for a young man with a background in mathematics and fantastic literature, he finds himself working for the legendary Merlin and battling an evil computer hacker who has summoned an ancient demon to terrorize Chicago. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

logic over superstition, light over darkness...
Twenty-seven years old Jack Collins, weary of being a mathematics graduate teaching aide and in dire need of an income, answers an odd advertisement and ends up working for Merlin the Magician, who has gotten with the times and currently fronts himself as a prognosticator of stocks and bonds. Merlin explains that Jack's new position is nothing less than being the champion of humanity, selected to face off against the ever-marshalling forces of darkness. But no sooner does Jack hire on than Merlin and his office aide Megan (who we quickly find is more than a mere office aide) are kidnapped, leaving Jack to fend for himself against the minions of darkness, armed with just an enchanted ATM card. To make it worse, Jack learns that there just might be a malefic Old God - to wit, the Lord of the Lions - back in town. Add to that the fact that he becomes suspected of being a drug lord by the campus head of security and that his students can't seem to grasp the fundamentals of Calculus 101...well, Jack's got problems.

Included in Robert Weinberg's body of work is a lighthearted urban fantasy series starring Jack Collins, comprising of two novels titled The Logical Magician and A Calculated Magic. There was to be a third - titledSubtract One Sorcerer - but unfortunately was never published, due to changing market tastes.In the series, Weinberg supposes that the human collective subconscious, down thru the ages, powered with the sheer power of belief, has made all its superstitions come into actual being. Thus, in this modern age of reason and technology, there are thousands of mythical and supernatural creatures co-existing in silence amongst us.

The main character has a mathematics background and a certain knowledge of fantasy literature, and he uses those assets and his innate common sense to find solutions grounded in logic to exploit the given weaknesses of his various magical adversaries. The methods Jack employs in eventually triumphing over a vampire and a will-o-the-wisp, in particular, showcase his practical savvy.

Not as outright goofy or pun-filled as Robert Asprin's Skeeve and Aahz series or Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, A Logical Magician (and its sequel) still lets loose its share of comedic moments while maintaining a certain gravitas to the proceedings. A Logical Magician is diverting stuff and is definitely worth a look-see. I myself give it 3 and a half stars.

A word of caution: this book was later reprinted as A Modern Magician. Buyer, beware.

Joint Review of A Logical Magician and A Calculating Magic
This is an entertaining and lighthearted pair of fantasy novels.As with other books of this type, the basic premise is that magical and mythical creatures continue to live among us.Weinberg finds witty ways to integrate the magical into ordinary life.The magician Merlin is a financial consultant, wood nymphs inhabit shopping malls, etc.The hero is a young mathematician who uses logic and knowledge of modern society to vanquish the villains.Of these two books, A Calculating Magic is the more amusing with better character development and clever use of Norse and Arabic mythology.The major joke at the end of A Calculating Magic is particularly clever.These books are hard to find but well worth a few dollars in a used book store.

Getting Lost Has Never Been Better
I first came across this book at the age of 13; a friend had lent it to me after buying it from the drugstore as an impulse purchase at the counter bookrack. At first I simply regarded it as some nightly reading material that would put me to sleep and nothing more. As I delved deeper into the novel I found myself gladly lost in Weinberg's characters and scenarios. Weinberg was able to take the fantasy of every science fiction fan and turn it into a lovable story filled with conspiracy, adventure and intrigue. Unfortunately I have not been able to find this novel again after my first time reading it. My friend has since become yet another alienated soul from my childhood and the novel is long lost on the bookshelf of a bitter old girlfriend. But fond memories of reading this novel and enjoying every time consuming minute remain. Every aspect from when Jack Collins steps into Merlin's modern yet modest office to when he found himself being seduced by a fantastic Succubus has been engraved into my memory. It's unfortunate that I can no longer find any copy of this novel, especially now at an older, and hopefully wiser, age when I can better appreciate what was already a marvelous story to begin with. With plenty of references to old Fantasy style characters, and environments only read about alongside such devices as knights, dragons and maidens, Weinberg creates for us an idiot's guide to fantasy novels. Placing, what we call, Science Fiction into reality and having a logical and practical man play the part of the hero gives us the opportunity to listen to him ask questions about the plot rather than leave the SF challenged in the dark. Definitely a good book you can't put down and walk away from.

Magic all the way......
I came across this book in my local Safeway, and since then it has earned an extremely special place in my bookshelf as well as in my heart!

I have rated this book 5 stars, but if I were given the option I would puthundreds more, to do "A Logical Magician" justice.

Loved it!
This book has been reprinted as A Modern Magician, had no trrouble getting it myself ... Read more

Product Description
The criminals in this entertaining collection of stories really know how to make the punishment fit the crime. An anthology of agonizingly exquisite tales from the pens of Saki, David H. Keller, Thomas Ligotti, and other masters of the mystery genre. Prepare yourself for the unimaginable. You may think you like horror stories, but these aren't your average tales of things that go bump in the night. These are gripping accounts of perversion. These are awful stories of getting trapped in an elevator (Garry Kilworth's "The Elevator"), a terrifying car ride (Arthur Conan Doyle's "How It Happened"), or a vampire (Alan Ryan's "Onawa"). Test your stoicism; see if you can get through all of the 100 Twisted Little Tales of Torment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Top Notch Torment!!
I think that 100 Twisted Tales of Torment is probably the most unique of the '100 tales' anthologies by Barnes and Noble,a shame it's been out-of-print for over 10 years I bought it back in 1998-1999.The stories in this anthology are basically revenge stories which is where the word 'torment'comes into play.Remember Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'?the part in the story when the killer keeps hearing the heartbeat and he goes insane and confesses to the murdering of the old man?that's a good example in comparison to some of these twisted tales.Highly Recommended :) ... Read more

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"Entertaining and informative."
––Julius Schwartz, Editor Emeritus, DC Comics

Praise for The Science ofSuperheroes

"We comics fans have known it for years, of course: somewhere, in some nether dimension or on some alternate world, there is an Earth on which superheroes are real . . . and now Lois Gresh and Bob Weinberg have shown us how that’s possible. To paraphrase an old DC Comics feature: Science says you’re wrong if you believe that The Science of Superheroes isn’t more fun than a barrel of genetically altered winged monkeys."
–– Roy Thomas, writer and editor of X-Men, Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Superman, Justice League of America, Legion of Superheroes, Star Wars, and many other comic book classics

"Weinberg and Gresh tell it like it is–– and how it would be, if our favorite comic book characters actually existed. The Science of Superheroes is a fascinating and entertaining examination of everything from astrophysics to genetic biology to the evolution of the ‘superhero.’ "
–– Mark Powers, editor of X-Men and Uncanny X-Men

The Science of Superheroes takes a lighthearted but clear-headed look at the real science that underlies some of the greatest superhero comic books of all time, including Spider-Man, Batman, Fantastic Four, and many more.Each chapter presents the story of the origin of one or more superheroes and asks intriguing questions that lead to fascinating discussions about the limits of science, the laws of nature, and the future of technology.

If gamma rays can’t turn a 128-pound weakling into the Incredible Hulk, what could?Are Spider-Man’s powers really those of a spider?Could a person ever breathe water like a fish?From telepathy to teleportation, from cloning to cosmic rays, this vastly entertaining romp through the nexus of science and fantasy separates the possible from the plausible and the barely plausible from the utterly ridiculous. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Comics + Science = Geek Heaven
What a great idea for a book - would super heroes powers work in the real world, and if so, how? A well thought out book that covers a wide spectrum of ideas, with a surprising final chapter on the genius of Carl Barks - a comic book/sci-fi geek nerd like myself LOVES getting more comic book trivia to "show off" at the next convention.

Perhaps a bit too much time spent explaining stars and black holes...it was well done, but went a little overboard, taking up room that could have been dedicated to the possibility of Adamantium, or an explanation of how a character could fly, or why super heros seem to have white eyes...

In summary, a really fun read.

Lazy, Inconsistent, Outdated on the Science side / Condescending, Annoying on the Super-hero side
I can only echo what the 2stars or lower reviewers said:

This is a lazily-written book that craps all over an interesting premise.Too much time on origin stories (apparently to bloat the page-count), when 95% of the target audience knows all this stuff.

If you're a comics fan who wants to know what's possible, impossible and if there's "any way these things could happen," you'll come away very dissapointed.The only part that rises above itself is the alternative, more plausible explanation for the Hulk's origins.

The X-Men chapter is awful (for an evolution vs creatonism 'debate,' google it, and any random piece will be better written).

Even the science is off, or at least not followed through.While the Square-Cubed Law is touched on (why Ant Men and Giant Ants will never happen), the same rules/restrictions are not factored into the issue of super-strength.I know why Spider-Man has almost nothign to do with a "six foot spider".But tell me why he (or any human sized living creature) is prohibited from "pressing 10 tons" (Marvel Universe stat).Or are they?

Too much of this book is about why all this is "impossible", using 9th grade physics.But none of it, or virtually none of it, exlores how it _could be_.

How strong could an Iron Man be in reality?If we could somehow alter the genes to strength bones/muscle, how powerful could a Spider-Man type be?Is there any way to circumvent Sqaure-Cube Law, or the restrictions of size-scaling?THAT'S what I wanted to hear about.

Buy it if it's avaialable used for a buck or two, but otherwise you'll be really dissapointed.

Great Popular Sciece Book
I found this to be a great popular science book that uses the interesting angle of "explaining" how there could be scientific explanations to what comic superheroes can do.A great way to learn both about science and about superheroes.

Informative and Entertaining
Fascinating, informative and entertaining book that speculates about
the possibilities that some of the superpowers that superheroes have
may be grounded in possible scientific explanations.A great way to be
entertained, while learning various interesting science and technology.

Highly original and informative book. Fun to read
If you ever wondered if superheroes or supervillains can really exist, the Science of Superheroes and the Science of Supervillains are great books to read. The books are well written and entertaining. The Science of Superheroes was the first of its kind.Other books by other authors dealing with the similar issues, such as the Physics of Superheroes, have copied many of the ideas which were first presented in this classic.This classicand original book still beats all of the other imitations that followed it.
It is great reading. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (12)

Refutes no facts, only makes excuses
This is a strange book. It fails to refute any of the facts that have been marshalled by others to show that the United States did nothing to rescue the Jews of Europe despite the fact that they knew about the Holocaust. It makes the claim that virtually undisputed history of the era -- that the U.S. was indifferent to the plight of the Jews -- is somehow "revisionist" -- without any explanation or support. All it does, in the end, is make excuses for each of Roosevelt's failures. And lame excuses they are. Nobody disputes where the State Department's priorities were; nobody disputes that Roosevelt knew what was going on and failed to intervene; nobody disputes that Roosevelt knelt to kiss Ibn Saud's feet. Saying that the country's mood was "against immigration" is hardly an academic refutation of the mainstream view of history: that Roosevelt and his administration knew of the systematic murder of the Jews and made a conscious choice to allow it to happen.

Hagiography - Franklin D Roosevelt.
Impossible for me to agree with the Cohen review. Franklin D Roosevelt was as interested in saving the Jews as I am in saving the Australian Funnel-Web Spider. Why, if FDR claimed that so "many of my friends are Jewish", was he busy during the pre-war years lobbying to keep Jews out of Harvard? That alone is an indication of his aims - leaving aside the manner in which America - led by FDR - watched while most of Europe's Jews were stripped of citizenship, livelihood, professions, all human dignity;then starved, ghettoized, and finally murdered in cold blood. Wake up: This man and his people allowed 75% of Europe's Jews to be annihilated while they certainly had more than enough power to stop the persecution and the process. Sheila McLaren.

Roosevelt did NOTHING to help the Jews
All one has to do is to read about what he did with the St. Louis.That in itself is unforgiveable. He knew what was happening, he knew about the train tracks and what did he do?Nothing. There was a strong isolationist feeling in the U.S., and pro-German sentiment as well, and he was up for re-election.So much for him.

His wife begged him to let in the people on the St. Louis.She deserves the credit for caring about humanity; FDR, none.

Uneven, But a Very Good Place to Start
There has long been a myth that Franklin D. Roosevelt in effect ignored the Jews of Europe in 1933-45 when in fact he might well have saved most of them.Older books that treat with the topic have developed this myth to the point that it has become a "popular fact," along with the one about knowing in advance about Pearl Harbor, or giving Eastern Europe away to Stalin without a fight.FDR was hardly perfect and had some serious failures mixed with his monumental successes; but the "popular facts" mentioned above are blatant rubbish, and in the case of the salvation of the Jews, Robert N. Rosen has made a major contribution to the debunking process.(Fortunately, newer general biographies of FDR - e.g. those by Jean Arthur Smith and Conrad Black (both very much worth reading) - are no longer repeating these shabby legends, but they persist nonetheless.)

Rosen's is primarily a scholarly approach:Citations abound and the references used comprise a formidable list indeed.And on that basis alone this is a magnificent first encounter with its topic, especially for one who has the interest and resources to pursue the matter further via the bibliographic material.Though not particularly even-handed in its treatment, Rosen's book nevertheless is very clear when it comes to what Roosevelt tried to do, what he in fact achieved and what he didn't, and in each case why things went as they did.And Rosen is not above faulting FDR in matters where Rosen feels there is fault, though he hardly belabors these elements (as he does in a few cases of the opposite assessment).

But the book is not overly well written for general reading; the style is abrupt, sometimes fairly mechanical, occasionally repetitious, and too often a bit awkward when viewed primarily from a literary vantage.In short, Rosen is a brilliant scholar and a magnificent researcher; he is not however a terribly good writer.(Lord Black has somewhat the same problem in his monumental biography, but not even remotely on the same level.)

In addition there are a few proof-reading lapses that it would be well to fix, lest readers who know better confuse errors of minutiae with errors of real substance.As examples, Governor Herbert Lehman was not "Herman" (p.21); Vice-President John Nance Garner was not "James" (p.135); and Robert H. Jackson was not one of the judges at the Nuremberg Tribunal, he was the chief prosecutor (p.206).

In summary, Rosen's book is a superb treatment of its topic in terms of depth of fact and support for the material, and in solidly-researched debunking of persistent myths that really ought never to have been allowed to grow in the first place.Rosen's work could, however, do with a bit of touch-up in places, and perhaps a bit of help with the mechanics of narrative would have made it a smoother read for the non-scholar.

Wyman Comparison
Directly after reading David Wyman's "The Abandonment of the Jews," I read this work by Rosen. While Wyman dedicated all of his book to a thorough examination of policies only concerning Jewish rescue, Zionism, State Department conferences, bombing, the voyage of the St. Louis, etc. between 1941 and 1945, Rosen feels compelled to write the following less scholastic, more subjective "Roosevelt could not understand Adolf Hitler and thought him insane" on page 2. On page 495, for example, he wastes more words with "Neither FDR nor the leaders of American Jewry were perfect" and "Roosevelt had sworn to utterly destroy the Axis war machine". I was encouraged to see Rosen start in 1933, but quotations like this set a trend for an agenda. Ironically, it is Rosen who writes to refute Wyman's "agenda" of revisionism. The mind-reading that Rosen frequently relies on subordinates his history to Wyman's, not their feelings about Roosevelt.Page 446 is the low point: Rosen writes a mock letter to "St. Louis" refugees to show Roosevelt's conflict of interests. I found here that Rosen considered winning an argument more important than tact and taste. Does he even win the argument about the St. Louis?

He certainly supplies all readers with enough information about bombing Auschwitz to convince us just how big of a mistake that would have been. And he does a great job of showing us why Roosevelt, rightly, resisted these bombings out of hand.

Perhaps the most enlightening aspect of this history is the Jewish effort to attack Great Britian, lest Winston Churchill appease Near Eastern Arabs and Indian Muslims by so strictly limiting Jewish access to Palestine. The Irgun discussion, although obviously very important, was somehow not a priority for Wyman.

Other issues would seem to put the conflicted sides to this argument on the same page. The US State Department, the Bermuda Conference, and especially Breckenridge Long, to the extent that even the president has limited power, are the real villains here. Although "Abandonment" and "Saving" are idealogically opposed and marketed as such, the facts within both texts make those errors and indifferences a consensus.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Best Dracula-themed anthology ever!
This morning, for the umpteenth time, I looked for reviews of the excellent collection of vampire stories Rivals of Dracula. I love this short story collection and want to see what others think.

But today, as usual, I found nothing. As close to Nada as it gets. A single short review on amazon.

So if nobody else will laud this anthology, I will! I love it! Forget the vampire romances & erotica so popular these days (Stephanie Meyer was not the first, and certainly not the worst). Try some real horror!

Here is what you will find in this marvelous 378 page volume:

The Yougoslaves, by Robert Bloch - A gang of youthful pickpockets choose the wrong man -- the very wrong, very old man -- to rob as he strolls the streets of the City of Lights. They can keep his cash and credit cards, but he descends to their lair in the sewers of Paris because he cannot be without his old, ruby-studded key.

Much at Stake, by Kevin J. Anderson, uses opium and heroin to create a face-to-face meeting between Bela Lugosi and Vlad Tepes during the filming of Lugosi's Dracula. With Lugosi's misconceptions of Tepes's history based on popular literature and Tepes's misconception of Lugosi's identity and ability to grant absolution, the story looks not only at celebrity, but also at the desires and self-images celebrities hold of themselves.
- the above is taken from Steven Silver's review of Anderson's collection Dogged Persistence,
[...]

Voivode, by Douglas Borton. Excerpts from the journal of a screenwriter traveling through Bucharist and Romania looking for background and atmosphere for his Dracula screenplay.

The Lady of the House of Love, by Angela Carter. Atmospheric tale of the queen of the vampires as she meets up with a British officer bicycling through Romania on the brink of the Great War. You can hear it read at Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast.

Dracula on the Rocks: An Irene Adler Adventure by Carole Nelson Douglas. An epistolary story. Sherlock Holmes' foil, and the only woman he ever came close to loving, treads the boards in Warsaw, where she has a close encounter with a Very Old Count.

The Wind Breathes Cold, by P.N. Elrod. I got hooked on Elrod's 30's noir detective vampire, Jack Fleming. This short story introduces her other great vampire character, Quincey Morris, the American suitor to Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker's original Dracula. In that novel, Morris is the only one of the vampire killers to die during the final battle with the Count. Elrod resurrects him, in the most likely manner possible.

Dracula 1944 by Edward D. Hoch. The tale of a German officer posted to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the waning months of WWII.

Like a Pilgrim to the Shrine, by Brian Hodge. The warm Gulf coast sets the stage for this story of a vampire who raises quite a bloody ruckus, trying to get the attention of the maker of them all, the original Count. A look at vampires in the Everglades, questioning their existence. Not quite Lestat and Louis, but a nice take on existential ennui.

Nunc Dimittis, by Tanith Lee. Tanith Lee is the author of my favorite girl-coming-of-age story, The Silver Metal Lover. If you are Catholic and know the prayer the Nunc Dimittis, this story of an old vampire and her faithful servant will resonate. Last sentence in the story: "How he had loved her."

Cult, by Warner Lee. Edward Long, deprogrammer extraordinaire, takes on a client who wants his wife retrieved from the Church of Seven. "There is only one thing... You must take her in the daylight." "Why?" "They sleep then. At night they are all awake."

Drink My Blood, by Richard Matheson. Matheson is an insanely prolific writer of wildly imaginative fantasy, horror and science fiction (he drives writers like myself to the abuse of adverbs!). His novels & stories are eminently filmable: I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, The Shrinking Man (filmed as The Incredible Shrinking Man), Stir of Echoes, Somewhere in Time, Hell House (filmed as The Legend of Hill House), Duel (Stephen Spielberg's directorial debut). Drink My Blood is a short little gem about 12-year old Jules whose English essay "My Ambition" begins, "When I grow up I want to be a vampire." Funny story with a bite.

Red Reign, by Kim Newman. One of Newman's alternate history stories. Features Inspector Lestrade, Dr. Jack Seward, Kathy Eddowes, Queen Victoria, Nicola Tesla, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and other characters both fictional and real.

Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu, by Norman Partridge. The second story featuring Quincey Morris. This one is poignant, with a bitter aftertaste.

Night Cries, by Daniel Ransom. The dedication says it all: For Mickey Spillane.

Cardula's Revenge, by Jack Ritchie. The only anagram stories I like are humorous ones. This one is.

Last Call for the Sons of Shock, by David J. Schow. Limos, Rolexes, purple electricity, dangerous music, the goings and the comings at the Club Un/Dead. Reminiscent of Kim Newman's Dracula Cha Cha Cha I thought. That was my least favorite Newman novel.

All Dracula's Children by Dan Simmons. Shudder. All to0 realistic, like all Dan Simmons' horror stories. (Read Song of Kali for horror you will never forget.) Bucharest orphanages. Ceausescu's legacy. Shudder.

The Name of Fear, by Lawrence Watt-Evans. This one starts out with Vlad Tepes' historical feast among the impaled dead and dying. I could never get past that scene, so I haven't read the rest.

The Lord's Work by F. Paul Wilson. A companion piece to Wilson's novel Midnight Mass. A Catholic underground in a world where creatures of the night are the new overlords. I wish he had continued this series, instead of having such success with Repairman Jack.

There you have it. Best collection of Dracula-themed stories ever. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

A great early edition book
For the opening of a trilogy, Blood War does a excellent job at bringing the reader into the world and going in depth enough to give fans and newcomers alike a great ride. Character depth and variety, cunning schemes and subversion, brutality and apathy in a World of Darkness that is rarely found in any fiction writing.

For anyone unfamiliar with the World of Darkness and the Vampire The Masquerade game, this series reveals one of the early versions of that game in where the horror and depravity of the denizens of the world were much more vivid. For the fans of the game, it gives a glimpse to the early editions era where the game differed quite a bit from the final third edition setting.

So fans reading it who are only, or more, familiar with the third edition game have to realize where the frame set Weinberg uses comes from. As my favorite setting personally, it's great to see it in novel fashion with such exceptional flair. While newcomers get to see Vampire in all it's sinful glory without the heavy gloss of cover-up.

Strongly recommended for readers who like gothic horror.

Nice Start to a Fun Trilogy
After scouring internet message boards and reading previous reviews of the novel, I have come to the conclusion that the entire Red Death Trilogy is a very polarizing set of three books amongst World of Darkness Fans.You either hated it, or loved it.There was no in between.Let me start off by saying that Robert Weinberg is a good author.The story has a nice pace to it.The dialogue is above average, and he presents the reader with a wide range of colorful characters in the story.The plot within the Red Death Trilogy is well thought out, part science fiction, part mystery, and part gothic horror.

That being said, Blood War is a roller coaster gothic horror action story with beautiful women, fancy fighting, loud explosions, pyrokinetics, and gruesome deaths.Blood War takes place in the year of 1994, and is told from the perspective of various characters.Some of the characters are the center stage of the story, some of the chapters setup future events in the trilogy.As people have said, the power level of Blood War is incredibly high.And I believe that is where some of the hard core readers lose interest.Also, there are many Mary Sue characters in the novel.Almost every single woman in this novel has long seductive legs, rail thin waists, lush red lips, and killer bodies which would entice any man.The male characters and some of the vampires are strong in natures and stand on their own.

Blood War is a good book. I recommend it for anyone looking for a popcorn style novel set in the Old World of Darkness.It is an action adventure book with horror elements, over the traditional horror themed movie.The entire trilogy is a fun ride. Entertaining and action packed from beginning to end.There are not long sections of the book that drag out (Maybe one chapter or two, and that is mainly because there is a major cliff hanger as the story shifts to a different character).There is a reason why the Red Death Trilogy was acclaimed amongst fans.It will draw a reaction from you, whether you hate it or not.

Good story, clunk dialogue, a bit cheesy
As a previous reviewer noted (and was subsequently punished for via "not helpful" votes), this book tosses a lot of powers around.There is no story of struggle or the steady increase of power, you just see brutally powerful characters fight, and when a new plot twist is introduced, another brutally powerful character appears.It's like playing an D&D and starting at level 20.

That said, the story is entertaining.Weinberg knows how to spin a yarn with fairly intricate plot twists, and this trilogy is certainly more action-oriented than the 13-novel saga that followed it a few years later.However, my main beef is the dialogue, which detracts from the story to the point of distraction.

One of the first things you learn in your junior high/high school creative writing course is to not hand-deliver major plots points via artificial dialogue.It's stupid, and everyone can see what you're doing.This trilogy is brimming with this irritating plot delivery device.The main characters, who have known each other for 6,000 years, will mention in passing their backstory as if the other didn't know.They'll elaborate on things for no apparent reason, such as the history of vampires, and the result is you feeling like the character stops the story, turns and faces you, the reader, and starts explaining things.

Also, the characters are far too chipper for this vampire world.They're so eager to help, they fall in love with humans, they share their emotions without suspicion, they crack jokes in the middle of battle ... it's just not a serious treatment of the genre.It's rather like taking Arnold Schwarzenegger's flippant character from Commando and putting him in the role of Lestat.You simply aren't trying very hard.

3 stars for a fun story, but stupid dialogue and overly-witty nonsense detract.The next two actually get worse, so they get 2 stars for the same reasons.

Yay, Cool Powerz!
I appreciate all the cool powers in the WoD, but this book exists solely to give big vampires big powers and show them off. Methuselah's of course exist and I won't deny they're awesome might, however the WoD has far more depth than this book presents (not asking for perfection either) and while I think it's a decent read for a different genre, the WoD is lost.

Interesting
I really enjoyed reading the trilogy.I found the book to be well thoughtout and action packed.However, I think the author perpetuated many ethnic stereotypes that were unfounded.His prejudices toward particular social classes and races were evident in his writing.I hope his other books are not similar. ... Read more

Product Description
Robert Weinberg and Bradley Berman's carefully documented and extensively illustrated book explores the Soviet government's failed experiment to create a socialist Jewish homeland. In 1934 an area popularly known as Birobidzhan, a sparsely populated region along the Sino-Soviet border some five thousand miles east of Moscow, was designated the national homeland of Soviet Jewry. Establishing the Jewish Autonomous Region was part of the Kremlin's plan to create an enclave where secular Jewish culture rooted in Yiddish and socialism could serve as an alternative to Palestine. The Kremlin also considered the region a solution to various perceived problems besetting Soviet Jews. Birobidzhan still exists today, but despite its continued official status Jews are a small minority of the inhabitants of the region. Drawing upon documents from archives in Moscow and Birobidzhan, as well as photograph collections never seen outside Birobidzhan, Weinberg's story of the Soviet Zion sheds new light on a host of important historical and contemporary issues regarding Jewish identity, community, and culture. Given the persistence of the "Jewish question" in Russia, the history of Birobidzhan provides an unusual point of entry into examining the fate of Soviet Jewry under communist rule. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

History of Birobidzhan
This book is very informative, especially on the history of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in far east Russia. It tells the specifics of how the region was started under the auspices of sending Jews to a "homeland" within the Soviet Union, instead of letting them go to Palestine. There is a lot of history about the Jews in the former Soviet Union as a whole, but this book focuses on those who went by free will in the hope of having a place to themselves. It tells about the government's reasons for setting the region up and how they advertised to get people to go out there and the help they provided. It also tells about Jews around the world being involved in the Birobidzhan Project in various ways, and how some Jews from other countries believed in the Project so much that they moved there. The book is small,but it is packed with information and with black and white pictures from the past.

Politically-correct Zion
This book tells the tale of the Communist Party's attempt to take the Jewish population of the USSR and turn them into an agrarian and secular state in the Soviet far east. Since this was a from of social experimentation, and experimentation based on faulty information and logic, it was a doomed effort.

The Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) sought to take Jews from the western frontier and resettle them in collective farms in Birobidzhan. It was hoped that by establishing a Jewish colony there would be an alternative for the urban Jews who had been made destitute by the policies of Czarist Russia. It would also allow the USSR to collect most of the Jewish population (which despite their "tolerance" the Russians saw as an alien presence) into one area, in theory promoting their language (in this case Yiddish) and their culture. In practice of course few of these people had any experience in agriculture and the JAR became a classic example of Communist incompetence and mismanagement.

Birobidzhan was never a serious competitor to Palestine as a potential Jewish homeland. In fact, since the collapse of Communism many of the Jews in the region have opted to emigrate to Israel, putting an end to this chapter in Soviet history.

Well illustrated and for the most part well-written.

Interesting facts
Birobidjan of course failed to be the capital of Sovet Jewry(did Brighton Beach, Brooklin win this title?) The book is based onfacts, and facts usually can scare more than any fiction. I don't feel like the author makes the most of the facts. I do feel that the author is too soft in his judgement, I guess presenting the facts is always easier than providing a personal outlook. ... Read more

Product Description
The breathtaking conclusion to The Masquerade of the Red Death trilogy. Time is running out for Dire McCann and Alicia Varney. Despite all efforts, ancient monsters once again walk the face of the Earth, and the mysterious vampire known as the Red Death and his minions are preparing to seize control of the two most powerful organizations that rule the World of Darkness. Now is the time for the final battle of the Unbeholden. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Incredible!!
A completely absorbing trilogy of books. I couldn't put them down!! Throughly excellent!! Fast moving and action packed!!

Great conclusion!
Great conclusion for a fabulous trilogy.I enjoyed every minute spend reading the three books! The final move (wich I won't say nothing)is great, and you can't even imagine it, and think if it's true or not. Great!

Finally, an ending!
This is the third book of a trilogy; the first two, "Blood War" and "Unholy Allies", are interesting stories (or, more accurately, story fragments) with good, fast-moving action plots andcompelling characters. Unfortunately, they both suffered from a lack of anending, or even a reasonable stop at a plausible break-point. Call meold-fashioned, but I believe that a book, even if it is part of a series,should have a beginning and an end. This series really should have beenwritten as one very large book. As it is, I will give the series as a wholefour stars, but no individual book in the series can be rated higher thanthree stars; how can a book be rated higher than that, when it isn't a fullstory in its own right? This one at least has an ending, but it has noproper beginning; I suspect that someone reading it without reading theprevious books would be quite lost.

Further, I felt that thefinally-revealed secret of Dire McCann's relationship to Lameth wasunsatisfying, and that the characters were more than a trifle overpowered.Nonetheless, I do recommend the series, but only as a whole. If you aren'twilling to read all three books, don't bother with any of them. None ofthem stand on their own.

Way too top heavy
This whole series of books was written like a comic book.I feel like the author tried to target 13 year old boys with this style of writing.One of the great appeals of the World of Darkness is that you never know what'sgoing on around you.The methuselahs are supposed to be shady characterswhom you never see and may not actually exist.In these books, almost adozen of them are running around.The younger vampires are more commonthan normal people in the story.The characters were often one dimensionaland stereotypical.If you want to buy a comic book with no pictures, getthis series.Otherwise, take a pass.

THE RED DEATH BURNS UP THE PAGES
This is an amazing series of books, for fans of the World Of Darkness or just fans of Vampire stories.It is definately a page-turner.The concept of the Dark Messiah and a vampire that contols fireis wonderful! And set in my hometown at that.Mr. Weinberg definatly did his research on DC.I am currently rereading this series for the 5th time.It will keep drawing you back every time. Relearning the secrets is half the fun! ... Read more

Product Description
"Weinberg's work is so ground-breaking, his research so arduous, and his precursors in this field so generally unhelpful that we must regard this as charting virtually unexplored waters. There is nothing really to compare the book to, and there is not likely to be a more complete such book in the near future. Weinberg deserves the thanks of anyone seriously interested in what we might call the cultural history of SF, and his book belongs in any collection that purports to represent that history." Science Fiction Studies ... Read more

Product Description
The depiction of computers on the various "Star Trek" series has ranged from lame to breathtakingly imaginative. This book covers the gamut, and makes lucid and entertaining comparison of these fictional computers with those that now exist or are likely to inhabit our future. Throughout its history, "Star Trek" has been an accurate reflection of contemporary ideas about computers and their role in our lives. Affectionately but without illusions, The Computers of Star Trek shows how those ideas compare with what we now know we can and will do with computers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

A Very Disappointing Book
"The Computers of Star Trek" sounds like an great read. I was looking forward to a book discussing some of the wonderfully curious and fantastic concepts and ideas offered by Star Trek's computer and computing systems (and how sentient entities interact with them).

It's clear both authors enjoy Star Trek as television. They seem fairly familiar with The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager (Enterprise is not covered in this book, it was aired after this book was written). The authors seem to appreciate they are discussing the prognostications of technologies and sciences that don't currently exist (the Trek multiverse is "fiction/fantasy"), and Star Trek is fundamentally a television show designed to entertain and amuse (and possibly provoke thought).

I found the book marred by an over-arching critical tone of how the computers and computing devices presented in various incarnations of "Trek" fall short of the author's expectations. The authors think computer science and artificial intelligence will be far advanced of what's presented by Trek in the 23rd-24th centuries--and they never let you forget it.

Purists will find plenty to complain about (for example, the "Gorm" are mentioned several times, and even have an index entry ... but the authors are discussing the "Gorn").

Folks expecting what I was (a book discussing in detail how Trek's computers "worked" or concepts and ideas associated with Trek's computers in the larger sense of modern computing environments) will be displeased as well.

This book tended to aggravate me rather than provide an enjoyable read or enhance my understand of Trek's computers. I found the book more a series of overly-broad discussion about computing or computing systems, followed by detailed complaints about how Trek "doesn't get it right" ... versus an analysis or discussion of what Trek presented in terms of computing, or how those computers might actually function.

If you are a neophyte to computing / computer science and/or artificial / mechanical intelligence, this book might be a good introduction to those areas. If you are a trekkie / trekker and have to have every book ever published with "Star Trek" in the title, here one is.

Otherwise, there are much better books available on both Trek and computing available here on amazon.

Disappointing and Annoying
This is just another book wherein the author takes apart a science fiction proposition by analyzing the crap out of it and desiring very much to show their own superiority.I honestly had to stop reading it altogether because of this mindset of the authors.

They could have worked at integrating the science fiction of Star Trek into what we already know about science.Instead there is nothing but criticism at every turn.

It's a great book if you enjoy looking for that which is bad or even a little wrong in the Star Trek universe.I guess that some kind of weirdo enjoys that pursuit.However, as an intelligent report, it fails.

I am so peeved at this book that I will send it for free, no charge, no shipping, no nothing to anyone that wants it.I would shred it but that would be wasteful; it's a great example of a bad example.

Overly Complex, Pedantic, and Not at All What I Had Hoped For
"The Computers of Star Trek" is an attempt at an analysis of "Star Trek" technology as opposed to what we'll *really* see in that day and age. Though at times interesting and accurate in many cases, this book's dry and and uninteresting style leaves the reader wanting. At times, it explains concepts that are likely to be over the average readers' head without much background info, and even supplies large blocks of complex computer code unlikely to be of interest to anyone except an advanced programmer.

I had hoped for something a bit more analytical and thoughtful, but this book is largely pedantic and plodding. This book gives a large amount of coverage to Data, but largely nitpicks over his technical aspects, without really delving into the more complex aspects of his psyche. To further disappoint, this book was obviously written well into the run of "Star Trek: Voyager." Yet almost no mention of him is made, except "the heuristic IF-THEN method of applying intelligence, very much like the Emergency Medical Holographic Doctor on Voyager." This is ridiculous --- at the point this book was published, the Doctor already had his mobile emitter and had been on some pretty complex and character-building adventures. And *this* is the best they can say about him?

The book goes on to mention the Borg, pointing out their motto "Resistance is futile." It notes that there's "no compromise with the Borg." Apparently, once again, they didn't watch "Voyager," or even "Next Gen" too well. Compromise *is* possible with the Borg. Fans may not always like it, and it may not always make sense, but this book pretty much completely glosses over the development of the Borg. One thing I did agree with is the book's comments about the medical technology on "Star Trek." Completely unreasonably --- not at all what you'd expect for that age.


I wish I read a review of this myself before wasting my time with it. It wasn't a total washout, but it wasn't a great read either.

Maybe good for computer scientists, but not for trekkers
The authors have a great deal of knowledge about the actual science of computers, but they should not meddle with the Star Trek universe, since (acoording to the "acknowledgments" section, they had to watch all episodes of all series prior to writing the book. They call subspace "a gas that acts as telephone wires", they wonder why holodeck fails if the computer cores are "100% redundant" (have you ever heard of programming error?). If you are interested in "The computers of" part of the title, give it a try. If you got the book because it has "Star Trek" after it, dont even bother (I literally could not read past the first couple of chapters).

Interesting at times, but mostly repetitive and conjectural
Writing books about "The [Something] of Star Trek" seems to have become something of a fad ever since Lawrence Krauss's wonderful "The Physics of Star Trek," whether that "Something" be biology, philosophy, religion, or, in this case, computers.This book becomes tiresome, or at least off-topic, largely because there is a dearth of primary-source material on the computers of Star Trek, meaning that there is unfortunately little for the authors (who are computer scientists) to analyze scientifically.Specifically, the authors' primary sources consist of a scant smattering of material from the television shows and movies and the "Star Trek: The Next Generation--Technical Manual." To quote the book, "The technical manual devotes only five pages to the Enterprise computer.Based on its vague and sketchy description, we've inferred [a] general design."In other words, the book is based largely on assumptions and inferences, some of which are rather nonsensical.For example, in reference to the Star Trek memory storage unit known as a "kiloquad," the book says, "it's easy enough to deduce...that a kiloquad equals 1,000 quadrillion bytes."The only "evidence" given to support this conclusion is that "kilo-" means 1,000 and that "Checking a dictionary reveals that the only numerical term involving quad is quadrillion."This kind of speculation would be mildly interesting if only a paragraph were devoted to it, but instead, the authors assume throughout the remainder of the book that this is the definition of a kiloquad, and analyze the plausibility of data storage space on this extremely tenuous basis.This is after quoting the following wise excerpt from the "Star Trek Encyclopedia:" "The reason the term was invented was specifically to avoid describing the data capacity of Star Trek's computers in 20th century terms."This is one of countless examples.Much of the book seems to consist of the authors making unconvincing inferences, repeating themselves when they run out of source material, and making occasional (and unsuccessful) forays into philosophy and physics.The book is interesting when it makes a real point, but has too much filler material.There simply isn't enough source material for a 200-page book of this sort to be successful. ... Read more