For sheer excitement on the edge of your not-so-easy chair, there's nothing like a good Jack Ryan story, and I think this is the best of them. The plot involves one of the most obsessed bad guys you'll ever see, a fanatically militant member of an IRA splinter group whose attack on the British royal family is thwarted almost unconsciously by Ryan, who is visiting England as a tourist/lecturer. Now ex-CIA, Ryan's family is nearby, and family is central in this tale of the cold-blooded world of international espionage and terrorism. The family angle is one that keeps the story so chilling throughout, as the terrorist's brother is shot to death by Ryan as he ruins their try on the royals, and our star villain then sets out to stalk Ryan and his wife and daughter.

The film moves at an almost perfect pace, and unveils to us some modern aspects of this shadowy world. For instance, even Ryan, played with understated perfection by Harrison Ford, is creeped out by his participation in a nighttime strike on a desert camp believed to be IRA training ground. In this scene he and several other jacket-and-tie types watch soldiers take out this nest of vipers a half-world away, thanks to infrared and satellite technology, all while detached voices calmly note "Target neutralized" and spies dressed like businessmen smile and nod while whispering to one another in thorough detachment from the blood and guts of the operation. All this technology and we are not removed from the days of the rich people perching on hills near the battles of Civil War days, sipping tea while viewing the entertainment.

I cannot give less than five stars to a film that draws me in so completely as this one, making me feel the tension with such clarity and indeed making it so easy to actually hate the villain. Yet the film strikes sour notes with the drunken Richard Harris's half-hearted performance as an IRA bigwig, and with the cliched ending moment of an otherwise superb boat chase at the film's climax. Two distracting moments would mean a score of 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, or, in Amazon terms, 4-1/2 stars. These being minor, a full five stars is quite reasonable. Nearly a perfect action film; even the understated music score is just so right that it can't be imagined being done any other way.

At one time the term "science fiction" caused eyebrows to raise. "Isn't that reading for losers who can't relate to others well?" Larry Niven is one of the authors who forever changed the way SF is perceived, one whose fiction emphasizes science without cutting short on any of the tools of your typical brilliant writer of fiction. This gives us well-sculpted characters, even in the shortest of stories, with eye-opening and theoretically sound scientific concepts, plot twists, and remarkable endings. Satisfying story after satisfying story.

What's unique about this collection isn't that it includes a foreward with comments by other authors and fans, or that the author comments on each piece within the collection. Those are commonplace. But in Niven's world, he likes to let you into his world in a special way, perhaps by dishing some dirt on an SF mag who rejected a story that turned out to win a Hugo, etc. He openly questions his finished product, saying that "Today I'd write this story differently," etc. As if we could lift the lid on his cranium and step inside for a moment, seeing how the stories are crafted. Very interesting.

Not as interesting as the work, however, another unique thing about this collection: Not only short stories are collected here, many of which only appeared in one issue of some now-defunct SF mag or other, dating back to the mid 1960s upward to 1990 when this book was first published. He also includes essays, such as an unforgettable commentary on the problems Superman would have if he tried to mate with Lois Lane, as well as excerpts from his published novels at the time. A terrific sampler of a terrific author, whose early-70s work "Ringworld" stands as one of the most brilliant works of speculative fiction of all time. Intelligentsia still debates the validity of its scientific assumptions, and while even Niven admits that most of these have been disproven, how many SF works do you know that sparked so much debate while still being so widely admired?

Niven is far, far beyond any alien shoot-em-up author. This ain't "Star Trek." This is real scientific fiction told by a natural storyteller who loves what he does. We readers love him for it.

This now-famous set of novels has doubtless affected many thousands of lives for the better. Because of that I thank God that Lahaye & Jenkins fleshed out their idea and forged ahead with this series. People needed to hear this message.

For me, however, because I am a voracious reader of fiction and having also studied the Scriptures for years in relation to our Lord's return, I must admit this opening installment left me absolutely cold. Part of that is surely because I know the whole general plot before it all begins, because I'm familiar with the premillenialist point of view on Bible prophecy. Some of the suspense is lost if one knows the outline before the book is even purchased.

But I have more serious problems with "Left Behind" than my own familiarity. For instance, while I believe the premillenial perspective is largely closer to our future reality than other interpretations of the vastly vague prophecies of our coming end times, I don't buy into it completely. The concept that God will really cause The Rapture in such a way as to kill so many unregenerated humans by removing Christians who are driving their cars, operating air traffic control centers, flying airplanes, etc., seems problematic. This isn't a case of the Israelites coming into Canaan and cleansing the land of the corrupted cultures there; this is a case of Christians mingled among those who may be saved, and I can't accept the extrapolation of prophetic exegesis that results in this belief. Ultimately I think those of us who reach heaven will look back and laugh at some of the stuff we believed, and fall down in worship at God's feet for the wisdom He displays, as shown by the way He'll pull all this off. Never doubt that His way will be far better than anything we've yet figured out.

Having said all that, a more basic problem here is that the writing is so, so basic. Sure, that was done to reach as many people as possible, but the writing is dumbed down SO MUCH that it's painful to try to slow down my mind enough that it doesn't wander. A book on this subject should be so gripping that it at least holds one's attention, don't you think?

This leaves me with the feeling that the "Left Behind Kids" books are superfluous. This book is as easily accessible to grade school kids as anything I've seen, which is a good and bad thing. Think of it as "Premillenialism 101: A Grade School Primer," and you'll have an appropriate outlook on the character of this novel. That's not an entirely bad thing, obviously, but this reader prefers something on a more grownup level and won't be cracking open any of the sequels to this megahit.

This must have been viewed by the publisher as a saleable property at the time of its 1980 release. Hey, put Holmes & Watson together with the JFK mystery and have them solve it! Yeah, that's the ticket!

Bo-o-o-oring. I too, like the reviewer below, am a huge fan of Doyle's original Holmes stories, and these read nothing like them. The author goes to great pains to throw in arcane words that recall Doyle's style, but after seeing the repeated overuse of such oddities as "insalubrious" I could do nothing but cringe.

The author seems to have been a JFK conspiracy theorist who decided to sell his ideas through the persons of Holmes & Watson, although he seems unable to really get inside the minds of those characters. He passes off way too many references to past Holmes cases, some that Doyle wrote about and some that he did not, and refers way too often to Watson's medical career, as if he were reminding himself that Dr. Watson was indeed a physician. Bleah.

The most bizarre part of this concoction is that we have 19th century characters in Dallas circa 1980. Oh, sure, many authors have taken liberties with these "public domain" characters over the years, that's not the problem; Doyle wanted it that way. The problem for me is that this author seems to have Basil Rathbone's era in mind, displaying Holmes & Watson as elderly gentlemen on the verge of retirement. (Now there's a problem in itself. I can never see Holmes retiring, as his work truly is his life.) This leads to the seeming septagenarians doddering about America with apparently no clue about this nation, as if they had just stepped into the modern world.

As a corollary, it also is beyond belief that Holmes would have not investigated the JFK assassination during one of his famous long periods of professional inactivity. Such a mind-boggling mystery would have become an obsession with such a mind. And why, if Holmes was so famous, did no one contact him in the early/mid 1960s when he may have been able to solve this?

Way, way, WAY too many huge holes in the way this idea is executed. If the author had chosen the time immediately after the assassination to write his novel (as an alternate reality "what if" kind of story), or if he had accepted that these elderly gentlemen would not be so ignorant of the JFK assassination by 1980, etc., or if the dialogue between the two rang more true, this might be passable reading. As it is, "The Seven Per Cent Solution" remains the only non-Doyle Holmes book I've read that adequately recaptures the Holmesian magic. Awful, just awful......

Quite a satisfactory collection of dozens of short stories, encompassing the mystery subgenres of murder mystery, suspense, and crime fiction. I've been a longtime Sherlock Holmes reader, and felt a desire to become a bit more acquainted with other characters and stories within this general field. This volume proves more than adequate for this purpose, including stories by everyone from Agatha Christie to Mark Twain.

The most lasting impression, for me, was left by G.K. Chesterton and his "Father Brown" detective stories, one of which is included here. A sleuth more unlike Holmes one will never find, but the tale of "The Blue Cross" is just as readable and pleasurable as anything from the pen of the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

This book is also probably quite useful to fans of the genre as a means of collecting many short stories not otherwise readily available, but as I'm not an expert I'll leave that open to conjecture. Suffice to say that Chesterton is not the only author in this book whose work leaves me wanting more. While several of the stories are a bit obvious even to a novice mystery reader like me, most are very enjoyable and suspenseful to the last moment. "The Nuggy Bar" indeed......

As in "This Present Darkness," the first of this two-novel series, Peretti gives us glimpses into the spiritual warfare going on invisibly around us. His speculation on the nature of the demonic hierarchy is perhaps the most interesting part of this series, but he seems to not develop that much at all here, nor are the angelic guardians of Earth given much more to do than ride in at the last moment to save the day....again.

There is, however, a twist to this novel that is actually an improvement on the first. The plot line concerning the humans in the first novel was an attempt by Satan's forces to overtake an entire college town, and was a bit predictable. I must admit I prefer the human plot line here, which centers on a mystery regarding a woman named Sally Roe.

Overall, however, for whatever reason, this second installment did not draw me in as completely and has not proven as memorable as the original "This Present Darkness." Mark this one down as a good idea that was not as well realized as the original.

Of the Christian novels I have read, this is easily the best. The followup, "Piercing the Darkness," is a disappointing sequel, and the famous "Left Behind" series left me cold before I had finished the first installment, being sadly predictable and written in such a superficial style that it seemed to have been solely aimed at a junior high school reading level. Peretti's style, however, is more advanced and draws in the more experienced readers among us as well as those younger.

We humans are bound by our five physical senses. Beyond that, we have little idea what may be happening among the principalities and powers of the air. Scripture gives us a few glimpses, and long religious tradition has fleshed out some ideas, of what is going on between the powers of darkness and the powers of light. In this novel Peretti does a credible and intriguing job of putting names and personalities to the various characters and forces involved in the spiritual warfare around us and within us, and the story ultimately is unforgettable.

My only quibbles with this excellent work are that the answers to these issues are a little too pat, the solutions to the problems a bit too neat. I am fully willing to admit that this may be my own lack of spiritual perception regarding the invisible realm, but it just smacks sometimes of being a bit too easy and convenient, as if the book too often allows its built-in deus ex machina to intrude on the action. Still, the book is well worth four stars and worth reading and rereading.

The rest of this CD may be unspecial, and I'm not a huge fan of music videos. But the title cut alone is, in my opinionated opinion, the most exciting track I've heard in many years. It never fails to captivate me and cause me to act like an absolute idiot. Fun fun! Ain't that rock'n'roll?

There's a book review cliche that goes like this: "I couldn't put it down." Pardon me if it applies.

You can get a look at the synopsis of this novel above this review, so I'll not repeat the plot or names of characters etc. here. My praise for the book goes to the writer himself, who manages to weave his written tapestry in shades of gray with only a couple of solid blacks and whites. As the book deals mostly with the seamy side of Hollywood (or at least one seamy film with some horrible incidents attached to its production) and with the misbegotten deeds of a few Christians whose judgment seems to have left them at least momentarily, there are hot buttons a-plenty. The filmic exploitation of young attractive girls, the power and wealth that comes to the most gifted televangelists, illicit sex of various kinds, etc., all play a major role in the characters' passing judgment on one another throughout this very well-written volume.

The author manages to keep the reader off balance, telling his tale through the eyes of a successful film director who has had to put his career on hold because of some unfortunate incidents surrounding his last movie. This character has a sour outlook on Christianity because the latest star TV preacher made his name in his hometown, and several of his old friends have risen to various levels of power along with said preacher. Yet the author does a brilliant job with those shades of gray, as several of the Christians met by the director prove to be most excellent human beings even in the eyes of this jaded Hollywood type.....but not all.

On the other hand, the people who knew the director in high school seem to all have an axe to grind with him. This bears the ring of truth, based on various details of the different relationships, all of which are very nicely laid out for us to read and understand.

Ultimately we are left with an exceptionally interesting overview of these relationships, past and present, and the multiple plot lines relating to power in Hollywood, in politics, in religion, etc., all play out in a very satisfying manner, and the reader is left with lots of material for thoughtful moments of reflection and contemplation on these issues.

Ferrell plays fair with the Christian and non-Christian points of view, although he displays a clear prejudice toward those who try to struggle their way through life without faith, only able to cling to another person or a career in fits and starts, even while it is clear that the narrator (the director) is aimless and filled with self-doubt and finds the televangelist and his wife to be blameless people whom he comes to count as dear friends. One can hope for his redemption beyond the pages of this book, but that's not in the author's mind. It's those shades of gray, playing around the edges of the hot buttons, that make this book so fascinating from page to page, as the author rolls out his well-laid surprises and, for some bizarre reason, chooses to strew a totally unnecessary and excessive number of F-bombs among his pages as if they were land mines left long after the war is over.

If you prefer to not be assaulted by this kind of language, as I do not, then this last bit comes as an advisement, the only reason I would withhold a five-star rating here. Again, I really couldn't put it down.

Call 'em Froghat, Foghart, Hogfart, whatever twist on their odd name you want, this was the premier boogie band of the '70s without a doubt, and before they nose-dived in the '80s they had one last gasp of greatness with "Stone Blue." This collection is their classic format: Superb original rock'n'roll like the title cut, "Easy Money," and especially "Midnight Madness" (my fave but sadly underappreciated by the mass audience) paired with their inimitable versions of timeless blues tracks like Robert Johnson's (the father of the blues) "Sweet Home Chicago," Elmore James's "It Hurts Me Too," and Earl McDaniel's "Chevrolet."

The other two cuts are throwaways, but the six listed above are so solid and so well worth repeated plays that I can't rate this less than five stars. It ranks with "Fool For the City" and "Energized" as their best ever.