As other reviews have made clear, this book should appeal to Wonder Woman fans. However, as a JLA fan -- and not because of Wonder Woman -- I found it somewhat lacking. Attempting to marry the already troublesome concepts of Wonder Woman's Greek-ish mythology and a dragon (with servant gnomes) left over from medieval times, Moeller goes way overboard with 60s-style Stan Lee "Hoary Halls of Hoggoth" pseudo-mystic dialogue, in addition to the common comic transgression of having a character explain his or her attributes for uninformed readers (I'm pretty sure that, after all these years, Wonder Woman doesn't need Martian Manhunter to tell her that fire is his race's greatest vulnerability). Also, having previously read "Tower of Babel" (though, I know, this book, in hardcover, came out well before that one), I find the whole single-member-betrays-the-team thing getting a little tired; I certainly don't need to see it retread in a one-off that seems to have no place in the continuity. But my main problem is this: did the book inspire the cover, or the other way around? Like the cover, the book has some excellent paintings of Wonder Woman and of a dragon. Also like the cover, it doesn't tell much of a story. It is, as previously noted, a deeper than usual treatment of WW; there seems to be a general comics consensus that she needs to escape her Linda Carter-era bimbo image and become the warrior princess we know her to be, but only in one-offs like this does anybody ever actually work at it. Respect for that, but what little plot surrounds it needn't, and really shouldn't, have been a JLA story. Mr. Moeller's writing gave me a solid two-star reading experience; begrudgingly, I give one more star in recognition of his stellar artwork. I hope to see more of the latter. But just the latter.

While I agree with the consensus that the story is, indeed, humorous, convoluted, completely interconnected, and ultimately a confusing but inspired delight, there are plenty of reviews to that effect, so I shall narrow my focus to the specific format in which I purchased it, which is the Abridged Audio CD edition, read by the author, on which there are many fewer comments.

There are a few minor complaints about this edition. The six CDs packaged in a box of the size that, a decade ago, was used for double CDs, is novel, but the spindles hold the CDs to the tray so tightly that, removing them, one feels as if something's about to snap. The dynamic range is so great that, with any background noise at all (such as may be expected if listening in the car), the loud parts must be quite loud in order for the quiet parts to be heard. Though the cover boasts digital mastering, some high-end digital artifacts can be heard, the background squiggly sounds that one might hear in an audio stream at low dialup speeds. And, as in the case of the "Dirk Gently" audiobook, each disc contains only a single track of around 70 minutes. That last may pose a problem for listeners whose players return to the beginning of the track when stopped (luckily for me, my car player resumes where it left off); otherwise, these are, as I've said, minor issues.

On the positive side, it is a great pleasure to hear Adams' voice reading his own work. He may have been a careful and crafty writer, but he also wrote in style often closer to speech than to literate prose. There are a few bits of wordplay that work better when seen on the page; but, on the other hand, his multiple-appositive sentences are much easier to sort out when one can actually hear where the emphasis was intended.

I am not, generally, a fan of audiobooks -- not an opponent, either, but I do prefer the speed and lack of distraction of sitting down to read print. However, when there's time to listen, such as on the road trip for which I bought it, this particular book (and the book to which it is a sequel) is at least as enjoyable when read aloud by this particular reader as when I previously read the paperback. The sum of my experience -- which weighs the unimpressive format against the delight of Adams' performance, and, of course, of the story itself -- is well-represented by a solid four stars.

Those who were able to hear "OK Computer" when it was Radiohead's newest release are surely better able to appreciate the evolution that led to "Kid A". Unfortunately for me, I started with "Kid A" and, encouraged, started working my way backward. So, with apologies to the legions who clearly love this disc, I offer a warning to those moving chronologically backward as I did: in retrospect, "OK Computer" sounds like more of the same.

That's not necessarily bad, is it? 3 stars is not an unrespectable rating, and it's not an unrespectable album. For those in love with the "Kid A" sound, there's plenty on this recording to like at first listen and plenty more as it grows on you. But, for me, that's the problem. Conventional wisdom (and, indeed, Amazon's own editorial review) has it that "Amnesiac" is the first one to sound like its predecessor; so, it was in hopes of hearing something I hadn't heard before that I purchased "OK Computer".

There's more guitar rock on this album than on "Kid A", and that's to be expected, knowing where they started with "Pablo Honey". I haven't heard "The Bends", so I don't know how much of this palette of soundscapes and production techniques first appeared on this album. But the chord progressions, melodies, and lyrics are definitely a product of the same band, in mostly the same mindset, that resulted in that album to which I keep referring. So much so that, to my backward perspective, "OK Computer" sounds practically redundant. There is nothing I have to learn from this release that I haven't already heard.

...

With every song he wrote, every instrument he played, every sound he ever recorded, Michael Hedges showed us what a pure, true, and beautiful musical talent he possessed. His guitar skills were particularly breathtaking; while technically mind-boggling, their greater power was in the utter fluency with which two hands and a six-string communicated the treasures of the man's heart. I love dearly the music he left us before moving on. Unfortunately, I come not to praise Michael, but to criticize him. Enjoyable though this recording is, I disagree with the until now unanimous five-star rating.

There's no denying that Hedges' voice was something special: a little raw but a lot beautiful, strong but vulnerable, with a passion learned from Neil Young. Unfortunately, that influence also led him to greatly simplify the guitar parts while singing; and an affinity for unusual metaphor sometimes abused gorgeous melodies with awkward lyrics. Sometimes, melody won out, as in an e.e. cummings' love poem turned into one of the most heart-breakingly beautiful songs I've ever heard, "i carry your heart" from "Taproot". On the other hand, this approach nearly ruined "The Road To Return" for me.

This album is somewhere between those two extremes. The guitar parts weave a characteristic fabric of strumming, tapping, knocking, and harmonics; but they're also less rich than usual. This leaves more room for the vocals, but it doesn't fill the sonic space so adeptly as in the instrumentals on "Breakfast in the Field" or "Aerial Boundaries". Lyrics, though thoughtful and well-formed, occasionally venture into uncomfortable territory that might alienate some listeners. Of the three tracks that I consider essential Hedges -- the title track, "Woman of the World", and a cover of Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" -- the latter two sound warmer and more energized on "Live on the Double Planet". Ultimately, "Watching My Life Go By" suffers primarily by comparison: though there's some good music here, it's not, by a long shot, Hedges' best.

The intended audience for this review is not the alt-rock crowd, who don't need my help to find their way to this band. I'm writing in the hopes that someone browsing my reviews of other, more technical/progressive music might want to know how I could possibly give four stars to one of the flagship bands of today's alternative radio rock.

So much of today's alternative radio rock sounds to me like the music is almost an afterthought, some token guitar strumming to give the lyrics a chord progression, maybe a bit of texture. The Foo Fighters' radio singles have always stood out to me; now that I have this disc, I have confirmed that they're a true, noteworthy exception to the alt-rock rule. Grohl's vocal melodies are catchy in an almost Beatles sort of way: simple, resonant, even familiar, but without that jaded feeling that it's been sung a million times before. Guitar riffs often break free from the mold, lending an extra bit of melody here and a forceful backbone there; and even when they do fall into simple power chords following the melody, it feels, not thoughtless, but integrated. Most prevalent and important is the sincerity with which Grohl writes, not to be a rich, famous rock star, but for the basic love of music-making. The pretender slaps together something simple and proclaims that less is more; but, in the hands of the Foo Fighters, simplicity takes the colour and the shape of warmth, life, and art. These guys are the real deal.

Listening to Steve Vai's solo CDs, one is struck by the layered guitar parts, the details tucked into every sonic crevasse, and one thinks: this must have taken months of time in the studio. Then you see him in concert, and, although it hardly seems possible that those five guys you see in front of you can be recreating that sound in real time -- especially when one of them is also mugging and bouncing around the stage the way Steve does -- there it is. And so you think: this must have taken months of rehearsal.

Then "Alive in an Ultra World" shows you what they can do with nothing more than a couple of soundchecks.

I can't agree with those who wish this had been a live retrospective. This band plays the old material so well and so faithfully that a traditional live album would be like listening to the original recording while standing in a crowd. It would be a shame, to me, never to get a document of this incredible live band, and these new songs, born and raised in the wild, belong to the band in a way that older material couldn't. It is unbelievable how good these guys can make a new song sound after just a couple of rehearsals, and how much of Vai's trademark sound remains without a studio-crafted reference document. Many players spend days at a time composing and perfecting solos as enjoyable as those Vai plays off the cuff in one take, two at the most. If the songs were composed in any more or less time than his previous efforts, it doesn't show: the melodies are strong, the arrangements well-formed. As for the wish that this material had been recorded in the studio, there's nothing I could say to dissuade the audiophiles, but Vai produces a better sound live than many get in the studio. The guitar tone is sweet, the instruments are audible and distinct, and I don't hear the music suffering in any way. I reserve a fifth star for the intense focus that I haven't heard in anything except "Passion and Warfare"; but this is certainly as honorable an addition to Steve's body of work as the last two releases. Out of the studio, Vai is still Vai.

W.A. Mathieu is utterly in love with vibrating air molecules, and this thoughtful, warm, and fun collection of short essays is bound to impart some of that to you. This is not a book about composition, about developing your own personal style or anything of that sort. It is a way of focusing on and developing your relationship with your ears, with sound, with what sounds good to you in music and in nature and in all of the world, both inside and outside of your head. In playful exercises for musicians and non-musicians alike, we examine the nature of a single note played on an instrument, or sung alound, or even just a series of spoken or drawn-out syllables. There are ways to bring music into a group of people; there are ways to draw it out of inanimate objects; there are ways to find it in silence. He's not trying to convince anybody that traffic, barking dogs, and 3 AM garbage trucks are as beautiful as a Bach piece; some things will sound better to you than others. But practice makes perfect: if you practice hearing, you will hear more, and you will hear better, and you will find more things that sound good, and you will get a richer enjoyment of them. This is "Discovering Your Own Music."

I enjoyed "Tyranny" for what I perceived to be some fairly straightforward songwriting, spiced up with lush harmonies, darker themes, and semifrequent forays into prog-metal technicality. Unfortunately, "Legacy" cuts back on the spices, leaving a fairly tasteless dish. The vocals have a somewhat bolder, less processed sound, which is a decent treatment, but the harmonies are way less dense and frequent. Lovers of technical music will only find two prog-worthy instrumental sections on the entire disc, one in "Cliffhanger 2 Medley" and the other in "First Light". The rest ranges from awful to merely boring. If any single lyric of "Tyranny" made you cringe, then don't listen to "Society of the Mind" without something to bite on. "Colors" is the most astonishingly over-commercialized song I've heard on Magna Carta records, more like a Poison B-side than what you'd expect from that label's flagship band. I'm hoping that a staunch SG fan will post a review that balances the negativity of mine, 'cause it's not ALL bad -- but I also have no interest in listening to this disc ever again, so 3 stars is generous.

Are we really supposed to think that Steve Howe, Patrick Moraz, and Peter Banks participated in order to pay tribute to themselves? More than anything, their contributions, along with a Roger Dean cover and liner notes courtesy of "Notes From The Edge", serve to legitimize the collection by association: what Yes fan could remain doubtful when former members are involved?

The deception ostensibly complete, Magna Carta then proceeds with its ulterior motive, which is to introduce the listener to its stable of artists. Magellan bends "Don't Kill The Whale" to their own unique and recognizable style, demonstrating more of Trent Gardner's writing than of his respect for Yes; Robert Berry does the same to "Roundabout", rendering it rhythmically pedestrian. Shadow Gallery, too much the prog-metal band to be playing Yes, nevertheless begs for inclusion with a weak "Release, Release". The rest of the disc is a parade of faithful and mostly uninspired covers, distinguished mainly by the fact that they sounded better with Jon Anderson's voice.

Cairo's Bret Douglas is a notable exception, belting out "South Side of the Sky" with conviction. Moral objections aside, that and a couple of other tracks are actually worth a listen. But the objections are strong: Magna Carta has betrayed and insulted the deep and abiding love for the music of Yes in the hearts of fans and, I believe, of many of the artists on this disc by assembling, essentially, a promotional CD, an audio catalog. I love Magna Carta Records; they've brought us a lot of great music and given a new home to progressive rock. But that's not to say they haven't stumbled along the way, and on this one they got it wrong.

Magellan is one of the more controversial artists on the Magna Carta label, due to the fact that, although they truly have all the hallmarks of progressive rock, a lot of true prog fans just don't like them. As has been said, Trent Gardner has a very distinct style. On the first album, "Hour of Restoration", they sounded like Dream Theater doing an impression of 70s Genesis, plus lyrics whose themes might have come from a high school textbook. On this disc, the vocals come to the forefront, and the songwriting has matured a little, but otherwise, the analogy holds. The result, as always, is some really innovative work that thrills a lot of prog fans and leaves lots of others cold.

My advice regarding all Magellan work: try "Age of Impact", by Explorer's Club, first. It's the essence of all that Trent Gardner has worked toward, but played by musicians whose playing is already enjoyed by prog-metal fans worldwide. If the songwriting style turns you off, Magellan won't please you; if not, then give this and the other two a try.